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TEXAS COASTAL OCEAN OBSERVATION NETWORK
TCOON |
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FEATURES
- Water-level data and other environmental parameters are made available in near-real time via packet radio, cellular telephone, and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES).
- The TCOON system was installed using NOAA criteria for guidance to obtain RELIABLE WATER LEVEL DATA and to address legal concerns for the admissibility of the data in the determination of littoral boundaries.
- The information collected by TCOON has also been used for
Oil-spill preparation and response
Recreation, marine and navigation safety
Oceanographic and environmental research,
Coastal engineering and construction
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredging operations and management of Texas coastal waterways
- The TCOON system has 26 stations , the majority of which are Sutron Tide Stations, in addition to the seven long-term NOAA NOS NWLON stations established and operated by NOS as part of its National Water Level Observation Network.
- Besides WATER LEVEL DATA, most stations provide supplemental data such as WIND SPEED and DIRECTION, AIR TEMPERATURE, and WATER TEMPERATURE. Additional stations provide WATER CURRENT, SALINITY, PH, and DISSOLVED OXYGEN DATA.
- This water level and wind data are collected at six-minute intervals (0.1 hours), all other data are collected at some multiple of the standard of 6 minutes.
- In order to manage this large volume of data, a database management system has been developed which supplies data to sponsors and the public via the Internet at the Division of Nearshore Research Web site @ http://lighthouse.tamucc.edu and through voice telephone response systems.
- Several related projects have been established based on the data collection and management systems developed for TCOON. These projects include
THE NUECES BAY SALINITY PROJECT - City of Corpus Christi
5 near-real-time water quality monitoring stations measuring parameters such as salinity, dissolved oxygen, and PH.
THE CORPUS CHRISTI REAL-TIME NAVIGATION SYSTEM - Port of Corpus Chrisiti
A system to provide the Port of Corpus Christi with real-time navigation data such as water level, water currents, and meteorological conditions.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFSHORE PLATFORM provides meteorological and wave data to help local forecasters create marine condition forecasts.
THE CONRAD BLUCHER INSTITUTE (CBI) FOR SURVEYING AND SCIENCE has developed one of the most sophisticated water level and environmental observation systems available. The system provides data used for hurricane preparedness, littoral boundary definition, water quality monitoring, real-time water level and meteorological monitoring for marine safety, and recreational users of the bays and estuaries of South Texas.
THE HIGH QUALITY OF THE DATA provides the potential to expand research initiatives into oil spill prevention and response, eustatic sea level, and shoreline subsidence monitoring, and a host of environmental studies related to water quality and circulation
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STATION CONFIGURATIONS
Several different CBI-DNR data collection stations and systems collect coastal measurements, however, each station consists of...
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| • Sensors to measure various environmental parameters |
| • A data collection computer for controlling the sensors and temporarily storing data on-site |
• One or more telemetry devices for retrieving data from the station and transmitting it to headquarters -includes satellite, spread-spectrum packet radio,
& telephone modem |
| • Solar panels and batteries for power |
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| Each station’s instrument configuration is determined by the purpose of the station and local conditions. For example, instruments used to measure parameters such as WATER CURRENT, SALINITY, & DISSOLVED OXYGEN are expensive to install and maintain, thus they are deployed at a limited number of sites. The presence of buildings or other physical structures near a data collection station may prevent accurate wind measurements, so wind is not measured at these stations. |
| The original NGWLM used the highly reliable Sutron 9000 datalogger. Although many are still in operation over 20 years later, they are being replaced with Sutron’s new Tide Stations using Sutron’s state-of-the-art Xpert Datalogger. |
SENSOR SAMPLER |
| Acoustic transducers for measuring water elevations |
Wind anemometers for wind speed and direction |
| Acoustic doppler current profiling instruments |
Multiparameter water-quality probes |
| Water current |
Salinity |
| Dissolved oxygen |
Air & water temperatures |
| pH |
Barometric pressure |
| Turbidity |
Air gap |
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| The data is stored on-site in the data collection computer and then transmitted to CBI-DNR by one or more communications channels including satellite, spread-spectrum packet radio, or telephone modem. The choice of communications depends on availability of telephone or radio connections and the degree of need for real-time observations. For example, stations in the Corpus Christi Real-Time Navigation System and Freeport FlowInfo System use line-of-sight packet radios to allow for frequent acquisition of data from the on-site data collection computers-typically downloading new data once every twelve minutes. At stations where radio or telephone connections are not available, satellite transmissions are used to transmit data at hourly or three-hourly intervals. Thus, the time from measurement to acquisition at CBI depends on the measurement interval and the communications medium used. The data arrive at CBI somewhere between six minutes and six hours after measurement. |
