A Novel Unmanned Surface Vehicle-Sensor Platform for Mapping Water Quality in Streams and Rivers in the Agricultural Midwest
Abstract
In recent years, sensors have advanced understanding of temporal dynamics in water quality and biogeochemical processes in lotic ecosystems. However, spatial dynamics in water quality are not often examined at a high resolution because of the time-intensive nature of manual sampling and cost-prohibitive nature of deploying multiple sensors along stream and river networks. In this study, we developed a novel unmanned surface vehicle (USV)-water quality measurement platform (the `AquaBOT') to map and analyze spatial patterns of water quality along streams and rivers. All components that comprise the AquaBOT are commercially available; these include a nitrate sensor, multi-parameter sonde (temperature, conductivity, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll), PAR sensor, and GPS system mounted to a pontoon-style USV. The sensors are wired to a Wi-Fi datalogger that allows water quality data to be observed in the field in real time. Beginning in 2020, we deployed the AquaBOT in agricultural streams and rivers in Iowa to examine how water quality varies spatially in response to crop plantings and conservation practices. To date, we have completed 3 runs of the AquaBOT (weekly in June 2020) along a 2.1 km stream reach in Iowa. These AquaBOT runs revealed meter-scale variability in all measured water quality parameters, including high nitrate concentrations directly downstream of tile drain inputs. Saturated buffers will be constructed along this stream reach in fall 2020, and thus the AquaBOT will be used to examine the efficacy of this conservation practice at reducing nutrient inputs to streams.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMH120...08G
- Keywords:
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- 0470 Nutrients and nutrient cycling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 1831 Groundwater quality;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1871 Surface water quality;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1879 Watershed;
- HYDROLOGY