Engineering might not be the first thing you think of when it comes to monitoring Lake Tahoe, but Civil and Environmental Engineering provides the foundation for understanding how Lake Tahoe functions and changes over time.
To understand what is happening in the lake, we must first understand its physical dynamics: how water flows into and circulates within the lake, how temperatures vary from deep waters to nearshore waters, and how conditions change throughout the water column and across the shoreline. These physical processes drive water quality, clarity, and ecosystem health.
Monitoring a lake as large and deep as Tahoe is a major engineering challenge. Our team operates a comprehensive, real-time observing network that includes:
- 10 nearshore, real-time monitoring stations
- Two permanent thermistor (temperature) chains, one with real-time data
- Four permanent buoys operated jointly with NASA
- Autonomous vehicles that collect high-resolution measurements across vast areas of the lake.
- Wirewalker wave-powered, water-quality profiling system capable of measuring 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ACDP) measure the speed and direction of water currents throughout the water column.
Together, these technologies allow us to measure the lake in three dimensions — from the surface to the bottom and from shore to shore.
By integrating this physical data with our biological expertise, TERC develops a comprehensive, science-based understanding of Lake Tahoe — supporting informed management and long-term protection of this unique ecosystem.