The Mini Buoy: a novel hydrodynamics sensor for long-term deployments in coastal wetlands

Author(s):  
Cai Ladd ◽  
Alejandra Vovides ◽  
Christian Schwarz ◽  
Gail Chmura ◽  
Mohammad Basyuni ◽  
...  

<p>Hydrological monitoring is crucial for management and research in coastal wetlands. However, long-term monitoring is scarce due to the high cost of conventional hydrological equipment. The development of open-source and low-power sensors over the past decade presents an opportunity for enabling long-term, high spatial resolution monitoring of hydrodynamics in the intertidal zone. Here, we present the design, calibration, and application of one such sensor: the Mini Buoy. The Mini Buoy is a battery-powered accelerometer and data logger, contained in a standard centrifuge tube. The Mini Buoy floats upright when inundated, and moves freely about a tether anchored to the substrate. Acceleration is measured along a single axis of the buoy, and motion along the axis is used to measure inundation, currents, and waves. Deployments of up to 6 months are possible, and the buoy can measure current and wave orbital velocities as low as 0.05 m/s. Mini Buoys cost less than €350 to assemble, and the materials are globally available. We present the successful application of Mini Buoys in four contrasting scenarios: (1) characterising waves under calm and stormy conditions; (2) linking saltmarsh erosion-expansion patterns with hydrological exposure; (3) identifying high-resolution spatial variability of waves and currents along a saltmarsh edge; and (4) assessing the suitability of former aquaculture ponds for mangrove restoration. Mini Buoys are also being deployed along mangrove fringes across Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh, in order to detect thresholds in hydrodynamic forcing responsible for triggering erosion or progradation events. Mini Buoys offer an exciting and novel tool for coastal management worldwide.</p>

Author(s):  
Robert Klinck ◽  
Ben Bradshaw ◽  
Ruby Sandy ◽  
Silas Nabinacaboo ◽  
Mannie Mameanskum ◽  
...  

The Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach is an Aboriginal community located in northern Quebec near the Labrador Border. Given the region’s rich iron deposits, the Naskapi Nation has considerable experience with major mineral development, first in the 1950s to the 1980s, and again in the past decade as companies implement plans for further extraction. This has raised concerns regarding a range of environmental and socio-economic impacts that may be caused by renewed development. These concerns have led to an interest among the Naskapi to develop a means to track community well-being over time using indicators of their own design. Exemplifying community-engaged research, this paper describes the beginning development of such a tool in fall 2012—the creation of a baseline of community well-being against which mining-induced change can be identified. Its development owes much to the remarkable and sustained contribution of many key members of the Naskapi Nation. If on-going surveying is completed based on the chosen indicators, the Nation will be better positioned to recognize shifts in its well-being and to communicate these shifts to its partners. In addition, long-term monitoring will allow the Naskapi Nation to contribute to more universal understanding of the impacts of mining for Indigenous peoples.


Author(s):  
G.Yu. Yamskikh ◽  
A.V. Kozhukhovsky ◽  
K.V. Marusin ◽  
E.A. Fedorova

The article presents the analysis and prediction of coastal processes at the site of the Krasnoyarsk reservoir in the village of Kurtak where there are the most intensive processes of coastal reshaping. Over the past 50 years, the coast has receded here by an average of 350 m and continues to actively collapse at a speed of 3-5 m per year. Despite the fact that the intensity of coastal processes in this area has significantly decreased (mainly due to the general decrease in the level of the Krasnoyarsk reservoir), the rate of retreat of the shore is still high. However, it can be concluded that for the researched area the coastal reshaping does not pose a real threat to economic activity in the next 30 years. The article tested various methods of forecasting coastal processes, selected the most appropriate for the shores of a similar type. Verification of models was carried out on the basis of data of long-term monitoring of the site under consideration, which gave the chance to compare results of forecasts on different techniques to real retreat of the coast on this site.


