Time: June 17th, 2019
Location: Plateau Lake, Lhasa, Tibet
Background
With the big picture of global warming, the climate change has brought some effect to plateaus and the surrounding ecosystem which resulted in the acceleration of glacier melting, outbreak of plateau ice lakes, increase in flood and new disasters like ice collapse, and one of the most prominent phenomenon is the noticeable expansion of lakes.
In June 17th, a expedition team from Chinese Academy of Sciences outset from Lhasa, Tibet marking the launch of China’s second Qinghai-Tibet plateau comprehensive scientific investigation.
Observe and evaluate what influences has the climate change brought to the plateau to put forward practical suggestion for environment protection and development is the key mission of this expedition.
Operation Circumstance
Altitude of 4,724 meters, air pressure of 1010hPa, 3-4 class of wind.stomach
Equipment
OceanAlpha ESM30 autonomous sampling and monitoring boat
Hydrolab DS5 multiparameter water quality sonde
Process
A ESM30 USV carrying a Hydrolab water quality sonde was deployed in the Namucuo lake to conduct water quality monitoring over 7 parameters including pH, dissolved oxygen , blue green algae, chlorophyll, conductivity, temperature, and turbidity.
Sampling report
At an altitude of 4,724 meters, the USV has to work in an extremely challenging environment with severe cold, lack of oxygen, strong wind and high waves.Despite of all the difficulties, ESM30 USV was able to comply its mission and output sampling report and water quality map autonomously with high efficiency and accuracy.
Working scenes
20 square kilometers of lake surface water quality data was collected by the USV within 2 days with all surveyors stay safely on the bank.
Sampling Route
Conclusion
OceanAlpha’s USV has stable and outstanding performance even in extreme environments. It’s a reliable survey platform for surveyors in extremely cold and low oxygen condition where heavy workload consuming too much energy would be fatal.