Understanding Waterways Today To Plan For Tomorrow

Climate change could be a contributing factor to water quality changes in
Irish watercourses

A better understanding of the state of water bodies across the country is required in order to make better and more timely decisions. To more accurately understand the expected effects of the future conditions of our waterways, it is imperative that we gain an increased understanding of water characterisation as it stands.

A good example of this is South Florida. As sea levels rise and storm surges push water ashore, the staff of the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) are urged to prepare for a resilient future.

Based in West Palm Beach, Florida, SFWMD is a publicly funded entity that manages water for over 8 million residents in a 16-county area from Orlando to Key West. Its wide remit ranges from flood control to water procurement, ecological protection and water quality.

In a recent article published in Mission: Water, Akintunde Owosina, chief of SFWMD’s Hydrology and Hydraulics Bureau discussed the necessity of understanding the current conditions of watercourses and modelling the impact on current infrastructure that a rising sea level may have to determine a level that renders the infrastructure ineffective.

This allows the SFWMD team to set aside the uncertainty that is normally found in modelling and show instead the effectiveness of the existing infrastructure and set a threshold for when the system will require re-enforcement or re-engineering to remain effective.

The modelling can also help planners understand the long-term benefits offered by different strategies. For instance, a city can perform a cost-benefit analysis of different techniques and model their performance for 5, 10, 50 years to see, over the lifetime of the solution, which will be more robust and better value.

However, before modelling can take place first we must have a thorough understanding of our existing watercourses and their behaviour over time and in varying conditions.

YSI is a leading company in water quality monitoring systems and understands the dynamic environment in which we live. They have spent years growing their product portfolio in tandem with customer needs, which has been a cornerstone of their success to date.

An example of their ingenuity is the Exo Sonde, which is specially designed for both spot and long-term monitoring in even the toughest conditions. The Exo Sonde is capable of transmitting data to the cloud, making it fully accessible to all interested parties. It is also fully customisable with easily interchangeable sensors to ensure the parameters that matter are being recorded.

Exo Sonde sensors include:

• fDOM - Dissolved Organic Matter
• Total Algae - Chlorophyll and Phycocyanin
• ODO - Optical Dissolved Oxygen
• Turbidity
• pH

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Read the full article to learm more about how the SFWMD are using modelling to map infrastructure spending for the next decade.

And check out our full Exo Sonde range on our website, or get in touch with our Environmental Technical Specialists today to discuss the amazing abilities of this monitoring powerhouse.