Real-Time Water Quality Monitoring for Municipal Utilities

• 36+ parameters in one unit (as of October 2026): environmental, nutrients, inorganics and heavy metals.
• Lab-comparable results: within ±10% of certified lab results.
• Heavy metals at parts per billion, including lead, arsenic, chromium, copper and manganese.
• Self-calibrating, with maintenance, parts and consumables included.
• Connects to SCADA over cellular, Wi-Fi or Ethernet, with a web and mobile dashboard and threshold alerts.
• Subscription with no capital cost.

Which real-time monitoring system fits a municipal utility?

It depends on what you need to see between lab samples. If you track one or two parameters at many points, such as chlorine residual across a distribution system, single-parameter online analyzers from vendors like Hach, Xylem/YSI or Endress+Hauser are the usual fit. If you need many parameters at a few critical points, such as heavy metals, nutrients, chlorine and pH at a treatment plant, well field or recycled water site, a multi-parameter system like KETOS SHIELD can replace several analyzers and much of the routine grab sampling. Compliance samples still go to a certified lab either way.

How the options compare

How often does SHIELD measure each parameter?

Where SHIELD sits in a municipal system

• Source water and well fields: arsenic, nitrate and manganese before treatment, so blending or treatment changes happen before a sample fails.
• Treatment plant outlet and entry points: chlorine residual and pH leaving the plant.
• Wastewater influent and effluent: ammonia, nitrate and orthophosphate on both sides of treatment, which shows how well each stage is working.
• Recycled water and aquifer recharge: continuous checks before water is reused or injected.

What SHIELD replaces, and how it works with your lab

• Replaces: routine process grab samples and bench tests between lab samples; several single-parameter analyzers at one monitoring point; manual data entry into spreadsheets.
• Works alongside your certified lab: SHIELD shows what happens between compliance samples, so operators can correct a trend before a compliance sample fails.
• Keeps operators in charge: SHIELD sends data and alerts to the dashboard and SCADA, and operators decide what to adjust.

Municipal utilities using SHIELD

Utilities using SHIELD include:

• City of Rio Rancho, New Mexico (100,000+ residents): arsenic monitoring for drinking water, and a recycled water aquifer injection program running at more than 99% uptime and data availability.
• Southern Nevada Water Authority (2.2 million residents): arsenic and chromium monitoring at parts-per-billion levels at a remote facility, removing a 100-mile round trip for manual sampling.
• Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati: SHIELD on the raw influent and treated effluent at its Little Miami facility, tracking chlorine, pH, orthophosphate and nitrogen species, and now helping characterize nitrogen from industrial dischargers.
• Fulton County, Georgia: SHIELD across the drinking water distribution system, with more than 122,000 readings of free chlorine, pH, hardness and other parameters logged as of October 2026, and a joint study with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division on using continuous data for compliance reporting.

“With the SHIELD, we are over 99% sure we are safe.”Jim Chiasson, Utilities Director, City of Rio Rancho

Common questions from utility operators

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