New River Synoptics….

New River Synoptics….

Our group went out on the New River yesterday to capture a longitudinal profile of water quality above and below the Claytor Lake dam. Early in the morning, water was not moving through the turbines and DO was over 100%…but as soon as the turbines were turned on DO plummeted to < 50%. Bottom water from the reservoir will do that! The picture below is of Maddie, Tyler and Mohammad navigating downstream.

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First week of classes and Ecostream Conference

This fall I’m teaching Introduction to Green Engineering and Field Methods in Hydrology – both are fun classes, with 84 in GE and 20 undergrad/grads in field methods. The first week of classes is always busy, and on top of that Erich Hester and I both signed up for the Ecostream conference in Asheville! Although it made for a busy week, the conference was well worth the effort = both our talks were well received. I presented Breanne’s greenhouse gas study in the context of stream restoration, and Erich presented findings from the modeling/field studies related to stream restoration approaches on reducing nitrogen export. There are lots of opportunities for folks interested in stream restoration  / improving water quality within river networks. One of the most interesting talks was on the role beavers as ecoengineers….in the eastern US = it generated lots of discussion.

Claytor Lake

Yesterday we ventured 20 miles upstream of the Claytor Lake dam on the boat, measuring a suite of water quality variables. We then put in below the dam and floated another 2 miles. The water moving through the turbines and into the New River must have been bottom water, judging by the low DO (less than 50% saturation). 

Reservoir sampling 

This week we participated in a 24-hour sampling on a local reservoir with the Carey group. We performed boat Synoptics every 3 hours, and measured ch4/co2 from the reservoir every hour using the Picarro. Lots of fun (not much sleep), and some great meals!