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What's Unclear About Clear Lake? A Case Study of Measuring a HAB in Real Time
With Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) becoming more frequent and intense every year, negatively impacting drinking water, recreation, and more, it’s important to know if spot sampling procedures are effective representations of our water resources. Researchers from the University of Southern California, with help from YSI, embarked to collect high resolution water quality data on one of the most heavily impacted lakes in California, Clear Lake. A three-day data collection effort was conducted using the YSI i3XO EcoMapper autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), covering 36.6 km of water. This presentation will focus on the spatial water quality data collected from the lake-wide and bay-scale surveys. The results of the study outline the criticality of spatial data collection to both inform discrete grab sample collection and understand water quality heterogeneity for HAB monitoring programs in not only Clear Lake but other essential water resources.