Watershed, Education, Science and Policy Lab

The WESP Lab group has been busy since the last post. Kate Longfield defended her MS thesis in fall 2023 and Marisa Immordino defended her thesis in fall 2024. Kate’s research was carried out in support of the Watershed Forestry Partnership. She initially developed a database of all dairy, livestock, crop and vegetable farms in the Lake Champlain basin of Vermont. Then, she randomly selected farmers from that list to contact to invite to participate in interviews about the NRCS Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and other similar programs that promote adoption and implementation of riparian forests. The abstract describing her thesis is available here.

Marisa studied the Lake Champlain Sea Grant and UVM Extension Watershed Alliance program and two similar programs in Pennsylvania that all employ undergraduate interns as educators about watershed science. She assessed career impacts on those students who had interned with the three programs. Her thesis abstract is available here.

The current WESP Lab team has also been busy. Alison Spasyk is about to enter the data analysis phase of her research. She surveyed experts to gather their input in an effort to define outcomes of successful watershed education programs. She will use the information she learns from those experts to assess watershed literacy of youth who participate in the Watershed Alliance program. Samantha Grant is assessing various tools to identify areas of Vermont where vulnerable populations live. She will then overlay flooding maps to consider how flooding impacts these communities and to make recommendations that could reduce their vulnerability to flooding in the future. Sabrina Koetter is just getting started on her research that will focus on pathways of information sharing and outcomes for participants in volunteer water monitoring programs. Noelle Hasan is supporting the lab group in a variety of ways. This includes assisting with data collection and data coding, and taking the lead on map making.

I’m working with these students on their research as well as with other collaborators on a variety of research projects that include such things as seeking to understand the knowledge of beachgoers about cyanobacteria blooms and swimming area closures, broadening the diversity of engagement in participatory science programs, understanding potential for engaging members of the public in making observations about drought in the Lake Champlain basin and also in Switzerland (where the CrowdWater program that engages members of the public to make such observations is based), and understanding the extent to which water-focused participatory science programs demonstrate “credible” practices, such as by following standardized methods, having defined quality assurance and quality control measures, training volunteers, and allowing open access to volunteer data. Within the Lake Champlain basin, I am working with municipalities and UVM custodial staff to offer education programs to help professionals use sustainable road salting practices. Noelle and I are also communicating with local businesses to understand their road salting practices and motivations and barriers to reducing salt use.

The WESP Lab team and former lab members have several peer-reviewed publications recently published or in the works.

Dr. Kristin Raub, now a researcher with Northeastern University, recently published a paper from her dissertation. Here’s the citation if you’re interested in learning about the food, energy, water nexus as related to community flood resilience: Raub, K. B., Flynn, S. E., Stepenuck, K. F., & Hedderman, C. (2024). Integrating resilience and nexus approaches in managing flood risk. Frontiers in Water, 6, 1306044.

Holden Sparacino and I worked with Dr. Stephanie Hurley to complete publication of a chapter of his thesis. That citation is Sparacino, H., Stepenuck, K. F. , and Hurley, S.E. 2024. Understanding Reduced Salt Practices Used by Commercial Snow Removal Businesses in the Lake Champlain Basin: A Mixed Methods Analysis. Journal of Environmental Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119957.

I also worked with colleagues to publish a paper in which we compared volunteer streamflow monitoring methods to professional discharge monitoring methods. That citation is Stepenuck, K. F., Diebel, M., Smith, H., Anderson, I., & Wiseman, D. (2024). Surface velocity coefficients for discharge monitoring with a surface float method in shallow streams. Journal of Hydrology, 632, 130852. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.130852

It’s fun to bring some of our research to the publication phase so we can share our findings with a broader audience. Looking forward to sharing findings from a variety of other research projects later this year and in 2025 (and beyond) as well!

The Watershed, Education, Science and Policy Lab has two openings for MS students coming up. The first has a short deadline of October 4, 2022 for a January 2023 start. It is an MS project focused on Aquatic Nuisance Species. The other has a December 1, 2022 deadline for a June 2023 start. This project is focused on Watershed Education and assessing outcomes of formal education programs.

