Factors Affecting Reservoir and Stream-Water Quality in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Drinking-Water Source Area and Implications for Source-Water Protection.

摘要

This report presents the results of a study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Water Department, to assess reservoir and tributary-stream quality in the Cambridge drinking water source area, and to use the information gained to help guide the design of a comprehensive water-quality monitoring program for the source area. Assessments of the quality and trophic state of the three primary storage reservoirs, Hobbs Brook Reservoir, Stony Brook Reservoir, and Fresh Pond, were conducted (September 1997-November 1998) to provide baseline information on the state of these resources and to determine the vulnerability of the reservoirs to increased loads of nutrients and other contaminants. The effects of land use, land cover, and other drainage-basin characteristics on sources, transport, and fate of fecal-indicator bacteria, highway deicing chemicals, nutrients, selected metals, and naturally occurring organic compounds in 11 subbasins that contribute water to the reservoirs also was investigated, and the data used to select sampling stations for incorporation into a water-quality monitoring network for the source area.