Proposal

Narrative

No local riverine or coastal hydrodynamic data exists for Palm Beach-Broward-Maimi/Dade Counties and thus there is a gap in the monitoring of: i) wave-tidal height, direction, and current magnitude, or ii) river current and discharge magnitude. The lack of wave, tidal, and river information results in scientists, instructors, and students being unable to understand the dynamics of southeastern Florida beach processes (e.g., wave refraction due to shoreline orientation) as well as the freshwater discharge emptying into Florida Bay from the Everglades (e.g., affecting shallow marine sea grass habitats). This instrumentation will create a robust river to ocean observational center that will train the next generation of environmental scientists and prepare students for careers in local to federal governments and as environmental sustainability managers of fluvial-estuarine-coastal habitats. For FAU students, the data from these industry-critical instruments will be integrated into both classroom and field/lab exercises to deepen their general understanding of river, wave, and tidal dynamics and how their dynamics affect the coastlines-habitats of Florida, thereby supporting the strengths and goals of the Geosciences faculty and the CoS School of Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sustainability. Students will learn how to deploy and interpret (often, “big”) datasets, as well as participate in case studies that use this data to solve “real world” problems. These highly sought after technical skills will be used in student research, interdisciplinary research, and ultimately to attain employment within private and governmental agencies, industry, academia, or NGOs that are central to restoring rivers (e.g., natural flow in the Everglades) and coastal environments with the actual measured hydrodynamics of south Florida. Local hydrodynamic data obtained by the instruments will also be incorporated into DIS/DIR projects to enhance undergraduate student research.

Facilities

Equipment will be housed in PI laboratories in the Dept. of Geosciences. No new or renovation of facilities are required/requested.

Hardware Requirements

No Departmental/College hardware requirements. The proposed hardware instrumentation purchased will include a Teledyne RDI RiverPro 1200 kHz acoustic doppler current profiler (ADcP) with installed sensors that record heading, pitch, and roll as well as an internal GPS for geo-referencing. This model is sold with WinRiver II software and accessories for post-processing and visualization of recorded data. This instrument will be utilized to measure freshwater velocities and discharges from rivers flowing into the northern boundary of Florida Bay, FL. Furthermore, the RDI RiverPro trimaran with folding crossbars must be included in this purchase in order for effective deployment from a larger vessel. The second instrument purchase will consist of a directional wave and current meter (FSI ACM-WAVE-PLUS) that records wave height, direction, and current velocities, which can be deployed from a vessel or can be anchored to the seabed via its 1.5-5ton mooring frame. This device provides high-accuracy wave data through a precise pressure sensor and can provide additional water conductivity and temperature measurements. This device will be deployed along the coastline of southeastern Florida from West Palm Beach to Boca Raton in order to measure the wave characteristics affecting all associated beach environments.

Software Requirements

No software required.

Personnel Costs

No personnel costs.

Other Costs

No other costs.

Timeline

Equipment will be purchased immediately upon approval. Equipment and software testing and calibration will be conducted in Spring and Summer 2024. Scaffolded integration into courses will be drafted during Summer 2024, with implementation in the curriculum beginning in Fall 2024 in GLY2010, GLY 3730, and GLY 6934 or GLY 5736C & 4930C. Course integration will continue through the following semesters to incorporate data acquisition, processing, and interpretation additionally in GLY 4700C, GLY 6708, and GLY 6737. Instruments will not require hardware, software, or licensing updated and therefore are expected to be used in perpetuity. It is also expected that students will use the equipment in their research courses (GLY4905/4915/4916) and will begin presenting findings by Spring 2025, such as at the OURI Research Symposium.

Sustainability

Foremost, the usage of the purchased instruments will be sustained throughout the careers of Dr. Eric W Prokocki and Dr. Tiffany Roberts Briggs by enhancing the curriculum of presently offered courses and through the development of new courses offered through the Department of Geosciences and the newly launched School of Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sustainability (ECOS) at Florida Atlantic University. This will greatly aid in the recruiting of new students into these entities and will provide current students within these entities with a deeper understanding of the physical processes operating within rivers and beach environments. Secondarily, these courses will aim to attract and educate a greater number of students from other departments (Biology, Environmental Science, Marine Science & Oceanography) to thus provide them with a more well-rounded education regarding the physical dynamics of rivers, estuarine, and beach environments. The equipment will enable students to compare the local/regional hydrodynamics and explore the relationship of various tide-, current-, and wave-influencing phenomena on the physical conditions and characteristics of south Florida environments (i.e., where otherwise no data exists, except >130 km away where environments are different than locally).

Resource Matching

None.

Implementing Organization

Equipment will be housed, maintained, and owned by the Department of Geosciences within the College of Science at Florida Atlantic University. The primary investigators (PIs), Dr. Eric W. Prokocki and Dr. Tiffany Roberts Briggs, will lead curriculum integration and implementation of data collected/analyzed into their courses, which will hopefully expand to other current or future faculty teaching various environmental courses.