  Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of extreme weather
events such as hurricanes and winter storms. The complex interplay of floods
with tides, runoff, and sediment creates additional hazards -- including
erosion and the undermining of urban infrastructure -- consequently impacting
the health of our rivers and ecosystems. Observations of these underwater
phenomena are rare, because satellites and sensors mounted on aerial vehicles
cannot penetrate the murky waters. Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) provides
a means to track and map these complex and dynamic underwater phenomena. This
work highlights preliminary results of high-resolution data gathering with
ASVs, equipped with a suite of sensors capable of measuring physical and
chemical parameters of the river. Measurements were acquired along the lower
Schuylkill River in the Philadelphia area at high-tide and low-tide conditions.
The data will be leveraged to improve our understanding of changes in
bathymetry due to floods; the dynamics of mixing and stagnation zones and their
impact on water quality; and the dynamics of suspension and resuspension of
fine sediment. The data will also provide insight into the development of
adaptive sampling strategies for ASVs that can maximize the information gain
for future field experiments.
