Beach Water Quality - Automated Sensors
The Chicago Park District maintains sensors in the water at beaches along Chicago's Lake Michigan lakefront. These sensors generally capture the indicated measurements hourly while the sensors are in operation during the summer. During other seasons and at some other times, information from the sensors may not be available. See https://data.cityofchicago.org/d/k7hf-8y75 for a dataset with land-based weather measurements at selected beaches. The sensor locations are listed at https://data.cityofchicago.org/d/g3ip-u8rb.
Please note that sensor locations change with the Park District’s operational needs, primarily related to water quality. For more information on beach operations, please see https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/beaches.
Columns
| Name | Socrata field name | Column name in sgr mount | Data type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transducer Depth | transducer_depth | transducer_depth | Number | Transducer depth in meters. |
| Measurement Timestamp Label | measurement_timestamp_label | measurement_timestamp_label | Text | The Last Updated value in text format, suitable for use in the Visualize function. |
| Wave Height | wave_height | wave_height | Number | Wave height in meters. |
| Beach Name | beach_name | beach_name | Text | |
| Wave Period | wave_period | wave_period | Number | Wave period in seconds. |
| Turbidity | turbidity | turbidity | Number | Water turbidity in Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU), |
| Water Temperature | water_temperature | water_temperature | Number | Water temperature in Celsius degrees. |
| Measurement Timestamp | measurement_timestamp | measurement_timestamp | Calendar date | The date and time when the measurements were taken. |
| Battery Life | battery_life | battery_life | Number | Battery voltage, an indicator of remaining battery life used by the Chicago Park District to know when batteries should be replaced. |
| Measurement ID | measurement_id | measurement_id | Text | A unique record ID made up of the Beach Name and Measurement Timestamp. |