Technical Services

Hydrometric Monitoring

Swiftwater has an unrivaled depth of knowledge and experience in planning, implementing and maintaining efficient hydrometric and climate monitoring networks. Services include:

Adherence to the highest industry standards governing data acquisition and safety,
Network design, management, planning, installation, and monitoring,
Area-velocity, volumetric, tracer dilution, and ADCP measurements techniques,
Detailed channel geometry surveying,
Theoretical and empirical rating curve development,
Real-time data acquisition systems,
Data correction, analysis, and reporting.

Hydroinformatics

Hydrology and Climate data are critical, and must be well managed to be well understood. Services include:

Efficient, cloud-based storage of project data, including photos, field sheets and datalogger files,
Highly repeatable database structure allows for near limitless capacity,
Real-time and non real-time data acquisition, and web-based accessibility,
Flood forecasting utilities,
Water Quality Sample Management
Cutting-edge rating curve development tools and techniques,
Sophisticated data processing and correction tools,
Comprehensive data grading and flagging utilities.

Hydrology

Characterizing the hydrology of a project site in a manner that is useful to the project requires communicating extremely complex and highly integrated ideas into practical terms. Services include:

Validation of project data with long-term regional streamflow and climate records,
Integration of precipitation, temperature, snowfall, evaporation and streamflow records to identify critical drivers of hydrologic variability,
Development of empirical relationships between project and regional data to derive long-term streamflow and climate records, and
Detailed statistical analysis of long-term datasets to derive meaningful project parameters, including critical design inputs.

Mine Water Management

The effective planning and day-to-day management of water in and around a mine site is a central consideration of project development, permitting and operations. Supporting mine water management includes services such as:

Environmental Flows

The effective planning and day-to-day management of water in and around a mine site is a central consideration of project development, permitting and operations. Supporting mine water management includes services such as:

Climate

Climate is a of central concern to many operating mines and hydroelectric projects. Our team provides a rational, data driven approach to the characterization of climate. Services include:

Design, implementation and collection of high quality climate data,
Comparison of project data with long-term regional climate records,
Analysis of precipitation, temperature, snowfall, evaporation and streamflow records to identify drivers of hydrologic variability,
Development of empirical relationships between project and regional data to derive long-term streamflow and climate records, and
Detailed statistical analysis of long-term datasets to derive meaningful project parameters, including design inputs.

Flood Assessments

Flooding is a natural stream process that can directly impact operations and damage vital project infrastructure. Planning for floods requires assessments to be completed using a variety of data types, including stream geometry, return period flood magnitude estimates, and high resolution topographic data. Swiftwater utilizes industry standard tools and techniques, including HydrCAD and HEC-RAS software, to model flood elevations for project permitting and design.

Limnological Surveying

Swiftwater utilizes the latest technology and techniques to precisely and efficiently completely detailed bathymetry surveying.

Environmental Assessments

Swiftwater provides specialist technical support for the development and submission of comprehensive environmental assessments. We work with project proponents, consultants, and regulators to establish requirements, and provide technical, interdisciplinary and regulatory guidance related to surface water hydrology and climate. Swiftwater has an extensive background designing and implementing compliance and operational monitoring plans, performing detailed analyses of baseline datasets, and completing vital environmental effects assessments.