|
|
|
System-Wide Monitoring Program
|
|
 |
Water Quality and Weather
Water Quality Data
To understand how water quality in the reserves changes over time and at different locations, each reserve has installed automated dataloggers to monitor physical and chemical variables at water quality monitoring stations.
Dataloggers are automated instruments with sensors that measure water quality parameters at 15 minute intervals. The data are then stored electronically for future downloading. Each reserve has a minimum of four water quality stations, which are installed at points that cross an environmental gradient. The ultimate goal is to be able to detect both long-term and short term changes in water quality at each reserve. Reserve staff download the data from each station every two weeks, conduct preliminary analyses to check for data quality, then transmit the data to the NERRS Centralized Data Management Office (CDMO). Some dataloggers also use telemetry to transmit the data directly to the CDMO via a satellite link. Basic water quality parameters measured at each station are: water temperature, depth, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity (cloudiness or clarity) .
Nutrients are also monitored at each reserve as part of the System-Wide monitoring Program. Each reserve collects water samples on a monthly basis to measure the concentration of nutrients (e.g., ammonium, nitrate, nitrite, ortho-phosphate) at each of the stations. At one water quality monitoring station at each reserve, nutrient samples are collected over a 24-hour period to determine how nutrient concentrations change over a day/night cycle, and over tidal cycles. Nutrient monitoring is important because there is a positive relationship between the concentration of nutrients in the water and the rate of primary production, which is an indicator of the growth and biomass of algae or phytoplankton.
Weather Data
As part of the System-Wide Monitoring Program, each reserve has installed one or more weather stations that collect data on air temperature, wind speed and direction, relative humidity, barometric pressure, rainfall, and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR).
Weather conditions can have a strong influence on water quality. For example, rainfall influences salinity in estuaries and can increase runoff of sediment and organic material that in turn may influence other parameters such as dissolved oxygen, nutrient concentrations, turbidity, pH, and temperature.
System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) weather data collected at each reserve are available from the Centralized Data Management Office.
Last Updated on: Thursday, August 27, 2009
|
|
