Using Temperature to Determine Groundwater Versus Surface Water Dominance in Streams

Interns

Daisy Contreras Martinez - Statistics and Data Science

Jim Wang - Electrical Engineering

Jonathan Herring - Computer Engineering

Olabisi OlaOlaitan - Biological Sciences

Project Description

Groundwater is a limited yet critical resource for life on planet Earth, providing drinking water to billions of people and sustaining ecosystems all over the world. Groundwater is contained in rocks underneath Earth's surface, which can make it difficult to study—but there are methods we can utilize to understand groundwater and its interactions with surface ecosystems. In this project, we will examine groundwater and surface streams at the North Campus Open Space (Santa Barbara, California) to understand their connection. We will employ a field method which places small temperature sensors in streams and in the atmosphere to collect data at north campus. We will examine those data by coding in RStudio Cloud and attempt to understand how the streams might be hydrologically connected to groundwater in the area. 

Project Files