Final Post: Proctor Pond Assessment Project
photo by: A.J. Fox General Purpose: The Proctor Pond is a campus landmark, marking the center of campus. It is an important part of the overall health of the campus ecosystem and even the Merrimack River watershed. For our Proctor Pond Assessment our objective was to learn sampling and data collection methods that we were able to apply during our fieldwork to assess the ecological "health" of the Proctor campus pond by evaluating the biotic and abiotic elements of the pond. The goal of this assessment is to compare the quality of water from this year with the assessments taken over the past decade so we can determine the direction the Proctor Pond water quality is trending towards as well as analyze any possible patterns over the years.I think that the Proctor’s water quality has started to level off at a stable and healthy level because the diversity index, or the amount of organisms present in the pond, has leveled off over the last couple years and has found a heal...