CICEET Progress Report for the period 3/16/06 Through 9/15/06

Project Title: Presentation of Nutrient Pollutant Load and Source Estimation Model Results for Enhanced Nutrient Loading Analyses of New England Coastal Watersheds
Principal Investigator(s): Thomas Mulcahy, (NEIWPCC)
Additional Investigator(s): Keith Robinson, Rich Moore, and Craig Johnston (USGS)
Project Start Date: 9/01/04

Tables

Table 1

Tasks to meet objectives
The final tasks, 5 and 6, have been completed.

Progress on Tasks
Task 5. SPARROW Workshops. Complete. To date, seven workshops have been conducted, including the state workshops for: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. The seventh workshop was conducted for New England National Estuarine Research Reserve’s (NERR) coastal managers and associated professionals. The workshop was held on June 23, 2006 at University of New Hampshire’s Morse Hall and was attended by 12 participants from the four NERR reserves, state and local coastal managers, and academics from Tufts and UNH.

Task 6. Development of the SPARROW Web-based Application. Complete. USGS and NEWIPCC have completed the design and executed the creation of the web-based SPARROW application. The website is modeled after USGS and EPA applications that utilize an interactive web-based interface for viewing and accessing data. Updates and enhancements to these applications were achieved and include; query features (including the NHD reaches and associated attributes) using the ARC view identify tool, and an upstream trace feature. Downloadable copies of the report and all information included on the CDs are available through the web site. The website also includes the SPARROW data as well as the NHD Viewer Toolkit. USGS will maintain the website for a duration of 5 years. The web-link has been distributed to end-users for feedback and comments are currently being compiled. The link will be available and advertised on both the USGS and NEIWPCC websites after all comments are received.

Have the results/data gathered during this reporting period changed the project objectives when compared to your original proposal?

Dissemination activities during this reporting period
Publications
None.

Workshops
March 31, 2005: Model testing session with end user advisors. End user advisors who participated in this testing session include: Gregg Comstock, NH DES; Mark Mattson, MA DEP; Paul Mitnik, ME DEP; Paul Stacey, CT DEP; and Henry Walker, EPA. Beth Card, NEIWPCC’s Water Quality Division Director, was also in attendance at this meeting.
June 2, 2005: Massachusetts Workshop, held at USF&WS, in Hadley, MA.
June 16, 2005: Connecticut Workshop, held at CT DEP, in Hartford, CT.
July 13, 2005: Rhode Island Workshop, held at RI DEM, in Providence, RI.
August 11, 2005: New Hampshire Workshop, held at NH DES, in Concord, NH.
November 3, 2005: Maine Workshop, held at ME DES, in Augusta, ME
November 16, 2005: Vermont Workshop, held at VT DEC, Waterbury, VT
June 23, 2006: NERR Workshop, held at UNH, Durham, NH

Conferences
None.

Manuals, Protocols
New England SPARROW Model manual completed.

Outreach Activities
See workshops (above). Also, NEIWPCC continues to receive inquiries about the release of the New England SPARROW Data Viewer.

Contact with End Users
End users have been asked to review the USGS SPARROW website. Feed back is currently being compiled and updates to the online application will be made if deemed necessary. A summary of this feedback and any alterations will be included in the final report.

End users were brought together on March 31, 2005 to serve as testing group for the beta version of the model. Modifications were made to the model based on their feedback and the model was finalized.

Patent, Copyright, Invention Disclosure Activity:
None

Difficulties
The New England SPARROW Data Viewer currently operates within the ArcView 3.3 environment. However, many state (and other) agencies have begun converting over to ArcGIS 9.X. At this time, the New England SPARROW Data Viewer cannot operate within ArcGIS 9.X. USGS continues to explore the feasibility of creating a New England SPARROW Data Viewer for ArcGIS 9.X.

