Город Боземан и Монтанский университет запустят систему мониторинга водных ресурсов в бассейне реки Саудоу

BOZEMAN, Mont. — The City of Bozeman and Montana State University are working together on a new monitoring project in the Sourdough drainage area to better track water conditions tied to the city’s supply. MSU plans to install new equipment in the next few weeks in the watershed.  The station is set to rec ord water-related and weather-related data for the city and the university. Jessica Ahlstrom, Bozeman’s water conservation program manager, explained what the equipment was designed to capture. “It will collect a lot of hydrologic and atmospheric information. So, things like air temperature, soil moisture, wind speed, wind direction, snow depth,” said Jessica Ahlstrom, the city’s water conservation program manager said. Ahlstrom said the key measurement s are snowpack and snow -water equivalent, which shows how much water is actually contained in the snow. Eric Sproles, an MSU Earth sciences associate professor, said that information matters to water resource managers. “ That’s the measurement that they use for trying to predict how much what is going to come out of the watershed,” he said. Sourdough Creek provides about 40 % of Bozeman’s water supply. The rest comes from Hyalite Reservoir and Lyman Spring, which already have instruments that record snowpack and snow-water equivalent. That gap in the Sourdough watershed was a major reason the city and MSU moved forward with the project. “ This is an important project for the city to be able to access this information to support drought management, drought response, as well as like long range water resource planning,” Ahlstrom said. The city is also updating its integrated water resource plan. Ahlstrom said that work look s decades ahead as officials consider future supply needs and possible solutions. “The goal of that was to look ahead 50 years, identify our future water supply need, and then ultimately come up with recommendations on how to meet that need. So, things like developing new water supplies and then conserving our water as well,” Ahlstrom said. Sproles said MSU’s role also fit s the university’s land grant mission because it would manage the station and share data with the city. He said the project would also give students practical experience in the field. “Scientifically, it's a great opportunity. So, we get to work with students. Students will be able to go up there and get hands on experience developing their skills and their applied skills, not just what they learn in a book or in a lecture. They'll be actually doing the science and applying that towards the city, which is awesome,” Sproles said. Sproles said the team hope s to have the equipment installed by the end of September or early October before the first snow f alls.