What we can measure vs. What we want to know.

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "What we can measure vs. What we want to know."

Claire Williamson
5 years ago
Views:

1 SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE 18 September 2015 What we can measure vs. What we want to know. William Ullman School of Marine Science and Policy University of Delaware, Lewes 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

2 Old Monitoring Paradigm Measure what we can measure as often as we can afford to do so! Useful (maybe) for status and long-term trends Useful for management? (maybe not) Easy to measure with sensors Temperature, Salinity, Depth, ph, Turbidity (Secchi Depth) Harder to measure, but useful (sampling, filtering, laboratory analysis) Dissolved and Particulate Nutrients Contaminants Organisms (plankton, benthos, nekton) Process Variables (incubations requiring labs) 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

3 Newer Monitoring Paradigm Problem-Based Monitoring. Determine what is needed; Don t determine what is not! Focus on needs: Target problems/issues that can ultimately be managed! Geospatial Surveys (variable x,y; fixed z,t) Continuous Monitoring (variable t, maybe z; fixed x,y) Limited parameters (but improving) Limited number of instruments (expense) Limited deployment sites (infrastructure) 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

4 Spatial Remote Sensing of Chlorophyll in Delaware Bay (Note pixel size is too large to permit sensing of the Inland Bays.) 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

5 Autonomous Platforms to get spatial resolution and parameters that cannot be sensed remotely? 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

6 Parameters that can be Continuously Sensed Conductivity, Temperature, Depth Suspended Particles (turbidity, size, shape, species of bacteria, phytoplankton, zooplankton) Dissolved parameters (inorganic nutrients, some dissolved organic carbon characteristics; carbonate system characteristics: ph, T CO2, P CO2, alkalinity) 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

7 Continuous Sensing of Relevant Parameters focuses Attention on Processes (Rate of Change) Rather Than Instantaneous Status What processes are important to our ecosystem? What measurements are needed to quantify the rates of these processes? What sensors are available to make these measurements? What computational support is needed to get from the measurements to the needs? 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

8 O2 Saturation (%) Instantaneous Measurements need Context: O 2 example Days 17 July

9 Diel Hypoxia: Tyler, Brady, and Targett (2009) 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

10 Murderkill Estuary, Bowers DE Salinity (LOBO) Nitrate ( M, LOBO) Sampling Interval: 25 1 weeks days Sampling Interval: 1 hr 0 10-Oct 17-Oct 24-Oct 31-Oct 07-Nov 14-Nov 21-Nov 28-Nov 05-Dec 12-Dec 19-Dec 26-Dec 02-Jan 09-Jan High Frequency Sampling Allows Observations of Cause and Effects! November 2013 Automated Water Quality 10

11 Continuous Monitoring In Delaware (Delaware is rich in continuous monitoring resources, but we need to do more than collect the data!) USGS (Discharge Monitoring, some basic CTD measurements) DGS (Groundwater levels and flow; Water Quality Monitoring at Coursey Pond) DEOS (Aggregated weather and other data from various sources) DNREC* (some more advanced sensors have been deployed at Millsboro Pond and the Nanticoke River near Bridgeville) Kent County (Land Ocean Biogeochemical Observatory, Bowers, Delaware, operated by UD-SMSP) 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

12 Kent County LOBO Power and Data Cables STOR-X Data Logger WQM: CTD, Chla, Turbidity ECO-CDS (CDOM) SUNA (NO 3- ) Cycle-PO November 2013 Automated Water Quality 12

13 Greenspan Aqualab Deployed at Nanticoke River near Bridgeville (DNREC). Greenspan Aqualab YSI-EXO with S:CAN Spectrolyzer at Coursey Pond (NSF NEWRNet) 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

14 What do we really want to know? Can automated sensors help us? Which ones, where, and how? What do we need to do this well? 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

15 9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September

The Ins and Outs of Estuarine Acidification: Proton [H + T] Fluxes in the Murderkill Estuary (Delaware)

The Ins and Outs of Estuarine Acidification: Proton [H + T] Fluxes in the Murderkill Estuary (Delaware) Stephen F. Gonski*, Daniel T. Pettay, Wei Jun Cai, and William J. Ullman. School of Marine Science