09/18/2020
Understanding the Impacts of Wildfires on Water Quality
Source articles, "Wildfires: How Do They Affect Our Water Supplies?"
Shasta Big Springs Monitoring System
Shasta Big Springs Ranch, located in Siskiyou County, California, has a network of data collection stations along Big Springs Creek and the Shasta River that collect information on water temperature, stage (water depth), and flow (calculated from stage). A new data point is collected every 15 minutes and these data are transmitted live to a web page. The system enables ranch managers to compare the temperature of the irrigation water to the creek water and decide whether returning unused irrigation water would impair thermal conditions in the creek. As anadromous salmonids are sensitive to water temperature, keeping water temperatures within specified guidelines is critical to ensuring the recovery of these species.