The automated and continued observation of the water quality in the rivers and channels in the Ca Mau province in the southern Mekong delta delivers important information in terms of condition and dynamic of the water quality. Especially the increasing salinisation of surface waters that is due to the ingress of sea water is of central meaning. It also plays an important role in the rating of the surface waters in regard of their potential usage for the local water supply, which in return would lessen the current groundwater over-usage.

Therefore, on several points, that were picked with vietnamese project partners,automated monitoring stations are installed within the framework of ViWaT-Engineering. The used monitoring technologies compose of multi sensor devices, field photometer probes (MPS-D8 and SPS-NO3; SEBA Hydrometrie) and fluorometer probes (AlgaeTorch; bbe Moldaenke). These are suitable for the simultaneous recording of a large number of physicochemical water parameters (including water level, temperature, salinity, pH value, redox potential, oxygen concentration) as well as for the in-situ determination of phytoplankton (total chlorophyll-a content) and the differentiation of algae classes (including green algae and cyanobacteria). In addition to the water turbidity, the nitrate concentration is also determined photometrically. A high-performance data collector (SEBA NetLogCom) with integrated 4G modem is used to store the continuously measured data and make it available online on a central server for the project partners. The measurement data can be viewed graphically using the web-based platform SEBA Hydrocenter. In the course of the measurements at the Hullern dam, the planned long-term operation of the measuring station in Vietnam was successfully tested. During the three-month pilot measurements, the dam operator was provided with high-resolution information on the change in raw water quality in the inflow of the dam during the dry summer months of June - September 2021.