Geoscience student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst took their class outside last Wednesday to conduct a hydrology experiment.
Led by Professor David Boutt, the class prepared their experiment in the Crop Research and Education Center in South Deerfield, next to the Connecticut River.
“Today we have been doing a ‘stress test’ where we remove water out of the ground and measure how the system responds,” Boutt explains. “Whenever you pop a well next to a river, you will be drawing the river flow into the well. It is a nice site because the wells are shallow enough for us to do the experiment well.”
Mark O’Malley, an UMass student majoring in earth systems explained the importance of such experiments.
“If we are taking water out of here to use for drinking or to water the crops, this experiment will let us know how much water we can take out without damaging the surrounding areas.”
In addition, hydrology can also be used to measure climate change.
Timothy Randhir, an associate Professor of Natural Resources Conservation at UMass, has been researching climate change on the Connecticut River.
“Hydrological processes could be used as a mechanism to understand the before and after changes,” Randhir explained. It can allow scientist to document the shifting temperatures from climate change.
Randhir’s research was sparked off by the desire to localise climate change and create better understanding.
“My research attempted to downscale the global predictions. We get a lot of abstract talk about global climate change but it always comes back to ‘how is my water supply going to be affected’ and that is an important question.”
Randhir’s research took global data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and combined it with his research in order to focus on the Connecticut River fluctuations.
The 2007 IPCC synthesis report says, “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.”
Led by Professor David Boutt, the class prepared their experiment in the Crop Research and Education Center in South Deerfield, next to the Connecticut River.
“Today we have been doing a ‘stress test’ where we remove water out of the ground and measure how the system responds,” Boutt explains. “Whenever you pop a well next to a river, you will be drawing the river flow into the well. It is a nice site because the wells are shallow enough for us to do the experiment well.”
Mark O’Malley, an UMass student majoring in earth systems explained the importance of such experiments.
“If we are taking water out of here to use for drinking or to water the crops, this experiment will let us know how much water we can take out without damaging the surrounding areas.”
In addition, hydrology can also be used to measure climate change.
Timothy Randhir, an associate Professor of Natural Resources Conservation at UMass, has been researching climate change on the Connecticut River.
“Hydrological processes could be used as a mechanism to understand the before and after changes,” Randhir explained. It can allow scientist to document the shifting temperatures from climate change.
Randhir’s research was sparked off by the desire to localise climate change and create better understanding.
“My research attempted to downscale the global predictions. We get a lot of abstract talk about global climate change but it always comes back to ‘how is my water supply going to be affected’ and that is an important question.”
Randhir’s research took global data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and combined it with his research in order to focus on the Connecticut River fluctuations.
The 2007 IPCC synthesis report says, “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.”
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