Environmental Monitoring

To support research in the environmental sciences and to improve quantitative literacy among all students at Smith College, the Center supports an environmental monitoring program. Quantitative data on the environments around Smith are made available to faculty and students for use in courses and projects. Currently, most of these efforts are based at the MacLeish Field Station, and we see opportunities to grow this program to include Smith's campus and other areas.

Environmental monitoring at the Ada and Archibald MacLeish Field Station currently comprises measurement of meteorological variables and vegetation. Continuous measurements from atop an eighty-foot tower include atmospheric pressure, temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed and direction. These data are complemented by precipitation recorded by a heated tipping-bucket rain gauge at ground level. Additionally, three 20 x 50 m (0.1 ha) permanent vegetation plots were established in hemlock-dominated forests in 2009, and micrometeorological stations were added to these plots during the summer of 2010. Shorter-term monitoring efforts have included snow sampling, geochemical surveys of streamwater, and assessing the differences in throughfall chemistry and volume between deciduous and hemlock forest stands.