State of Technology for In Situ Measures of Salinity Using Conductive Temperature Sensors, Savannah, Georgia, December 3-5, 2007: workshop proceedings

摘要

This Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) workshop was convened to assess the availabilityudand state of development of conductivity-temperature sensors that can meet the needs of coastaludmonitoring and management communities. Rased on the discussion, there are presently a numberudof commercial sensor options available, with a wide range of package configurations suitable foruddeployment in a range of coastal environments. However, some of the central questions posedudin the workshop planning documents were left somewhat unresolved. The workshop descriptionudemphasized coastal management requirements and, in particular, whether less expensive, easilyuddeployed, lower-resolution instruments might serve many management needs. While several participantsudexpressed interest in this class of conductivity-temperature sensors, based on input fromudthe manufacturers, it is not clear that simply relaxing the present level of resolution of existing instrumentsudwill result in instruments of significantly lower unit cost. Conductivity-temperature sensorsudare available near or under the $1,000 unit cost that was operationally defined at the workshopudas a breakpoint for what might be considered to be a "low cost" sensor. For the manufacturers, audkey consideration before undertaking the effort to develop lower cost sensors is whether there willudbe a significant market. In terms of defining "low cost," it was also emphasized that the "life cycleudcosts" for a given instrument must be considered (e.g., including personnel costs for deploymentudand maintenance). An adequate market survey to demonstrate likely applications and a viableudmarket for lower cost sensors is needed. Another topic for the workshop was the introductionudto the proposed ACT verification for conductivity-temperature sensors. Following a summaryudof the process as envisioned by ACT, initial feedback was solicited. Protocol development willudbe pursued further in a workshop involving ACT personnel and conductivity-temperature sensorudmanufacturers.[PDF contains 28 pages]