Past, present, and future: A COA watershed assessment

García Freire, Patricio; Hall, Sarah

From the abstract: "In this study, I established a baseline characterization of the COA Stream (COAS) and its respective COA Watershed (COAW). The project was guided by 4 spheres of study: The Spatial, Social, Ecological, and Economic Spheres. I identified changes in land use, land ownership, and water infrastructure through time within the COAW that may have led to the current configuration of stormwater outlets, drinking water mains, and sewage piping. Using GIS, I created a database with relevant geological, hydrological, and ecological data for the COAW, to be expanded through future research questions. Given the substantial landscape changes associated with the Route 3 Reconstruction and the future construction of the Center for Human Ecology, a new building proposed for the COA campus, I established monitoring stations at all the freshwater outlets of the COAW draining to Frenchman Bay, with the objective of involving the community in a variety of field methods, including discharge, stage, channel geometry, pebble counts, and water quality metrics. This information is of crucial importance for decision makers involved in politics, conservation, restoration, education, and infrastructure projects. With this study, I developed a framework for continued monitoring of useful ecological, economic, and social sustainability variables at the watershed scale. This assessment accounts for impacts arising from land, water, energy, and waste management decisions made at the community level, while identifying spatial, hourly, seasonal, and annual trends in watershed conditions that inform stakeholders on appropriate mitigation and best management strategies (BMPs) to be applied in future infrastructure and restoration projects. In this sense, Wild Acadia's Watershed Project serves as an opportunity to apply this studies human ecological approach at other watersheds of Mount Desert Island in and around Acadia National Park which also drain to Frenchman Bay and the overarching Gulf of Maine system, while contributing to the overall ecological, economic, and social integrity of regional waterways."