Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2006IN187B

Wireless Monitoring of Purdue's Constructed Wetland

Institute: Indiana
Year Established: 2006 Start Date: 2006-03-01 End Date: 2008-05-31
Total Federal Funds: $33,766 Total Non-Federal Funds: $67,534

Principal Investigators: Chad Jafvert, Rao Govindaraju

Project Summary: The purpose of this proposal is to request funds for the purchase of water quality monitoring instrumentation and wireless routers to be installed at Purdues constructed wetlands, and maintained by Purdue University undergraduate students enrolled in the EPICS course: Constructed Wetlands/Water Quality (class website: http://epics.ecn.purdue.edu/cwwq/ ). EPICS is the acronym for Engineering Projects in Community Service and is a collection of engineering courses taken for credit but undergraduate students, with the Constructed Wetlands/Water Quality section having extensive enrollment from across campus. This projects focus is on: (1) employing innovative wireless continuous monitoring strategies for assessing water quality at remote locations, (2) training undergraduate students in sensor and wireless technologies as they relate to environmental assessment and protection, and (3) leveraging project infrastructure and results to attract additional resources to the State of Indiana to monitor environmental parameters at a broader scale (i.e., watershed level). In this study, through the use of V-notch weir boxes, water inflow and outflow rates will be monitored continuously at the site, and through wireless sensors and a sampling campaign over January-May 2007, specific chemical and biological parameters will be measured to calculate mass balances of water and chemical and biological constituents across the wetlands. Funding of this proposal will allow for the purchase of standard instrumentation that will allow for this study to be completed, and also will allow for easily supplementing the site with additional instrumentation when newer innovative sensors become available.