Instrumentation Networks
Thirty stream gages exist within the Jordan Basin, amongst those operated by the WEO, USGS, NEON Inc., and Salt Lake County. Real-time discharge and stage height data from each gage is available online. Some also report water temperature. Several stormwater discharge points within Red Butte Creek also have been instrumented with sensors continuously monitoring discharge and water temperature. Episodic sampling has enhanced these measurements with analysis of metals and water isotopes in stormwater.
WEO’s Gradient Along Mountain to Urban Transect (GAMUT) network, installed as part of the 5-year (2012-2018) innovative Urban Transitions and Arid-region Hydrosustainability (iUTAH) program (https://iutahepscor.org/; Jones et al., 2017) includes six coupled terrestrial climate and stream ecohydrology stations located along the wildland to urban land use gradient from the headwaters of Red Butte Canyon to the Jordan River on the Salt Lake Valley floor. Since installation, meteorological stations have continuously recorded incoming and outgoing radiation, vapor pressure, barometric pressure, air temperature, wind speed and direction, ground-level ozone (O3), precipitation, snow depth, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), and soil moisture. Aquatic stations have since continuously recorded stream discharge, water temperature, pH, specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, colored dissolved organic matter, phycocyanin, and chlorophyll. Data from these stations have been augmented by biweekly sampling for water chemistry (e.g., nutrient and dissolved organic carbon concentrations) and Escherichia coli abundance. Periodic synoptic sampling campaigns have complemented these measurements with analysis of isotopes from water, plant tissues, and stream macroinvertebrate communities. Social science surveys conducted as part of the iUTAH program have provided rich information for understanding human perceptions of and access to regional water resources.
One of the permanent observation sites operated by NEON Inc., is located in the Red Butte Canyon RNA. Instrumentation at this site includes sensors that monitor stream discharge and temperature, surface water quality, depth to groundwater, precipitation, eddy covariance, soil moisture, and phenology.
Green infrastructure facilities at the University of Utah have been equipped with automated flow sensors to monitor hydrologic fluxes in and out of bioswales, as well as soil moisture sensors.
Several long-term snowpack study plots exist in the Central Wasatch and are managed by the NRCS and UDOT. These study sites provide information about snowpack depth, density, and snow water equivalent, as well as meteorological data in some cases. At the Atwater Study Plot (ASP; 40.591206 N, 111.637685 W), WEO researchers have paired measurement and aerosol deposition to understand the effect of dust on rates of snowmelt (Skiles et al., 2018). ASP has recently been instrumented to measure radiation fluxes, providing the first full snow energy balance estimates in the Central Wasatch Range. A radiometer with aerosol optical depth measurement capability is located atop a building on the campus of the University of Utah. Additional urban and montane sites will be equipped with dust emission and deposition sensors in the near future.
The Utah Urban CO2 Network (UUCON) includes eight trace gas stations throughout the Salt Lake Valley that span a large elevational gradient extending from Hidden Peak in Albion Basin to the valley floor (Lin et al., 2018; Bares et al., 2019). All of these stations monitor CO2 concentrations, but some stations also record other gases (CO, CH4, NOx, O3), isotopes, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). In addition, sensors affixed to Utah Transit Authority’s light rail system measure emissions of CO2, CH4, O3, and PM2.5 in the urban core (TRAX; Lin et al. 2018; Mitchell et al., 2018; Mendoza et al., 2019) and a mobile lab is driven around the metropolitan area on a regular basis measuring concentrations of CO, CO2, CH4, NOx, O3 and PM2.5. Together, UUCON and these mobile monitoring platforms comprise the Salt Lake Valley Greenhouse Gas Monitoring System (Lin et al., 2018). Trace gas monitoring is augmented with meteorological data housed by the MesoWest network (Horel et al., 2002). These meteorological data have been collected since 1997 from hundreds of locations throughout the WEO region.