Data Generated to date
All GIS coverages, associated databases, and all metadata are complete. The metadata have undergone a review. The data viewer can easily handle regional datasets, resulting in easier access (to data) for targeted end users. A copy of the complete series of Data Viewer discs, as well as the workshop manual is included with this progress report.

Project Objectives for Next Reporting Period

Objectives
All project objectives have been completed. End-user feedback regarding the project website is currently being compiled and will be reported on. The Final Report will be written and submitted to CICEET according to the project time-table..

Overall Project Timeline Update
See Table 1.

Conclusion
The overall goal of this project was to provide New England water resource managers with access to pertinent watershed data generated by the New England SPARROW model, including model predictions for nutrient concentrations, loads, sources, and transport for each of the 42,000 stream reaches in New England.

The initial project objectives were as follows: packaging the New England SPARROW model data on one or more CD-ROMs, documenting the New England SPARROW model data, instructing a series of hands-on technical workshops on the New England SPARROW model, and developing a website for displaying and distributing the model data.

NEIWPCC and USGS are pleased to report to CICEET that the overall project goal and objectives were successfully completed. The tasks associated with each objective were undertaken and completed according to the work plan. The workshops were well received and pertinent to all participants. In the case of the website, we are pleased to report that the application exceeds our initial expectations by utilizing an interactive web-based interface. This technology allows for a more user friendly experience navigating the web-based application and querying data. The web link is expected to be functional and disseminated within the upcoming reporting period.

Future projects should focus on updating the SPARROW application to run in ArcGIS 9x. USGS continues to explore the feasibility of creating a New England SPARROW Data Viewer for ArcGIS 9.X as opposed to Arc View 3x. Another project could identify or create a more accurate data-set of regional NPDES permitted facilities. This information would improve the model output. Furthermore, applying the upcoming USGS National Hydrography Data Plus (NHDPlus) data-set to the New England SPARROW model would be a valuable addition to the model output.

The Final Report will be submitted on track with the project time-table.

Expenditures
Expenditures are on track relative to task progress.

End User Advisor Feedback
At the start of this project, there were a total of five end user advisors for this project (Gregg Comstock, NH DES; Mark Mattson, MA DEP; Paul Mitnik, ME DEP; Paul Stacey, CT DEP; and Henry Walker, EPA). Paul Mitnik retired in June 2005; therefore, there are now just four end user advisors for this project.

Name: Mark D. Mattson, PhD
Organization: Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
Location: 627 Main Street, 2nd Floor, Worcester, MA 01608
Phone number: (508) 767 - 2868
E-mail: Mark.Mattson@state.ma.us

1) At this stage, what are the potential applications for this research? Please discuss how you and others could potentially use the technology.
A very nice approach to the model, and good execution

2) Do you see any key challenges that the researchers may want to address or keep in mind?
The only real problems I have are the calibration of the model in P retention in lakes; the use of old NPDES data without an easy way to ‘update’ the NPDES data or to create “what if” senarios, and last but not least some issues of quality control regarding misplaced NPDES sites.

5) Website Feedback:
The website works great. It was well laid out and all the buttons appeared to work as expected. The only thing I would say is that the difference between incremental and total results may not be clear to the casual user and should be explained in several places (intro, help button etc.) Otherwise, very good job.

Name: Greg Comstock
Organization: New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services
Location: 29 Hazen Drive, P.O. Box 95, Concord, NH 03302-0095
Phone number: (508) 767 - 2868
E-mail: gcomstock@des.state.nh.us

1) At this stage, what are the potential applications for this research? Please discuss how you and others could potentially use the technology.
Potential applications include use as a screening tool to determine nutrient hot spots and likely sources of nutrient loadings.

2) Do you see any key challenges that the researchers may want to address or keep in mind?
I think the model would be more useful to end users if it could be easily recalibrated to new data and used to run predictive scenarios (ie. what would the loads be if the WWTFs reduced their loads by 50%?).

3) Does this report offer you enough information to adequately address the above questions?
Yes