Creation Of a Great Rivers Ecological Observatory Network (GREON) For Real-Time Water Quality Monitoring In The Mississippi River Basin.

Water quality monitoring on the Mississippi River and its tributaries is carried out by a variety of federal, state, and local organizations, private and non-profit entities, and academic institutions.  While this generates a large amount of data, there are usually spatial and temporal gaps in the data stream as well as differences in the methodologies used.  There is a need for water quality monitoring that is seamless in its methodology and both real-time and continuous in its collection.  The National Great Rivers Research and Education Center (NGRREC) is strategically located on the banks of the Mississippi River near its confluence with the Illinois and Missouri Rivers.  NGRREC has begun the creation of a Great Rivers Ecological Observatory Network (GREON) for continuous, real-time monitoring of water quality conditions on the Mississippi River near the confluence area.  The goal of the network is to increase our knowledge of the seasonal and annual changes in water quality conditions in the river and to gain a greater understanding of the sources and forms of nutrients transported in the river system.  The information is relevant to local ecological and aquatic habitat conditions along individual reaches of the river, as well as to the hypoxia problem in the Gulf of Mexico.  The data will help validate and improve model predictions of nutrient budgets in the Mississippi River basin.  A better understanding of the sources and transport mechanisms of nutrients in the Mississippi River and its tributaries will help agricultural scientists identify those conservation practices that have the greatest potential to reduce nutrient loads in the river.  The GREON system uses existing sensor technology for monitoring a suite of water quality parameters that include temperature, conductivity, pH, DO, turbidity, total algae, dissolved organic matter, and nitrate.  The first GREON monitoring platform began collecting preliminary data during summer 2013 and a second platform is currently being prepared.  The goal is to eventually deploy 5 to 6 GREON monitoring platforms near confluence areas in the upper and middle Mississippi River.