If you’ve been to Williamson Preserve or Brumley Preserve lately, you may have noticed something new sticking out of the ponds! TLC partnered with Lake Observations by Citizen Scientists and Satellites (LOCSS) to install water gauges in Rock Pond and Frog Pond at Williamson Preserve (both accessible by the Two Pond Loop Trail), and in Silo Pond at Brumley North (off the Dairy Farm Trail) and in the southern pond at Brumley South (off the Flat Tail Trail). Volunteers can sign up on our VolunteerHub page to check the gauge and submit a reading for each of the ponds.
These gauges will monitor water level and will also help researchers better understand how the volume of water in lakes and ponds is changing and whether that’s due to precipitation, evaporation, water table height, or other factors. You can see these gauges and the current water levels in each of these ponds on the LOCSS North Carolina map. LOCSS has installed gauges in Bangladesh, France, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Washington. The project was developed by UNC-Chapel Hill, with contributions from Tennessee Tech and the University of Washington, and with funding from NASA.
Kayla Ebert, CTNC AmeriCorps Member and Community Outreach and Education Associate at TLC, organized the partnership and assisted in installing the gauges.
