ECU Researchers Maintain Coastal Monitoring Network at CSI Field Site

On Thursday, February 26, 2026, a small field team from East Carolina University’s Water Resources Center conducted a full-day maintenance and surveying operation at the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI) marsh monitoring site in Wanchese, North Carolina. 

 Leaving the ECU dock at 7:00 AM and returning by late afternoon, the team completed a series of instrument replacements and elevation measurements that support ongoing environmental monitoring in coastal marsh environments across eastern North Carolina. 

The work is part of ECU’s Environmental Sensor Data Networks (ESDN) project — an ongoing monitoring initiative deploying a distributed network of environmental sensors to better understand marsh hydrology, salinity intrusion and groundwater–surface water interaction. 

 These systems collect real-time environmental data through LoRaWAN-enabled communication protocols, allowing researchers to remotely monitor changing coastal conditions and quickly identify malfunctioning instrumentation in the field. 

During this excursion, the team replaced one Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) sensor and one Soil Electrical Conductivity (EC) sensor. The Soil EC sensor had previously been flagged as non-functional through remote data transmission, demonstrating the value of continuous monitoring capabilities enabled by the ESDN network. 

Additionally, the team retrieved CTD instruments for laboratory reevaluation following suspected biofouling — a common challenge in coastal monitoring that can degrade long-term sensor performance. 

Elevation data for the monitoring stations were also collected using RTK-GPS surveying, ensuring that the measured water elevation can accurately be tracked over time. 

Because coastal field sites are often located hours away from ECU’s main campus, successful field operations require efficient planning, coordination and safety-focused workflows. Completing multiple instrumentation and surveying objectives within a single day of deployment highlights the logistical importance of maintaining organized field procedures in dynamic environmental conditions — particularly during inclement weather. 

Beyond supporting long-term environmental monitoring, these excursions provide ECU students and early-career researchers with hands-on training opportunities that connect classroom learning with real-world applications of environmental sensing and water resources engineering. 

 The ESDN project integrates commercial-grade and research-grade instrumentation while evaluating emerging, cost-effective monitoring solutions through LoRaWAN interfaces. This approach supports scalable environmental data collection networks capable of informing coastal management decisions across the region. 

Field Team Participants 

• Dr. Boris Dessimond, Postdoctoral Scholar (PI: Dr. Alex Manda) – Field lead 

• Char’Rese Finney – RTK-GPS surveying and laboratory analysis 

• Michelle Ding – Field training participant and media documentation 

• Kyleigh Kowalski – Instrument support and HOBO logger data retrieval 

 This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2052889.