Water is the foundation of the ecosystem, and rivers are the veins of a city. Chongzhou is located in the middle and upper reaches of the Minjiang River and is an important part of the modern irrigation area of Dujiangyan. Within the city, “ten rivers crisscross through the territory, and five waters nourish the city”. Rivers such as Wenjingjiang, Xishui, and Yangma River are interwoven and interconnecting, not only serving as an important barrier for regional ecological security, but also being the core guarantee for local residents’ daily water use. Protecting this clear and flowing water is the top priority in Chongzhou’s ecological environment governance.
Recently, the W80 water quality monitoring unmanned boat, customized and developed by Hangzhou Yu Hai Fangzhou Technology Co., Ltd., was successfully delivered to the Chongzhou Environmental Protection Bureau of Chengdu City and officially put into practical application. This marks that the water environment monitoring work in Chongzhou has completely bid farewell to the traditional mode of “manual water exploration and single-point sampling”, and has entered a new stage of “intelligentization, unmannedization, and full coverage”, injecting technological impetus into the construction of beautiful and happy rivers and lakes.
However, as the requirements for ecological governance continue to rise, the shortcomings of the traditional manual water quality monitoring model have become increasingly prominent. The Chuozhou river network is dense and there are numerous tributaries. Some water areas are remote and have complex terrain. Manual inspections not only consume a lot of time and effort but also have low efficiency. During flood seasons and extreme weather conditions such as heavy rain, there are safety risks associated with water operations, and the monitoring data is lagging, making it impossible to achieve high-frequency, all-round, and dynamic supervision of the entire water area, and unable to meet the practical needs of “precise pollution control and scientific pollution treatment”.
To solve this governance problem, the Chuozhou Environmental Protection Bureau actively implemented the concept of “strengthening supervision through technology and precise pollution control”, continuously expanded non-site law enforcement supervision methods. After extensive research and strict screening, the W80 water quality monitoring unmanned boat from Hangzhou Yu Hai Fangzhou was finally selected as the “smart assistant” for water environment monitoring. This further improved the “space, ground, air, water” integrated monitoring system and promoted the transformation of supervision and law enforcement from “traditional inspection” to “technology-based intelligent inspection”, and from “experience-based judgment” to “data-based precise law enforcement”. It is reported that the W80 unmanned boat delivered this time is a lightweight water quality monitoring specialized equipment specifically designed for freshwater scenarios such as inland rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. It deeply meets the actual needs of Chuozhou’s freshwater water quality monitoring and has multiple advantages such as accuracy, intelligence, and convenience, becoming the “water-based intelligent sentry” protecting the clear waters of Chuozhou.
As a specialized equipment designed for monitoring the basic ecological environment, the Weihai Ark W80 water quality monitoring unmanned vessel has achieved comprehensive optimization in its core performance, effectively resolving the traditional monitoring challenges. This vessel is equipped with multi-parameter water quality sensors, which can conduct real-time online monitoring of pH value, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, conductivity, ammonia nitrogen, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and other key water quality indicators. The monitoring data accuracy strictly complies with the national surface water monitoring standards, enabling precise capture of water quality changes and providing authoritative data support for pollution source tracing and water quality control. It adopts GPS + Beidou dual-mode positioning technology, combined with a laser radar obstacle avoidance system, to achieve fully autonomous navigation, preset route planning, and automatic return-to-base functions. It can flexibly avoid bridge piers, reefs, floating objects and other obstacles, easily traverse shallow areas, narrow alleys and other regions that traditional monitoring equipment cannot reach. The operational radius can reach 2 kilometers, truly achieving all-round and unobstructed monitoring.
