St. Croix River Research

Our work on the St. Croix River represents about one-third of our research focus and provides an example of our approach. The St. Croix is a National Scenic Riverway, a pristine and valued resource. It is threatened by urbanization, agriculture, forestry and recreation. The Water Quality Team is focusing a long-term, diverse effort on the St. Croix.

Our work to date has been multi-fold. We worked with the National Park Service to develop the Water Resources Management Plan for the St. Croix. We collected and analyzed historical data, studied inter-agency dynamics and identified ways to guide management as well as identify research needs. In previous studies, we assessed chemical, physical and biological riverine water quality, large woody debris (LWD) as riverine habitat, growth and elemental accumulation in a benthic mussel as a biomonitoring tool, abundance and composition of macroinvertebrates and fishes, paleolimnology of impoundments in the upper and lower watersheds, an analysis of fish behavior near LWD, macroinvertebrate ecology of LWD communities, spawning habitats for Paddlefish as well as phosphorus cycling dynamics, and habitat classification at several spatial scales.

Contact Jim Perry .