Engineering Commons^™

River & Estuary Observation Network: Refinement Of Stage Height Sensor Subsystem For Low Cost And High Reliability, W. D. Kirkey, C. B. Fuller, P. O'Brien, P. J. Kirkey, Ahmed Mahmoud, Andrew Ernest, Javier Guerrero

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A system comprised of software and on-site measurements is presented for accurately obtaining water stage data from vented or non-vented submersible pressure sensors installed at autonomous stream gauging stations. The system accounts for pressure sensor offset errors, water density, and local gravitational acceleration to produce a stage height reading which is accurate to either ±0.01 ft (±3 mm) or to the accuracy limit of the sensor, whichever is greater. A 2nd order polynomial expression for determination of water density from temperature and salinity is developed and found to be sufficiently accurate for this purpose. Simulated stage measurements performed in the …