Hurricane Irene’s effect on Vermont STREAM sites · Site Assessment and Habitat Assessment score will decrease •Total Phosphorus ... Hurricane Irene on Vermont streams . Further

Hurricane Irene’s effect on Vermont STREAM sites

Hypotheses Null

Chemical / Physical parameters unchanged Alternative

Total Phosphorus, E. coli, Total Suspended Solids, and Total Coliform will increase

Bank Full Width, Erosion, Embeddedness will increase Site Assessment and Habitat Assessment score will

decrease

•Total Phosphorus •E. coli •Total Suspended Solids •Total Coliform •Embeddedness •Site Assessment Score

Irene

Stream Information Site Name Catchment

Area (in Acres)

Percent Forestation

Percent Highly Erodible Soils

Stream Order

DR_BeavBrk_1524

4885.78 87% 78% 3rd

DR_NBDrfld_2067

607.2 97% 95.7% 4th

LCD_IndBrk_323

2950.07 56.3% 7.5% 3rd

LCD_PndBrk_179

2424.35 66.2% 26% 3rd

What did we look at? Chemical parameters

Total Phosphorus, E. coli, Total Suspended Solids, Total Coliform

Physical parameters Habitat Assessment, Site Assessment

Embeddedness & Bank Full Width

0

5

10

15

20

25

Embeddedness

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

DR_BeavBrk_1524 DR_NBDrfld_2067 LCD_IndBrk_323 LCD_PndBrk_179

Bank Full Width

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

DR_BeavBrk_1524 DR_NBDrfld_2067 LCD_IndBrk_323 LCD_PndBrk_179

Site Assessment Score

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

T. Coliform - DR_BeavBrk_1524

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

T. Coliform - DR_NBDrfld_2067

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

T. Coliform – LCD_IndBrk_323

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

T. Coliform – LCD_PndBrk_179

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

E. Coli - DR_BeavBrk_1524

0

5

10

15

20

25

E. Coli - DR_NBDrfld_2067

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

E. Coli - LCD_IndBrk_323

0100200300400500600700800

E. Coli - LCD_PndBrk_179

0

5

10

15

20

25

Phosphorus - DR_BeavBrk_1524

0123456789

Phosphorus - DR_NBDrfld_2067

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Phosphorus - LCD_IndBrk_323

0102030405060708090

Phosphorus - LCD_PndBrk_179

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14TSS - DR_BeavBrk_1524

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

TSS - DR_NBDrfld_2067

0123456789

10

TSS – LCD_IndBrk_323

05

101520253035404550

TSS - LCD_PndBrk_179

Results: No Clear Pattern Embeddedness: 3 out of 4 decrease Site Assessment Score: 3 out of 4 decrease Bank Full Width: 3 out of 4 increase Total Coliform: No clear difference E. coli: Similar patterns to previous year Phosphorus: No clear pattern TSS: 3 out of 4 decrease

Conclusion Small sample size – before/after data was only

available for 4 sites Chemical Parameters

Instantaneous “snapshot”

No clear conclusions can be made on the effect of Hurricane Irene on Vermont streams

Further Research Macro-Invertebrate

Count Diversity EPT

Wider range of data Long term effects Higher order streams

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