Remote pump station monitoring is a system that measures flow, pressure, level, energy use and motor condition at dispersed sites such as booster stations, boreholes, pressure sets and reservoirs, and brings the data to one central screen. It raises alarms for faults, overflows or dry running and, where allowed, starts pumps remotely, so problems surface before crews drive out.
What actually happens in the field
A municipal water utility, irrigation cooperative or industrial site usually runs dozens of pumping points the same way: a crew drives from station to station, checks the panel, writes down meter readings and deals with whatever it finds. While the crew is at one site, nobody knows what is happening at the others.
Problems tend to be discovered through complaints. A neighbourhood loses water, a reservoir overflows, a pump runs dry and burns out, or a pump fails to restart after a power cut in the middle of the night. When the fault began, how many hours the pump ran and how much energy it used are not recorded. So maintenance planning rests on experience rather than history.
What it costs to leave it unsolved
Losses in water networks are often invisible: every cubic metre pumped costs energy, but part of it is never billed. In Türkiye the official figures are clear:
According to the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Urban Water Efficiency page, the average water loss rate in Türkiye's drinking water networks fell from 39% in 2015 to 31.6% in 2024.
Legal targets require a further fall. As the ministry's work plan announcement sets out, Türkiye's 2014 Regulation on the Control of Water Losses in Drinking Water Systems obliges metropolitan and provincial municipalities to cut water losses to at most 25% by 2028. The ministry's Urban Water Efficiency page also lists wider use of remote monitoring and control systems, and minimum night flow analysis, among its recommended measures.
The global picture points the same way. A 2018 World Bank assessment of non-revenue water puts water produced but not billed at 126 billion cubic metres a year worldwide, which translates to nearly $40 billion in annual losses.
Pump stations are also exposed to power cuts. According to TEDAŞ's 2024 Turkish Electricity Distribution Sector Report, the average unplanned interruption duration per user in Türkiye was 1,099 minutes in 2024. Not being able to see whether a pump restarted after an outage can mean a district without water for hours.
What to monitor at a pump station
What you measure depends on the station's job, but this table is a good starting point for most projects:
| Measurement | What it is used for |
|---|---|
| Flow (instantaneous and totalised) | Volume pumped, night flow and loss analysis |
| Discharge and suction pressure | Burst mains, blockages and signs of cavitation |
| Reservoir / well level | Preventing overflow and dry running, pump start rules |
| Motor current, voltage, phase | Overload, phase loss, early signs of bearing and winding problems |
| Energy use (kWh) | Energy per cubic metre, spotting inefficient pumps |
| Run hours and starts | Maintenance planning, detecting frequent cycling |
| Door, panel and flood sensors | Unauthorised entry and site security |
The real value comes from reading these measurements together. A pump that needs more and more energy to deliver the same flow may be wearing; night flow that never drops may point to leakage in the network. We explain how that analysis works in our guide to water loss analysis. Customer meter data can also be brought onto the same infrastructure through automatic meter reading.
How to set up remote pump station monitoring in seven steps
- Build a station inventory. List each site's role, number of pumps, existing panel and PLC, power supply and connectivity options in one place.
- Define the critical questions. "Is the reservoir overflowing?", "Did the pump restart after the outage?", "How much energy do we use per cubic metre?" Each question determines the sensor and alarm rule you need.
- Choose the field device. Where a PLC exists, data is read from it over a protocol such as Modbus; where it does not, an RTU or IoT data logger is added. The device must buffer data when the link drops and send it once the connection returns. Where no off-the-shelf device fits, our article on the IoT product development process explains how a custom data logger is built.
- Match connectivity to the site. In towns, 4G cellular is usually enough; at rural sites with weak coverage, LoRa or NB-IoT may fit better. We compare the options in LoRa vs NB-IoT vs cellular.
