Using Ferries for Marine Water Quality Monitoring in the Salish Sea
Presentation Abstract
To better understand and predict water quality throughout Puget Sound, the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) has sought creative approaches to collecting monitoring data. In 2009, Ecology partnered with Clipper Navigations, Inc. and installed oceanographic sensors on the Victoria Clipper IV ferry vessel. The twice-daily runs between Seattle and Victoria, B.C. provide phytoplankton concentration and temperature data to help understand spatial gradients, variability, and dynamics of water masses, river plumes, and algal blooms. These data can also be used for daily calibration of satellite images, thus enabling Ecology to stitch together the long-term data from our marine flight program with satellite data. In 2013, Ecology partnered with the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington to install instruments on Washington State Ferries (WSF) that will provide surface-to-bottom measurements of current velocities across Admiralty Reach from Port Townsend to Keystone. This is where water exchange occurs between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. Direct observations of exchange velocities have been shown to correlate well with the surface signals from the Clipper measurements (Deppe et al, 2013), and thus Clipper data can be combined with the WSF data to give a comprehensive description of the exchange through Admiralty Reach. These combined data sets are necessary to quantify the exchange of water masses and therefore to manage water quality (e.g., nutrient enrichment, low dissolved oxygen conditions, harmful algal blooms, ocean acidification, and the transport of toxic chemicals), improve our water quality assessments, and improve the performance of numerical models in Puget Sound.
Session Title
Session S-99Z: Poster Gala
Conference Track
Poster Gala
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2014 : Seattle, Wash.)
Document Type
Event
Start Date
1-5-2014 5:00 PM
End Date
1-5-2014 6:30 PM
Location
Room 6C
Genre/Form
conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events); posters
Contributing Repository
Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Water quality--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)--Measurement; Ferries--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)
Geographic Coverage
Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)
Rights
This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Using Ferries for Marine Water Quality Monitoring in the Salish Sea
Room 6C
To better understand and predict water quality throughout Puget Sound, the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) has sought creative approaches to collecting monitoring data. In 2009, Ecology partnered with Clipper Navigations, Inc. and installed oceanographic sensors on the Victoria Clipper IV ferry vessel. The twice-daily runs between Seattle and Victoria, B.C. provide phytoplankton concentration and temperature data to help understand spatial gradients, variability, and dynamics of water masses, river plumes, and algal blooms. These data can also be used for daily calibration of satellite images, thus enabling Ecology to stitch together the long-term data from our marine flight program with satellite data. In 2013, Ecology partnered with the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington to install instruments on Washington State Ferries (WSF) that will provide surface-to-bottom measurements of current velocities across Admiralty Reach from Port Townsend to Keystone. This is where water exchange occurs between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. Direct observations of exchange velocities have been shown to correlate well with the surface signals from the Clipper measurements (Deppe et al, 2013), and thus Clipper data can be combined with the WSF data to give a comprehensive description of the exchange through Admiralty Reach. These combined data sets are necessary to quantify the exchange of water masses and therefore to manage water quality (e.g., nutrient enrichment, low dissolved oxygen conditions, harmful algal blooms, ocean acidification, and the transport of toxic chemicals), improve our water quality assessments, and improve the performance of numerical models in Puget Sound.
