Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID RI_2025_3

River Discharge Monitoring from Remote Ground Motion

Institute: Rhode Island
Year Established: 2024 Start Date: 2024-09-01 End Date: 2025-08-31
Total Federal Funds: $24,991 Total Non-Federal Funds: $24,958

Principal Investigators: Brian Savage

Project Summary: Keeping track of how much water is in Rhode Island’s rivers and streams is important. It helps with planning, budgeting, and responding to emergencies. Changes in weather and rainfall due to climate change could put more pressure on big rivers and make smaller ones more important. This study proposes a new way to measure river flow using low-cost seismometers, which are devices that measure ground motion. This could make the river monitoring network in Rhode Island better and more detailed. Some promising experiments have shown that it can accurately predict river flow using signals measured along river systems in different parts of the world. If this project is successful, more low-cost instruments will be added to the existing monitoring network. This should help us keep a better track of water in the state and improve our estimates of how much water is available.