This is the main page for the water-quality monitoring team project for the UMass Public Science Maker class.

Objectives

1. Create a durable WQ monitoring device using an Arduino
2. Use device to monitor WQ of the Tan Brook Watershed

Background

Motivation

Surface water quality has direct impacts on human and ecosystem health, and is increasingly impaired from urban runoff, agriculture, industry, and other human activities. Because of the analytical methods required, water-quality monitoring has historically been expensive, and as a result data coverage in time and space has been sparse. Recent improvements in sensor and computing technology have driven down these costs, to the point where active DIY communities have developed around building WQ-monitoring devices. A few such devices are outlined in the Existing Devices section below.

Tan Brook, Amherst, MA

The Tan Brook Watershed is part of the overall Connecticut River watershed. It runs from its headwaters north of Strong Street and west of Wildwood Cemetery past Wildwood elementary school, Amherst junior high, Amherst Regional High School, and flows north into the Campus Pond at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The water continues to flow west towards the Mullins Center before it finally empties into the Mill River.

The brook is essentially an underground system of culverts that convey storm water runoff from town buildings and roads into the UMass Campus Pond. Despite the vast area the Tan Brook watershed covers, being situated underground makes it relatively unheard of and unidentifiable on maps.

Despite their practicality for the implementation of infrastructure, the culverts of Tan Brook have been the cause of increased flooding in the watershed area, increased inflow of pollutants from lawns, impervious surfaces, and an overall degradation of the stream water quality.

Residents of Fearing Street, North Pleasant Street and Triangle Street have frequently reported flooded basements Local residents have also reported strong chemical/gasoline odors emanating from the small day-lighted section of the brook located north and south of Fearing Street. Chemical dumping from local tanneries into the stream in the 1820s was commonly practiced, also raises concerns for locals.

With our device, we will be able to monitor the concentration of dissolved solids in the brook.

Existing Devices

Riffle

The Riffle is an open-source conductivity (and temperature?) meter and is a collaborative project from the OpenWater PublicLab initiative. The Riffle is currently under active development, and has at least one spinoff version, the riffle-ito. Future additions may include fluorescence, turbidity, and pressure capabilities.

Riffle-ito

Don Blair's Riffle-ito is a version of the Riffle implemented on Arduino. It is "higher cost and lower functionality" than the Riffle, but is more modifiable thanks to its base hardware. A list of parts with prices is given in this spreadsheet.

Our Device

We will begin by implementing the Riffle-ito. If all goes well (and quickly) we can explore adding sensors beyond the thermistor. UV-254 (for organics) and turbidity seem like good candidates.