It used to be that water levels were registered by someone manually noting the level at a gauge, writing it down, and bicycli g to the next. He'd visit all of them in a region in a day.
Now they're of course automated sensors. They are cheaper, there are more of them, they are more accurate, immediate available online, and with 5-minute resolution. Clearly better.
But the person doing the rounds each day would also see the whole system each day, notice vandalism, know local conditions on growth of pest water plants by heart, et cetera. Now there is nobody with such detailed first hand knowledge of the system. The informal part of the job is lost, and the loss can't easily be quantified as some amount of money either. It didn't even exist on the org chart, but it still feels like it was essential.
So we replace human work with different automated processes, and yes we ignore the true nature of the work.