Water Quality Monitoring on the Jones River, Duxbury, MA
Since May 2006, NECWA has participated in a water quality monitoring program sponsored by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. From May until November, NECWA staff and associates assess and collect water at Mulliken’s Landing on the Jones River, in Duxbury, MA. This monitoring effort is part of a larger program headed by Dr. Amy Costa, a scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies, to investigate and document the quality and health of Cape Cod Bay.
The image to the right shows the bathymetry of Cape Cod Bay with its sea floor terrain.
Image by Woods Hole Science Center
Two or three times each month during mid-ebb tide, NECWA personnel collect
water samples and conduct a number of on-site tests from a boat ramp at Mulliken’s
Landing. Water quality parameters analyzed on-site include temperature, pH,
salinity, dissolved oxygen and turbidity. And a number of water samples are
collected for later analysis of specific water parameters including chlorophyll
a concentration and nutrients, (nitrogen and phosphorus). All collected samples
are frozen for future transport
and
analysis at the Center’s water quality laboratory in Provincetown.
Public volunteers, sampling at specific sites along the shores of Southeastern
Massachusetts, play an important role in the Center’s monitoring program.
Each year, these citizen scientists provide important water quality information
and samples from at least 12 sites that border Cape Cod Bay. Many of these
sites are located further inshore in areas not accessible by boat. This information
is used by scientists at the Center for Coastal Studies to protect and when
possible restore the Bay’s estuaries and marshes, barrier beaches, creeks,
rivers and harbors from human and natural threats.
The Cape Cod Bay Monitoring Program is a wonderful example of a community commitment to the marine conservation of Cape Cod Bay, an ecologically rich and complex bay that became a State Ocean Sanctuary in 1970.
To learn more about the Cape Cod Bay monitoring program, go to the this page - Cape Cod Bay Monitoring Program at the web site Center for Coastal Studies. If you want to learn how you can become a citizen scientist with this program, contact Dr. Amy Costa.
If you would like to help us in our efforts,
please send a check or money order to:
- NECWA - New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance
- 11 Clarence Soule Drive
- Middleboro, MA 02346
Or use our new online donation service.
Please click the button below.
