Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2008KY110B

A comparison of methods for measuring suspended sediment and discharge in wadeable streams

Institute: Kentucky
Year Established: 2008 Start Date: 2008-03-01 End Date: 2009-06-30
Total Federal Funds: $3,899 Total Non-Federal Funds: $8,298

Principal Investigators: Christine McMichael, Steven Reid

Project Summary: In order to optimize future planned assessment and monitoring activities in the Triplett Creek watershed, a better understanding of the relationships between manually- and automatically-collected water quality and quantity data is needed. The objective of this project is to collect and compare suspended sediment and discharge data obtained using a Teledyne portable autosampler, EPA-based methods, and USGS-based methods. This information will be used by researchers to quantitatively compare the accuracy and reliability of data obtained using these three approaches in the targeted waterways. Autosampler-based data collection and field-based measurements of suspended sediment and discharge will be conducted simultaneously, at the same site, during flow events of different magnitudes. During the study period a minimum of six events will be sampled for a period of six hours each at representative locations in the targeted waterways. Results of this study will help researchers to calibrate data obtained via autosamplers by directly comparing these data to those simultaneously collected using cross-channel manual methods.