The Tahoe Environmental Observatory Network (TEON) brings together data from sensors tracking weather, water quality and other changes across the region.
The project is a collaboration between the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), the U.S. Forest Service and the Tahoe Science Advisory Council. It officially launched this month with support from NV Energy, following more than two years of development.
Sudeep Chandra, director of UNR’s Tahoe Institute for Global Sustainability, said the goal is to better understand how changes in climate affect the land and water around Lake Tahoe.
“The original idea behind creating the Tahoe Environmental Observatory Network is to try to understand the big changes that are happening at Lake Tahoe when it comes to climate, climate to land and land to water,” Chandra said.
The network currently includes about 120 sensors spread throughout the basin, from the west shore to the east and north shores, with additional sensors in the south.
The equipment measures conditions including water quality, temperature and weather. Much of the data is transmitted automatically, with sensors sending information as often as every 10 minutes to once an hour.
That information is processed and stored at UNR, before being made available through the TEON website.
Chandra said the network can help researchers track how major weather events affect the basin.
“They allow us to see in real time how a big rain-on-snow event or rain coming in, for example, from these new El Niño storms, might change stream water quality and then affect the lake's water quality,” he said.
The website brings measurements from across the basin together in one place, allowing researchers, land managers and the public to monitor changing conditions as they happen.
Chandra says the long-term goal is for the network to become an early warning system for environmental changes, including potential algae or bacteria growth in Lake Tahoe.
