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Towards the Development of an Affordable and Practical Light Attenuation Turbidity Sensor for Remote Near Real-Time Aquatic Monitoring

Turbidity is a key environmental parameter that is used in the determination of water quality. The turbidity of a water body gives an indication of how much suspended sediment is present, which directly impacts the clarity of the water (i.e., whether it is cloudy or clear). Various commercial nephel...

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Autores principales: Trevathan, Jarrod, Read, Wayne, Schmidtke, Simon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7180878/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32252446
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20071993
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author Trevathan, Jarrod
Read, Wayne
Schmidtke, Simon
author_facet Trevathan, Jarrod
Read, Wayne
Schmidtke, Simon
author_sort Trevathan, Jarrod
collection PubMed
description Turbidity is a key environmental parameter that is used in the determination of water quality. The turbidity of a water body gives an indication of how much suspended sediment is present, which directly impacts the clarity of the water (i.e., whether it is cloudy or clear). Various commercial nephelometric and optical approaches and products exist for electronically measuring turbidity. However, most of these approaches are unsuitable or not viable for collecting data remotely. This paper investigates ways for incorporating a turbidity sensor into an existing remote aquatic environmental monitoring platform that delivers data in near real-time (i.e., 15-min intervals). First, we examine whether an off-the-shelf turbidity sensor can be modified to provide remote and accurate turbidity measurements. Next, we present an inexpensive design for a practical light attenuation turbidity sensor. We outline the sensor’s design rationale and how various technical and physical constraints were overcome. The turbidity sensor is calibrated against a commercial turbidimeter using a Formazin standard. Results indicate that the sensor readings are indicative of actual changes in turbidity, and a calibration curve for the sensor could be attained. The turbidity sensor was trialled in different types of water bodies over nine months to determine the system’s robustness and responsiveness to the environment.
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spelling pubmed-71808782020-05-01 Towards the Development of an Affordable and Practical Light Attenuation Turbidity Sensor for Remote Near Real-Time Aquatic Monitoring Trevathan, Jarrod Read, Wayne Schmidtke, Simon Sensors (Basel) Article Turbidity is a key environmental parameter that is used in the determination of water quality. The turbidity of a water body gives an indication of how much suspended sediment is present, which directly impacts the clarity of the water (i.e., whether it is cloudy or clear). Various commercial nephelometric and optical approaches and products exist for electronically measuring turbidity. However, most of these approaches are unsuitable or not viable for collecting data remotely. This paper investigates ways for incorporating a turbidity sensor into an existing remote aquatic environmental monitoring platform that delivers data in near real-time (i.e., 15-min intervals). First, we examine whether an off-the-shelf turbidity sensor can be modified to provide remote and accurate turbidity measurements. Next, we present an inexpensive design for a practical light attenuation turbidity sensor. We outline the sensor’s design rationale and how various technical and physical constraints were overcome. The turbidity sensor is calibrated against a commercial turbidimeter using a Formazin standard. Results indicate that the sensor readings are indicative of actual changes in turbidity, and a calibration curve for the sensor could be attained. The turbidity sensor was trialled in different types of water bodies over nine months to determine the system’s robustness and responsiveness to the environment. MDPI 2020-04-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7180878/ /pubmed/32252446 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20071993 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Trevathan, Jarrod
Read, Wayne
Schmidtke, Simon
Towards the Development of an Affordable and Practical Light Attenuation Turbidity Sensor for Remote Near Real-Time Aquatic Monitoring
title Towards the Development of an Affordable and Practical Light Attenuation Turbidity Sensor for Remote Near Real-Time Aquatic Monitoring
title_full Towards the Development of an Affordable and Practical Light Attenuation Turbidity Sensor for Remote Near Real-Time Aquatic Monitoring
title_fullStr Towards the Development of an Affordable and Practical Light Attenuation Turbidity Sensor for Remote Near Real-Time Aquatic Monitoring
title_full_unstemmed Towards the Development of an Affordable and Practical Light Attenuation Turbidity Sensor for Remote Near Real-Time Aquatic Monitoring
title_short Towards the Development of an Affordable and Practical Light Attenuation Turbidity Sensor for Remote Near Real-Time Aquatic Monitoring
title_sort towards the development of an affordable and practical light attenuation turbidity sensor for remote near real-time aquatic monitoring
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7180878/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32252446
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20071993
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