A recent scientific report determined that there are more than 117 million lakes in the world (Verpooter et al. 2014). Over 200 of these lakes are in beautiful Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders love their lakes, and to ensure that each lake has water safe to drink and nice to swim in, the water quality of each lake in RI is regularly monitored by an army of volunteers. The effort is coordinated by the URI Watershed Watch Program, and one lake, Cunliffe Pond, is monitored by a team Brown University students led by fellow graduate student Marc Mayes and myself. For a full overview of the Watershed Watch program, visit this site. Scroll down to see pictures from Cunliffe Pond.
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- Putting together the foldable boat. This boat has seen a lot of field work over the years and is awesome because it fits under the seats of the department van.
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- Meyrolin and Joe launch the boat on a beautiful morning.
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- Our launching point is the ‘Temple to Music’.
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- We take water samples for temperature, dissolved oxygen, and chlorophyll from 1 meter depth using this sampling device.
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- Meyrolin capping the D.O. bottle to get a Bubble-Free sample.
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- Joe, a remote sensing technician, uses tubing to collect a phytoplankton sample to test for the presence of nuisence blue-green algae.
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- Here I take another phytoplankton sample from closer to shore. The samples are sent each week to URI watershed extension for analysis.
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- Meyrolin, an undergrad at Brown, filters water for chlorophyll and phytoplankton measurements.
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- Joe using a field-D.O. kit. Dissolved oxygen is a critical indicator of pond health, because fish and other fauna are sensitive to low-oxygen events.
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- A view of the Temple.
For Love of Limnology 