Project Title: Water quality monitoring and modelling in Waquoit Bay estuaries.
Date: 6/2019-11/2019
Principal Investigator(s): Ivan Valiela, Javier Lloret
Affiliations: Marine Biological Laboratory- The Ecosystems Center
Summary: The Valiela Lab, in addition to visiting students from the University of Chicago, Brown University, and the Semester in Environmental Science Program, will be developing projects aimed at understanding the relationship between watershed nitrogen loading and estuarine water quality in the Waquoit Bay estuaries. Building off of a series of recent project work undertaken in Waquoit Bay, we will continue to define links between N loads from shifting land use and atmospheric deposition for the region and water quality indicators in selected receiving estuaries. To achieve this goal, we will evaluate how changing climate drivers (increased rainfall, lowered nitrogen concentrations in deposition, and higher temperatures) alter timing and amount of N discharged from watersheds to receiving estuaries. Waquoit Bay’s range in N loads will serve as a wider context within which to place data from other local estuaries.
In addition, Javier will oversee the continuation of research begun during the SES 2018 semester on microplastics contamination in Waquoit Bay with a new cohort of students in 2019.
