This tower now holds an eddy covariance system that I built. I designed and built this 450-foot floating boardwalk and a floating platform for the tower in 2003.
This is used in class instruction and students conduct measurements along it. Greg Winston helped me with the building and installation. Power logistics were a chore but we got it running! Could anyone ask for a more exciting job?
The Eddy Covariance measurements from this tower matched perfectly with the first tower in another section of the marsh.
Thus, we can manipulate one section and compare it with the other. Unfortunately no water was let into these sections of the marsh for the year 2004
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- In an upland section of the marsh, we tested the automated soil respiration chambers that Greg and I built. We powered the system with PV panels and a battery bank. The pneumatics was charged using cylinders of N2, but now the whole system runs via PV/batt. power and a DC compressor. VERY SLICK! This system (my baby) went to the University of Florida to be used by grad students and researchers there.
- To try and get a handle of cattail blow-down, Mike gave me a challenging project. Set up a visual grid from which to measure the cattail heights. Always up for the challenge I build 100 four-meter poles and placed them in a one-hectare grid. This took a considerable amount of time just making the poles, which are incremented with fluorescent tape. I cut and peeled the backing off of over 2500 pieces of tape and wrapped them on the poles. I did this in the lab and after a week of doing this people started walking in and asking me if I was being punished for something. (All the while I was coming up with inventions to automate the process.) Between Mike and I (and some lucky undergraduates for a couple of hours) we got the grid set up. What a beautiful sight it is! One doesn’t realize how large of an area 100x100 meters is until ones seen ‘The Grid.” (Photo soon)
- Sammy, an undergraduate, has been lucky enough to work on an important testing phase of a future large-scale project in the marsh. We set up a good 300 feet of pvc and another 100 of tubing to channel water into 20 bins. Sammy and I planted the bins with cattails and he set them up for a sun/shade experiment. He has been doing a great job with the measurements and watering.
More photos on the building of the 450 foot floating boardwalk and tower system II.
