Coastal Water Quality Monitoring Network - Yantai-China

Yantai, China, is the pilot location for an innovative Coastal Water Quality monitoring network being jointly developed by Greenspan, Haicheng, the Chinese Academy of Science and the National Marine Agency.

Located on the Bohol Sea, the Yellow River basin is home to almost 350 million people. This large population, heavy industry and being one of the busiest seaports in the world all combine to potentially stress the natural environment.  Coupled with extensive mariculture and oil & gas reserves being explored in the sea, the potential for water quality problems are high.

Recognising the risks, proactive steps are being taken to monitor the water quality and detect any issues before the problems spread undetected.  Greenspan has delivered a water quality monitoring station that integrates a variety of water quality instruments into a real-time online system.

The station includes in-situ monitoring for:

Physical Parameters (YSI Sonde): 

• Temperature, Salinity, pH, Dissolved Oxygen, Turbidity

Nutrients (EnviroTech Instruments AutoLAB): 

• Nitrate, Ammonia, Phosphate using a wet chemistry analyser as Ion Selective Electrodes are ineffective in the marine environment

Biological Activity (YSI Sonde):

• Chlorophyll, Blue Green Algae

Pollutants (Turner Designs):

• Oil (Crude and Refined)

Traditionally, instruments performing these measurements require frequent maintenance, however the system uses an innovative multi-depth flow through sampling system that keeps the instruments protected on shore, dry in between measurements and in light proof chambers.  This solves the problems of bio-fouling, maintaining instruments without divers and obtaining measurements at multiple depths through the profile while minimizing hardware costs.  With the same instrument being used to measure water quality conditions at various depths, instrument variability has been eliminated, providing meaningful depth inter-comparison beyond the accuracy of most instruments.

Above: Crude oil reaction to rainfall event

In terms of the measurement system, the Campbell Scientific CR1000 provides all the measurement and control for full remote operation, including various modes such as:

• Low Temperature Shutdown.  The site can experience freezing conditions in the coastal waters so to protect the instruments the system is configured with a low temperature shutdown which stops water sampling, to be resumed only when the conditions warm up sufficiently

•  Manual mode.  All instruments can be run at higher sampling frequencies or in continuous recording to sample the water conditions during suspicious events
  
• Onboard instrument calibration.  The Nutrient analyser is equipped with reagents and standards for automatic calibration.  As both the instrument performance and the quality of the reagents/standards may change over time, automatic routines are used to run the standards through the system and use these to automatically correct the measured data for decay and drift.  The data logger is programmed with the routines for determining calibration coefficients for each parameter, in real time.

Above: Greenspan and Chinese Academy of Science staff checking the system performance

The CR1000 also manages the provision of data to various sources in real time – with a base station running Greenspan’s EnviroSCADA (with native Chinese support) and ENVAULT (www.envault.com.au) both receiving data in real time.  Aquatic Informatics Aquarius is also used to process the data for gaps, drift and other corrections before reporting to national agencies.

Above:Site inside hut with floating arm visible-Yantai Harbour

From the initial performance of the system, the benefits of the flow through system have been clearly demonstrated.  As shown by the photos below, there has been significant growth in the high nutrient and high light warmer waters near the surface, while the instrument inside the flow through system has no visible growth or degradation of the instrument condition.

Above: The intake arm with growth after 6 weeks

Above: The YSI before cleaning after the same period of time

The inter-comparison data between two nearby depths (in this case for blue green algae) also demonstrates the ability to detect small but discernible differences in the measurements beyond the accuracy of the instrument, even when the absolute value of the measurement is very small.


 For more information on the project, visit Greenspan’s Gallery & Videos at http://www.greenspan.com.au.

