Progammable Autonomous Water Sampler - PAWS

Water chemistry conditions in freshwater and marine environments can change rapidly over both space and time. This is especially true in environments that are exposed to anthropogenic impacts such as sedimentation, sewage, runoff and other types of pollution. It is critical in studying these systems that researchers have tools capable of accurately collecting water samples across relevant spatial and temporal scales. Here we present an inexpensive, open-source Programmable Autonomous Water Sampler (PAWS) that is open source, compact, robust, highly adaptable and submersible to 40 meters. PAWS utilizes a time-integrated sampling approach by collecting a single sample in a syringe slowly over hours to days. Once analyzed, data from the sample collected represents and integrated average of water chemistry conditions over time. Due to its adaptability and low cost, PAWS has the potential to vastly improve the spatial and temporal coverage of many freshwater and marine studies.淡水与海洋环境的水化学条件可随空间与时间快速波动，在受到沉积作用、污水、地表径流及其他人为污染影响的生境中，这一特征尤为显著。针对此类水生系统开展研究时，研究者亟需能够在对应时空尺度下精准采集水样的工具。本文介绍一款低成本、开源的可编程自主取水器（Programmable Autonomous Water Sampler，PAWS），该设备结构紧凑、坚固耐用、适配性强且可下潜至40米水深。PAWS采用时间积分采样方案，通过注射器在数小时至数天的周期内缓慢采集单一样品。完成分析后，该水样的检测数据可反映对应时段内水化学条件的综合平均水平。凭借优异的适配性与低廉的成本，PAWS有望大幅提升诸多淡水与海洋研究的时空覆盖范围。