THE WATER RESOURCES INITIATIVE (WRI) AT SKIDMORE COLLEGE

The Water Resources Initiative (WRI) at Skidmore College is administered by our interdepartmental Environmental Studies (ES) Program and integrates coursework, team-based research, and engagement with local, regional, national, and international concerns for water resources. Interdisciplinary, community-based research is a major emphasis of the initiative, and the research focus is currently our local Saratoga Lake watershed. The Saratoga Lake watershed is large and encompasses many land use patterns (e.g., rural and urban housing development, logging, mining, industry) and ecologies, and Saratoga Lake is a controversial, potential new drinking water source for our growing community. WRI research is conducted through summer collaborative research, independent studies during the academic year, and is the heart of our ES capstone course – ES 375-Case Studies in Environmental Sustainability. Student and faculty collaborative research projects within the Saratoga Lake watershed have focused on a complementary suite of topics including, but not limited to, a historical analysis of land use, a photographic analysis of contemporary natural and human influences, a stakeholder analysis of local water issues and recreation, a social analysis of invasive species, chemical and macroinvertebrate stream monitoring, stream channelization, and sub-basin comparisons of surficial geology and land use as they relate to turbidity. To place our local water issues in a more global context, several faculty members are developing optional field trips, associated with ES 375, to the Valley of Mexico and the California/Mexico border.