Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and winter storms. The complex interplay of floods with tides, runoff, and sediment creates additional hazards -- including erosion and the undermining of urban infrastructure -- consequently impacting the health of our rivers and ecosystems. Observations of these underwater phenomena are rare, because satellites and sensors mounted on aerial vehicles cannot penetrate the murky waters. Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) provides a means to track and map these complex and dynamic underwater phenomena. This work highlights preliminary results of high-resolution data gathering with ASVs, equipped with a suite of sensors capable of measuring physical and chemical parameters of the river. Measurements were acquired along the lower Schuylkill River in the Philadelphia area at high-tide and low-tide conditions. The data will be leveraged to improve our understanding of changes in bathymetry due to floods; the dynamics of mixing and stagnation zones and their impact on water quality; and the dynamics of suspension and resuspension of fine sediment. The data will also provide insight into the development of adaptive sampling strategies for ASVs that can maximize the information gain for future field experiments.

翻译：气候变化增加了飓风和冬季风暴等极端天气事件的频率和严重程度。洪水与潮汐、径流和沉积物复杂相互作用带来了额外危害——包括侵蚀和城市基础设施的破坏——进而影响河流与生态系统的健康。由于卫星和航空器搭载的传感器无法穿透浑浊水域，对这些水下现象的观测十分罕见。自主水面航行器（ASV）为追踪和测绘这些复杂动态的水下现象提供了一种手段。本文展示了配备可测量河流物理化学参数的多传感器套件的ASV在高分辨率数据采集方面的初步结果。测量在费城地区下斯库尔基尔河的高潮和低潮条件下进行。这些数据将用于提升我们对洪水导致的水深变化、混合与滞留区的动态及其对水质的影响、以及细颗粒物悬浮与再悬浮动态的理解。同时，这些数据将为开发自适应采样策略的ASV提供见解，以最大化未来现场实验的信息获取量。