The effects of stormwater ponds on forested wetlands
This project is a partnership with a land developer wishing to install landscapes that limit impacts on nearby forested wetlands. This development will also implement a compact design, thus conserving nearby forests, timber production, and wetlands.
This project entails sampling wetlands that do and do not have stormwater ponds draining into them and comparing them to wetlands in unurbanized areas. We aim to quantify differences in plant communities among these wetlands and determine if these differences are related to potential effects of stormwater drainage on hydrology and/or soil and water nutrient levels. This project will also quantify the effects of buffer zone sizes on wetland ecology.