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

William Ullman School of Marine Science and Policy

University of Delaware, Lewes

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

18 September 2015

9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September 2015 1

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 2015 2

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!

– Limited parameters (but improving) – Limited number of instruments (expense) – Limited deployment sites (infrastructure)

9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September 2015 3

Geospatial Surveys (variable x,y; fixed z,t)

Continuous Monitoring (variable t, maybe z; fixed x,y)

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 2015 4

http://coastwatch.chesapeakebay.noaa.gov/region_cd.php

Autonomous Platforms to get spatial resolution and parameters that

cannot be sensed remotely?

9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September 2015 5

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, TCO2, PCO2, alkalinity)

9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September 2015 6

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 2015 7

17 July 2014 8 Days0 1 2 3 4 5

O2

Satu

ratio

n (%

)

0

100

200

300

Instantaneous Measurements need Context: O2 example

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

Diel Hypoxia: Tyler, Brady, and Targett (2009)

Murderkill Estuary, Bowers DE

14-15 November 2013 Automated Water Quality 10

Salin

ity (L

OBO

)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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

Nitr

ate

(M

, LO

BO)

0

50

100

150

200 Sampling Interval: 2 weeks

Salin

ity (L

OBO

)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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

Nitr

ate

(M

, LO

BO)

0

50

100

150

200 Sampling Interval: 5 days

Salin

ity (L

OBO

)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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

Nitr

ate

(M

, LO

BO)

0

50

100

150

200 Sampling Interval: 1 day

Salin

ity (L

OBO

)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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

Nitr

ate

(M

, LO

BO)

0

50

100

150

200 Sampling Interval: 1 hr

High Frequency Sampling Allow

s O

bservations of Cause and Effects!

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 2015 11

14-15 November 2013 Automated Water Quality 12

WQM: CTD, Chla, Turbidity

STOR-X Data

Logger

ECO-CDS (CDOM)

Power and Data Cables

SUNA (NO3-)

Kent County LOBO

Cycle-PO4

YSI-EXO w

ith S:CAN

Spectrolyzer at C

oursey Pond (NSF N

EWR

Net)

9/15/2015 Inland Bays STAC Meeting, September 2015 13

Greenspan Aqualab

Gre

ensp

an A

qual

ab D

eplo

yed

at N

antic

oke

Riv

er n

ear B

ridge

ville

(DN

REC

).

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 2015 14

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