Project Proposal

Introduction

Recently, there has been rising concern over water quality issues in the Patroon Watershed, an urban watershed located in the Albany area. The effects of industrial buildings, roads, and other urban developments on the local hydrologic system are at times tremendous. More storm runoff and erosion occurs because of the scarce vegetation in these areas and the constant changes in stormwater drainage patterns due to growing urban development. Polluted runoff, erosion and land sediment flows into the streams causing an overall degradation in the health of urban watersheds. The water within these watersheds is the water used to sustain aquatic ecosystems. On top of that, the local community is dependent on this water for many resources and recreational activities. This is why continuously investigating the primary causes of declining watershed health is so important.

Methodology

My project will focus on the relationship between water quality and land cover. Using USGS streamstats, I will delineate the Patroon watershed in Albany, NY and gather land cover data from the 2011 dataset. The type of land uses I will take account are urban development and natural land areas. Then, I will compute land use percentages using ArcGIS. As for water quality statistics, I will use heavy metal content data collected from variously located streams and conductivity measurements within the Patroon Watershed by the Environmental Studies and Sciences Department at Siena College. A comparison of these two variables will follow these initial steps. This relationship will likely be represented graphically, with % upstream urban land use being the independent variable and conductivity as well as heavy metal content data being the dependent variable. One would expect that there will be a correlation between upstream urban land use and the conductivity of these streams, which will serve as evidence that urbanization does impact water quality.

Objectives

1. Discover something new about the relationship between urban land use and water quality within the Patroon Watershed.
2. Locate streams that suffer in water quality so that they can continue to be monitored.
3. Complete Poster Presentation
4. Use the poster presentation to educate the local community about the impacts of urbanization on water quality

Deliverables

-Poster Presentation

-Map of the area within the Patroon Watershed showing land coverage and the location of the streams in which data was collected with streams indicating poor water quality marked

-Graphical representation of the relationship between percent upstream urban land use and stream conductivity/heavy metal content, will be included in poster

Timeline of my project:

Week 6 of Fall 2016 semester- Finalize my project proposal

Week 7- Familiarize myself with USGS streamstats and the other softwares I will be using, delineate Patroon watershed and gather land cover data from the 2011 dataset

Week 8- Begin computing land use percentages using ArcGIS, gather the stream monitoring datasets collected in the Summer of 2016

Week 9- Begin creating map

Week 10- Create graph

Week 11- Catch up

Week 12- Work on poster

Week 13- Finish up poster

Week 14- Finalize final poster

Sources

"Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLC)." Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLC). N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.

Perlman, USGS Howard. "Runoff (surface Water Runoff)." Runoff (Surface Water Runoff), USGS Water Science School. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.