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Flood Plain Maps and Alluvial Soils of the Preston Brook Watershed

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  Flood Plain Maps and Alluvial Soils of the Preston Brook Watershed  Looking at data for the Preston Brook watershed, it is quite a small shed, so I decided to analyze data from the surrounding larger Winooski River watershed that Preston Brook feeds into.  Typical soils in the Winooski River watershed are deep, moderately well drained, and formed in alluvial materials. These soils are fairly coarse and silty, which makes them have fine drainage capabilities.  The following image represents that USDA Soil Survey data for soil types in the Winooski River watershed…as we can see, the soils are primarily Adams and Windsor soils, which are loamy-sand soils (nice for drainage!).  The history of soils in Vermont as a whole is actually quite interesting! The soil in the Champlain valley region of Vermont (and the Preston Brook watershed) are relatively young, as the glaciers that covered the state receded only about 13,500 years ago ( Burlington Geographic).  The...
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Using ArcGIS to map watersheds

 
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More on the Emerald Ash Borer

 
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Invasives in the area!

 This is a sample of some of the invasive species that are threatening the Preston Brook watershed. 
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A Summary of Winooski River Flooding

Because Preston Brook is a small watershed off of the larger Winooski River, I've decided to analyze the flood history of the larger river, which will have similar impacts on the smaller Preston Brook. 
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What is a biotic community, and how does that impact a watershed?

  Preston Brook Watershed Special Characteristics Exploration:  When looking at the relatively small Preston Brook watershed, we need to understand what components actually make up a watershed. Healthy watersheds include the following (to some variable scale): “intact and functioning headwater streams, floodplains, riparian corridors, biotic refugia, instream habitat, and biotic communities; natural vegetation in the landscape; and hydrology, sediment transport, fluvial geomorphology, and disturbance regimes expected for its location” (US EPA). It is certainly much easier to dive into these components in a larger watershed like the Mississippi, but it might be much more impactful to understand a local, small watershed. For now, let us get into the nitty gritty of one of the healthy watershed components for the Preston Brook Watershed: biotic communities. Biotic communities are the biotic factors that are working within the watershed. When studying the health of a watershed, it...
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Tree Identification of Preston Brook!

 Here is a presentation explaining the commonly found woody plants and trees in the Preston Brook Watershed. 
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