Beach Monitoring: Hourly Microbial Indicator and Water Quality Forecast
Mentor 1
Todd Miller
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
29-4-2016 1:30 PM
End Date
29-4-2016 3:30 PM
Description
Great Lakes beaches are recreational resources routinely monitored during the summer beach season for Escherichia coli as an indicator organism for fecal contamination. Current methods for measuring potentially pathogenic E. coli can take up to a day, and do not always provide an accurate representation of beach conditions by the time results are available. In partnership with the Milwaukee Health Department, UWM Zilber School of Public Health monitors Bradford Beach, an urban beach in Milwaukee, WI, six days a week during the summer, taking a morning sample and recording additional environmental variables used in a forecasting model to predict E. coli. In effort to provide the public with more up-to-date conditions of E. coli, we have deployed a water quality-monitoring buoy off the coast of Bradford. The buoy is equipped with sensors to measure factors that affect E. coli levels, and the data collected will be used to create a statistical model to properly forecast bacterial conditions. Based on open source coding, we programed sensors to parallel results of professionally made chlorophyll, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and turbidity sensors. This intent was to make our buoy design feasible and within financial reach for anyone looking to monitor their local body of water.
Beach Monitoring: Hourly Microbial Indicator and Water Quality Forecast
Union Wisconsin Room
Great Lakes beaches are recreational resources routinely monitored during the summer beach season for Escherichia coli as an indicator organism for fecal contamination. Current methods for measuring potentially pathogenic E. coli can take up to a day, and do not always provide an accurate representation of beach conditions by the time results are available. In partnership with the Milwaukee Health Department, UWM Zilber School of Public Health monitors Bradford Beach, an urban beach in Milwaukee, WI, six days a week during the summer, taking a morning sample and recording additional environmental variables used in a forecasting model to predict E. coli. In effort to provide the public with more up-to-date conditions of E. coli, we have deployed a water quality-monitoring buoy off the coast of Bradford. The buoy is equipped with sensors to measure factors that affect E. coli levels, and the data collected will be used to create a statistical model to properly forecast bacterial conditions. Based on open source coding, we programed sensors to parallel results of professionally made chlorophyll, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and turbidity sensors. This intent was to make our buoy design feasible and within financial reach for anyone looking to monitor their local body of water.