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DATA APPLICATIONS |
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TIDAL DATUM
The need to reduce to a common level depth soundings taken at different stages of the tide during hydrographic surveys spawned water level datums. Increasingly, the need of the land surveyor uses this data to determine waterfront boundaries by tidal definition. However, at many locations the astronomical tide is often masked by local meteorological conditions and long-term trends in the Gulf of Mexico, which makes standard procedures difficult to apply and increases the degree of labor required to produce a tidal datum. As a result, CBI-DNR has developed Web-based software that automatically computes datums from water-level data= stored in the CBI-DNR database. |
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LITTORAL BOUNDARY DEFINITION
Tidal datums are used to determine littoral boundaries between submerged and privately owned lands. Bench-mark leveling is performed annually at each TCOON station to ensure station stability and to relate water-level information to reference points on land. CBI-DNR publishes bench-mark elevation sheets on its Web site that indicate the elevation of bench marks above tidal datum planes; surveyors then use these elevations for precisely locating littoral boundaries. For example, the Texas General Land Office used TCOON data to successfully defend against a lawsuit challenging its ownership of lands along the Laguna Madre, saving the state millions of dollars in oil and gas revenues. |
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HURRICANE AND STORM PREPARATION
An initial and ongoing application of CBI-DNR’s tide stations has been to provide timely water level data to assist the local Corpus Christi National Weather Service Office, and thus the entire community, with hurricane or storm preparedness regarding inundation of low-lying areas along the coast, road closures, and evacuations. The local National Weather Service Office seamlessly integrates near-real-time observations into its weather forecasting systems to better predict the effects of an incoming storm. Because the A&M-CC campus is evacuated if a hurricane threatens the area, CBI-DNR can move its data-collection system to local emergency
operations centers to continue collection and distribution of TCOON data during the storm event. |
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NAVIGATION AND MARINE SAFETY
TCOON data has great value to navigation interests. Information provided by TCOON is augmented with current meter data from other systems to provide near-real-time reports of conditions in heavily trafficked shipping channels in several Texas ports. One such system is the Corpus Christi Real-Time Navigation System sponsored by the Port of Corpus Christi. CBI-DNR has installed acoustic doppler current profiler instruments at key locations along the Corpus Christi Ship Channel; near-real-time data from these instruments and TCOON platforms allow ship pilots to better navigate large vessels in and out of Corpus Christi Bay. Pilots simply call a local telephone number to receive a digitized voice summary of the latest current, water-level, and meteorological conditions for the stations in Corpus Christi Bay.
The NOS-sponsored Houston/Galveston Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS) makes similar use of TCOON stations to assist pilots in Galveston Bay, and the Freeport FlowInfo system monitors currents and water levels for Port Freeport. |
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CHANNEL DREDGING AND MAINTENANCE
The United States Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District uses TCOON data to plan and execute its maintenance of Federally authorized channels and waterways along the Texas coast, including ship channels and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Navigation channel maintenance and operation activities require knowledge of water level, tidal datums, and other environmental parameters before, during, and after dredging. |
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OIL-SPILL RESPONSE
A significant application of TCOON data involves developing circulation and oil-spill trajectory models. Each night, the latest water level measurements are automatically downloaded from the TCOON Web site, and used to generate a new set of model calculations that predict currents for the following three days. These current predictions are input into a trajectory model that predicts where oil will move if a spill occurs. Oil-spill emergency response teams are deployed based on these models to deploy to minimize a spill’s impact. |
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RECREATION AND BENEFIT TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC
A particularly successful application of TCOON data has been CBI-DNR’s WindInfo system. WindInfo is a telephone voice-response system (361-992-WIND) that provides the general public with wind and water conditions for any station in CBI-DNR’s observation networks. In 1993, WindInfo received over 60,000 calls from windsurfers, sailors, fishermen, and other recreational enthusiasts desiring nearreal- time information along the coast. |
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