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.