I am currently a postdoc after completing my PhD in March 2021. I have been a member of the WESP lab for a few years now as Kris was my advisor during my PhD and I enjoy continuing to meet with the group now during my postdoc. My primary position is as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Flood-Apex postdoc at CUAHSI (the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. – say that five times fast). I am also an Affiliate of RSENR at UVM and a Visiting Scholar/postdoc at Northeastern University’s Global Resilience Institute (GRI). My research focuses on combining the study of coastal resilience with a food-energy-water nexus approach (or, more broadly, a lifeline systems nexus approach), mainly in the context of resilience planning and policy. In general, I love applied research that can have real-world impact. 

As a postdoc, I spend my days in many ways and work on a variety of projects. Earlier this fall I put together and hosted a Cyber Seminar Series for CUAHSI on urban flood resilience, in which I compiled a lineup of speakers to showcase interdisciplinary research and how many different fields tackle one of the world’s most prevalent disasters. I am also currently working on a systematic literature review to investigate resilience as transformation in the context of disasters. I am particularly interested to see what kind of consensus or disagreements there are in the field around how to conceptualize resilience as transformation and if any action has shown to be successful in building transformational resilience. I was also recently the lead author of the Community Development chapter of the Vermont Climate Assessment 2021, which was released in November. 

Most recently, I have entered the world of grant writing. Earlier this year, I received my first grant from UCAR’s COMET program, which seeks to develop collaborative research to investigate how the National Water Center’s National Water Model can have real world application. My project, which began in September, seeks to investigate how the National Water Model could be used in community resilience planning. We are preparing to begin a series of interviews and a collaborative session between resilience stakeholders and NWC staff in January 2022. At GRI, I was asked to step in to help coordinate several larger proposals – one for NOAA’s Climate Smart Communities Initiative and another for USAID. Each of these proposals seeks to apply a co-learning methodology (treating academics and community members as equals – each having a portion of the necessary knowledge) with an emphasis on justice and equity to facilitate community climate resilience planning. Learning how to write and coordinate grants has been like drinking from a fire hose, but I have learned a lot and have very much enjoyed the process. It is actually quite fun to brainstorm cool research ideas with other scientists and then write them into a plan. Fingers crossed some of these proposals will be successful! 

By Stever Bartlett. MS Candidate Aquatic Ecology and Watershed Science

The clayplain forests of the Lake Champlain Basin prior to colonization were expansive in acreage and extensive in the ecological services they provided.  Restoring functioning clayplain forests in and around current wetlands, shorelines and river riparian areas is a long sought after goal.  In an effort to reach that goal, my research (in addition to other research) is happening in the Lake Champlain Basin to determine best management practices for planting trees in riparian areas that are dominated by reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea).  The project is funded by a Pollution Prevention and Habitat Conservation grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program. It is the first applied research project of the new Watershed Forestry Partnership, a collaboration of UVM Extension, Lake Champlain Sea Grant and various partnering organizations.

My research, intended to learn how best to control reed canary grass, includes planting adjacent treatment (herbicide-free management techniques) and control (i.e., standard herbicide management techniques) plots of native tree stems at eight Lake Champlain Basin sites in Addison County, and assess survival overtime. The sites are located in the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s Dead Creek, Lemon Fair, Little Otter Creek, Lower Otter Creek and Whitney/Hospital Creek Wildlife Management Areas.

A common and current standard treatment in the Lake Champlain basin of Vermont is the application of glyphosate as a primary management practice to control reed canary grass. Herbicide-free management techniques have been studied with varying results, including tilling and mowing methods. The herbicide-free management technique in my study incorporates tilling the treatment plot prior to planting, and mowing sites at set intervals during the first two years of growth. I completed the tilling and preparation of the plots in the late summer and early fall of 2020. The planting of 1,440 tree stems occurred with the help of volunteers in April and early May of 2021, across the eight sites. Each site was planted with 90 stems in the control plot and 90 stems in the treatment plot.  Tree stems ranged in height from 3-5ft and included species native to Lake Champlain Basin floodplains. Some of the species planted were swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor), burr oak (Quercus macrocarpa), grey dogwood (Cornus racemose), red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea), red maple (Acer rubra), silver maple (Acer saccharinum), nannyberry (Viburnum lentago), Arrowhead (Viburnum dentatum) and american basswood (Tilia Americana).  Rain and wet soils made the planting muddy and messy, but otherwise conducive to helping the stems live and become established. 