In response to the water environment characteristics of Chongzhou, the Weihai Ark W80 unmanned vessel has carried out special optimization in stability and adaptability. The hull is made of lightweight composite materials, featuring anti-wind and wave resistance and corrosion resistance, capable of adapting to the water flow conditions of different river basins in Chongzhou. The core components adopt fully sealed waterproof design, with a protection level of IP68, which can effectively resist dampness, high humidity and slight immersion environments, suitable for complex operation scenarios such as flood seasons and rainy days. It is equipped with self-developed efficient brushless motor and power system, with energy conversion efficiency exceeding 90%, and a single charge can last for 4-6 hours, meeting the regular patrol requirements for large areas of water bodies. At the same time, the vessel is small in size and lightweight, requiring only one person to complete transportation, deployment and operation. It supports wireless charging and autonomous docking for energy replenishment, achieving “unattended operation, continuous work”, significantly reducing the workload and operational risks of frontline monitoring personnel.
To ensure that the W80 unmanned vessel can be put into use quickly and achieve good results, at the delivery site, the Hangzhou Weihai Ark Technology Team conducted a special training for the law enforcement officers of the Chongzhou Environmental Protection Bureau in a mode of “theoretical explanation + practical operation practice”. They systematically explained the working principle, operation norms, data processing and maintenance skills of the unmanned vessel. Combined with the actual law enforcement situation in Chongzhou, they analyzed its application scenarios in water body monitoring, hidden pipe investigation, and emergency evidence collection. The trainees conducted practical operation exercises in groups and mastered all the operation skills of the unmanned vessel, laying a solid foundation for its subsequent regular use.
It is reported that after the W80 water quality monitoring unmanned vessel is put into use, it will undertake core tasks such as daily water quality inspection, pollution source investigation, and emergency monitoring response. During the daily inspection, the unmanned vessel can automatically complete multi-point water quality data collection and depth sampling according to the preset route. The data is transmitted in real time to the shore-based terminal and stored synchronously in the cloud platform. Staff can directly view the navigation trajectory and monitoring data through the terminal, generate monitoring reports with one click, significantly improving the monitoring efficiency; in pollution source investigation, the unmanned vessel can quickly locate the sewage outlet and abnormal water areas, accurately capture the pollution source, providing scientific evidence for environmental law enforcement; during the flood season or when a pollution incident occurs, the unmanned vessel can rush to the scene immediately, quickly obtain water quality data, provide timely support for emergency response decisions, and help maintain the bottom line of water environmental safety.
The successful delivery and commissioning of the Weihai Ark W80 water quality monitoring unmanned vessel this time is not only a vivid practice of the Chongzhou Environmental Protection Bureau in deepening “technology empowerment of ecological governance”, but also an important measure for the city to promote the intelligent upgrade of water environment monitoring. It is also another significant application achievement of the Hangzhou Weihai Ark unmanned vessel in the field of environmental protection in the southwest region. As a high-tech enterprise deeply engaged in intelligent equipment for water areas, Hangzhou Weihai Ark, relying on its independently developed core technologies and scene-specific customization capabilities, has created several lightweight operation unmanned vessels that have been widely applied in routine scenarios such as river internal inspection and water quality monitoring, using technological power to help local ecological governance improve efficiency and quality.
When technology thrives, governance also flourishes; when equipment is powerful, supervision becomes stronger. In the future, the Environmental Protection Bureau of Chongzhou will take the successful deployment of the W80 water quality monitoring unmanned vessel as an opportunity to continuously deepen the application of technological law enforcement, regularly conduct practical training for new equipment, and focus on enhancing the usage rate of new equipment in on-site law enforcement. It will fully leverage the role of information technologies such as the Internet of Things and big data, further improve the integrated monitoring system of “air, land, sea, and water”, and promote the transformation of water environment governance from “sampling at specific points” to “coverage on a larger scale”, from “manual monitoring” to “intelligent operation and maintenance”. At the same time, it will continuously strengthen cross-basin joint prevention and control, deepen the management mechanism for small and micro water bodies in rural areas, and promote the ecological environment law enforcement work to a new level of scientificity, standardization, and precision. It will fully protect the “green mountains and clear waters surrounding the villages, and ancient towns embedded in the countryside” characteristic ecologicalScroll of paintings of Chongzhou，and provide a solid ecological guarantee for building a green
，ivable，and resilient suburban new city. It will also provide a replicable and scalable “Chongzhou model” for the intelligent monitoring of water environments in county-level areas across the country.