Collaborative Research: Facility Support: Center for Transformative Environmental Monitoring Programs (CTEMPs)

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1440506SelkerThis grant provides operational facility support for a collaborative effort between Oregon State University (PI: Selker) and the University of Nevada Reno (PI: Tyler) to allow for continued operations over the next four year of the Center for Transformative Environmental Monitoring Programs (CTEMPs). CTEMPs offers community support for planning, training, equipment loan and field implementation using distributed fiber optic Raman backscatter Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) to allow for unprecedented observation of the spatial and temporal distribution of temperature for geoscience and environmental applications including but not limited to, snow, groundwater and watershed hydrology, aquatic and terrestrial ecology, karst geology, soil science (including permafrost studies), physical limnology and oceanography, micrometeorology and glaciology. High resolution DTS systems allow for high spatial (= 0.25 m) and high accuracy (within 0.1 - 0.3 deg C) observations of river bottom, lake, or estuary bottom, snow pack, soil horizon or atmospheric temperatures over length scales from 0.25 ? 2500 m. at high temporal frequency (1 Hz). Temperature precision of +/ 0.01 deg C can be achieved when observation are sampled hourly. When placed in a stream or river, fiber optic DTS allows for observation of the location, temperature, and flux of each groundwater inflow, calculation of an exact heat budget to determine hyporheic exchange, and observation of micro-thermal habitats critical to successful larval fish recruitment. DTS systems were originally developed for applications in the oil and electrical power transmission industries and for fire detection in high rise buildings. Support under this grant will allow for: 1) continued provision of high resolution temperature sensing equipment to the geosciences community using a recently expanded DTS instrument pool; 2) develop and promote the use of actively heated optical fiber sensing for the measurement of soil moisture and fluid flux, and 3) to incorporate the rapidly emerging, but logistically challenging, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) technology to hydrologic and earth surface monitoring. The CTEMPs facility will offer hands-on training and knowledge dissemination, through its formal designation as a CUAHSI Hydrologic Measurement Facility (HMF) Node and formal agreements with CUAHSI to promote two hands-on workshops per year as well as training on both the OSU and UNR campuses. Outreach to K-8 will also be tested at the T.L. Wells Discovery Museum in Reno through incorporation of DTS in an interactive river display.***