In the first week of June, July, August and September (2021), I collected data at each site and performed the plot maintenance in the form of manual weed control (weed eating).  Counting live and dead stems as a part of the monthly data collection indicated the planting was successful with only a handful of stems showing catastrophic demise.  Other data collected was a soil sample from each site, and an estimate of percent cover of reed canary grass in the control and treatment plots using a 1m x 1m quadrat.  I observed that reed canary grass growth was depressed as expected.  The surprise was the invasion of other weed and grass species, both native and non-native.  

I will collect data and engage in plot maintenance another four times in the summer of 2022.  In the fall of 2022, after the data compilation and analysis is wrapped up, I will prepare a scientific paper and the results of the project will be shared with the scientific community and stakeholders, to provide data based information for landowners and practitioners to use when deciding what management methods to use for future riparian buffer planting projects.

The WESP Lab will welcome a master’s degree graduate student focused on aquatic nonindigenous species in fall 2022. See the description here.

Written by senior, Kristen Livingstone

The WESP lab stands in solidarity with Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) communities.  

Content warnings: Racism and violence 

We recognize that as a part of a predominantly white institution and as a part of a larger system and country that regrettably continues to perpetuate white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, and other forms of oppression that we have not always succeeded in addressing or intervening in situations we should have and that may not have always succeeded in fostering a safe and welcoming environment for BIPOC. We stand with our AAPI students at UVM and our AAPI neighbors in Burlington, in surrounding communities across Vermont, across the Lake Champlain basin and across the country. We do not condone the recent increase in violence towards AAPI people that has disproportionally impacted women and elders. 

We recognize that it is not the work of BIPOC and AAPI people to educate us on these topics. We pledge to continue to educate ourselves individually and as a lab group on issues of racism and to work to dismantle our internalized biases. We pledge to offer our allyship and solidarity to the AAPI community and to take actions to resist and dismantle systems of racism and oppression. 

On March 16 Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, Daoyou Feng, Yong Ae Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, and Xiaojie Tan were killed in Atlanta, Georgia in a terrible act of violence. Our hearts go out to their friends and family. We will remember their names. 

#stopasianhate 

Resources: 

https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/

Stop AAPI Hate National Report 

Vermont Asian Pacific Islander Desi Americans (APIDA) for Black Lives Statement 

Places to consider donating: 

Hate is a Virus: https://hateisavirus.org/donate-archive 

Stop Asian Hate: https://donate.givedirect.org/?cid=14711 

National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum: https://www.napawf.org/ 

Topics for Further Education: 

• The Model Minority Myth 
• The Naturalization Act of 1790
• The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Magnuson Act of 1943
• Page Act of 1875
• Japanese Internment Camps post-Pearl Harbor
• Colonization of Asian Countries
• ‘Orientalism’
• The 1982 murder of Vincent Chin
• The fetishization of Asian women

While 2020 has been a challenging year, graduate students in the Watershed, Education, Science and Policy (WESP) Lab have dug deep to achieve a variety of successes – the most recent of which included Kristin Raub’s successful defense of her PhD dissertation on Friday, December 4. Kristin’s research on community resilience planning through a food, energy and water nexus lens involved conducting interviews of community planners, and assessing both peer-reviewed and grey literature (in this case, resilience plans of cities in the 100 Resilient Cities program) related to integration of the FEW nexus in coastal community resilience research and planning. Kristin’s defense presentation is available here for viewing. Plus, for those with interest in understanding her research in more depth, her first research chapter is published in Coastal Management. The full citation is: Raub, K. B., & Cotti-Rausch, B. E. (2019). Helping Communities Adapt and Plan for Coastal Hazards: Coastal Zone Management Program Recommendations for National Tool Developers. Coastal Management, 47(3), 253-268).

Kristin has accepted a postdoctoral position with CUAHSI, which is the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.. This is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. She will be continuing to explore a variety of research questions related to the FEW nexus and coastal community resilience that have arisen as she completed her dissertation.

