The North East Water Resources Network (NEWRnet) study is a multi-faceted, many layered project that pulls together people, resources and disciplines in three different states in pursuit of one common goal — water quality.

Yet, the implied simplicity of those two words belies the great challenge of the three-year, $6 million project ($2 million to each state), which is as ambitious as it is pioneering.

We are facing a very critical water quality challenge. In order for us to be efficient in the way we are protecting and restoring our water resources, we must understand how and when pollutants move.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program, the Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) Track-2 project features the best and brightest minds of Rhode Island, Delaware and Vermont, in the fields of hydrology, biology, chemistry, economics, and marine robotics.

Pooling the latest technology with cutting edge science, the Track-2 project is providing researchers with new, incredibly detailed information to better assess, protect and preserve water resources. Although tailored to each of the three states, the project’s framework will set the stage for the next frontier of watershed management.

“This study gives us for the first time, real-time data from streams that drain into our drinking water and coastal waters,” explained Professor Art Gold, the project’s Principal Investigator for Rhode Island, University of Rhode Island, Department of Natural Resources Sciences.

Information gathered by the study provides high-resolution information that can capture the movement of pollutants during extreme storm events.

Sensors provide immediate impact

“We have never had this kind of capacity before,” Gold said. “Historically, we’d go out and monitor once a week. Now, with sensors, we can remotely sense all intense floods and monitor the pulses of contaminants every 15 minutes or half hour.”

Researchers immediately noticed the value of the sensors during the July 4 arrival of the 2014 hurricane season’s first storm, Arthur. A two- to three-hour period saw large amounts of sediment swept into the stream and downstream waters. These sediments were associated with a number of other contaminants and suggest the need for better sediment controls. Under the old methods, the event likely would have been missed.

Given the real time data, communities can make better decisions on behalf of their water resources. To gauge the importance of this capability, we don’t have to look any further than this summer’s crisis in Toledo, Ohio, where a toxic algal bloom made the city’s water unsafe for consumption and use.

“We are facing a very critical water quality challenge,” Gold said. “In order for us to be efficient in the way we are protecting and restoring our water resources, we must understand how and when pollutants move.

“When we talk about water resources, we are very interested in how do we protect and restore drinking water reservoirs, lakes, streams, beaches, and estuaries. These are our receiving waters, the waters we recreate in and drink; the waters that are important for our fisheries.”

Essentially, the quality of these water resources mirrors what takes place on the land draining into water. They reflect the human activity and the decisions made about how the land is used.

During rainfall, whatever is on the pavement washes off and flows into the watershed. Subsurface, leaking sewer pipes drain into the watershed as well. On agricultural land, farming practices typically include applications of fertilizer, manure or pesticides, potentially contributing to further pollution.

How land use decisions are made

Extreme weather events, with increased and prolonged downfalls, compound the problem and impact the flow of pollutants. What may stay put in lighter rain flushes into the water under the greater force of an intense storm.

“This project has a number of different components,” Gold said. “How do we deal with the challenges to water resources posed by the intense land use that characterizes Rhode Island? How do our watersheds react to extreme climactic events? How do we sustain high water quality in dry and wet weather conditions?”

The key is that as we begin to understand the consequences of our land use, from how we farm to where and how much we build and what we pave, we can better appreciate the risks, grasp the scope of the problems we create, target problem areas and quantify the costs of resolution.

Through the work of the social scientists, the project moves from identifying levels and sources of contamination to designing effective rewards and subsidies for more environmentally conscious land use and decisions.

“The problem that we have in the Northeast is that we have very high expectations for our receiving waters, yet we have no backup,” Gold said. “We need to be pulling water on a daily basis, whether it’s for our drinking water or our tourist industry.”

With the Rhode Island sensors placed in three distinct locations — pristine forested, highly urbanized and agricultural — the Track-2 project offers a comprehensive look of the interactions between weather events and land use practices. Additionally, working back through the tributaries farther inland, researchers can extrapolate a more detailed picture of what contaminants are moving where and how.

Looking to the future, Gold said the scientists expect to see the cost of the sensor technology decrease and, subsequently, the use increase. What is being done now, he said, could not have been done 10 years ago.

The Track-2 study is laying the groundwork for other Rhode Island communities and other states to tap into the expertise and knowledge gained through the NEWRnet project, from static sensors placed in streams to the mobile systems being developed to roam the watersheds and economic models capturing human behavior.

Between the three NEWRnet states, Gold said, the project incorporates about a dozen sites in the study: “We don’t have a parallel situation. The way we are setting it up and the level of data we’re obtaining is unrivaled. EPSCoR is pioneering the use of real-time sensors for water management in the Northeast.”

Photo and stories by Amy Dunkle