Sensor‐based, semicontinuous observations of water quality parameters have become critical to understanding how changes in land use, management, and rainfall‐runoff processes impact water quality at diurnal to multidecadal scales. While some commercially available water quality sensors function adequately under a range of turbidity conditions, other instruments, including those used to measure nutrient concentrations, cease to function in high turbidity waters (> 100 nephelometric turbidity units [NTU]) commonly found in large rivers, arid‐land rivers, and coastal areas. This is particularly true during storm events, when increases in turbidity are often concurrent with increases in nutrient transport. Here, we present the development and validation of a system that can affordably provide Self‐Cleaning FiLtrAtion for Water quaLity SenSors (SC‐FLAWLeSS), and enables long‐term, semicontinuous data collection in highly turbid waters. The SC‐FLAWLeSS system features a three‐step filtration process where: (1) a coarse screen at the inlet removes particles with diameter > 397 μm, (2) a settling tank precipitates and then removes particles with diameters between 10 and 397 μm, and (3) a self‐cleaning, low‐cost, hollow fiber membrane technology removes particles ≥ 0.2 μm. We tested the SC‐FLAWLeSS system by measuring nitrate sensor data loss during controlled, serial sediment additions in the laboratory and validated it by monitoring soluble phosphate concentrations in the arid Rio Grande river (New Mexico, U.S.A.), at hourly sampling resolution. Our data demonstrate that the system can resolve turbidity‐related interference issues faced by in situ optical and wet chemistry sensors, even at turbidity levels > 10,000 NTU.

中文翻译：

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引入水质传感器（SC‐FLAWLeSS）系统的自清洁过滤

基于传感器的水质参数半连续观测对于了解土地使用，管理和降雨径流过程的变化如何影响日均到数十年尺度的水质至关重要。尽管某些市售水质传感器在一定范围的浊度条件下仍能正常运行，但其他仪器（包括用于测量营养物浓度的那些仪器）在大河中常见的高浊度水域（> 100浊度单位[NTU]）中不再起作用，干旱河流和沿海地区。在暴风雨事件中尤其如此，当浊度增加经常与养分传输增加同时发生时。这里，我们介绍了一种系统的开发和验证，该系统可负担得起地为水质传感器（SC-FLAWLeSS）提供自清洁过滤功能，并能够在高度浑浊的水中进行长期，半连续的数据收集。SC‐FLAWLeSS系统具有三步过滤过程，其中：（1）入口处的粗筛去除直径大于397的颗粒 μ米，（2）一个沉淀池的沉淀物，然后除去颗粒用10和397之间的直径 μ m和（3）一种自清洁的，低成本的，中空纤维膜的技术去除微粒≥0.2 μ米。我们通过在实验室中控制性添加一系列沉积物期间测量硝酸盐传感器数据丢失来测试SC‐FLAWLeSS系统，并通过每小时采样分辨率监测干旱的里奥格兰德河（美国新墨西哥州）中的可溶性磷酸盐浓度来对其进行验证。我们的数据表明，即使浊度水平> 10,000 NTU，该系统也可以解决原位光学和湿化学传感器面临的与浊度有关的干扰问题。