Stream gauge
device used to monitor surface water flow
A stream gauge, streamgage or stream gauging station is a location used by hydrologists or environmental scientists to monitor and test terrestrial bodies of water. Hydrometric measurements of water level surface elevation ("stage") and/or volumetric discharge (flow) are generally taken and observations of biota and water quality may also be made. The locations of gauging stations are often found on topographical maps. Some gauging stations are highly automated and may include telemetry capability transmitted to a central data logging facility.
Measurement equipment
Automated direct measurement of stream discharge is difficult at present. Mathematically, measuring stream discharge is estimating the volumetric flow rate, which is in general a flux integral and thus requires many cross-sectional velocity measurements. In place of the direct measurement of stream discharge, one or more surrogate measurements can be used as proxy variables to produce discharge values. In the majority of cases, a stage (the elevation of the water surface) measurement is used as the surrogate. Low gradient (or shallow-sloped) streams are highly influenced by variable downstream channel conditions. For these streams, a second stream gauge would be installed, and the slope of the water surface would be calculated between the gauges.
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