Introduction

This research project was primarily conducted by Virginia Tech and focused on answering a very basic question that practitioners and regulators had seen in the field in clayey soils: Are commonly used shallow groundwater monitoring wells accurately capturing the actual groundwater elevation (and/or ponding) in wetlands, particularly because of the presumed “response lag time” in clayey materials? Secondary questions included which type of monitoring well design performed the best and what was the spatial variability of well response in the field. A parallel study focused on developing an improved automated water level monitoring system, and was conducted by Christopher Newport University.

Request for Proposals

Original Request for Proposals: Wetland Hydrology Monitoring, 2008

Amount Awarded: $244,500

Addendum to Proposal: An Autonomous Data Collection and Integrity System for Wetland Monitoring: Preliminary Design Study, 2008

Amount Awarded: $29,967

Results for Original Proposal: Wetland Hydrology Monitoring

Final Report

Wetland Hydrology Studies or How Can I Accurately Measure Saturated Water Levels in Clayey Created Wetland Soils? W. Lee Daniels, Nicole Troyer, John Galbraith, Mike Beck, Gaber Hassan, Kathryn Haering and Naraine Persaud, Virginia Tech, School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, 2021.

Progress Reports

• Wetland Hydrology Monitoring Progress Report. January 2009.
• Wetland Hydrology Monitoring Progress Report. May 2009.
• Wetland Hydrology Monitoring Progress Report. February 2010.
• Wetland Hydrology Monitoring Progress Report. January 2011.

Theses and Dissertations

Monitoring Hydrology in Created Wetland Systems with Clayey Soils. Nicole Troyer, M.S. thesis, Virginia Tech. 2013.

Conference Presentations

Effects of well design and sensor type on the measured hydroperiod of a high clay created wetland soil in Virginia, USA. (poster). W. Lee Daniels, Michel Beck, Nicole Troyer, John Galbraith and Gaber Hassan, Virginia Tech. 9th Annual INTECOL/SWS International Wetlands Conference. 2012.

What’s the best way to monitor depth to saturation in clayey soils? (presentation). W. Lee Daniels, Nicole Troyer, John Galbraith, and Gaber Hassan, Virginia Tech. Society of Wetland Scientists, Mid-Atlantic Chapter, Annual Meeting. 2011.

Symposium Presentations

Measuring water levels in clayey created wetland soils. W. Lee Daniels, Nicole Troyer-Jacobsen, John Galbraith, Kathryn Haering, and Gaber Hassan, Virginia Tech. Wetland Studies/Peterson Foundation Wetland Mitigation Research Symposium. 2013.

Results for Addendum to Proposal: An Autonomous Data Collection and Integrity System for Wetland Monitoring

Conference Proceedings

A wireless data collection and integrity assurance system for wetland monitoring projects. B. Lamprecht, T. Riedl and R.B. Atkinson. International Conference on Wireless Networks. 2009,