USGS Monitoring
BEAR lAKE WATER QUALITY MOITORING PROJECTS BY usgs
BEAR LAKE WATER QUALITY DATA VISUALIZATIONS SEVEN WATER-QUALITY PARAMETERS ARE MONITORED AND PLOTTED WITH DEPTH OVER TIME FOR TWO LOCATIONS ON BEAR LAKE EACH SEASON.
DATA IS SENT THROUGH CELLULAR SERVICE AT SYNCHRONIZED INTERVALS TO THE USGS NATIONAL WATER INFORMATION SYSTEM (NWIS), WHERE IT IS STORED.
THE STORED DATA IS THEN REVIEWED, CONSOLIDATED, AND PUSHED TO INTERACTIVE DATA VISUALIZATIONS WEEKLY.
Water quality monitoring at Bear Lake tends to be done on a seasonal or more sporadic basis, which makes it difficult to identify short and long term water quality changes related to the issues described above, and build a robust baseline dataset that will be necessary for assessing future impacts to the lake. In addition, there are few weather stations in the vicinity of Bear Lake, which makes it difficult to interpret physical and chemical water data (e.g., water temperature and dissolved oxygen variability in response to net short and longwave radiation) or to compute lake energy budgets that are needed for evaporation estimates. To enhance water quality and weather monitoring at Bear Lake and address concerns about lake water quality and water budgets, the USGS, in cooperation with several local and state organizations/agencies, proposes to install two automated water quality profiling and weather monitoring platforms. .