NOAA RESTORE Science Program: A web-based interactive decision-support tool for Adaptation of Coastal Urban and Natural Ecosystems (ACUNE) in southwest Florida: episodic water level monitoring in Ten Thousand Islands from 2018-06-10 to 2020-01-08 (NCEI Accession 0244860)

Methods: To capture the episodic higher-than-normal water level events necessary for model verification and validation, 28 sensors were designed and built from scratch and then deployed/recovered twice. The sensors were deployed in four locations in Southwest Florida: Clam Bay (4), Goodland (8), Henderson Creek / Rookery Bay (8), and in the Ten Thousand Islands (Figure 1). These sensors were designed to deployed vertically out of the water with a triggered to enable them only when an event occurred (Figure 2 and Figure 3). This ensured maximum battery life (without the need of a solar panel) and minimal biologic growth both of which were highly useful as many of the deployment locations were remote and teeming with wildlife. Once immersed, the sensors recorded the absolute pressure of the water column above the sensor (which is ultimately converted to water level). The sensors were encased in Schedule-40 PVC which incorporated a PVC union to enable them to be opened while remaining waterproof in the field. The pressure sensors were calibrated in a laboratory with the distance from the pressure sensor port to the top of the union collar determined. Immediately prior to a deployment, the internal highly accurate, temperature compensated RTC (~2 s/yr) was set and the sensor sealed. The sensors were deployed by affixing them to strongly rooted, mature mangroves or trees to ensure they wouldn’t move even during extreme storm events (Figure 4). Pictures of the mounted sensors were taken and the sensors positions were surveyed to the top of the union collar with an RTK GPS system. This enabled to vertical position of the derived water level to be referenced to NAVD88. Sensors were configured to record at 128 hz which enables the resolution of waves, tides and surge. Locations for the sensors were determined during an exploratory visit to the region in mid-2018. Site spatial locations were chosen in a manner to attempt to provide both alongshore and cross-shore tracks. Vertical locations were chosen by estimating the MHHW lines and chose locations 10-20cm above that. For the first deployment, the sensors were deployed at the beginning of the 2018 Atlantic Basin hurricane season and then recovered the following May. For the second deployment, the sensors were deployed several months later in the 2019 hurricane season and then recovered in Jan 2020. Preliminary analysis of the data for the first deployment determined that the vertical locations on several sensors were higher than expected astronomical tides as few events were recorded. Thus, the vertical locations of these sensors were lowered for the second deployment. The spatial positions of all sites remained the same for both deployments. Although no tropical storms were observed, several astronomically higher-than-normal water levels events were recorded. Observed pressure data is encrypted and the stored on high-capacity SD card located inside the sensor with each detected event saved as a separate file. After a deployment, the sensors were opened, data recovered, and then post-processed. The first intermediate post-processing step includes unpacking and decrypting the data, determining the time of each observation, and conversion of observation units. Then as a final post-processing step, water pressure measurements were converted to a delta water level above the sensor using a hydrostatic approximation. Time varying air pressure used in the conversion were obtained from three nearby NCEI sites. Each sensor was provided with a preferential ordering of the site in case data for a particular time-period was missing. With the delta water level determined, this value was adjusted to be referenced to the collar of the union, the location at which the GPS fixes to Geoid12a (NAVD88) were made. As the sensors were mounted to potentially growing vegetation, fixes were obtained at both deployment and recovery. For the vertical reference datum conversion from the top of the collar to NAVD88, the vertical position of the collar was assumed to move linearly from deployment to recovery. While the horizontal accuracy of the GPS fixes was good for the needed resolution, in some cases, the vertical accuracy was reported to be on the order of several cm, however, in other cases, the accuracy was 50 cm. Thus, the conversions to the NAVD88 become somewhat questionable until the point at which they can be further compared with simulated water levels. Unfortunately, vertical inaccuracies are a common probably with remote coastal sites as the ability to take sight lines or to triangulate the RTK is limited. In general, the post-processed GPS fixes were reported to be less accurate. As such, although nearly all the sensors report reasonable vertical heights, it is still recommended to demean the data and focus on relative change in water level and/or the magnitudes/periods of recorded waves. Due to the high sample rate, the events being individually recorded, and the large number of events recorded, an additional optional post-processing utility was developed to extract data for one or more sensors for all events occurring in a specific time-period. This utility then output data in a format compatible with Tecplot (see example plots in Figure 5), although it would be easily adaptable to output a different data format. Intermediate and final post-processed data has been included. Additionally, some example data plots as well as plots showing the time-period in which the events occurred have been supplied as well.

