The primary focus of my research has been to illuminate how headwater streams behave regionally across varying watersheds. Headwater streams, the smallest tributaries of the stream network, account for a large portion of stream length throughout the U.S. As headwater streams lead into downstream rivers and water bodies, understanding their behavior is important for water resources and ecosystem functioning. Human-modification of the environment can disrupt streamflow, but the extent of this disruption for headwater streams across different watersheds is relatively unknown. My research at Syracuse has taken a data-driven approach to understanding how watershed characteristics, such as percentage of urbanized land cover, impact headwater stream behavior at a regional scale. My project has focused specifically on the Northeastern U.S., as stream network lengths are dominated by headwater streams, and watersheds range multiple levels of urbanization in this region.

Links to Project Materials:

College of Arts & Sciences 2020, Natural Science & Engineering Projects 2020, 2020