OU Hydrology & Meteorology Residential

On 25^th July I left home to take part in the second residential element of my Practical Environmental Science course. I had a lovely drive through the Yorkshire Dales, and stopped en route to carry out a few quick surveys for invasive plants along the Upper Aire catchment including Otterburn and Winterburn Beck - none were visible thank goodness.

I arrived at Malham Tarn Field Studies Centre and we met up over dinner. There were a few familiar faces and also some new ones. It quickly became apparent that this would be a slightly more relaxed weekend than the first residential – perhaps because we knew what to expect - but it did also feel there was slightly less work to do and data to crunch.

For the first two days we were in learning mode. We visited the met station by the tarn and learned about the various instruments used to measure rainfall, wind speed, sunshine hours etc.  The infrared thermometer blew my mind a little … it was used to measure the temperature of the clouds, and I just can't get my head around how you can measure something so far away!

We then practiced taking some readings of our own, using an anemometer to measure wind speed and a whirling hygrometer to measure wet and dry bulb temperature and thus calculate humidity. 

Over the course of the three days we were split into groups, each having a different site and different project task to complete. Part of this involved walking up the hill to our met station to measure rainfall, temperature, wind and humidity.

On the first day we learned how to take readings of ground water. This including using surveying equipment to measure the gradient of the land and the water table.  We also learned about dip wells and how to calculate soil water flow from the rate of infill.

On the second day we learned more about stream hydrology.  We looked at the various methods for measuring the cross-sectional area of a stream and how much water is flowing through it. The most fun of these was lobbing an orange in the water and timing how long it took to travel ten metres, though there were more complex methods to learn too!

On the last day, our group was free to use whatever skills we had picked up over the weekend to gather data for our own catchment project.  With the weather being warm and dry in recent weeks, we were one of the few groups to have running water in the catchment, so we used a hydroprop to measure the flow rate of the stream.  We also took some water chemistry measurements, which gave quite interesting results that suggest the water is coming from outside the catchment and deep underground, as it is cold and acidic.

It was an enjoyable few days with good company. I've already made a good start to my project write-up, so hopefully this will be a fairly painless assignment to complete.