On the same day Kristin defended, Rachel Pierson got word that her final edits to her MS thesis had been accepted by her committee, and she turned in all the paperwork to officially graduate. She will be among those recognized in a virtual ceremony on December 11 held by the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at UVM. Rachel is currently serving as Volunteer Coordinator with Volunteer Maryland at the Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center, a service program she began just days after defending her thesis earlier this semester.

Earlier this fall, Stever Bartlett’s research was featured in a news article as he prepared his study plots for spring tree planting. Learn more about his research here. Funded by the Lake Champlain Basin Program, and carried out in partnership with UVM Extension’s Kate Forrer and Alison Adams, Stever’s research is the first to be conducted to support efforts of the new Watershed Forestry Partnership.

To further support the Watershed Forestry Partnership, the WESP Lab will be bringing in one more graduate student in fall 2021. The available position will be funded by Lake Champlain Sea Grant. Alison Adams, Extension Forestry Coordinator and coordinator of the Watershed Forestry Partnership, and I will be reviewing applications and interviewing potential students in the next few months. The selected student will engage in social science research focused on exploring landowners’ motivations to install forested riparian buffers on their land. Learn more about this position and how to apply here.

In closing, I wish everyone who has the ability to follow guidance of public health officials the strength to continue to be diligent in wearing face coverings, avoiding indoor gatherings with small or large groups, and keeping physically-distanced from everyone from outside your household if you must be in proximity to them. Vaccines are coming, but we have many months to go before they are available to the broad population. Finally, I extend deepest gratitude to both health professionals who are providing care to those who fall ill and other essential workers who face continued exposure to the virus due to their working conditions.

After a long summer of analyses and writing, MS candidate, Rachel Pierson, successfully defended her thesis, entitled An International Pilot Study of Volunteer Stream Monitoring Groups: The Role of Place Attachment in Volunteer Motivations, on Thursday, September 10, 2020. She shared findings about factor analysis describing motivations of volunteers to participate in volunteer stream monitoring programs in three countries: New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. Her presentation is posted to the Lake Champlain Sea Grant YouTube page at: https://youtu.be/12MHzsrVmjs

Rachel will be making revisions to her thesis in the coming weeks, and working on peer-reviewed publications and data summaries for the programs that participated in the research study. Congratulations Rachel!

I have many emotions flowing through me as I write this post. Here at the University of Vermont, we are on day 5 of COVID-19-driven isolation and telecommuting. At the moment, I am bursting with pride towards now successfully-defended master’s student, Jason Scott, and his fellow graduate students who have defended this week. Faced with this unprecedented world-wide situation, and thrown into using often new technologies to them, these students calmly, confidently, and competently have shared and defended their research findings.

Jason had a remote audience of almost 30 people this morning. As such, another of my current emotions is gratitude to all those who were able to carve out an hour to join in and learn from Jason, again, often using technologies that were new to them.

Back to Jason again, I am excited about the information he gathered, training he facilitated, and products he developed that will help improve the response and resilience to oil and other hazardous materials spills along Lake Champlain. His work lays a strong foundation for future efforts of Lake Champlain Sea Grant and numerous federal, regional, state and local partners to further improve our ability to prepare for and respond to oil and other hazardous materials spills. The last step of his efforts prior to departing to return full-time as an Active Duty Officer in the United States Coast Guard will be to work with our Lake Champlain Sea Grant communications lead to create a robust section of our website to share the training tools and resources he has developed and compiled to benefit marinas, first responders, and others during a spill response. For those with interest, the majority of his defense presentation is available to view here.

Another emotion I felt today was excitement. We found out late this afternoon, that Stever Bartlett has been accepted by the UVM Graduate College. This means he will begin his work as part of the WESP Lab this summer. Stever will be working with me and Kate Forrer, UVM Extension Community Forestry Specialist, and our newest Lake Champlain Sea Grant and UVM Extension hire, Alison Adams, on a riparian restoration research project funded by the Lake Champlain Basin Program.

In a week that one meme suggested felt more like a year, and where feelings of fear and anxiety often dominated, I am grateful to have ended it with these positive results for these students. – Kris Stepenuck

All of the WESP Lab graduate students have exciting happenings related to their research right now.

