ESCI 235 - Water

1 unit(s)

(Same as GEOG 235) Sixty to seventy percent of Dutchess County residents depend on groundwater supplies to meet their daily needs. Industrial pollution and road salt have contaminated many of these supplies, spawning legal actions and requiring costly remediation. Ensuring adequate and safe groundwater supplies for humans and ecosystems requires extensive knowledge of the hydrologic cycle and of how contaminants may be introduced into water resources. We explore how rainfall and snowmelt infiltrate into soils and bedrock to become part of the groundwater system, learn what factors govern subsurface flow, and discuss the concept of well-head protection, which seeks to protect groundwater recharge areas from contamination. Using Vassar’s teaching well at the field station we perform a number of experiments to assess aquifer properties, water chemistry, and presence of microbial contaminants. Comfort with basic algebra and trigonometry is expected.

Prerequisite(s): ENST 124 or permission of the instructor.

Satisfies the college requirement for quantitative reasoning.

Two 75-minute periods; one 4-hour laboratory/field period.

Not offered in 2023/24.

Course Format: CLS