Clark shares $1.4M grant to study two watersheds; Woods Hole lab, UNH taking part in NSF research.Byline: Jacqueline Reis WORCESTER - Colin D. Polsky has studied drought in dry parts of the country, so when he arrived in Massachusetts, an area that "gets a heck of a lot of rain," he was surprised to see water-ban signs spring up like perennial gardens. "The reason is that the water management system is so splintered, that it's difficult to fund a system at the local scale that will keep up with the demands of suburbia," said Mr. Polsky, an assistant professor of geography at Clark University Clark University, at Worcester, Mass.; coeducational; chartered 1887, opened as a graduate school 1889. It was the second graduate school to be formed in the United States. Its undergraduate college (est. 1902) was integrated with the university in 1920. . In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , it's easy for neighborhoods of meticulously watered lawns to outpace their local water supply. Mr. Polsky and a team of researchers from Clark, the Marine Biological Laboratory The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biology and ecology. Founded in 1888, the MBL is the oldest independent marine laboratory in the Americas, taking advantage of a coastal setting in the Cape Cod village of Woods Hole, in Woods Hole Woods Hole, uninc. village (1990 pop. 1,080) and seaport in the town of Falmouth, Barnstable co., SE Mass., at the southwestern extremity of Cape Cod. It is the departure point for nearby island resorts (Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket). , and the University of New Hampshire New Hampshire, one of the New England states of the NE United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts (S), Vermont, with the Connecticut R. forming the boundary (W), the Canadian province of Quebec (NW), and Maine and a short strip of the Atlantic Ocean (E). have just received a grant for $1.4 million from the National Science Foundation to study suburbia's effects on coastal watersheds. They will look at the Ipswich River watershed and its neighbor to the north, the Parker River watershed, and consider the situation from ecological, social science and geographic points of view. For instance, they will look at the geographic patterns of suburbia and how those patterns affect such things as shellfish productivity and nitrogen levels in the water. They will also consider factors such as residents' income, demographics, land use zoning and culture, "where culture basically refers to ... people's interest in a golf course lawn, and that interest really does vary across the region," Mr. Polsky said. When they're done, they hope to have a computer model that will let them predict the effects of future land use decisions. Ultimately, they hope it will be a model for coastal watersheds nationwide. The rest of the research team includes R. Gil Pontius Jr., who, like Mr. Polsky, is an associate professor in Clark's Graduate School of Geography and George Perkins Marsh George Perkins Marsh (March 15, 1801 – July 23, 1882), an American diplomat and philologist, is considered by some to be America's first environmentalist. [1] The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Vermont takes its name, in part, from Marsh. Institute. Mr. Pontius is also a member of the Department of International Development, Community & Environment. The other researchers include Charles S. Hopkinson of the Marine Biological Laboratory, and Wilfred Wollheim and Charles J. Vorosmarty, both of UNH Unh The symbol for the element unnilhexium. . The research will also include work by Clark and UNH students. Contact Jacqueline Reis by e-mail at jreis@telegram.com. |
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