View article

Streamwater salinization is strongly driven by patterns of land use within watersheds. We examine how a land use mosaic (residential, commercial, and recreational) affects salinity across an urban watershed. The Tatnuck Brook watershed comprises 29.8 km2 around Worcester, MA, a city of 185,000 in central Massachusetts. We measured specific conductance from the fall through the spring at an upstream and downstream location using a YSI Pro30 conductivity meter. The watershed for the upstream location was dominated by forest, whereas the watershed for the downstream location included many urban land uses. We hypothesized that downstream conductance would be elevated due to anthropogenic factors-primarily road salt usage, but also irrigation runoff from lawns, golf courses, and municipal recreational facilities.