Watershed Sciences & Engineering
Large River
Susquehanna River
Draining an area of over 71,000 km2 in three states, the Susquehanna River is the lifeblood of the Chesapeake Bay, our nation’s largest estuary. It is considered by many to be the greatest teaching and research laboratory offered to Bucknell.
This field station allows students to study issues unique to large rivers. It includes tributaries that reach into New York and locations on the river as far south as Harrisburg.
Community partners include the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, U.S. Geological Survey, Riverkeeper network, and the Nature Conservancy.
Small Watersheds
Little Arnot Run, Allegheny National Forest
The field station includes a network of monitoring instruments, including a weather station, 9 groundwater piezometers, 5 stream gages, 7 water temperature sensors, and one water quality sonde. Additional synoptic assessments of fish, amphibian, reptile, aquatic insects, and plant communities are conducting annually at benchmark sites located throughout the national forest. These longitudinal studies are advancing our understanding of hydrologic and ecologic responses to disturbance, which often occur over time spans of 5 to 20 years.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP), Pennsylvania Department of Conservation of Natural Resources (PA DCNR), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC), Penn State University, Lock Haven University, Gannon University, and Clarion University.
White Deer Creek, Bald Eagle State Forest
This field station includes instruments that continuously monitor weather, streamflow, and water quality. Additional activities include electrofish and hellbender surveys, transects of the channel and floodplain morphology, and the using large wood debris additions to the channel to improve fish and macroinvertebrate populations.
Operated in partnership with the Bald Eagle State Forest and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Other community partners include the Merrill Linn Conservancy, R.B. Winter Chapter of Trout Unlimited, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, PA Master Naturalist Association, and the Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy.
Miller Run, Bucknell campus
For the past two decades, students and faculty have been studying the hydrology, water quality, and ecology (what little there is) in the stream and designing restoration plans that would reduce flooding and stormwater runoff, improve water quality, increase channel complexity, and restore the stream to a more natural landscape. Their work indicates it may be the single best investment, one that would create open space for students, but greatly increase the value and beauty of the university.
Community partners include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chesapeake Conservancy, PA Department of Environmental Protection, and the Buffalo Creek Watershed Alliance.
Two-thirds of the campus of Bucknell – including athletic facilities – is located in the Miller Run watershed, a tributary to Limestone Run at St. George Street and the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. It remains the most environmentally degraded section of campus, with most of the stream bed and banks lined with bouldery riprap and concrete.
Limestone Run/Bull Run, downtown Lewisburg
This field station allows students to study stormwater and pollution in both agricultural and urban settings. Field station activities include: leading class field trips, helping faculty collect data, and mentoring student research. Longitudinal studies underway include: assessments of fish and aquatic invertebrate communities; studies of erosion and sediment discharge; temperature and groundwater exchange to the stream; and fluvial processes, stream morphology, and channel adjustment.
Community partners include the Merrill W. Linn Conservancy, Union County Planning Commission, Union County Conservation District, and Lewisburg Neighborhood Association.
This 22 km2 limestone watershed drains the section of the Buffalo Valley that flows along Route 45 and through downtown Lewisburg, where it is colloquially referred to as “Bull Run.”
Turtle Creek, Union County
This 33 km2 watershed is immediately south of Lewisburg, PA. Underlain predominantly by limestone with forested headwaters on the north slope of Shamokin Mountain, Most of the mainstem of Turtle Creek is spring fed and reportedly once held robust trout populations. It is presently impaired by decades of channel straightening and dredging, draining of its wetlands, and removal of trees from the riparian corridor. This field station allows students to study mixed forest-agricultural land use in limestone hydrogeologic settings.
Community partners include the Conservation District, U.S. Geological Survey, PA Department of Environmental Protection, and the North Central Pennsylvania Conservancy who have ongoing conservation and stream restoration activities in the watershed.
Buffalo Creek, Union County
This field station provides faculty and students the opportunity to study the impact of agriculture and urbanization on watershed processes and ecosystem health. Field station activities include synoptic sampling at over 20 locations in the watershed and analysis of the samples in the university’s environmental laboratory. Other activities repeat surveys at benchmark or reference sites to: (1) assess variations in fish and aquatic invertebrate communities, (2) measure stream flow and sediment discharge, (3) identify karst features such as sinkholes, caves, or springs; and (4) quantify fluvial processes, stream morphology, and channel change.
Community partners include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chesapeake Conservancy, PA Department of Environmental Protection, and the Buffalo Creek Watershed Alliance.
Wetlands
Montandon Marsh
The field station includes a network of 27 groundwater wells and 6 surface water monitoring stations, terrestrial ecosystem transects and plots; bird and amphibian monitoring stations, and geologic exposures in the adjacent gravel mine. There is also includes a NSF-sponsored buried slurry wall equipped with a suite of instruments that measure groundwater flow, geological subsidence and changes in aquifer density and permeability.
Community partners include the National Science Foundation, PA Department of Environmental Protection and the Merrill W. Linn Conservancy for Land and Waterways.
Agricultural Treatment Facility at Ard’s Farm
This field station includes a weather station and telecommunications system that captures flow data from inflow and outflow weirs at each wetland cell. Synoptic measurements of water quality providing invaluable information on primary productivity, water budgets, biologic uptake by wetland plants, and the overall efficiency of the treatment system. Additional efforts include monitoring of erosion and sedimentation at benchmark sites in the receiving stream and selected locations in the crop fields.
Community partners include the U.S. Forest Service, Union County Conservation District, PA Department of Environmental Protection, and the Merrill W. Linn Conservancy for Land and Waterways.
In partnership with the Union County Conservation District and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bucknell engineers designed and built a series of edge-of-field wetlands to captures and treat polluted runoff from two large farms and passively treats the water before it discharged into the local stream.
Place Studies
Coal Region Field Station
A network of collaborations between Bucknell and over 20 organizations in the nearby Lower Anthracite Coal Region, that seeks to advance community-identified needs in revitalization, local histories and heritage, and future directions.
Anchor partnerships are with the Mother Maria Kaupas Center and the Faith Alliance for Revitalization, assisting in student projects through coursework, summer research, and volunteering with local governments, businesses, NGOs, school districts, and libraries.
Within the CRFS region communities (Eastern Northumberland County, Columbia County and Schuylkill County), revitalization is happening and new visions for what the region can be are being pursued in towns that have endured dramatic boom and bust economies of coal extraction.