File Information Total File Size: Clam Bay: 87.3 GB total, 697 files in 62 folders (unzipped), 14.8 GB (zipped) Goodland: 44.1 GB total, 1139 files in 94 folders (unzipped), 7.12 GB (zipped) Henderson Creek and Rookery Bay: 25.0 GB total, 304 files in 94 folders (unzipped), 4.15 GB (zipped) Ten Thousand Islands: 70.2 GB total, 1055 files in 90 folders (unzipped), 11.6 GB (zipped) Data File Format(s): • Text (.ASCII, .TXT) • Comma-separated value (.CSV) Data Files: • /01_Sensor_Data_[Location] - All of the post-processed sensor data as well all of the intermediate data files organized in various directories (see readme-main.txt) o /[Location]_[Year]_intermediate - Intermediate post-processing products. Includes ASCII versions of raw, encrypted binary data files and CSV versions of *.ASCII files with units and time converted.  /[Station]/[Sensor]/[Episode].DAT.DECRYPTED.ASCII  /[Station]/[Sensor]/[Episode]-tpv.CSV o /[Location]_[Year]_final - The final usable pressure and water level products (.csv).  /[Station]/[Sensor]/[Episode].CSV • /02_GPS_Data - GPS Data locations of each sensor taken at the sensor collar o /geoid12a - used for NAVD88  /In-situ - RTK (*_RTK) (used) • 2018-06_RTK: First Deployment Installation • 2018-07_RTK: Maintenance Trip (re-survey) • 2018-08_RTK: Maintenance Trip (sock installation) • 2019-05_RTK: Recovery • 2019-07_RTK: Second Installation • 2020-01_RTK: Recovery  /Post-processed (*_PPK) (provided for reference) o /geoid18 (provided for reference) o Summary-lat-lon.ODS - Summary of the lat/lon positions of the installation and recovery GPS data used • /03_NCEI_CDO_Data - NCEI CDO observational data used to obtain air pressure used to convert from water pressure to water level o 72104199999-MarcoIsland_combined-2018-2020.CSV o 72203812897-Airport_combined-2018-2020.CSV o 99800899999-RBNERR_combined-2018-2020.CSV Documentation Files: • DataDocumentation.PDF • BrowseGraphic_[Location].JPG • Figure1_SensorLocations.JPG • Figure2_Availability_20180611-20190606.JPG • Figure3_Availability_20190721-20200117.JPG • Figure4a_Deployment_MangroveForest.JPG • Figure4b_Deployment_BarrierIsland.JPG • Figure5a_Observations_ClamBay2018.JPG • Figure5b_Observations_TTIO9ALT2019.JPG • Figure6_TTIO-oct-15to17-2019.jpg • Sensor_[Station].JPG • photos-of-sensors-insitu.PDF - Maps showing the locations of all 28 sensors as well as photos taken during all visits to the field sites. • readme-main.txt • readme-NCEI_CDO_Data.txt Table 1: Number of Episodes Site First Deployment Second Deployment Total Episodes Start Date End Date Episodes Start Date End Date Episodes CB-1 06/13/2018 12/21/2018 6 07/19/2019 01/07/2020 53 59 CB-7 06/13/2018 04/19/2019 30 07/19/2019 12/24/2019 73 103 CB-11 06/13/2018 05/14/2019 4 07/19/2019 