The monitoring program (known as the System-Wide Monitoring Program, or SWMP) provides long-term data on water quality, weather, biological communities, habitat, land use, and land-cover characteristics. The standardized instrumentation and data collection protocols allow the delivery of near real-time data from each of the Reserves, that are uniform, consistent, and reliable.
To ensure reliable data, all instruments are calibrated pre-and-post deployment on a fixed schedule. All data goes through a rigorous quality assurance/quality control process. All data can be accessed from the Central Data Management Office, along with copies of our protocols.
Please contact our Research Staff if you have questions.
Since 2004, water quality has been continuously measured at four sites on Sapelo Island. Using YSI Data Sondes and sensors, we measure temperature, salinity, conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and depth. The site at Marsh Landing (Lower Duplin) is near real-time data, accessible at the CDMO or from the National Bouy Data Center.
Since 2002, meteorological data has been continuously measured at one site next to the Marsh Landing parking lot on Sapelo Island. Using Campbell Scientific dataloggers and sensors, we measure temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed (maximum gusts and sustained), wind direction, precipitation, and photosynthetic active radiation (PAR). This site at Marsh Landing is near real-time data (updating once an hour), accessible at the CDMO or from the National Bouy Data Center. This data is used by the National Weather Service (NWS) to help develop better understanding of storm systems.
Since 2004, SINERR has collected monthly grab water samples at each of our four water quality sites. In addition to the grab samples, a continous water collector (Teledyne ISCO) is deployed at the Lower Duplin for 24-hours to capture water nutrients over a tidal cycle. Samples are filtered at our lab on Sapelo and sent off-island to an approved lab for analysis. We measure orthophosphate, ammonium, nitrate, nitrite, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, and chlorophyll-a.
SWMP also tracks landcover and biological habitats to assess future changes to land use and habitat cover. Please, contact our Stewardship Staff for more information, or visit the Stewardship Page.
