Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2020NH238B

Water Quality and the Landscape: Real time monitoring in the Lamprey River watershed

Institute: New Hampshire
Year Established: 2020 Start Date: 2020-03-01 End Date: 2021-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $34,610 Total Non-Federal Funds: $75,333

Principal Investigators: Bill McDowell

Project Summary: New Hampshire’s surface waters are a very valuable resource, contributing to the state’s economic base through recreation (fishing, boating, and swimming), tourism, enhanced real estate values, and drinking water supplies. It is estimated that freshwater recreation and public water supplies contribute $1.5 billion in sales annually to NH’s economy. The rapid population growth that New Hampshire is experiencing threatens the state’s water supplies and ecosystem health. NH’s most significant estuary, the Great Bay estuary has experienced a significant loss in eelgrass and low dissolved oxygen levels that both threaten aquatic life. Consequently, most of the estuarine waters of the Great Bay system are classified as “impairedâ€. The Lamprey River is the largest tributary to Great Bay and the proposed work will document real time water quality in the Lamprey River and a suburban tributary. These data will be particularly useful in understanding the biogeochemical response of watersheds with different land uses to climatic variability and will help quantify the delivery of sediments, organic matter and nutrients to Great Bay.