“Calibration is quite easy. It’s a simple 3-point process,” said Ryan Grilliot, product manager. “Place it in the solution, wait for the millivolt readings to stabilize, then press calibrate.”

The sensor is calibrated at 7 pH, 4 pH and 10 pH. After telling the sensor to associate a specific millivolt reading with the target pH level, users go on to the next calibration point. All calibration can be completed using the WQSensors software that comes free with the sensor.

The software contains a substantial collection of informational libraries – including useful references like the periodic table of the elements, water’s properties at various temperatures and a guide on fish. It also has mechanical and electrical unit converters.

“The software is free, so you can use it for information referencing,” said Grilliot, noting it is fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows 7 32-bit.

The sensor sets itself apart from other NexSens WQSensors with a deep blue housing. It’s filled with a gel to ward off crystal formation and maintain proper sensor performance. The housing, while colorful, is made of a resilient hardened plastic that helps protect the sensor in case of an accidental drop.

The USB cable included with the device is about six feet long and makes it possible to obtain readings without meters, batteries or other power supplies.

“It’s a good low-cost solution,” said Grilliot. “The sensors are plug-and-play. Open up WQSensors, plug in your sensor and begin taking readings.”

The post NexSens WQ-PH Smart USB Sensor: A plug-and-play solution for lab pH measurements appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

The Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council is seeking volunteers to monitor lakes in Michigan’s Emmet, Charlevoix, Antrim and Cheboygan counties.

Volunteers will contribute to a database used to aid lake management for 25 lakes at the top of Michigan’s mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula.

Volunteers for the project must monitor their assigned lake once a week. A boat is required for data collection.

Image: Little Traverse Bay is among the water bodies in need of volunteer monitors (Credit: bagaball, via Flickr)

The post Monitoring volunteers sought in Michigan’s Tip of the Mitt appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

Rain from March through the end of April transported 210 tons of dissolved phosphorus into the Maumee River, which enters Lake Erie. About 120 tons of phosphorus typically enters the river during the two-month timeframe.

Runoff of phosphorus into the Maumee River and into Lake Erie was one of the main causes for a record algal bloom in 2011.

A combination of weather conditions also factored into the 2011 record bloom.

The 2011 algal bloom in Lake Erie from Kelley’s Island. (Credit: T. Joyce/NOAA GLERL)

The post High spring nutrient loads could fuel big Lake Erie algal bloom appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

Between 1979 and 2006, Lake Superior’s temperature increased by 2.5 degrees Celsius due to global warming. The lake’s temperature increase was one of the most drastic in North America during that span.

The increase has affected Lake Superior’s siscowet lake trout, a species that favors cold waters. Using data compiled from computer models and standard temperature measurements, researchers estimate that siscowet lake trout have lost about 20 percent of their habitat because of the warming.

Image: Grand Sable Dunes on Lake Superior (Credit: NOAA)

The post Warming Lake Superior shrinks lake trout habitat appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

This 30-year, 100-site monitoring effort has to design sensor infrastructure that can withstand droughts and floods, ice cover and fires, and the occasional grazing cow.

“Several of the sites that we’re based at are working farms,” said Charlotte Roehm, a senior scientist with NEON. “So we have to take into account effects of animal foraging and similar challenges in those areas.”

NEON aspires to monitor ecological change in a diversity of terrestrial and aquatic systems across the U.S. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the program plans to collect 30 years of data to help investigate environmental effects of issues like climate change, land use and invasive species.They’ll collect data at more than 100 sites through both long-term sensor stations and field sampling initiatives.

Sensors at 36 of those sites will be installed in a mix of lakes and streams from Puerto Rico to Alaska.

“We received our construction funds last year, so we’ve only just started constructing this year,” Roehm said. “We’re planning on having two sites coming up in the next six months for installation into operation.”

Though NEON is still in its early stages of observation and installation, the program’s working groups have been busy planning and designing the infrastructure that will support the suite of off-the-shelf sensors they’ll be installing at each site.

One challenge they face is designing sensor mounts that will allow the instruments to collect standardized measurements in wildly different landscapes across the continent, Roehm said. They need to install sensors in high alpine streams in Colorado in such a way that it won’t bias data when compared with, say, the sensors in Alaskan systems that have only a few months of ice free water each year.

A staff gauge on Florida’s Barco Lake, a future NEON aquatic site (Credit: Charlotte Roehm)

They’ll also be also working in streams that occasionally dry out, which can disrupt some sensors. They’re experimenting with flow-through cell techniques to offset that.

And in a flashy system like Sycamore Creek in Arizona, the sensor infrastructure will have so be strong enough resist being swept away by sudden strong storms.

“This is a typical desert environment where we have these major storms that go through can essentially wipe everything out,” Roehm said. “So we go through a whole set of reviews with the systems engineering and engineering groups here. We look at stability and strength of our structures for these different sites.”

Each stream study site will feature a multiparameter sonde at two locations in the channel. The sondes will measure temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, conductivity and CDOM. Additional instruments will include nutrient analyzers, photosynthetically active radiation sensors and pressure transducers to calculate discharge.

