What Lies Beneath: How the History of Boston Impacts its Water Quality Today

Associate Professor Robinson Fulweiler and Ph.D. candidate Timothy Maguire will conduct a study on the urban groundwater and runoff in Boston, in order to investigate the causes, effects, and the extent of nutrient non-point pollution in urbanized subterranean estuaries.

Publications:

• Fulweiler, Robinson and Timothy Maguire. (2016). Urban Dissolved Silica: Quantifying the Role of Groundwater and Runoff in Wastewater Influent. Environmental Science and Technology, 50 (1), 54-61.
• Maguire, Timothy J., Robinson W. Fulweiler. 2019. Urban groundwater dissolved silica concentrations are elevated due to vertical composition of historic land-filling. Science of the Total Environment 684, no. 20: 89-95.

Presentations:

• “Connecting History to Water Quality.” Boston Athenaeum, March 2016.
• “Wastewater and urban runoff -significant anthropogenic sources of silica to coastal systems.” Coastal Estuarine Research Federation  Conference, November 2015.
• “Urban Runoff – an overlooked yet Significant Source of Silica to Coastal Habitats.” New England Estuarine Research Society, April 2015.
• “Urban Runoff and the Biogeochemical Cycles of Dissolved Silica.” Boston University Biogeoscience Symposium, January 2015.

Media Releases:

• Science Under Our Feet, BU Today

View more projects funded through our Early Stage Urban Research Awards