Aquatic Health

At AGS our aquatic ecosystem assessment and monitoring work is directed toward the overarching themes of improving water quality, wetland habitat, and aquatic ecosystem integrity. This thematic area overlaps with several of our primary application areas such as watershed management, climate change, and LULC change among others. A range of multiple, interacting activities create aquatic stressors. For example, urbanization, land use practices, water use, effluent discharge, and transportation among other activities interact and result in nonpoint source pollution, introduced species, eutrophication, algae blooms, and declining water quality conditions among other end points.



In order to improve aquatic integrity and address public health concerns, tools and approaches are required to monitor and assess impacts of these activities and the resulting problems caused. The current goals of the monitoring and assessment community are to examine trends and conditions of valued ecosystem attributes (VEAs). VEAs are now focused beyond the basic physiochemical indicators (e.g., pH, temp., etc) and are aimed at monitoring quality indicators and stressors, such as invasive species. Monitoring VEAs is intended to provide regional indications of stressor-response relationships that can be incorporated into management plans. Information on condition and the spatiotemporal dynamics of VEAs is of keen interest to decision makers when assessing aquatic health. Our efforts are focused on developing integrated approaches and monitoring tools to assess stressors and activity-stressor-response relationships that can be incorporated into management plans and the decision making process.

Current project themes include:
Wetlands Inventory and Quality Classification
Harmful Algae Blooms (HABs)
Water Quality and Eutrophication Dynamics
Invasive Species and Habitat Mapping
Index/Metric Development to Assess Aquatic Integrity
Operationalizing Aquatic Decisions Support Systems
Assessing Linkages and Interstices Among Coupled Natural-Human Systems, Watershed Stressors, and Interactions

Applied GeoSolutions, LLC 87 Packers Falls Road, Durham, NH 03824 Phone 603-292-5747 | Fax 413-714-1051 | Email: info@agsemail.com