Continuous Plume Monitoring Using Wireless Sensors: Proof of Concept in Intermediate Scale Tank
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 9
Abstract
The current practice for monitoring of subsurface plumes involves the collection of water samples from sparsely distributed monitoring wells and laboratory analysis to determine chemical concentrations. In most field situations, cost and time constraints limit the number of samples that could be collected and analyzed for continuous monitoring of large, transient plumes. With the development of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), that allow sensors to be incorporated into a distributed wireless communication and processing system, the potential exists to develop new, efficient, economical, large-scale subsurface data collection and monitoring methods. This paper presents a proof-of-concept study conducted in a two-dimensional synthetic aquifer constructed in an intermediate scale test tank to demonstrate the feasibility of using WSN for subsurface plume monitoring. The tank was packed to represent a heterogeneous aquifer, and a sodium bromide tracer was used to create a plume. A set of ten wireless sensor nodes (motes) equipped with conductivity probes to measure electrical conductivity formed the network. Software for automated data acquisition was developed and tested. Results of two experiments conducted using this test system are presented. The lessons learned from the first experiment were used to make modifications to the way the sensors were placed, how they were calibrated and how the sensors were interfaced with the data acquisition system. The findings are used to identify future research directions and issues that need to be addressed before field implementations of a WSN based data collection system for plume monitoring.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
Funding was provided by the Terrestrial Sciences, Environmental Sciences Division of the Army Research Office.
References
Akyildiz, I. F., Su, W., Sankarasubramaniam, Y., and Cayirci, E. (2002). “Wireless sensor networks: A survey.” Comput. Netw., 38, 393–422.
Barth, G. R., Illangasekare, T. H., Hill, M. C., and Rajaram, H. (2001). “A new tracer-density criterion for heterogeneous porous media.” Water Resour. Res., 37(1), 21–31.
Cardell-Oliver, R., Smetten, K., Kranz, M., and Mayer, K. (2005). “A reactive soil moisture sensor network: Design and field evaluation.” Int. J. Distributed Sensor Networks., 1(2), 149–162.
Fernandez-Garcia, D., Illangasekare, T. H., and Rajaram, H. (2004). “Conservative and sorptive forced-gradient and uniform flow tracer tests in a three-dimensional laboratory test aquifer.” Water Resour. Res., 40, W10103.
Goldman, J., et al. (2007). “Distributed sensing systems for water quality assessment and management—White paper.” Prepared for Foresight and Governance Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Hem, J. D. (1985). “Study and interpretation of the chemical characteristics of natural water.” Water Supply Paper 2254, U.S. Geological Survey.
Hilhorst, M. A. (2000). “A pore water conductivity sensor.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 64, 1922–1925.
Ho, C. K., and Hughes, R. C. (2002). “In-situ chemiresistor sensor package for a real-time detection of volatile organic compounds in soil and groundwater.” Sensors, 2, 23–34.
Ho, C. K., Itamura, M. T., Kelley, M., and Hughes, R. C. (2001). “Review of chemical sensors for in-situ monitoring of volatile contaminants.” Sandia Rep. No. SAND2001-0643, Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif.
Kaya, A., and Fang, H. -Y. (1997). “Identification of contaminated soils by dielectric constant and electrical conductivity.” J. Environ. Eng., 123(2), 169–177.
Kechavarzi, C., and Soga, K. (2002). “Determination of water using miniature resistivity probes during intermediate scale and centrifuge multiphase flow laboratory experiments.” Geotech. Test. J., 25(1), 95–103.
Mantoglou, A., and Wilson, J. (1982). “The turning bands method for simulation of random fields using lines generation by a spectral method.” Water Resour. Res., 18(5), 1379–1394.
Moreno-Barbero, E., and Illangasekare, T. H. (2006). “Influence of dense nonaqueous phase liquid pool morphology on the performance of partitioning tracer tests: Evaluation of the equilibrium assumption.” Water Resour. Res., 42, W04408.
Polastre, J., Szewczyk, R., and Culler, D. (2005). “Telos: Enabling ultra-low power wireless research.” Proc., 4th Int. Symp. on Information Processing in Sensor Networks: Special Track on Platform Tools and Design Methods for Network Embedded Sensors, IEEE Press, Piscataway, N.J., 364–369.
Puls, R. W., and Paul, C. J. (1997). “Multi-layer sampling in conventional monitoring wells for improved estimation of vertical contaminant distributions and mass.” J. Contam. Hydrol., 25, 85–111.
Ramanathan, N., et al. (2006). “Rapid deployment with confidence: Calibration and fault detection in environmental sensor networks.” ⟨http://pst.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/resources/publications/khemapach05survey.pdf⟩ (Mar. 15, 2008).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 9 • September 2009
Pages: 831 - 838
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 25, 2008
Accepted: Jan 12, 2009
Published online: Aug 14, 2009
Published in print: Sep 2009
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.