eSymon - An Innovative Solution to Monitoring Data Management

The year 2020 will forever be synonymous with the Covid-19 pandemic and the immeasurable impact it has had on all our lives. During this time, there was one avenue that reigned supreme: technology. Whether it was Zoom calls or Netflix, online consultations or video conferencing at work, technology took charge. In light of this, GCS (Pty) Ltd started exploring ways that technology could assist with the most common problem identified in the Water and Environmental sectors, which is the management of large volumes of geodata. Thus, the invention of eSymon.

Monitoring of the environment usually generates a significant amount of data. If this data is not systematically stored, problems often arise with:

• Limited access to historical data due to poor storage;

• Different formats of stored data (if they are kept in digital form at all);

• Continuity and integrity of the data; and

• Security of the data.

Therefore, years of historical data cannot be used or trusted. The solution was to develop eSymon, which is an acronym for Electronic Data Management System for Monitoring. eSymon is primarily designed to:

• Systematically import, store, view and manipulate large volumes of monitoring data;

• Provide remote and instantaneous access to site-specific information;

• Allow data visualization using an interactive GIS interface; and

• Create various outputs such as time series graphs, geochemical diagrams and contour maps.

The main idea of the software is to have all historical data for a site on one platform and have it be accessible and functional at the touch of a button. This results in several key benefits, including saving time, providing accurate and up to date information, not having to wait for technical reports to assess trends and compliance, providing several means of data visualization and, most importantly, ensuring data security.

Presenter Name
Tarika
Presenter Surname
Isaac
Area
South Africa various
Conference year
2021