U. S. Geological Survey - Water Resources - Michigan District

Water Resources of Michigan

Visualization of a Drifting Buoy Deployment on Lake St. Clair within the Great Lakes Waterway from August 12-15, 2002

US Geological Survey Open-File Report 02-482

Prepared in cooperation with the
SOURCE WATER ASSESSMENT PROGRAM OF THE MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY, DETROIT WATER AND SEWERAGE DEPARTMENT, and the AMERICAN WATER WORKS ASSOCIATION RESEARCH FOUNDATION

Lansing, Michigan
December 2002

By: David J. Holtschlag, Atiq U. Syed, and Gregory W. Kennedy

Accessible Web version is available in Web (HTML) format at:
http://mi.water.usgs.gov/pubs/OF/OF02-482/DriftingBuoyLSC.php

Table of Contents including Figures, Maps, Graphs, Tables, Appendix, Conversion Factors and Vertical Datum, and Additional Information:
http://mi.water.usgs.gov/pubs/OF/OF02-482/OF02-482TOC.php

Abstract

Lake St. Clair is a 430 square mile lake between the state of Michigan and the province of Ontario, which forms part of the international boundary between the United States and Canada in the Great Lakes Basin. Lake St. Clair receives most of its inflow from Lake Huron through St. Clair River, which has an average flow of 182,000 cubic feet per second. The lake discharges to Detroit River, where it flows 32 miles to Lake Erie. Twelve drifting buoys were deployed on Lake St. Clair for 74 hours between August 12-15, 2002 to help investigate flow circulation patterns as part of a source water assessment study of the susceptibility of public water intakes. The buoys contained global positioning system (GPS) receivers to track their movements. Buoys were released in a transect between tethered buoys marking an 800-foot wide navigational channel in the north-central part of the lake just downstream of St. Clair River, and about 15.5 miles northeast of Detroit River. In addition, an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) was used to measure velocity profiles in a grid of 41 points that spanned the area through which the buoys drifted. Computer animations, which can be viewed through the Internet, were developed to help visualize the results of the buoy deployments and ADCP measurements.

Citation:

Holtschlag, David J., Atiq U. Syed, and Gregory W. Kennedy, 2002, Visualization of a drifting buoy deployment on Lake St. Clair within the Great Lakes Waterway from August 12-15, 2002, Date Posted: December 19, 2002, US Geological Survey Open-File Report 02-482 <http://mi.water.usgs.gov/pubs/OF/OF02-482/DriftingBuoyLSC.php>

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