Realtime Velocity

PROJECT PERIOD: Installed November 17, 2004 (one year project)
PROJECT CHIEF: Bob Buchmiller (rcbuchmi@usgs.gov)
STUDY AREA: East Lake and West Lake Okoboji channel
COOPERATING AGENCY: City of Milford, IA

NEED FOR STUDY:

The City of Milford along with several other growing communities surrounding the “Great Lakes” are supplied with water from the Okoboji chain of lakes in north central Iowa. The City of Milford is interested in determining the quantity and quality of the cities water supply. This acoustic device is the first step in determining how much and were the water is coming from.

OBJECTIVES:

Determine the direction and how much water is moving between East and West lake Okoboji.

EQUIPMENT:

A Sontek Argonaut SW was installed to collect velocity and lake stage information in the channel between east and West Okoboji lakes. The device is mounted to the bottom of the channel and is sending information to a data collection platform and goes radio transmitter. Were the data are then transmitted realtime to downlink sites and then input onto the internet.

PROGRESS:

The data from the velocity meter and stage sensor is being used to determine which direction the water is flowing and how much water is flowing in that particular direction. A stage-area rating was developed, which is then factored by the velocity from the Argonaut SW to calculate a realtime discharge. The City of Milford will than be able to say that the water flows in a certain direction, and that there is so much flowing in that direction per day.

The following website shows the realtime velocity and stage provided by the hydro-acoustic equipment.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ia/nwis/uv/?site_no=06604215&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060