Robotic Monitoring to Assess Impacts of Zebra Mussels and Assimilative Capacity for a River

Abstract

Water quality impacts of zebra mussel metabolism over an infested 15km reach of the Seneca River, N.Y., are documented, based on vertically and temporally detailed robotic monitoring at the reach boundaries during the summer through early fall intervals of 2years. Substantial reductions over the study reach are documented for dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, fluorometric chlorophyll a, and turbidity, associated with the metabolism of this invader. Violations of New York State water quality standards for DO that would not be resolved by traditional manual monitoring programs were observed. The loss of assimilative capacity caused by the zebra mussel invasion is confounding rehabilitation efforts for a downstream polluted lake that had considered diversion of municipal effluent to the river. The critical role robotic monitoring units would play in an automated control system for an innovative strategy of time-variable river discharge of the effluent is described. Near-real time robotic monitoring provides a more detailed understanding of the impacts of zebra mussels on water quality than traditional less intensive manual measurements.