GLOBAL COVID-19 PANDEMIC, FIELD WORKS, AND DATA MINING

Several conferences, workshops, field trips among others have been disrupted by the current ongoing global covid-19 pandemic. While this pandemic has a serious health implications for the public, the result to halting ongoing research is innumerable, although it’s impact may be less far reaching for some local field-based research. However, this slow or low time, provides opportunities for processing and analyzing collected field data that have been placed on the back burner. The US Army Corps of Engineers plans to close some historic man-made cuts within the Satilla river estuary in Georgia; to restore the estuary back to its natural condition.

As part of the proposed Army Corps of Engineer’s project, studies were conducted examining both abiotic and biotic components of the estuarine to provide baseline data for the project. Water and sediment samples were collected for benthic organism and microplastic analysis and basic water chemical parameters. We present the water quality data collected during this time-frame. As one would expect, the chemistry varied as one moves from inland toward the Atlantic ocean with the pH remaining fairly constant with a range of 6.8 – 8.0. Dissolved oxygen ranges from 2.5 to 9.11 mg/L; conductivity ranges 2.83 to 9.11 µ/cm. The Salinity ranged from 6.04 to 32.49 ^o/_oo. This set of data would be used to assess the outcomes of the US Army Corps of Engineer field projects. Funding for a continuation of the monitoring is an ongoing process.