Student Helping to Unlock Mysteries of Watersheds

IMG_1272Watersheds still contain 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 Brian Van Dam has been researching and mapping the Gulf of Maine watershed and early indicators point to wetlands as a potential filtering factor.

“Early 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’ll be keeping an eye on going forward,” Van Dam said.

Van Dam is a master’s student in UMaine’s 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’s part of a team investigating how watershed characteristics on land affect bacteria levels in coastal waters after rain events.

As a part of the biophysical team on the project, Van Dam has been searching for factors that both contribute to and mitigate unsafe bacterial counts at watershed outlets. The team is examining the roles of urbanization, aging infrastructure, watershed size and land cover. Through this process, Van Dam and other researchers discovered a potential link between the presence of wetlands near outlets and lower bacterial loads.

Additionally, Van Dam has been working to improve drainage maps for the Gulf of Maine watershed. He is currently focused on the detection of stream channels utilizing Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), which uses pulsed laser to generate three-dimensional data on Earth surface characteristics. The sophisticated mapping will allow for more accurate drainage calculations and other technical processes, all of which will help scientists better develop theories on bacterial contamination in coastal waters and shellfish beds.

Van Dam says his involvement with the NEST team has been enriched by its multidisciplinary nature. His work with social scientists, he says, helped bolster his sense of the project’s urgency by connecting the science to real on-the-ground stakes

“My biggest surprise was how many researchers in very diverse fields e involved in NEST across northern New England,” he said. “Frankly, just the fact that there is a social science team working on this issue is one of the most fascinating things. The work they do helps those of us on the biophysical end get a better idea of what stakeholders – citizens, groups and officials – need out of our research.”

Van Dam, who plans to spend the summer in the Wells and Bar Harbor area conducting research and mapping work, is currently working on his thesis

His faculty advisors are Sean Smith, assistant professor in Earth and Climate Sciences, Andrew Reeve, professor in Earth and Climate Sciences and Kate Beard-Tisdale, professor in Computing and Information Science.