09/27/2019 2 6 CB-15-ALT 06/10/2018 05/14/2019 16 07/19/2019 11/24/2019 19 35 G-1-ALT 12/14/2018 05/16/2019 4 07/18/2019 01/09/2020 20 24 G-2 06/14/2018 12/21/2018 4 07/19/2019 01/08/2020 45 49 G-4 06/10/2018 04/19/2019 15 07/19/2019 11/26/2019 41 56 G-5 06/14/2018 10/04/2018 2 07/19/2019 01/09/2020 87 89 G-6 06/11/2018 12/21/2018 8 07/19/2019 11/24/2019 60 68 G-7 06/14/2018 12/19/2018 2 07/19/2019 01/09/2020 3 5 G-9 06/10/2018 12/21/2018 7 07/19/2019 11/24/2019 45 52 G-11 06/14/2018 06/14/2018 1 06/14/2018 06/14/2018 1 2 HC-12-ALT 06/10/2018 05/14/2019 2 07/19/2019 01/08/2020 22 24 HC-15-ALT 06/12/2018 12/21/2018 10 07/19/2019 01/07/2020 4 14 HCO-3 06/12/2018 12/18/2018 2 07/18/2019 07/18/2019 1 3 HCO-4 06/12/2018 12/21/2018 3 07/18/2019 07/18/2019 1 4 HCO-7-ALT 06/11/2018 12/18/2018 4 07/19/2019 07/19/2019 1 5 HCO-12-ALT 06/11/2018 06/12/2018 3 07/18/2019 07/18/2019 1 4 RB-3-ALT 06/11/2018 12/18/2018 5 07/19/2019 07/22/2019 2 7 RB-5 06/11/2018 12/19/2018 6 07/19/2019 01/10/2020 3 9 TTI-33-ALT 06/10/2018 12/18/2018 4 07/19/2019 01/08/2020 2 6 TTIO-1 06/13/2018 12/18/2018 4 07/19/2019 01/08/2020 4 8 TTIO-2-ALT 0 07/19/2019 07/19/2019 1 1 TTIO-4-ALT 06/11/2018 12/18/2018 4 07/19/2019 01/08/2020 2 6 TTIO-6-ALT 06/13/2018 05/15/2019 5 07/18/2019 08/03/2019 6 11 TTIO-8-ALT 06/13/2018 12/21/2018 6 07/18/2019 12/24/2019 67 73 TTIO-9-ALT 06/13/2018 04/19/2019 26 07/18/2019 01/08/2020 93 119 TTIO-12-ALT 12/14/2018 05/14/2019 35 07/18/2019 12/24/2019 62 97 Total 218 721 939   Table 2: Data Dictionary for Intermediate [Episode].DAT.DECRYPTED.ASCII files Column Variable Example Units 1 Start Data String 0xaabbccdd 2 Message Type 0x10 3 Message Version 0xa 4 MAC Address 0xffffffffffff 5 Archive Flag 1 6 Quality Flag 0 7 Number of Sensor Channels 4 8 Number of Electrical Channels 1 9 Time epoch (us) 3 10 Time epoch (s since 1/1/1900) 1528922720 11 Observation Freq (hz) 128 Hz 12 Observation count 0 13 Pressure (PSI) * 1E6 14500759 PSI 14 Battery voltage (v) 12324230 v 15 Sensor Current (ma) 2700 ma 16 CRC-16-CCITT Checksum 0 Table 3: Data Dictionary for Intermediate [Episode]-tpv.CSV files Column Variable Example Units 1 Observation Time in UTC 2018-06-13T20:45:20.000000 2 Epoch Time (s since 1900) 1528922720 3 Pressure (PSI) 14.50076 PSI 4 Battery Voltage (v) 12.32423 v Table 4: Data Dictionary for Final [Episode].CSV files Column Variable Example Units 1 Observation time (UTC) 2018-06-13T20:45:20.000000 2 Sensor Pressure (psi) 14.50076 PSI 3 Air Pressure (psi) 14.75759 PSI 4 Delta Water Level (m) -0.00294 m 5 Water Level to Sensor Collar (m) -0.23829 m 6 Water Level to NAVD 88 (m) -1.10761 m

In this accession, NCEI has archived multiple versions of these data. The latest (and best) version of these data has the largest version number.