Mini-subs exploring Sacramento River

From CNet News:

If you reel in a small sub instead of a rainbow trout from the Sacramento River this summer, don’t call Homeland Security. It belongs to a team of researchers from the University of California at Berkeley trying to learn more about the river currents in the delta.

The researchers are working with propelled 4-foot-long submarines and floating drifters equipped with GPS-receivers for positioning, GSM-modules for communication, and sensors inside for recording temperature, salinity, and currents. “We are prototyping an infrastructure and testing it in the delta,” said Professor Alexander Bayen, who leads the team at UC Berkeley’s Civil Systems Department.

The purpose of all this is to collect data to help the state better understand the river. And researchers have good reason to believe there’s urgency to their work. With drought looming for most of California, understanding the state’s water supply (much of the state’s population drinks run-off from snow melting in the Sierra Nevada range) and how the system works is critical.

The Sacramento River is already monitored by 50 permanent water stations in about 1,000 miles of water channels, but that collection of data is not designed to handle emergency situations, according to the researchers. “It’s totally undersampled if you want a precise, online, real-time measurement of the whole state of the delta,” Bayen said.

Read the full text of this story from CNet News by clicking here.

Comments

Admin

• Log in

Credits

Powered by Vertigo & WordPress
WordPress Themes by Brian Gardner