- Plan the enclosure and power. Stations at risk of damp, dust or flooding need an outdoor-rated enclosure; our guide to IP65 and IP67 ratings explains the classes. To send an alarm during a power cut, the device needs backup power.
- Set up central software. Data is gathered in a SCADA system or web-based monitoring platform, with station status on a map, trend charts, an alarm list and reports on one screen. We cover what SCADA is and the commercial vs custom SCADA decision in separate articles.
- Write alarm and response rules. Which alarm goes to whom, by SMS or app notification; who is on call out of hours; who may start a pump remotely? Without these rules the system becomes a noisy alarm screen.
What good alarm design looks like
A single threshold per reading soon produces hundreds of pointless alarms. Split alarms by severity: emergencies such as overflow, dry running and power loss go straight to whoever is on call, while trends such as falling efficiency or rising run hours belong in a daily report. Set a delay so brief fluctuations do not trigger alarms. On the reservoir side, level sensor choice and overflow and dry-run alarms are covered separately in our guide to water tank level monitoring.
Closing an alarm should be recorded too: who closed it, when, and with what note. That record lets you measure response times and spot recurring problems at the same site. After a few months, how often each station raises alarms becomes the best guide to where your maintenance budget should go.
Remote control: when and how
Monitoring and control are separate permissions. Starting and stopping pumps or changing set points remotely is very convenient, but a wrong command can cause a pressure surge or an overflow. Control commands should therefore be limited by role, every command logged with who issued it and when, and local safety interlocks (level, pressure) should always take precedence over remote commands.
Remote access also raises cyber security questions. A SCADA panel exposed to the internet, a modem left on its default password or a flat network all put field devices at risk. We cover this separately in OT security for SCADA.
From data to maintenance: the second benefit of monitoring
As pump data builds up, early warning signs become visible. A slow rise in motor current, higher vibration or winding temperature, more energy for the same flow: each can signal a developing problem. Predictive maintenance turns those signs into a maintenance plan, while anomaly detection flags behaviour that departs from normal automatically.
For municipalities, seeing pump data on a map alongside pipelines and customer records adds further value. Our article on GIS for municipalities explains how those layers come together.
How we deliver pump monitoring at Digital Bridge
We take on pump monitoring projects from sensor to dashboard as a single team:
- Site assessment. We visit your stations and map existing panels, PLCs and communications. Site assessments for Industry 4.0 projects are free; scope, phases and cost are confirmed in a written proposal.
- Field hardware. Where data cannot be taken from existing equipment, our device manufacturing and IoT team designs the data logger, its enclosure and firmware; electronics, mechanical design and software sit under one roof.
- Pilot. We connect a few critical stations first and tune alarm rules and reports with your team.
- Central monitoring. Data is collected either on our remote monitoring platform, offered as a monthly subscription, or in a custom SCADA and HMI application. The platform comes with a map view, alarm rules and mobile notifications, and there is no server for you to run. With custom SCADA, the source code belongs to you and there is no additional licence fee.
- Energy and maintenance. We bring indicators such as energy per cubic metre into energy monitoring and management reports; for critical pumps a predictive maintenance pilot starts with one to three assets, and value shows up in the metrics within the first 30 to 60 days.
- Public sector projects. For municipalities and water utilities, our public sector and municipal solutions cover everything from requirements analysis to site installation, training and acceptance. We also provide technical specification consultancy before a tender, and we do so without being a supplier in that procurement. We work across every province in Türkiye with 24/7 technical support.
For what to look for when choosing a platform, read our guide to a remote monitoring IoT platform.
Pump station monitoring is a project a municipality can start small, with just a few stations, as part of its smart city programme; for other examples such as lighting, parking and waste, see our article on smart city applications.
Next step
As a first step, list the five stations that generate the most faults or complaints and the incidents they have had over the past year. Then get in touch through our contact page; we will review those stations with you and show which measurements and alarms will deliver the quickest results. For more guides on sensors and connectivity, visit our IoT & Hardware hub.