About EDIA
Duarte Carreira is the Data Analysis and Visualisation Director at EDIA, a state owned company in Portugal that builds infrastructure to distribute water for agriculture, industry and human consumption. They are responsible for the distribution of water for over 130k hectares and supply around 500 cubic hectometers of water every year. As part of their responsibility for water distribution, they also have to ensure compliance with environmental regulations related to water quality and conservation.
Looking for a reliable survey platform
As part of EDIA’s obligation to environmental regulations, they have to conduct an annual survey of farmers in the areas they distribute water about compliance with regulations and best practices. Each year, they have to survey enough farms to cover at least 10% of the total area where EDIA distributes water for irrigation.
Originally, they were using QField, but they were running into problems with stability. They also considered using ESRI Survey 123, but the licensing fees changed too frequently to be able to predict future costs very well. They eventually tested Mergin Maps and were happy with the robustness of the synchronisation and stable updates and decided to use that for the surveys. The field surveyors also preferred the interface of Mergin Maps.
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Digitising compliance surveys with Mergin Maps
The survey is complicated with over 100 questions including topics such as the use of irrigation dependent on the slope of the land, control of runoff, plans and documentation about the use of pesticide, protection of archaeological sites, etc. The survey data also needs to be linked to the location of the parcel of land owned by the farmer. In addition to the questionnaire, the surveyors also need to collect photographs of water features on the property that are linked to the survey.
They prepare the survey in QGIS and connect to Mergin Maps so that the surveyors can collect information in the field. The surveys are typically conducted in rural areas where mobile data connections are unreliable, so they often record data in the Mergin Maps application offline and then synchronise when they return to the office.
Once the data is synchronised to the project on Mergin Maps, they run a python script using the Mergin Maps API to download the data and copy it to their own database which is connected to their internal dashboard for analysing the survey data. The data can then be viewed by colleagues using QGIS, Esri or the custom dashboard. They can also export PDF reports from the dashboard on-demand.
Mergin Maps provides a reliable solution for self hosting
EDIA benefits from the ability to self-host the survey database using a reliable open-source solution like Mergin Maps. This gives them the flexibility to manage the data connection to their internal processes without being locked-in to a particular platform. The obligations to regulatory compliance mean that the project needs to be viable for the long-term, so being able to use a well-supported platform like QGIS with Mergin Maps ensures that they will be able to meet their requirements. They also benefit from a solution that is easy for surveyors to use in the field while being able to work offline and connect data to a geographic reference.
