At present, in collaboration with our sister National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center (STC), the Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS), we are constructing a wireless network at the Angelo Coast Range Reserve (ACRR). The network will support automated environmental sensors of light, temperature, and soil moisture, plus imaging for algal blooms and acoustic detection of bats. In the years to come we will add new sensing capability (e.g., nitrate). Recently acquired light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data also supports analysis of relations between network structure and habitat, local channel properties, and vegetation.

As part of the development of the ACRR as one of NCED’s two primary field sites, we have developed a wireless network infrastructure to create a sensor observatory: the ACRR Wireless Environmental Observatory. In 2006, Desktop Watersheds (DW) Project Manager Bode and ACRR Steward Steel moved out of the design phase to install the first operational stage of the system. This brought Internet connectivity to the reserve headquarters and allowed us to switch from a slow satellite Internet connection (64 kbps) to our new wireless network (currently 2 mbps, 8 mbps once optimized).

This network is constructed using commercial packet radios instead of consumer Wi-Fi. This gives us the flexibility to develop an extensive hierarchical network of radios with built-in routing redundancy to ensure that any one point of failure does not take down the system. We used trees (redwoods and Douglas firs) as radio towers, which reduces the impact on the reserve and cuts the total system cost from $300K to $100K.

We have the ACRR weather station online , a live robotic camera , and we have developed automated hourly health monitoring for every radio and router on the system. The robotic camera has taken six daily photographs for one year of Gothic Pool to record the algal life-cycle in the South Fork Eel River. We also recorded an additional eight photos every hour over the peak months of spring-summer growth. This was done to estimate the value of triggered or timed increased sampling. The daily recording is now in the second year and will continue.

Summer 2007 will include stage three build-out of the wireless network, which will add three more towers to the system and connect Wilderness Lodge and Fox Creek Pavilion to the network. Fox Creek lodge will have a voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) phone installed as a safety measure. The Keck Foundation HydroWatch project will attach 60-90 mesh network wireless "motes" (sensors) to the NCED network in July-August, 2007. We will expand our image sampling to other areas along the South Fork Eel River and Elder Creek by installing two-to-four fixed view digital cameras to wireless uplink sites.

We have also begun a collaboration with the Keck Foundation HydroWatch group at the University of California, Berkeley, of which NCED DW Project Leader Bill Dietrich is a member, which is committed to developing reliable, inexpensive wireless technology for environmental monitoring of water through the entire hydrologic cycle. One of the group’s field sites is Elder Creek, a tributary of the South Fork Eel River within the ACRR, so NCED’s work to install a wireless backbone will be put to immediate use. We hope this collaboration will attract wider collaborations that will bring in additional funding for legacy programs that continue beyond NCED’s scheduled end date of 2012.