UPRM students, CARICOOS staff, and local volunteers occupy Rincon’s Public Beach for a 48-hr sampling campaign aiming at improving the first beach water quality nowcast in the island. The effort, which included hourly samples at eight different beach and fresh water stations, took place last October. Two laboratories were set up nearby for microbiological analysis, while several sensors were deployed in and out of the water to investigate the dominant wave, wind and current patterns. Preliminary results suggest that freshwater input from nearby streams can affect beach water quality considerably. Moreover, after an approximate 10-mm rainfall event, beach water quality can remain questionable for almost 12 hours.
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- Stream regularly showing high bacteria levels flows into Rincón Public Beach (photo credit: Francisco Villafañe).
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- Volunteers collecting hourly samples of seawater at different locations along the beach (photo credit: Jim Crotty).
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- Surfrider Rincón Vice Chair and water testing extraordinaire Steve Tamar training volunteers (photo credit: Jim Crotty).
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- David Carrero deploys drifters to assess nearshore surface currents (photo credit: Jim Crotty).
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- Federico, Peter and Sylvia team up to analyze water samples at one of the satellite labs (photo credit: Steve Tamar).
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- Priscila organizes the first batch of Quanti-Trays after the 2-day long testing campaign (photo credit: Steve Tamar).