Student Helping to Unlock Mysteries of Watersheds
Watersheds still contain聽many mysteries. For example: how, specifically, does water pick up harmful bacteria as it flows toward its destination? And what factors within particular streams, rivers or lakes help filter out bacteria before water reaches its outlet?
Graduate student has been researching and mapping the Gulf of Maine watershed and early indicators point to wetlands as a potential filtering factor.
鈥淓arly results suggest that the presence of wetlands in our watersheds may correlate significantly with lower bacteria levels near the watershed outlets, so that is one factor that we鈥檒l be keeping an eye on going forward,鈥 Van Dam said.
Van Dam is a master鈥檚 student in 91福利鈥檚 School of Earth and Climate Sciences and the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. He is also a graduate research assistant on the New England SusTainability Consortium (NEST) Safe Beaches & Shellfish project. He鈥檚 part of a team investigating how watershed characteristics on land affect bacteria levels in coastal waters after rain events.