Water Resources

The Water Resources Research Center and The Environmental Institute are coordinating several interdisciplinary initiatives related to water resources. As in the Environmental Fellowship Program (EFP), faculty groups with convergent research interests related to these initiatives will meet periodically to discuss potential projects and collaborations. Water resources may also be an overarching theme in some of the efforts underway in the Environmental Fellowship Program in the thematic areas of Climate Change, Contaminants, and Modeling and Monitoring and synergies will be created wherever possible between the two programs. Water resources related initiatives are described below. For more information contact Sarah Dorner (Water Center Director) or Sharon Tracey (Special Projects Coordinator).

Decision Making for Dam Removal

Dam removal is a growing concern across the U.S. as dams age beyond their useful life span. When should dams be removed? What will be the effects? How should the costs and benefits be estimated? Massachusetts alone has more than 3,000 small dams and estimates of the number of dams nationwide range from 80,000 to 2,000,000. In the coming years most of these will need extensive repair or upgrading. To date only about 500 have been removed but this number is expected to climb dramatically as communities wrestle with the decision of repair versus removal. Despite all of this activity, we know very little about how their removal impacts stream ecology, geometry and sediments, native and invasive species, water quality, chemistry and aesthetics, property values, recreational and societal values, mitigation or response to extreme events, and estimated cost of repair versus cost of removal and other improvements. The issue is complicated by the tremendous diversity of dams and impounded rivers. Factors such as dam size, dam type, river magnitude, geography, proximity to urban areas, ecoregion, and local hydrology conspire to make each case somewhat unique. The decision to remove or repair has largely been made on the short-term and very narrow perspective of relative cost of the engineering work. The working group is exploring interdisciplinary research initiatives and policy issues associated with decision making and dam removal.

Working Group

New England Coastal Basins Hydrologic Observatory 

Water quality and aquatic ecosystem health are closely related to human activity, both past and present.  Residential, commercial, and industrial land uses have been associated with rapid degradation of stream ecosystems during the process of urbanization. The National Water Quality Assessment Program found that water quality impairments, such as heavy metals in streambed sediments, and VOCs such as the gasoline additive methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) were associated with urban sources. Major populations including Boston, Providence, and Portland obtain their water supply from reservoirs. Withdrawals for water supply total 1.43 billion gallons per day from the New England Coastal Basin area, nearly 70 percent of which is taken from rivers and reservoirs.  Interbasin transfer of water to meet water supply needs is therefore common in the New England Coastal Basins.  The Quabbin Reservoir, located outside of the New England Coastal Basins, supplies Boston with 149 million gallons of water per day. The cumulative effects of interbasin transfers of water, both from within the New England Coastal Basins, in addition to external transfers, are of major scientific interest with respect to the creation of a potential Hydrologic Observatory for the New England region. Preliminary discussions are underway and David Ostendorf, Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering is leading the preliminary coordination of this effort.

Prospectus for New England
CUAHSI Hydrological Observatories
Center for Hydrological Synthesis

CLEANER

A UMass Amherst multi-disciplinary planning team is one of 12 groups nationwide to receive CLEANER (Collaborative Large-scale Engineering Analysis Network for Environmental Research) planning grants. NSF will use the best concepts from these 12 planning teams to create the $200-300 million CLEANER environmental monitoring network. When completed, CLEANER will encompass approximately twelve environmental field facilities (EFFs) around the country linked to each other in a sophisticated computer network. CLEANER will allow researchers to monitor, share data, model, and develop strategies to improve the environmental quality of large-scale regional watersheds and airsheds. Examples of potential research sites are the Blackstone and Hudson River watersheds.   In addition to formulating an overall plan for the CLEANER network, the project team was charged by NSF with designing a New England regional EEF. The team chose the Blackstone River Watershed because it is highly impacted by human activities, including rapid development, pressure from suburban growth in Boston and Worcester and water-quality issues within the river itself. When established, the Blackstone EEF would monitor the watershed with remote satellite and low-level flyover sensing, telemetric field instruments that adapt to changing environmental conditions while reporting data on a regular basis, and researchers who physically collect information in the field. CLEANER will not only serve researchers, but will also be used to educate students, the general public and decision makers about critical environmental impacts on these watersheds.

National CLEANER Project site
Johns Hopkins Chesapeak Basin CLEANER site

Watershed Community Project

The Water Resources Research Center is organizing a new initiative called the Watershed Community Project, collaborating with UMass Extension and the Departments of Computer Science, History, Geosciences, and Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. The objective is to provide new tools to strengthen individual and community relationships with the local landscape, focusing on watersheds as the landscape unit. The project team will use new information technologies to create web and hand-held computer materials that integrate and intrepret watershed information from multiple disciplines including geology, biology, anthropology, and history. This will enable researchers and community users to capture and communicate the story of a watershed in an immediate and integrated fashion, and to enhance the educational and recreational experiences of a watershed’s trails, waterways, and other natural and cultural features. For more information about this project please contact Jerry Schoen.

Infectious Diseases

A working group in infectious diseases is organizing to discuss interdisciplinary research initiatives in this area. If you are interested in finding out more or in joining this working group please contact Sarah Dorner.

Working Group

Water Resources Related Courses

Top of Page