River Water Quality - Edge of Appalachia

Project Overview

The Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and The Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal own and manage the Edge of Appalachia Preserve, the largest privately owned protected natural area in Ohio. The Edge of Appalachia, located in southwest Ohio, provides critical habitat for rare species of plants and animals. Ohio Brush Creek, a tributary of the Ohio River, runs through the preserve and is home to several species of endangered freshwater mussels.

To document long-term trends in water quality and rainfall on the preserve, a monitoring system was installed that allows real-time collection of continuous data. Real-time connection to Ohio Brush Creek with NexSens Technology allows the preserve to "take the pulse" of the creek right before students', visitors', and researchers' eyes.

A rain gauge was installed at the visitor's center near the Ohio River, and a multi-parameter water quality sonde was installed further upstream in Ohio Brush Creek. The water quality site was chosen to avoid Ohio River backwater, and also to monitor near endangered mussel beds. A real-time connection to the sensors was established by directly connecting the rain gauge to a base computer in the visitor's center and by installing a field modem at the water quality site upstream. NexSens telemetry devices and software are used to integrate the sensors into a real-time monitoring network.

System Description

Conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH and turbidity sensors were selected for water quality monitoring. The YSI 6600 sonde offers the latest in sensor technology. The dissolved oxygen probe features a pulsed technology that eliminates the need for stirring. The turbidity sensor includes a self-cleaning wiper that allows long-term deployments with minimal maintenance requirements.

The NexSens DN-710 Rain Gauge was chosen for rainfall monitoring. The DN-710 is a pulse counting, logging rain gauge that is designed for long-term deployments in real-time monitoring networks. The addition of precipitation data to environmental monitoring projects allows researchers to document the impact of storm events on river water quality.

A NexSens 2100-iSIC field modem was chosen to communicate with the remote water quality monitoring site. The field modem allows a real-time communication with remote instruments that are located near a landline phone connection.

NexSens iChart software automatically queries the field sites on a pre-defined schedule. Custom data reports can be automatically generated and distributed by web posting, e-mail or network folder access. Alarms can also be easily setup allowing immediate notification when any parameter is outside of a pre-defined range. NexSens iChart software provides a point-and-click interface for multi-site, multi-vendor real-time environmental monitoring networks. Additionally, reports can be automatically generated to analyze long-term water quality and precipitation trends.

The combination of fouling-resistant water quality sensors and real-time telemetry ensures that quality data is collected for long-term applications. Real-time data allows personnel at the center to educate school groups about river water quality and its impact on ecology of the native organisms inhabiting the site.



Customer Testimonial

...."The NexSens remote telemetry setup has been extremely reliable and easy to use."

...."NexSens telemetry allows me to have my coffee in the morning and view real-time creek data in my office while others are wet and freezing in the field with handheld equipment."

...."NexSens software will allow us to send creek data to the museum's downtown Cincinnati location for 1.4 million visitors to view."

-Chris Bedel, Preserve Director