Description of Project

Title: Stream Chemistry as an Index of Sustainability in the College Brook Watershed
Principle Investigator: William H. McDowell

Stream chemistry reflects the physical, chemical, and biological conditions in a watershed. Because it is responsive to disturbance or restoration of a watershed's biotic functions, stream chemistry provides an integrated, description of ecological conditions. Monitoring of stream chemistry in College Brook, which passes through the heart of the UNH campus, therefore provides an excellent means of assessing the ecological integrity and sustainability of the UNH campus.

Previous work on College Brook in the early 1990's (McDowell unpublished) shows that the UNH campus had a severe impact on water quality and was negatively affecting stream biota and the integrity of downstream ecosystems. By any yardstick, campus operations could not be considered sustainable. There was clear evidence that the UNH incinerator was causing excessive organic matter loading, resulting in high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and low dissolved oxygen in stream water. Other practices, such as washing of waste art materials (slip, poster paint, etc.) into street drains near the Service Building, were also impacting College Brook.

With the closing of the UNH incinerator, and heightened awareness of College Brook on campus, water quality has likely improved. Sporadic tests of water quality and characterization of benthic invertebrates as part of class laboratory exercises suggests that it has. But there has been no attempt to systematically monitor water quality in College Brook, and this is what would be needed to establish that ecological conditions in the watershed have improved.

The campus Sustainability Program and WRRC have funded a long term water quality monitoring program to ascertain the ecological health of the College Brook watershed and the UNH campus. Monthly samples are taken at 7 stations and analyzed for BOD, organic nutrients, and inorganic constituents. Student labor is used to collect water samples, conduct field analyses, and filter samples prior to analysis. Water quality analyses are conducted under my direction in the Water Quality Analysis Lab of the Department of Natural Resources.