Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID NH_2023_WaterQuality

Water Quality and the Landscape: Long-term monitoring of rapidly developing suburban watersheds

Institute: New Hampshire
Year Established: 2023 Start Date: 2023-09-01 End Date: 2024-08-31
Total Federal Funds: $30,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $69,251

Principal Investigators: William H. McDowell

Project Summary: New Hampshire’s surface waters are a valuable resource, contributing to the state’s economic base through recreation, 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 NH is experiencing threatens the state’s water supplies. This project will continue documentation of long-term changes to water quality in response to changing land use and management practices associated with population growth, as well as to extreme climatic events. This project draws from the efforts of local watershed groups, UNH staff and students to produce long-term datasets of water quality in NH. These datasets could support the development, testing and refinement of predictive models, assess the impacts of watershed management practices, assess efforts to reduce water quality impairments, and be potential early warning signs of dramatic changes to surface water quality.