Project Description: An intern is sought to spend the summer investigating the health of Waquoit Bay and its water quality. Waquoit Bay is experiencing changes due to eutrophication, and in 2020 was assessed with a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) action plan for nitrogen by the EPA and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. This action plan is meant to limit the amount of nitrogen being delivered to Waquoit Bay. The Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (WBNERR) is interested in using its existing long-term water quality and nutrients dataset to track any progress that has been made with managing nitrogen loads in the Waquoit Bay system since 2020. The successful intern will support WBNERR research staff monitoring Waquoit Bay’s water quality through the Reserve’s System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP), carry out field work in the surrounding rivers and salt marshes, and analyze water quality data from previous years as well as data collected in the field over the summer.
Primary duties will include:
1) Collecting and processing water samples for nutrient and pigment (chlorophyll) assessment.
2) Calibrating, deploying, and maintaining water quality data loggers at four different sites in Waquoit Bay, as well as conducting data entry and Quality Assurance (QA)/Quality Control (QC) on retrieved data.
3) Tracking surface elevation and vegetation changes in the salt marshes around Waquoit Bay.
4) Performing data analysis (in R or Python or ArcGIS) on datasets from previous years as well as data collected in 2025.
5) Preparing, cleaning, and maintaining all materials used for WBNERR’s monitoring programs.