NWDTW 2024

Open forum to discuss LDM Issues

Do you use SVMAQ/SVMobileAQ, Superfly, QRev, RIVRS, or SedFF to collect surface water, groundwater, water quality, or meteorological data? Do you manage field crews that use these applications? Are you a Local Data Manager that configures these applications for field users? If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, please come to this listening session with your likes, gripes, and ideas.

The LISST-ABS sensor, developed by Sequoia Scientific, was designed as an alternative to turbidimeters which rely on optical back scatter (OBS) for estimating suspended-sediment concentrations (SSCs) in surface waters. The acoustic backscatter sensor (ABS) emits an 8-megahertz (MHz) acoustic signal that returns to the sensor as backscatter, the intensity of which is directly translated to a sediment concentration. The relation between the signal and backscatter intensity is nearly constant beyond the Raleigh limit at 8 MHz for grain sizes larger than about 60 micrometers (µm; Agrawal and others, 2019). However, the ABS fails to accurately quantify concentrations containing large amounts of fine grains (< 60 µm). Therefore, a pairing factor is needed to predict SSC more accurately for systems transporting large amounts of grains

Acoustic instrumentation can be used to accurately and cost-effectively provide time-series and discrete estimates of suspended-sediment concentration, load, and sediment particle sizes, which are essential for creating informed solutions to many sediment-related environmental, engineering, and land management concerns. Historically, scientists have developed relations between suspended sediment characteristics and other parameters, most commonly measured streamflow, to estimate sediment information when physical sediment samples can’t be collected. Approaches using streamflow can have substantial accuracy limitations because of hysteresis effects, however. As a result, the use of more direct surrogate methods such as acoustic methods have become increasingly important. Interagency efforts in recent years have advanced the testing, methods development, operational guidelines, and training on acoustic methods for measuring suspended sediment. Scientists and technicians interested in using these methods are faced with many decisions on type of application and deployment: horizontal profiling, vertical profiling, or point acoustic instruments; single or multi-frequency instruments; continuous or discrete sediment measurements; and fixed or mobile instrument deployments. To promote cost effective, accurate, and high-resolution fluvial sediment data for the Nation, the interagency Sediment Acoustic Leadership Team (SALT) develops technical guidance and training for using acoustic instruments to measure aquatic sediment. Even though acoustic instrumentation has been used successfully to measure suspended-sediment characteristics through the world, some deployments have been unsuccessful because of limited technical guidance and selection of an inappropriate method. To guide decisions on method selection, the SALT has compiled the state of the science for the main types of acoustics-based suspended-sediment measurement methods in development, testing, and use, and has created a flowchart to guide method selection.

The Measurement Priority Summary (MPS) tool was designed to give scientists and supervisors a data-driven approach to planning stream discharge measurements. The Pennsylvania and Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana (OKI) Water Science Centers have partnered to build an R Shiny application that is based on the OKI Excel workbook of the same name. Using the infrastructure of Posit Connect to host the application allows data updates to be automatically scheduled at any frequency and it ensures that all users are looking at the same data.

The primary focus of the MPS tool is to incorporate field trip information, rating curves, and current conditions including direction of sage into a table to determine which sites are the most critical to visit at any given time. Sites that have not been visited at the current stage of the stream in at least 5 years are marked as priority gages. This table also includes gage height forecasts from the National Weather Service (NWS) for selected sites and shows how much a higher a stage is predicted to be over the following three days. On a separate tab, a secondary table shows only the sites that are listed as being in priority for measurement. In these tables, many of the fields are sort and search enabled, allowing a user to quickly find information about field trips, most recent measurements, and gage forecasts. MPS is connected to SIMS so it is updated as field trip assignments change.

MPS also includes tabs with an interactive map and an individual site report to provide additional graphical data. The map shows current priority status as well as current and predicted flood levels from NWS for each site. Map overlays include polygon shapefiles of predicted flooding and excessive rainfall forecasts for the following three days. Links from map popups are available for the NWIS and National Water Prediction Service (NWPS) site pages. The individual site report generates a table, bar plot, and line plot for the previous 365 days based on the selected site.

This presentation and listening session is oriented toward anyone who needs to understand upcoming changes to features currently being provided by the WaterWatch product (https://waterwatch.usgs.gov), from hydrotechs and program managers. WaterWatch is nearing the end of life and key features are being modernized through Water Data for the Nation (WDFN) including the National Water Dashboard and new statistical features expected in water services.

In this listening session, we will give a brief overview of some of the major changes in public delivery, which include changes to delivery method (website vs API vs Python package), integration of statistical visualizations into other WDFN features, and new ways of grouping map layers in National Water Dashboard. The remainder of the session will be an open discussion for attendees to ask questions, provide comments and share feedback on how these changes could impact your work and that of your cooperators and data users.

This course will be of interest for field personnel across the Water Enterprise that have to daily QA/QC their real-time data. This product of the Network Operations Management System (NOMS) project is the planned replacement support tool for field personnel to use in lieu of NWISWeb for all sites, but particularly for sites coded with internal or cooperator-only access. This presentation will go over the latest improvements to WADERS based upon user feedback and look to gain additional user feedback for future releases.

This talk will present a basic overview of continuous groundwater data collection including discussion on site selection and conditions, and equipment selection, calibration, and installation. Procedures for a general site visit including discrete measurement, data download, equipment servicing, and site maintenance will be included.