Water Research Symposium, info on Particle Inspection

Reading this document from the 2003 Water Research Symposium, I found some interesting background to the use of Particle Inspection and Image Analysis. The file is here.

The title of the section I found interesting:

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SUSPENDED-SEDIMENT SURROGATE RESEARCH,
PART II: OPTIC TECHNOLOGIES
John R. Gray, Danie l J. Gooding, Theodore S. Melis,
David J. Topping, and Patrick P. Rasmussen
U.S. Geological Survey
415 National Center, Reston, VA 20192
jrgray@usgs.gov

And here is some of the text...

"... Photo-Optic Imaging Data as Laboratory and Stream Suspended-Sediment Surrogates: Photo-optic imaging of fluids was pioneered by the medical industry in the 1980’s for determining red blood cell concentrations. This technology, which is used to delineate, characterize, and enumerate organic particles in blood samples, is being adapted to quantify the concentration and selected size and shape characteristics of suspended sediments in water samples. Research to apply photo-optic imaging for laboratory (Gooding 2001) and field applications is centered at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington (U.S. Geological Survey 2003).

Photo-optic imaging has the capability to provide in real time suspended-sediment concentrations, and measurements of the size and shape of individual particles in addition to statistics on size and shape for all particles. Laboratory applications include concentration and size- fraction determinations in addition to shape computations. Potential field applications include automatic point measurements and manual measurements as part of a modified depth-integrating sampler (Edwards and Glysson 1999, Gray et al. 2002)."

Water Wiki, NC

Here's information on some of the latest water legislation in North Carolina.

...And here's a link to the main page of the Water Wiki, where you will find the following introduction:

FROM WATER WIKI______________________________________

This website is a place where you can contribute.

How should water be managed in the southeastern United States? This wiki is devoted to discussion and debate of the many facts, issues, opinions and points of view this question raises. Please add your thoughts by registering (it's simple) and writing or editing articles, or by commenting on any of the discussion pages.
~Richard Whisnant, UNC-Chapel Hill; Bill Holman, Duke University

"You cannot step twice into the same river, for fresh waters are flowing in upon you." ~Heraclitus, 500 B.C.
"You cannot click twice into the same water wiki, for fresh data are flowing in upon you." ~An Editor of the Water Wiki, 2007 "
___________________________________________________

BAE Faculty, NCSU

Here are four faculty members working in areas I am interested in:

Stream Restoration -
Dr. Greg Jennings

Urban Stormwater Management -
Dr. Bill Hunt

Wetlands -
Dr. Mike Burchell

Nutrient Retention in Surface Waters &
Improving Sampling Techniques -
Dr. Francois Birgand

As you can see from their web sites, they all have interests beyond the short heading I give...

Graduate School Rankings

There will probably be a lot more of this to come, so here's the first!

NC State compares favorably to other Biological and Agricultural Engineering Graduate Programs.

For this ranking, I eliminated all the factors except:
1. Time to degree
2. Cost
3. Placement Rate (further research or a job)

Click here.

Water Research Institutes

Each state in the US has a Water Resources Institute. Federal legislation directing water resource research was passed in 1964. Amendments were made in 1978 and then the legislation took its current form, The Water Research and Development Act of 1984. Among other things, the 1984 legislation authorized the creation of Water Resource Research Institutes for each state. The program, commonly referred to as WRRI, is currently administered by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

In North Carolina, the Water Resources Institute is headquartered at the University of North Carolina. Here's a link.

Institutes for each state are located here.

Bowling Green, Purdue, Algae/Cyanobacteria

Bowling Green University and Purdue University have some interesting image libraries for algae and cyanobacteria. The Bowling Green site also has a link to a program that was written to aid in counting specimens in images.

Here they are!

Bowling Green (Image Library and other algal links)

Purdue (Cyanobacteria)

Also, I found this book, written in part by one of my professors (Dr Knappe) is availabe at NCSU library. Hopefully I'll be able to check it out the next time I go in.

Algae, Cyanobacteria, and FlowCAM

I found two great books at NCSU library last night.

Detection methods for algae, protozoa and helminths in fresh and drinking water. Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley, 2002.

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms state of the science and research needs. Vol. 619. New York: Springer, 2008.

Cyanobacteria is really not a true algae, but acts like one and is commonly referred to as blue-green algae. There are surveys suggesting that half of the Cyanobacteria blooms are toxic. This creates a lot of concern should blooms form in reservoirs that are used for drinking water. Cyanobacteria also can have a negative impact on odor and taste in drinking water. Musty, earthy and stale are common descriptions of these odors and tastes. Efforts are being made to reliably detect the presence of Cyanobacteria as well as associated toxins.

One of the books also refers to this flowcam, for remote analysis of water particles:








There is a bench model and a portable model.

Sample Images