2D and 3D Assessment of Dissolved Oxygen and Water Temperature in the Water Column
Level: Master
Start: Anytime
Project duration: 6 months
Project form: Field surveys, literature review, spatial analyses
Supervision: Natasha Flores and Frank Collas
Mail addresses: nflores@science.ru.nl, f.collas@science.ru.nl
Description of the project:
Dissolved oxygen (DO2) and water temperature are important abiotic parameters that can determine the suitability of aquatic habitats for freshwater species as well as overall ecosystem health. Temperature is inversely related to oxygen solubility as lower temperatures lead to high DO2 concentrations in water. Pollution and climate change may result in low DO2 concentrations as water temperatures rise. Higher temperatures may also directly affect freshwater species by increasing their metabolic rates, changing the timing of their reproductive activities and leading to high mortality rates as upper temperature tolerance limits are reached.
With the use of GIS and other modeling software gridded layers of ambient DO2 and temperature may be developed in order to assess the spatial variability (horizontally and vertically) in DO2 and temperature throughout the water column. Further, these layers may then be coupled with species specific requirements for unique species, or species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) for a species pool, in order to evaluate how the ambient conditions may affect the species. Hence the goal of this study is to 1) collect DO2 and temperature datasets, 2) determine the spatial distribution of the parameters in the water column and 3) compare the 2D and 3D layers to the requirements of native freshwater species.