Water Resources of Michigan

An acoustic Doppler current profiler survey of flow velocities in St. Clair River, a connecting channel of the Great Lakes

US Geological Survey Open-File Report 03-119
Lansing, Michigan 2003

By: David J. Holtschlag and John A. Koschik

Accessible Web version is available in Web (HTML) format at:
http://mi.water.usgs.gov/pubs/OF/OF03-119/OF03-119LW.php

Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction
  • Purpose and scope
  • Study area
  • Acknowledgements
• Survey methods
  • Principal of acoustic Doppler current profiler operation
  • Field data collection
  • Survey equipment and techniques
  • Data acquisition
  • Data processing
• Survey results
  • Comparison of USACE and USGS data
  • Comparison of transect data
  • Data description
  • Data retrieval
• Summary
• References cited

FIGURES

• Figure 1. Map showing St. Clair River and surrounding area.
• Figure 2. Photograph showing ADCP equipment being deployed from USACE survey vessel.
• Figure 3. Photograph showing ADCP on detachable swing mount used on the USACE survey vessel.
• Figure 4. Channel cross-section schematic showing areas where flow velocities are measured and unmeasured.
• Figure 5. Index of ADCP cross-section maps on St. Clair River.
• Figure 6. Graph showing water levels and flows on St. Clair River from May 20 to June 26, 2002.
• Figure 7. Photograph showing USGS boat used in the ADCP survey of St. Clair River.
• Figure 8. Photograph showing ADCP on pontoon tethered to USGS survey vessel.
• Figure 9. Boxplot of ADCP pitch and roll characteristics at transects CS 24C and CS 23C surveyed by the USACE and the USGS, respectively.
• Figure 10. Graph showing vertically averaged velocity vectors positioned along ship's track at transect CS 010C.
• Figure 11. Graph showing variation of velocity magnitude with depth along transect CS 010C.
• Figure 12. Graph showing variation of velocity direction with depth along transect CS 010C.
• Figure 13. Graph showing comparison between USACE and USGS flow data on St. Clair River for May 21, 2002.
• Figure 14. Graph showing comparison between USACE and USGS flow data on St. Clair River for May 22, 2002.
• Figure 15. Graph showing flow measured in transects started from the left and right banks.

Tables

• Table 1. ASCII output file created by WinRiver Software
• Table 2. Data attributes described in ADCP data files

• Appendix A. Summary of transect measurement times and adjustments.
• Appendix B. ADCP configuration files typical of those used by USACE and USGS in the survey of St. Clair River in May and June 2002.
• Appendix C. Annotated excerpt from an ADCP data table that can be retrieved through the internet.

Conversion factors and datums

Citation:

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