Authors:

Anya Emerson

Date Created:

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About Paper:

Wetlands provide benefits including nutrient retention and removal. Yet, one negative impact of wetlands is the production of methane (a greenhouse gas). The primary drivers of wetland methane release (flux) to the atmosphere are still being determined because of variability across systems and a lack of sufficient volumes of high-quality data. Current methods of recording methane fluxes from aquatic systems have a limited range of collection time due to short battery life and supervision of expensive equipment. Accurate, low-cost sensor measurement systems exist; however, the assembly and programming in field- based studies requires considerable technical knowledge. Further, completely automated gas flux monitoring devices are not available using low-cost platforms. This project aimed to develop, test, and utilize an environmental monitoring system emulating other methane flux chambers that maintain their low-cost and accuracy, while additionally requiring minimal technical skills. We utilized our monitoring system to collect methane data of a depressional wetland with high spatial and temporal resolution. Our system uses open-source hardware and software developed with the nonprofit organization River Restoration Intelligence and Verification (RRIV). The flux chambers consist of an inverted 5 gallon bucket and rechargeable D-cell batteries. Data was collected using Figaro NGM2611-E13 methane sensors and AHT20 humidity and temperature sensors, for calibration. Our data show a high degree of replicability across devices, indicating that gas fluxes are being captured accurately. We collected methane gas flux estimates across a depressional wetland at the Purdue Wildlife Area. We found that methane fluxes varied time of day, temperature, and water depth.

Source:

Purdue University / 2023

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Anya Emerson