All research projects supported by the Vermont Water Resources and Lake Studies Center are selected through a competitive process. The Vermont Water Center accepts proposals from both faculty and from graduate students with faculty sponsorship.
Research projects, focused on water resources issues in Vermont, are supported for one or two years, and researchers are from institutes of higher education in Vermont. Projects listed are Vermont competitive grants, unless specified as a national competitive grant.
Recent Research Projects
2024
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- Perdrial, N. Recycling Phosphorus at the Catchment Scale: Optimization of Filter Devices for Farmer’s Adoption.
- Schroth, A. Investigating the Hydrological Processes Underlying Mid-Winter Thaw Events in a Northeast U.S Catchment.
- Stepenuck, K. Mapping Vermont Flooding and Underserved Communities in Preparation for Future Events.
- Stockwell, J. Assessing the Impacts of Prior Chloride Exposure on Zooplankton Community Response to Increasing Salt Stress in Lakes.
- Soares, R. Bridging the Gaps of Vermont’s Emergency Response Capacity.
- Williams, C. Using a Low-Cost Sensor Network to Capture Rain-On-Snow and Episodic Event-Based Material Transport in the La Platte River Watershed.
2023
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- Adair, C. Consequences of warming winters on nutrient export to Lake Champlain. Faculty project.
- Eggleston, E. Lake Champlain interannual winter microbial dynamics. Faculty project
- Morales-Williams, M. and Alfaro, M. Influence of artificial aeration on nitrogen fixation and nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in Lake Carmi, VT. Graduate student project.
- Morales-Williams, M. and Warner, K. Identifying the environmental drivers of toxic vs. non-toxic cyanobacteria strain abundance in two eutrophic bays of Lake Champlain. Graduate student project.
- Scarborough, M. Assessing mechanisms of phosphorous removal at a Champlain basin wastewater treatment plant. Graduate student project.
2022
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- Eggleston, E. Lake Champlain winter microbial dynamics and long-term data trends. Faculty project.
- Hurley, S. Potential impacts on drinking water from road salt storage facilities in vulnerable communities. Faculty project.
- Schroth, A. and S. Vogel. Nutrient loading during winter and growing season high-flow events in different gauged watersheds of the Lake Champlain basin. Graduate student project.
- Stockwell, J. Food web responses to round goby and quagga mussel invasions across the gradient of lake types within the Lake Champlain ecosystem. Faculty project.
2021-2023
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- Xia, T. Multimodal UAS Sensor System for Harmful Algal Bloom Mapping and Monitoring. Faculty project. Two-year, national competitive grant.
This project will develop, design, and deploy a drone-based system for harmful algal bloom (HAB) water sampling and mapping to advance sensing the location and characteristics of HABs. The project will focus on areas of Lake Champlain with known HABs where information is currently lacking about spatial extent, temporal patterns, toxicity, and species of HABs.
2021
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- Eggleston, E. and M. Morales-Williams. Vermont cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom ecology and toxin biosynthesis gene activity: a path to novel management strategies. Faculty project.
- Morales-Williams, M. and I. Biberovic. Paleolimnological data synthesis to assess and predict long-term ecological change in Vermont inland lakes. Faculty project.
- Ross, D., B. Wemple, and J. Bower. Quantifying mineral-bound phosphorus sources in rock and soil in forested headwater watersheds. Graduate student project.
- Schroth, A. and A. Kirol. Quantifying the response of Lake Carmi legacy phosphorus to aeration. Graduate student project.
- Williams, C. and T. Xia. Feasibility of using open-source, custom designed cyanobacteria, algae, and turbidity sensor (CATS) systems to monitor water quality in real-time along Lake Champlain’s swimming beaches in Burlington, Vermont. Faculty project.