1998 ◽  
Vol 85 (5) ◽  
pp. 1974-1981 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Andrews

Few commercial products are available for investigators who wish to monitor multiple physiological and behavioral variables in unrestrained subjects. When telemetry is not practical, e.g., in studies of at-sea diving physiology, one of the only options is to design and build a custom data-logging instrument. This paper describes how a data logger was developed for the successful long-term monitoring of dive depth, swim speed, heart rate, water temperature, and multiple body temperatures from free-ranging northern elephant seals. The task was facilitated by using a commercially available single-board computer designed specifically for portable multichannel data acquisition and, where possible, off-the-shelf sensors/transducers available with integrated signal-conditioning circuits. A smaller data logger for monitoring the electrocardiogram, body temperature, and dive behavior of double-crested cormorants is also described to illustrate the flexibility and simplicity of this approach. Although it is customized for diving animals, with incorporation of the appropriate sensors the basic design should be applicable to studies of comparative, environmental, or exercise physiology involving most medium-to-large animals, including humans.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S301) ◽  
pp. 417-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Handler

AbstractWe studied seven β Cep stars photometrically over the past ten years. Some showed amplitude variations, some frequency changes, and others exhibited stable pulsations, with no consistent picture yet emerging. Additionally, 12 Lac appears to have a 6.7-yr binary companion.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Shupova ◽  
Volodymyr Tytar

Since the 1980s there has been a long-term decline in numbers and contraction of range in Europe, including Ukraine. Our specific goals were to reconstruct the climatically suitable range of the species in Ukraine before the 1980s, gain better knowledge on its requirements, compare the past and current suitable areas, infer the regional and environmental variables that best explain its occurrence, and quantify the overall range change in the country. For these purposes we created a database consisting of 347 records of the roller made ever in Ukraine. We employed a species distribution modeling (SDM) approach to hindcast changes in the suitable range of the roller during historical times across Ukraine and to derive spatially explicit predictions of climatic suitability for the species under current climate. SDMs were created for three time intervals (before 1980, 1985-2009, 2010-2021) using corresponding climate data extracted from the TerraClim database. SDMs show a decline of suitable for rollers areas in the country from 85 to 46%. Several factors, including land cover and use, human population density and climate, that could have contributed to the decline of the species in Ukraine were considered. We suggest climate change and its speed (velocity) have been responsible for shaping the contemporary home range of the European roller.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S287) ◽  
pp. 199-208
Author(s):  
Anita M. S. Richards

AbstractThis review summarises current observations of masers around evolved stars and models for their location and behaviour, followed by some of the many highlights from the past 5 years. Some of these have been the fruition of long-term monitoring, a vital aspect of study of stars which are both periodically variable and prone to rapid outbursts or transition to a new evolutionary stage. Interferometric imaging of masers provide the highest-resolution probes of the stellar wind, but their exponential amplification and variability means that multiple observations are needed to investigate questions such as what drives the wind from the stellar surface; why does it accelerate slowly over many tens of stellar radii; what causes maser variability. VLBI parallaxes have improved our understanding of individual objects and of Galactic populations. Masers from wide range of binary and post-AGB objects are accessible to sensitive modern instruments, including energetic symbiotic systems. Masers have been detected up to THz frequencies withHerscheland ALMA's ability to resolve a wide range of maser and thermal lines will provide accurate constraints on physical conditions including during dust formation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Roth ◽  
Sebastian Zoder ◽  
Assad Ali Zaman ◽  
Simon Thorn ◽  
Jürgen Schmidl

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew P. Duda ◽  
Kathryn E. Hargan ◽  
Neal Michelutti ◽  
Jules M. Blais ◽  
Christopher Grooms ◽  
...  

The lack of long-term monitoring data for many wildlife populations is a limiting factor in establishing meaningful and achievable conservation goals. Even for well-monitored species, time series are often very short relative to the timescales required to understand a population’s baseline conditions before the contemporary period of increased human impacts. To fill in this critical information gap, techniques have been developed to use sedimentary archives to provide insights into long-term population dynamics over timescales of decades to millennia. Lake and pond sediments receiving animal inputs (e.g., feces, feathers) typically preserve a record of ecological and environmental information that reflects past changes in population size and dynamics. With a focus on bird-related studies, we review the development and use of several paleolimnological proxies to reconstruct past colony sizes, including trace metals, isotopes, lipid biomolecules, diatoms, pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs, invertebrate sub-fossils, pigments, and others. We summarize how animal-influenced sediments, cored from around the world, have been successfully used in addressing some of the most challenging questions in conservation biology, namely: How dynamic are populations on long-term timescales? How may populations respond to climate change? How have populations responded to human intrusion? Finally, we conclude with an assessment of the current state of the field, challenges to overcome, and future potential for research.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document