BREE Agricultural Site Installation


Dr. Carol Adair, BREE Ecological Systems Co-Leader, directed the installation of a new cutting-edge sensor network in the Hungerford Brook watershed in June 2017. The team installed the sensors in several different riparian areas to study what makes those areas effective water filters. Learning this information will enable researchers to maintain the processes when and where the riparian areas fail to filter water after an extreme event or in a riparian area that fails to remove pollution.

BREE researchers put up solar panels in the wetland site.
BREE researchers put up solar panels in the AG wetland site.
 

Undergraduate intern Colleen Yancey bails out a soil pit to install lysimeters and sensors.
Undergraduate intern Colleen Yancey bails out a soil pit to install lysimeters and sensors.
 

A flooded soil pit, which indicates a wetland.
A flooded soil pit, which indicates a wetland. Shallow groundwater table.
 

Undergraduate intern Sara Mecca saws a PVC pipe for the sensor installation.
Undergraduate intern Sara Mecca saws a PVC pipe for the sensor installation.
Sensors go in the pipes.
 

Undergraduate intern Kunal Palawat poses by a soil pit.
Undergraduate intern Kunal Palawat poses by a soil pit. A hardpan silt/clay layer
made the pit difficult to dig.
 

Undergraduate intern Colleen Yancey installs lysimeters.
Undergraduate intern Colleen Yancey installs lysimeters.
 

Undergraduate interns Kunal Palawat and Ernesto Vazquez put up solar panels.
Undergraduate interns Kunal Palawat and Ernesto Vazquez put up solar panels.
 

Undergraduate interns Amanda Jackson-Mojica and Ricardo Feliciano set up communication between the sensors and the data logger.
Undergraduate interns Amanda Jackson-Mojica and Ricardo Feliciano work to
make the sensors talk to the data logger.
 

Undergraduate interns Kunal Palawat, tired out after a hard day's work.
Undergraduate interns Kunal Palawat, tired out after a hard day's work.