Forecasting water quality

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research 1:33 Forecasting water quality

By:

Lee Friesland

6 Mar 2025 2

Every week, teams at the Virginia Tech Center for Ecosystem Forecasting make a trip to Falling Creek Reservoir in Vinton, Virginia. The reservoir is one of four that is managed by The Western Virginia Water Authority, and researchers for the center collect data to track the quality of water in the area.

The center for Ecosystem forecasting is a group of collaborators at Virginia Tech and both outside the university that focus on forecasting, but instead of the weather, we focus on looking at it ecologically. We work closely with the Western Virginia Water Authority to help them use the data that we collect and the forecast for them to make decisions. We're collecting various samples like nutrient samples and metal samples. We collect it at different depths, so we get the profile from the surface down to the bottom of the floor of the reservoir. And then talking about my part of the research, we look at the carbon emissions or maybe greenhouse gas emissions. Focusing particularly on carbon dioxide and methane fluxes from the reservoir. And this is very important in the context of climate change here, where we're trying to see how lakes and reservoirs are changing with climate change. A lot of concern is about the amount of dissolved oxygen in the lake. There's a wireless sensor network that's running out here that's actively collecting data as we speak, and my current project is working on basically improving that network and collecting data to characterize how that network performs. The reservoir allows us to look at different scenarios. It gives us a place to have all of our sensors and try new things.

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