Lake sites will have sondes at their inlets and outlets, along with a profiling buoy in the open water.

In addition to the water quality sensors, each site will have a meteorological station, groundwater wells with continuous measurements of temperature, water level and conductivity, and a camera taking one photo a day to track phenology and ice-on and ice-off dates.

The data from all the sites, including around 60 terrestrial sites, will be wirelessly telemetered back to NEON headquarters. From there, it will undergo quality control and assurance procedures before being released to the public.

“The goal of NEON is to provide freely available data to the public and allow the community to build on the infrastructure” Roehm said. “Hopefully, we’ll be running for 30 years, so it’s exciting to be part of this endeavor and see it develop over the next few years.”

Top image: A prototype sensor mount for a NEON stream site (Credit: NEON)

The post National Ecological Observatory Network develops aquatic sensor stations across U.S. appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

Satellite data shows that last summer, 98 percent of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s surface melted, as opposed to the normal rate of melting, which is around 50 percent.

Additionally, air and snow temperature data obtained from meteorological stations in the region show that from 1982 to 2011, area surface temperatures increased annually six times faster than the global average.

Scientists believe that the melting in the region could have global ramifications on climate and sea level changes.

Image: Greenland Ice Sheet (Credit: Christine Zenino, Wikimedia Commons)

The post Greenland Ice Sheet’s surface melting more frequently appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

The lab’s instruments will be stationed along a volcano off the Pacific Northwest coast and will give researchers from around the country the ability to monitor activity two miles below the ocean’s surface through the use of video cameras, seismic monitors and other gauges.

The lab is unique from other deep-sea research initiatives because it will be able to provide continuous data through the use of 600 miles of permanent cables.

Researchers will begin to install the hardware this July. The lab is expected to be completed by 2015.

Image: The Pacific Ocean from Diamond Head Crater (Credit: Daniel Ramirez, Wikimedia Commons)

The post Underwater lab to serve up continuous data from Pacific Northwest seafloor appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

The nanoparticles consist of tiny rust specks that can be combined with fluids used in natural gas drilling. Researchers can impart unique magnetic signatures to these particles to assign each drilling company its own signature particle fingerprint.  Researchers would then be able to either hold particular companies responsible or rule them out as sources of pollution depending on a water sample’s chemistry.

In the past, it has been difficult for scientists to conclusively link groundwater contamination to fracking since many pollutants typically found in fracking fluids can also occur naturally in the environment.

Image: Hydraulic fracturing drill rig in Pennsylvania (Credit: Environmental Protection Agency)

The post Rice University nanoparticles could track fracking pollution appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

In one of the efforts to protect the endangered fish, researchers at Delaware State University and University of Delaware have teamed up to help fishermen avoid accidentally catching the creature. The project uses an ocean glider, satellites and hydrophone sensors to track surgically implanted acoustic transmitters in Atlantic sturgeon.

Dewayne Fox, associate professor of Fisheries at Delaware State, has been tagging the fish for years. He says working around sturgeons’ tough exteriors can be a challenge.

“Sturgeon in their present form look like they did 73 million years ago. They have five rows of bony plates – ‘scutes’ – overlapping around the body,” said Fox. “Larger plates spread out, so adults will have scutes the size of an appetizer plate. They’re hard like bone.”

Tagging sturgeon means getting past the bony plates, and Fox says doing so is possible by making a small incision in the fish’s abdomen. Tagging older sturgeon is easier because the armor-like plates spread out as the fish matures.

“We cradle the fish in a sling as it comes over the side of the boat and transfer it into a large well,” said Fox. “We add an anesthetic powder to the bath that knocks the fish out, then roll the fish belly up, make a small incision in the abdomen, implant the transmitter and suture it up.”

Each acoustic transmitter is about the size of an index finger and is implanted within an enclosure of silastic, a latex epoxy developed for organ transplant products to minimize rejection rates. After the operation is complete, the anesthetic is pumped out of the water and the fish regains consciousness before it is released.

Atlantic sturgeon are surgically implanted with acoustic transmitters

Which is when Matt Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography at the University of Delaware, can track the sturgeon with a Slocum glider called OTIS, or oceanographic telemetry identification sensor, in Delaware Bay. The glider works with hydrophone sensors moored along the bay, for tracking sturgeon numbers there by picking up the acoustic transmitter signals when sturgeon swim by.

“We started thinking about how the fish utilizes and selects environments of the coastal ocean for a possible regulation of the species to find out how to avoid bycatch – when you catch a species of fish that you’re not intending to catch,” said Oliver. “There’s no one out there trying to catch sturgeon.”

The glider is also giving data on water quality while completing its three-month mission. It pulls in data on oxygen levels, temperature, salinity, currents, clarity and turbidity in addition to a few other parameters. The data will help detect where the fish is most likely to go and Oliver hopes to one day forecast the likely locations of sturgeon so fishermen can avoid those areas.

“Matt’s glider can go where we can’t put hydrophone sensors,” said Fox. “And as it goes on, it collects attributes related to water quality.”

