Massive sensor network to monitor Hudson River

this project is without a doubt a huge advancement and on a much larger scale than anything that has been done before,” said Sandra Nierzwicki-Bauer, director of the Bolton Landing, New York-based Darrin Fresh Water Institute, which si part of the Troy, New York-based Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). The project is currently in the design phase — which John Cronin, CEO of the Beacon Institute, expects will be complete within the next two years. Technology Review’s Brittany Sauser writes that the network’s sensors will be mounted on a solar-powered robotic underwater vehicle (seen picture) built by RPI and the Woods Hole, Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), while other sensors will be fixed in place along the river bed or suspended from buoys. The IBM system will use the gathered data to monitor the river’s temperature, pressure, salinity, dissolved oxygen content, and pH levels, all helping to detect whether pollutants have entered the Hudson River and its sea life. Officials from IBM and the Beacon Institute estimate that the number of sensors will run in the hundreds, with more to be developed along the way. Since the Hudson River flows into the Atlantic Ocean, the network may eventually be connected to various oceanic observatory networks. Once it is up and running, Cronin hopes to bring the concept to rivers in developing countries around the world.

Cronin says that what makes the Hudson an unusual subject for environmental monitoring, and a challenge to network, is that it is host to lots of human activity. The river is used by tankers, tugboats, barges, recreational vessels, and fishermen, and it is a source of drinking water for six communities. It is also an energy source for sewage treatment plants and industries along the river, in addition to being a home for marine life. Once the monitoring system is in place, Beacon hopes to extend its efforts globally to create the same type of twenty-four-hour monitoring system in developing countries where rivers are vital to local communities. IBM sees this as an opportunity to test and refine some of its advanced hardware and software, as well as develop new technologies for this particular application. Culler is excited to see IBM involved in an environmental project. “I expect that you are now going to see quite a significant second wave of this [sensor network] technology. We were all really excited about it in 2003, and now in 2007 it is really mature enough that vision can come to reality.”