The Effect Of Lipids On Methane Emission

 Centre of Advanced Animal Science (CAAS), University of Queensland, Gatton Campus 

Methane chambers were constructed in climate control rooms within CAAS. There are two chambers within each of the two climate control rooms. Within each chamber are two steers housed in individual pens.  Methane emissions for each chamber are calculated using methane concentrations and airflow measurement within the supply and exhaust air ducts. Each duct is fitted with Debimo air flow measuring blades (Kimo®) and pressure transmitters CP200 (Kimo®). The datalogger acquires the airflow measurements from each of the six ducts every 15 minutes.  

Above: Each Chamber houses 2 steers

Data Logger - CR1000

Sensors & Peripherals - Debimo air flow measuring blades (Kimo®) are fitted in each of the six ducts (two supply and 4 exhaust).  Pressure transmitters CP200 (Kimo®) at each duct read in L/sec.  In terms of programming the supply ducts are 10V out = 2000L  while the exhaust ducts are 10V = 1000L.  Methane concentration within each duct is measured using an infra red technique (Columbus Instruments, Ohio, USA).  All equipment is in the plant room above the climate control rooms.

Above: Methane analyser and CR100

What parameters are being measured?

The parameters of interest are methane concentration and airflow within each duct.

Communications & Networking -  Data is retrieved on a laptop.  Programming was performed by Daniel Roebuck, Campbell Scientific

Project Description - This project focuses on the measurement of methane in Bos indicus cattle fed tropical pastures and supplemented with various lipids.  Methane is a digestive by-product from cattle and is a major greenhouse gas. Lipids can reduce methane emissions and are also a source of energy. Beef production systems in northern Australia use Bos indicus cattle grazed on subtropical pastures. These pastures generate high methane emissions and are seasonally of poor quality. The purpose of this project is to investigate the impact of lipids on the suppression of methane emissions and improvements in growth rate of cattle fed a diet of subtropical pasture. The lipids include algal meal, sunflower oil and whole cottonseed.   No research has been published with regard to methane emissions in cattle fed subtropical pastures supplemented with lipids. 

The 32 steers are supplemented for at least 50 days, food intake recorded daily and liveweight measured weekly.   Steers enter the chambers for four days (one day equilibration and three day emission measurement).

Above: Plant room ducts (above chambers)

This is a joint project with University of Queensland and DEEDI.  It is funded by MLA (meat and livestock association).  This project is headed by Assoc. Professor Athol Klieve. Karen Harper manages and runs this steer trial.

Case study courtesy of  Karen Harper University of Queensland.

Charles Sturt Uni Rhizolysimeter Project

The new Charles Sturt University (CSU) Rhizolysimeter is the largest root-growth research facility in the world. The complex contains 72 intact soil monoliths encased in steel tubes. The encased soil monoliths are arranged in rows of 18 in two underground rhizolysimeter laboratories (2 rows in each lab) that allow access to the side of the soil cores beneath the soil surface. The design of the facility allows for nondestructive, in situ, and high temporal resolution measurements of integrative root growth and soil water dynamics. The soil monoliths can be fitted with a wide range of sensors. Campbell Scientific Australia are installing a total of 576 TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer) sensors, 8 in each soil monolith. The CS610 3-rod TDR sensors are connected to a network of multiplexers controlled by a CR1000 data logger.

View of the Rhizolysimeter site, the smaller old site can be seen to the left of the picture.

Inserting the CS610 probes into the drilled holes.

Crane over Lab 2 lifting the cores to provide access for drilling and installation of CS610 TDR probes.

Lifting the cores with a crane to provide access for drilling and inserting the top four CS610 probes.

Drilling holes in the lab for installing the CS610 TDR probes

More drilling!

Wiring up in Lab 1

Lab 1 with most of the enclosures installed.

Rain shades for sliding over the cores










Underneath

A Comparison of Campbell Scientific's Top Selling Data Loggers

This video serves as an introduction to our new generation of dataloggers; it describes the number and types of channels which are available for measurement, which communication protocols are supported and relative strengths of each type of data logger. For those who have not dealt with Campbell Scientific data loggers before, this video will give a good idea of what is available and which model might be most appropriate for your application.