Real-time monitoring of river ice floes

Pertinent timely information is a critical key to any modem, successful management system. Knowing when and where several thousand tons of ice wants to travel is a dramatic case in point. To provide real-time data on ice conditions and weather forcing factors along the St. Lawrence River, the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG)- Laurentian Region equipped critical key sites along the river with real-time cameras and load cells to measure ice forces. In the particularly critical portion of Lac St. Pierre, CCG installed a experimental. specially-instrumented, Ice Monitoring Station along with a permanent radar and a real time weather station. With the Ice Monitoring Station. the CCG can now measure ice thickness. concentration and speed in real-time. This paper describes what makes the station so successful and presents some preliminary measurements.