California's San Joaquin River has changed a lot over the past century. The river, which flows through a rich agricultural region in San Francisco Bay, is used for drinking water and crop irrigation, diverting and dredging ships traveling from the inland port of Stockton. These changes affect the health of the river's water, along its banks the plants and animals, fish and other creatures that live in it.
Not so in the case of San Joaquin, where people around the world are increasingly concerned about healthy rivers. The first step in developing effective remedial measures is an accurate assessment of the state. Decision makers rely on scientists and other researchers to collect and interpret reliable data, and a scientist uses battery-powered data loggers.
"There's nothing natural about the San Joaquin River," said Jeremy Hanlon, site leader with the Environmental Engineering Research Program (EERP) at Stockton Pacific University. The group is committed to earmarked research projects focused on surface water quality in the San Joaquin River and its watershed. One project in particular included monitoring agricultural holding ponds along the river. These farm ponds irrigate and run off water, trapping sediment. In particular, the research group is interested in learning how ponds affect the health of rivers, and whether they help heal water flow back into natural systems.
Hanlon made these decisions, and his team relied on HOBO® water level loggers located in Massachusetts to manufacture water level loggers U20-001-01, U20-001-02, U20-001-03, U20-001- 04, KIT-D-U20-01, KIT-D-U20-02, KIT-D-U20-04, U20L-01, U20L-02, U20L-04 cost about one-eighth of the team's previous log solution , pressure water level recording devices offer accuracy and durability, and provide full accuracy of 0.1%, compared to 0.01 resolution. Specifically, the research importance of the sharp-crested weir flow control structure used to calculate the pond-baseline measurement cannot be overstated.
Hanlon bought several HOBO water level loggers U20-001-01, U20-001-02, U20-001-03, U20-001-04, KIT-D-U20-01, KIT-D-U20-02, KIT- D-U20-04, U20L-01, U20L-02, U20L-04 and deploy them side by side for a month with the existing water level. The readings are accurate, and Hanlon is happy to have found a new, more expensive solution for water level logging. According to Hanlon, not only are the devices reliable, but they are also simple to use and deploy. The original water table was bulky and unwieldy, and had its own power supply and its own concrete structure.
Deployment of HOBO water level loggers U20-001-01, U20-001-02, U20-001-03, U20-001-04, KIT-D-U20-01, KIT-D-U20-02, KIT-D-U20 -04, U20L-01, U20L-02, U20L-04, Hanlon simply construct the PVC pipes of stilling wells, suspend the people inside the pipes, and let them exit near the pond. He configured to read data every 15 minutes, and go to the field every two to four weeks with the waterproof data download base U-DTW-1 portable data download cradle. The Waterproof Data Download Base U-DTW-1 is waterproof and allows secure data download without the user having to take their laptop out to the field and back to the lab.
To analyze and plot water level data, Hanlon started using HOBOware Pro software for graphing and analysis software. The software provides a user-friendly GUI and offers some convenient features such as easy pressure to water level conversion, and barometric compensation assistant to automatically compensate for changes in barometric pressure. Very satisfied with Hanlon and hope to use more in the future. EERP also set up a HOBO wireless weather station U30-NRC, U30-GSM/RX3000 (RX3003-00-01), U30-ETH/RX3000 (RX3001-00-01), U30-WIFI/RX3000 (RX3002- 00-01), measuring temperature S-TMB-M002, S-TMB-M006, S-TMB-M017, soil moisture S-SMC-M005, S-SMD-M005, rainfall S-RGA-M002, S-RGB- M002, S-RGC-M002, S-RGD-M002, wind speed S-WSB-M003, wind direction S-WDA-M003, S-WSET-B, S-WCA-M003, S-WCF-M003, atmospheric pressure S- BPB-CM50, S-BPA-CM10, air temperature and relative humidity S-THB-M002, S-THB-M008, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) S-LIA-M003, total solar radiation S-LIB-M003, leaf humidity S-LWA-M003 etc.
The system was used to investigate whether wind would affect a pond's sediment filtration capacity.
The relative low cost and portability of humans means that Hanlon and his colleagues will be able to build additional field positions for more people, which means more data and hopefully better remediation strategies.
