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Coker, A. E.

Cordes, E. H.

Higer, A. L.

Wimberly, E. T.

English

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"Maao9 avaitable under NASA sporsesp E
in the interest of early and wide dis- C'
semination of Earth Resources Survey
Program information and without liability
tor any use made thereof."
ADVANTAGES OF ERTS DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM IN SOUTH FLORIDA
E. T. Wimberly
A. L. Higer
E. H. Cordes
A. E. Coker
U. S. Geological Survey
Miami, Florida 33130
5
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d 1 ACSpril 1973 --crio pri -
3- 2117 8
.73
0803
1 June 1973
Prepared for:
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
Publication authorized by the Director, U. S. Geological Survey
7.3 t S.O0
3 .- /5 3 a,97
3.https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19730018551 2020-03-11T19:08:58+00:00Z
ERTS Type I Progress Report
(April 1, 1973 thru June 1, 1973)
By
E.T. Wimberly, A.L. Higer, E.H. Cordes, and A.E. Coker
a. Title: Advantages of ERTS Data Collection Systems in South Florida
ERTS-1 Proposal MMC 272
b. GSFC ID No. of P.I.: I414
d. In this reporting period additional rain gages were installed at
3 existing DCP's (Data Collection Platforms). A DCP was installed
at a tidal station in Tampa Bay (see section k). An invitational bid
on a data memory device talked about in earlier progress reports,
was circulated. The memory device will interface with the DCP to
store data for transmission at a later time.
e. The ERTS Data Collection System has obvious advantages for collecting
data over conventional methods now in use. It is also a means
to accomplish objectives which are impractical to do otherwise.
At the present, the Water Resources Division of the U. S.
Geological Survey collects data from various types of hydrologic
monitoring stations such as discharge stations, water quality
monitoring stations, time of travel studies, water surface elevation,
deep well pressure, etc. The stations are visited periodically to
remove the record, to service the station, and to insure against lost
record if the station was not operating. In remote areas of south
Florida this becomes a costly operation when access to the station is
by air boat or helicopter. By use of ERTS DCS, visits to the station
could be limited to once a year or longer, provided there is no failure
at the station.
If there is a failure at the station another advantage to ERTS DCS
is recognized. The malfunction becomes obvious on the teletype printout
just hours after the failure (teletype messages are received in the
office approximately 45 minutes after a pass by the satellite). There
have been cases when field men have left stations operating then returned
to the stations a month or so later to find that the recorder had run
only a few hours. This will not happen with DCS since the failure would
be known the day it occurred and could be repaired at that time. There
have been other instances where stations were vandalized or the entire
station stolen. At a conventional station all record would be lost.
At DCS stations the teletype record transmitted each day prior to the
theft would be intact and notification of the problem would be made.
Many of the present hydrologic monitoring stations which monitor
several parameters often require duplication of the recorder equipment
and obvious duplication in analysis of the records. A direct advantage
of DCS is digital formatting of the parameters for direct input to
computer terminals or mini-computer facilities. Errors are eliminated in
transposing the data from charts by hand or by digitizing the records.
Of course, an important advantage of ERTS DCS is the timeliness that
data is received in the office. Often times in south Florida data is
needed on a daily basis for management of large water conservation areas.
Even though there may be a time lag in correcting a management problem,
'.3
the more quickly a problem is diagnosed the faster corrective action
can be applied and effected. ERTS DCS has better than daily frequency
and thereby gives those concerned a close cognizance of the water
management problems.
ERTS DCS also permits phasing out of certain chart recorders. For
example, a tipping bucket rain gage can now be connected directly to the
DCP for the transmission of integrated precipitation data without the
use of a recorder. In the few months of DCS operation (October 1972 to
June 1973) the majority of malfunctions have been due to recorder clock
failure. Therefore, removal of a recorder would eliminate the possibility
of recorder failure as well as be a savings in output for equipment.
As mentioned previously, access to stations is very costly in remote
areas. Because of this cost, stations have previously been deployed in
areas where they could be easily serviced and not necessarily where they
should have been deployed to obtain the type of data needed. ERTS DCS
permits the station to be deployed in almost any location.
Another valuable feature of DCS is its ability to relay data to the
users in severe weather conditions. During a hurricane or flood resulting
from a hurricane the tide, inland water levels, precipitation, and wind
speed and direction could be relayed for immediate use. The signals
transmitted by DCS are not affected by weather conditions.
ERTS DCS can be used for other activities which now are not feasible
to accomplish otherwise. For instance, DCS would be a valuable tool
for monitoring or managing a cloud seeding project. As clouds are
seeded the effects could be known almost immediately thereafter and other
measures applied if necessary. ERTS DCS could also be used for the
further defining of diurnal curves for pH, D.O., etc. And, of course,
there are many other used of ERTS DCS which cannot be foreseen at this time.
k. Status of Data Collection Platforms. The location of a new installation
is noted below:
DCP Serial No. State County Town Latitude Longitude
6141 Florida Hillsborough Tampa 27 46'57"N 082 25'53;'W
S -j· Ws~; obe 4 rtc


Advantages of ERTS data collection system in south Florida

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