Measurement of Turbulence with Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers - Sources of Error and Laboratory Results

Acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) provide a promising method for measuring surface-water turbulence because they can provide data from a large spatial range in a relatively short time with relative ease. Some potential sources of errors in turbulence measurements made with ADCPs include inaccuracy of Doppler-shift measurements, poor temporal and spatial measurement resolution, and inaccuracy of multi-dimensional velocities resolved from one-dimensional velocities measured at separate locations. Results from laboratory measurements of mean velocity and turbulence statistics made with two pulse-coherent ADCPs in 0.87 meters of water are used to illustrate several of inherent sources of error in ADCP turbulence measurements. Results show that processing algorithms and beam configurations have important effects on turbulence measurements. ADCPs can provide reasonable estimates of many turbulence parameters; however, the accuracy of turbulence measurements made with commercially available ADCPs is often poor in comparison to standard measurement techniques.