Real Time Monitoring for Water Quality Effectsw Along Rivers and Across Reservoirs

Rivers and reservoirs contain a vast array of compounds in an almost constantly changing matrix. Drivers to understand the compositional changes in this matrix in real time have always existed however cost and technology availability will always limit what we can know. Drivers such as 9/11 have seen a recognition that significant risk is present for contamination of water sources and produced a driver to explore new technology to mitigate some of this risk. This has seen the installation of full spectrum field version UV/Vis spectrophotometers connected to field computers running special software on a number of river/reservoir drinking water source intakes. The target here being to detect “anomalies” in water composition in real time. This work has had the spin off of making large amounts of spectral data available to others, such as researchers wanting to understand naturally driven changes in these waterways. The unexpected gains in these areas has seen uptake of the technology and processing methods by the water research industry. This paper uses data from a number of such systems as case studies to highlight specific outcomes achieved.