Ground Water Level at Brownsville and Hog Island, VA 1997-2009

Water levels were measured on Phillips Creek Marsh from October 1997 through December 2009 and on Hog Island from November 2002 through August 2007. Data collection for some of the stations are included in follow-on VCRLTER datasets: "knb-lter-vcr-207- Ground Water Levels at Phillips Creek Marsh, VA 2012-present" and "knb-lter-vcr.177-Groundwater Levels on Hog Island, VA. 2007-" Water levels were recorded at 3 wells in the Phillips Creek Marsh at Brownsville Plantation near Nassawadox, VA. One was located near the creek bank, one in the mid-marsh and one in the high marsh. On Hog Island, four loggers were located at the edge of the marsh, in the adjacent shrub thicket, near a freshwater pond in the center of the island and in an adjacent thicket (running from the bay towards the ocean side of the island). Water levels were recorded in wells using WL40 level loggers. The WL40 units have a sealed data logger attached to a conductive wire that runs along a plastic pole. When inserted into a well, the logger records the amount of the wire that is submersed, based on capacitance. The advantage of this method is that it is insensitive to atmospheric pressure changes or to changes in water salinity. Data is dumped via an optical interface to a calculator.