Monitoring Source Water to Optimize Water Treatment
City of Columbus Division of Water
Clean drinking water is necessary for all human life, and source water monitoring is the first step in the long process of converting source water into tap water. Millions of people rely on the work of analysts like Michele Gilkerson, a water research analyst with the City of Columbus Division of Water, to convert wastewater […]
Read More →Sediment Monitoring During the Klamath Dam Removal
Gravity Consulting
Leading up to the 21st century, the United States supported decades of dam construction in major waterways across the country. Many of these dams were hydroelectric facilities built in order to provide energy to nearby towns and cities. Unfortunately, these dams deteriorated the surrounding environment and harmed aquatic life. Many of these dams cut off […]
Read More →Safeguarding Southwest Florida with Marine Water Quality Monitoring
Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation—RECON
When the Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River were connected by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the 1880s, the region underwent a variety of environmental changes. While water control locks were installed in the 1930s and 1960s, the Sanibel area in Southwest Florida still suffered from deteriorating water quality due to runoff […]
Read More →Harmful Algal Bloom Monitoring and Modeling with Real-Time Technology
Yokota Lab at SUNY Oneonta and Otsego Lake Association
In 2022, Otsego Lake in New York became one of many lakes to experience its first cyanobacterial bloom. While the cause is still unknown, the blooms may be an indicator of various water quality issues resulting from invasive species, runoff events or other environmental stressors. To get to the bottom of the mystery, Kiyoko Yokota, […]
Read More →Nutrient Monitoring in Great Lakes Tributaries
Heidelberg University
Tributaries of the Great Lakes contribute to the largest freshwater source in the U.S., and with the trillions of gallons of water transported each year are a variety of nutrients carried by source waters. Sources like the Maumee River are inundated by nutrient loads in the form of runoff from agriculture and urban waste-water effluent, […]
Read More →Tackling Beach Safety with UK's First Bacterial Monitoring Buoy
RS Hydro
Beaches full of swimmers are a common sight during the warm summer months. Perhaps never more so than during the 2022 heat wave that swept across Europe and brought record-high temperatures to many areas. With warmer temperatures and more beachgoers looking to cool off with a swim in the sea, water quality at popular beach […]
Read More →Understanding Shark Behavior through Sensing Technology
Cal State University Shark Lab
Shark sightings along California’s beaches are increasing. Legislation enacted in the 1990s has effectively helped shark populations recover from overfishing in prior decades that depleted both sharks and their food supply. While scientists and environmentalists view this resurgence of sharks as a positive for the ecosystem, it has another effect - more frequent occurrence of […]
Read More →Sturdy Little Buoy, Tremendous Predictive Power
Northern Michigan University
Two solitary data buoys floating off the storm-tossed Lake Superior shore near Munising and Granite Island were sudden stars in 2017. That October, they captured the largest waves ever measured on the Great Lakes—each 28.8-foot high—during a storm that claimed the lives of two people swept off rocks. This attention-getting event shows how buoy data […]
Read More →Monitoring An Active Thermocline, Rapid Changes
State University of New York (SUNY)—Plattsburgh
Beginning in the 1990s, researchers have collected samples manually every few weeks on trips to Lake Champlain to gather data on its dynamics. But the metrics the team has collected are spotty, considering the faster-paced changes fueled by a changing climate. To help fill in those holes, researchers from the State University of New York […]
Read More →A New Kind of Sentinel on Lake Superior
Superior Watershed Partnership, Lentic Environmental Services and UC-Boulder
For more than 100 years, the Stannard Rock Lighthouse has kept a watchful guard over Lake Superior. But now, a new weather buoy is joining the watch in a remote part of Lake Superior, providing much-needed weather data to local mariners, the National Weather Service (NWS), and researchers. Scientists from the Superior Watershed Partnership (SWP), […]
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