Assessing Hydrologic Connectivity using Water Temperature, Wax Lake Delta, Louisiana

Abstract

We take a reduced complexity approach to assessing the advective factors that contribute to the hydrologic connectivity between a primary distributary channel and interdistributary island on the Wax Lake Delta of coastal Louisiana. We deployed a relatively inexpensive, open-source data logging platform to collect high quality continuous water temperature, water depth, air temperature, and shortwave solar radiation from a portion of Wax Lake Delta from February 18 through May 19, 2015. We use this field data to create a reference model of predicted water temperature at the data logging locations at the site. Based on comparison of that model with the water temperature observations, we find that different regions of the island have differing degrees of hydrologic connectivity to the primary distributary channel.