The project’s glider, nicknamed OTIS, detects tagged sturgeon and collects water quality data

The glider’s water quality data may also help in the mission to protect native spawning grounds.

Sturgeon spawn in rivers and then go into the ocean to mature. Luckily, Fox has that part covered. He helped found the ACT (Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry) network, a group of researchers who share data on more than 45 tagged species up and down the Atlantic coast.

“We maintain a network of 150 hydrophone sensors from the coast of Virginia to the Hudson River, working with partners in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” said Fox. “When a tagged sturgeon swims by, a hydrophone detects it.”

Satellites are used to measure ocean parameters in broad sweeps, interpreting certain conditions into colors which tell researchers what it’s like in a particular area.

The glider, satellite data and acoustic transmitters combine to give researchers a view into what types of water near Delaware Bay attract sturgeon.

“In using the ocean tech that we have, like autonomous vehicles and satellites, it’s easy to see that the hydrology of the coastal ocean is not homogeneous,” said Oliver.

The project touches on some of the main threats to the fish, which include bycatch and habitat destruction that comes when newly built dams keep sturgeon from reaching native spawning grounds. Another threat comes from large shipping boats that use rivers to ferry their goods, Fox says. Sturgeon often reproduce in the deepest water achievable. Since modern shipping boats are so large, their propellers sometimes cross right where sturgeon are spawning.

But if bycatch can be reduced in Delaware Bay, that’s one small win for sturgeon conservation efforts–something that Fox’s tagging has a pulse on.

“Between 2005 and 2007 – fishing in Delaware Bay – we sampled for three years and captured around 30 sturgeon,” said Fox. “This year, we’ve caught 50.”

All photographs taken under the authority of NOAA-NMFS Permit No. 16507

The post Universities team up to track Atlantic sturgeon and prevent accidental bycatch appeared first on Environmental Monitor.

Nitrate applied to agricultural land as fertilizer often finds its way to streams and their receiving waters where it can degrade water quality and be harmful to aquatic life.

“Increased nutrient concentrations can result in nuisance levels of algal growth which can cause large swings in dissolved oxygen” said Jim Tesoriero, a research hydrologist with the USGS in Portland. “And those swings in dissolved oxygen can be harmful to fish and the aquatic ecosystem in general.”

While rain can wash nitrate off of fields and directly into streams through over-land flow, the nutrient can also infiltrate slow-moving groundwater that seeps into rivers through the streambed. Nitrate that takes this route may not make it into a stream until years after it was initially applied to the landscape.

This slower pathway has recently been suggested as the reason that some efforts to reduce or control applications of nitrogen-based fertilizers haven’t been met with a corresponding drop in nitrate levels in nearby streams. To get a better handle on what kinds of streams might be more vulnerable to the groundwater route, USGS scientists measured nitrate concentrations in streams and surrounding groundwater at seven sites across the U.S. The results were recently published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

At each study site, the researchers used stream gauge data to determine what portion of a stream’s flow came from groundwater versus surface runoff. Nitrate concentrations were measured in groundwater, surface water and streambed pore water. Streambed water samples were collected with stainless-steel drive point piezometers.

By combining streamflow data with monthly nitrate measurements and other analyses, the researchers calculated what portion of the nitrate in each stream was carried there through groundwater.

Their findings were intuitive. “As the amount of water (in a stream) from groundwater increases, the amount of nitrate in the stream from groundwater increases,” said Tesoriero, lead author of the study.

Sandy Run in North Carolina, one of the seven study streams, is a watershed where water and nitrate flow from fields to streams primarily through quick flow paths such as overland flow and tile drains (Credit: USGS)

Perhaps the most impressive finding from the research comes from a detailed analysis of a stretch of the Tomorrow River, a study site in Central Wisconsin where both streamflow and nitrate are primarily derived from groundwater.

In an effort to more closely calculate how much groundwater enters this length of the stream, the researchers conducted a tracer study along a 1,200 meter reach. The method involves injecting a chemical tracer into the top of the reach at known concentrations. As the tracer flows downstream and more groundwater enters the channel, the tracer is diluted. By looking at the drop in tracer concentrations, the researchers can calculate how much groundwater came into the stream.

The tracer study was coupled with more piezometer sampling of nitrate concentrations along the reach. Those samples were also age-dated, which showed that the average age of the groundwater entering around the stream was around 27 years.

That means that steps taken today to control nitrate in the Tomorrow River’s watershed likely won’t reveal their full effects on stream concentrations for another three decades.

“In a case like this one, you basically have a reservoir of nitrate already in the aquifer that is going to continue to discharge to the stream,” Tesoriero said.

But that certainly isn’t a reason not to try and reduce excess nitrate applications on land, he said.

“It will have an effect, it’s just a matter of the time it will take to fully see it.”

Top image: Jim Tesoriero installs a piezometer to sample groundwater in the Tomorrow River streambed. (Credit: USGS)

The post Nitrate enters groundwater-fed streams decades after field application appeared first on Environmental Monitor.