Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Over the past 15 years, we have conducted many field experiments in lakes, fjords, estuaries, reservoirs, tailings ponds and water-filled mine pits. These studies have examined the transport of contaminants such as cyanide and zinc in water filled mine-pits; the exchange of water between a lake and a polluted harbour; the fate of turbidity in two drinking water reservoirs; the path of nutrients in a collapsing fishery; the availability of cool water for migrating salmon; and the upwelling of anoxic water harmful to aquaculture. These problems impact a diverse range of economic activities, such as fisheries, recreation, water supply, sewage treatment, and mining. Temperature recorders have been an integral part of all of these studies. We have used a total of 43 instruments of which 21 were borrowed, and, of the remaining 22, only 12 are still working reliably. Unfortunately, all of these instruments are now 10 to 15 years old and are suffering from corrosion, communication problems, calibration drift, and are beginning to fail for no reason. To replace these, we request 40 self-contained high-accuracy temperature recorders and 5 high-accuracy temperature and depth recorders. In addition we request 3 high-accuracy temperature, depth and conductivity recorders to monitor salinity. These instruments are typically fastened to a rope to form temperature 'chains' to measure temperature at different depths. With the requested instruments we will be able to collect reliable data with sufficient vertical and horizontal resolution to understand the underlying processes and to solve problems of economic importance.