ESTABLISHING A BASELINE OF STREAM CHARACTERISTICS IN INDIANA COUNTY, PA: LEVERAGING COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

Indiana county is in Western Pennsylvania and is part of the Allegheny Plateau. Almost all of the waterways are headwater streams of the Allegheny River where water quality has been significantly impacted by resource extraction. The Evergreen Conservancy nonprofit organization (based in Indiana, PA) focuses on the water quality in Indiana County since their founding in 2003, which led to the installation and maintenance of stream data loggers starting in 2011. These locations have been monitored for a variety of stream characteristics that consists of water temperature (celcius), water level (meters), conductivity (microsiemens, converted to TDS in mg/L). Over the past 12 years they have monitored water characteristics in 40+ locations in Indiana County with data loggers to look for evidence of pollution and water quality degradation events. This data set has been underutilized and we have started working with the network of volunteers of the Evergreen Conservancy to guide us in future steps of our research to better the health of the streams that reside in Indiana, PA.

Our first step in analyzing and monitoring this data is to assess the quality and quantity of the data and to develop automation of this with python coding. We have created graphs and other visuals to start our process of correlations and pattern recognition in our data for future work. Preliminary findings show typical seasonal temperature changes for cold water streams (average summer temperatures of <19C). We also see little to no change throughout the year in overall average water volume, as would be expected in this region. As well, we find that some of the streams show increased TDS values in the winter months, which seem to indicate possible road salt impacts. We see other interesting TDS patterns that need to be further analyzed to conclude why this may be happening. Additionally, we see that the daytime temperature ranges are greatest during the month of April. We are currently expanding these analyses to complete analyses of all 40 locations throughout Indiana County to develop a baseline understanding of these headwater streams. Using this information to benefit the Evergreen Conservancy and the local community will prove beneficial.