ENVP U6220 Environmental Chemistry & Toxicology

Summer 2005 - Term Paper Instructions

Term Paper Groups

Objectives:

This exercise will bring you to work in teams to 1) lead a research project based on an analysis of historical water quality data for several basins of the NY/NJ Harbor System and 2) link this work to societal or policy issues that led to past environmental regulations/management strategies (and assess how these strategies may have affected for the better/worse the water quality of the Harbor System).

This project was selected to answer several objectives, namely:

1) To investigate and report, in a scientific format, temporal trends in water quality descriptors for several basins of the NY/NJ Harbor System.

2) To use this approach to test two important scientific approaches:

a) Determination and testing of hypothesis(es)

b) Quantitative analysis of extended data sets searching for 1) temporal and spatial trends in water quality and 2) potential drivers of such trends through the analysis of relationships across several environmental indicators of coastal waters quality.

3) To link your findings to regulation/policy on coastal management at the national level (here, it will be important to compare this short study and the situation of the region of study to issues of environmental degradation and regional management in other US coastal bodies of water).

Each term project will consist of a paper (up to 4-5 written pages not counting visual and bibliographical support information; see description below). The written component of this project is intended to develop an experience in concise scientific writing following a format usually found in technical publications (peered-reviewed article or official agency report). The first goal of this project is to demonstrate a good understanding of the scientific issue(s) and its(their) link to regulation/policy. Conciseness, neatness, and rigor in the scientific interpretations, the presentation, and the conclusions reached, will be judged as the second but similarly important goal of this exercise. The use of reference material is required to support the discussion and statements/conclusions of this paper. A minimum of 8-10 independent references in addition to the ones provided (peer-reviewed journal articles, book sections/chapters, agency reports) needs to be integrated in this paper (a total of 15-20 will probably be appropriate to discuss the issues fully). Their quality, integration into the conceptual discussion of your paper, current information, and relevance to the issue will play an important part in obtaining full grade for the paper. Please consult the reference material in reserve in the Library (effective science writing) to guide you if you’ve never written a scientific paper. It is also a good practice to analyze the series of seminal papers that were provided to you and follow a style that seems appropriate to your needs and creativity.

Outline:

- In this paper, you will be analyzing water quality time series for several basins of the NY/NJ Harbor System.

- Each team will be extracting data for specific water quality criteria from at least two stations in selected sub-basins of the NY Harbor System (see details and Figure 1 below).

- The water quality criteria that need to be studied in both surface and bottom waters are:

o Dissolved oxygen (DO)

o Total Suspended Solids (TSS)

o Water clarity

o Chlorophyll

o Nitrogen nutrients (Ammonia, Nitrates, Nitrites)

o Phosphates

- Because prior assessments of water quality data have not evaluated the variations of any such variables with respect to each other, each team will need to look for potential relationships (or lack of) between the required water quality criteria in both surface and bottom waters. (For example look at potential relationships between TSS and nutrients, water clarity, chlorophyll, nutrients).

- Additionally, each team is strongly encouraged to look at temporal variations in such criteria in relation to natural environmental conditions (i.e. precipitation, streamflow, tide level), and anthropogenic activity (i.e. volume of water discharged from treatment plants).

- Each team should selected at least two stations from major water bodies of the NY/NJ Harbor System. Select stations from the following lists:

o East River/Western LI Sound: E6, E7, E8, E9, E10, E14 (E10 is the deepest station with lowest DO)

o Inner Harbor: in relatively good shape but look at the Kills. Stations K1-5 (K1-2, Kill Van Kull, K3-5, Arthur Kill). Also, you may want to look at the upper river station N3B right downstream from the North River Wastewater Pollution Control Plant (WPCP).

o Jamaica Bay (peripheral locations): J2, J3, J5, J7, J8, J9A

- You can find the NYDEP Harbor Survey Database at: http://www.nynjcoast.org/NYCDEPHarbor_survey/Data_query/data_form.asp. You can ten extract specific water quality data per site or water body as well as per time interval.

Figure 1: Map of NY Harbor with historical and 2003 sampling sites (Source: NYDEP NY Harbor Water Quality Report 2003: http://www.nynjcoast.org/NYCDEPHarbor_survey/)

Term paper Format: This paper should be written as a professional technical manuscript in the format of peer-reviewed publications. Please see the attached guideline for a detailed description of the report format I am expecting you to follow. This direction is similar to that provided by peer-review journals to authors that consider submitting a manuscript for review. It is imperative that you follow this format (both in structure and in content) otherwise the paper will be returned to you for revision (as is often done by professional editors of scientific journals).

Note: If needed, please use the reference "Effective science writing" from Environmental Chemistry – A Modular Approach. (2001) Ian Williams; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Chap. 1, p. 1-27. A copy of this subsection is in the library.

References for the manuscript: Please feel free to use the following papers as a starting point for your analysis (when available electronically, the paper can be accessed by clicking on the title of the reference below). Also, please note that the book “Estuarine Science” by Hobbie (2000) is available in reserve in Lehman Library:

Ambio (1990). Marine eutrophication. Ambio Vol. 19: 101-176. The whole issue.

Bratton, J.F., S.M. Colman, and R.R. Seal (2003). Eutrophication and carbon sources in Chesapeake Bay over the last 2700 yr: Human impacts in context. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol. 67(18): 3385–3402.

Caraco, N. F. and J. J. Cole (1999). Human impact on nitrate export: An analysis using major world rivers. Ambio 28(2): 167-170.

Cloern, J.E. (2001). Review. Our evolving conceptual model of the coastal eutrophication problem. Marine Ecological Progress Series, Vol. 210: 223-253.

D’Elia, C.F., W.R. Boynton, and J.G. Sanders (2003). A watershed perspective on nutrient enrichment, science and policy in the Patuxent River, Maryland, 1960-2000. Estuaries, Vol. 26:171–185.

Ernst, H.R (2003). Chesapeake Bay blues: Science, Politics, and the Struggle to Save the Bay. Rowan Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Oxford (Chaps. 3-4).

Hobbie, J.E. (2000). Estuarine Science: A Synthetic Approach to Research and Practice. Island Press (Chaps 2, 11, 18).

Officer, C. B., R. B. Biggs, J. L. Taft, L. E. Cronin, M. A. Tyler and W. R. Boynton (1984). Chesapeake Bay anoxia. Origin, development and significance. Science, Vol. 223: 22-27.

Rabalais, N.N., R.E. Turner, and D. Scavia (2002). Beyond Science into Policy: Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia and the Mississippi River. BioScience Vol. 52(2): 129-142.

Swanson, R.L (1993). The incongruity of policies regulating New York City’s sewage sludge: Lessons for coastal management. Coastal Management. Vol. 21: 299-312.

Steinberg, N., D.J. Suszkowski, L. Clark, and J. Way. (2004). Health of the Harbor: The first comprehensive look at the state of the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary. A report to the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Program. Hudson River Foundation, New York, NY.