The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District, is working together with the coastal expertise from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, in the first of it’s kind deployment of a Radar Inlet Observing System (RIOS) to the lower Great Lakes.
RIOS will be deployed at Conneaut Harbor, Ohio, along Lake Erie through this December to collect wave and storm conditions, giving Buffalo District a better understanding of the littoral dynamics in the area.
This piece of equipment captures wave profile via radar that can be analyzed to determine how the lake bed changes during storm events.
In fact, this data collection is being done as part of the Conneaut – Presque Isle Habitat Analysis project, funded under Economy Act from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
RIOS will help to answer questions about the potential for sand bypass at Conneaut Harbor and ultimately about the potential to restore habitat between Conneaut, Ohio and Presque Isle, Pennsylvania.
Through the strong technical partnerships that the Buffalo District holds with the Detroit District, Buffalo is working to meet the needs of the States of Ohio and Pennsylvania in understanding the potential to restore habitat between Conneaut and Presque Isle, through the GLRI.