Watershed Process and Estuary Sustainability Research Group

Grace Johnson won the graduate poster competition at the 2023 Maine Sustainability and Water Conference. The awarded poster summarizes research on Interpreting the Extent and Characteristics of Microplastics Pollution in Maine Freshwater Streams to Guide a Holistic Mitigation Strategy. Way to go Grace!!

Members of the WPES team attended the UMaine Office of Student Employment annual awards reception at Buchanan Hall. Cade King received the Undergraduate Student Employee of the Year award. Sean Smith received a nomination for Supervisor of the Year.

WPES Research Assistant, Cade King, received an award in the undergraduate student poster competition at the 2023 Maine Sustainability and Water Conference. The poster summarizes research on headwater stream diagnostic tools and the relation to large scale forest harvest operations in Northern Maine. Congratulations Cade!

WPES will be hosting a workshop sponsored by Maine Sea Grant on April 4, 2023. The afternoon workshop will focus on demonstration and applications of a coastal spatial data tool called the “Estuary Builder” developed by PhD Candidate, Bea Van Dam. Information about the workshop and registration can be found on the WPES Networking Web […]

WPES faculty, Lauren Ross and Sean Smith, presented results from their USGS NIWR sponsored research on harmful algae blooms to representatives from federal and state coastal resource management agencies, fishing industries, and research institutions at the 2023 Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockland, Maine. Two posters and animations of tidal hydrodynamics in Frenchman Bay were displayed […]

WPES research group contributed snowpack measurements on campus to the Maine Cooperative Snow Survey (see marker on maps just above Bangor) in support of the River Flow Advisory Commission’s annual meeting to report on hydrologic conditions in the state on March 2.  

WPES faculty member, Sean Smith, coauthored a publication in the journal, Innovative Higher Education, focused on the Covid 19 pandemic effects on research and scholarship activities. The research project was launched by the UMaine Faculty Senate’s Research and Scholarship Committee (chaired by Sean Smith) in the first year of the pandemic and led by Asli […]

Stability of channel morphology and aquatic habitat in a changing climate within forested mountain basins  John M. Buffington, U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Boise, ID Time:  Friday, November 4, 2 PM ; Location:  Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall, University of Maine (Orono) A well-established paradigm in fluvial geomorphology is that alluvial rivers are adjusted […]

Uplift history of the eastern North American margin from an inversion of fluvial topography Dr. Frank Pazzaglia, Lehigh University Wednesday Oct. 26 at Noon This talk explores how the long term record of base level fall (rock uplift) is encoded in the steepness of river long profiles, and how the profiles of an entire catchment can be inverted to extract an […]

PhD candidate, Bea Van Dam, and her advisor, Sean Smith, have been awarded a new grant from Maine Sea Grant to support a workshop to roll out and provide instruction on use of the “Estuary Builder” spatial data tool developed by WPES as a coastal management decision support tool. The Estuary Builder is an automated […]

WPES collaborators, Lauren Ross and Sean Smith, have received a new grant award from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund (MOHF). Since 1996 the MOHF has provided helpful funding for critical wildlife and conservation projects in Maine. The awarded proposal, Measuring the Vital Signs of Frenchman and Blue Hill Bays, will support water quality measurements to […]

WPES faculty member, Sean Smith, has been invited to serve on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC). The three year term will involve Dr. Smith’s participation on the Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Subcommittee of the BOSC. The BOSC’s mission is to provide advice, information, and recommendations relating to the USEPA’s […]

A new paper on the “Coastal Hydrodynamics and Timescales in Meso-Macrotidal Estuaries in the Gulf of Maine” by Sohaib Alahmed, Lauren Ross and Sean Smith has been accepted for publication in Estuaries and Coasts…a journal of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation.

The School of Earth and Climate Sciences (ECS) at the University of Maine campus in Orono seeks an individual who combines computational methods with observations to interpret and predict physical coastal processes and to inform coastal management policy decisions. Observations could include but are not limited to those from paleo reconstructions, geological/geophysical investigations, estuary and […]

On Friday, October 1st, 2021 Dr. Arnoldo Valle-Levinson is hosting a seminar that illustrates the possible connection between astronomic forcing and interdecadal sea-level variations in the eastern United States and in the Adriatic Sea. It is being held at the Hill Auditorium in Barrows Hall at 1 pm. Click here to learn more!

A new research paper co-authored by Sean Smith summarizing the Chesapeake Bay Program modeling system is published in Ecological Modeling.  The paper provides a description of the modeling system along with recommendations from a workshop designed to inform future model development.