Kristin Raub is due many congratulations, as she was recently named as one of two Thomas J. Votta scholarship winners for the 2019-2020 academic year at the University of Vermont. The scholarship is awarded to graduate students in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, the College of Engineering and Mathematics or the Grossman School of Business who seek to make a difference in “solving environmental problems and using Environmental Best Practices” to meet their goals – much like Thomas J. Votta had done in his life and career before his untimely death in 2009. Kristin’s research focuses on improving coastal resilience of communities by bringing together the food, water and energy sectors in preparedness planning and response. Learn about more her research with the following paper, which will become the first chapter of her dissertation: Raub, K. B. (2019). Coastal Adaptation to Sea Level Rise: Effects of Residential Proximity to the Coast, Climate Change Perceptions, and Attitudes Toward Government for Valuing Ecosystem Outcomes.

Kristin is also competing in the University of Vermont’s inaugural Three Minute Thesis competition. This global competition is for doctoral students who have passed their comprehensive exams. In the competition, they must share how their research is significant with a non-technical audience in just three minutes. There are two preliminary rounds at UVM. The first is March 16, 2020 at 7:00 PM in the Frank Livak Ballroom of the Davis Center. The second is March 19, 2020 also at 7:00 PM in the same location. The final round is scheduled for Friday, March 27, 2020 at 7:00 PM in the Sugar Maple Ballroom of the Davis Center on the UVM campus. Come learn from (and cheer for) her and her fellow competitors!

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Rachel just returned from a research trip in New Zealand, where she worked with our partner, Dr. Amanda Valois (@what_fish_eat), a Freshwater Scientist with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (@NIWA_NZ), and volunteers from a variety of volunteer steam monitoring programs on both the North and South Islands. Rachel was implementing the interview phase of her thesis research, following up on surveys done this past summer and fall. Her work was featured in a news article in Local Matters, a news agency on New Zealand’s North Island.

In addition to this trip to New Zealand, Rachel has been busy with travel this fall and winter to conduct interviews with volunteers from all three of our project partners for her thesis research. She already visited volunteers in British Columbia, Canada, traveling with our partners from @LivingLakesCanada, Kat Hartwig and Rory Gallaugher, to meet with volunteers from across the province. Earlier, she traveled to several Mid-Atlantic states in the United States to meet with volunteers who have connections with our partner, Julie Vastine and the Dickinson College ALLARM program (@ALLARMWater). Rachel is anticipating defending her thesis in early May.

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Speaking of defending, Jason Scott will be defending his master’s project on Friday, March 20. For anyone interested in see his presentation, that will take place in Aiken Center Room 311 on the UVM campus, and we have set up a Zoom webinar for those who would like to join remotely. That information follows his defense proposal abstract below.

Lake Champlain faces numerous complex environmental threats that do not have simple solutions. Oil and other types of hazardous materials spills are among those threats that continue to attract the attention of agencies and organizations trusted to protect the lake. There is significant transportation infrastructure that exists in the region that, in the event of an accident, could lead to spills and extensive damage to natural resources. This project is intended to strengthen the ability of marina owners and first responders in the Lake Champlain Basin to prepare for and respond to oil and hazardous material spills by facilitating spill response training and providing important educational resources. The project is also intended to bolster federal, state and local spill planning efforts through development of the Physical Description of the Lake, which will serve as an appendix to the Multi- Agency Contingency Plan for Emergency Environmental Incidents in the Lake Champlain Region. Finally, the project is intended to increase awareness of available scientific information and expertise for spill response professionals through the development of a database of academic and scientific resources to support readiness for environmental incidents. The products generated for this project are intended to be useful for contingency planners, response personnel and resource managers engaged in spill response. The lake crosses international, federal and state jurisdictional boundaries which complicates preparedness and response in the event of a spill. This project is intended to help to unite the scientific and spill response communities in the Champlain Valley.

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To join Jason’s defense via Zoom Meeting use the following link and/or dial-in information:
https://zoom.us/j/433439369
Meeting ID: 433 439 369
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Meeting ID: 433 439 369
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