Laurie I have some direct ...

Laurie

I have some direct experience here. We have used conventional digital water level recorders placed into hand dug wells and drilled wells, recording level every 15 minutes. We were primarily interested in the seasonal variation in water table, but you can analyse the data pretty easily to get data on when the wells are used - down to what time each day they are used, whether used on a weekend etc.. To install loggers you need to lift the pump heads, but with practice we were able to put one in in about 30 minutes work (if all the bolts cooperated!). We put loggers on India Mk2s and Afridev pumps.

There is a group at Oxford University (https://www.development.ox.ac.uk/smartpumps) who have been using handle mounted accelerometers to get usage info, warn of mechanical failures and even depth to water.

In the past I have seen a nice spout mounted sensor that essentially logged whether there was water coming out of the pump by starting a timer circuit when immersed.. The ones I saw were bespoke, but I would think that a modern one could be built simply from an Arduino or Raspberry PI.

Andy McKenzie