… While earning her graduate degree in environmental systems at the University of California, Merced, Brittany Barreto Martinez, now a postdoctoral research fellow at the Disturbance Hydrology Lab at San Diego State University, saw an opportunity to improve HAB monitoring, which has typically relied on shoreline water samples. … To get a better idea of how algae starts to accumulate away from shore, Barreto Martinez decided to look up — way up. Together with her doctoral advisor, Erin Hestir, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of CITRIS at UC Merced, she decided to explore the use of satellite remote sensing to detect HABs within the San Luis Reservoir, across the lake’s full surface. … Barreto Martinez’s work made strides toward closing a striking data collection gap and promoting a greater degree of public safety. Moving forward, data from satellite sensing can help the DWR decide where to take ground samples, while allowing the agency to issue more accurate public health alerts even more quickly. 

Other water quality monitoring news:

• ABC10 (San Diego): University of San Diego students help remove heavy metals from water