Thesis
The full text of my thesis can be found here, SQL code here and the full R analysis here.
Water quality monitoring is an essential component of watershed health. In order to monitor effectively, organizations such as River Watch of Addison County, Vermont, are constantly adapting best practices for which variables to monitor and when. One variable, dissolved phosphorus, is potentially redundant in light of total phosphorus measurements. This thesis aims to answer three questions:
Is dissolved phosphorus testing necessary for understanding watershed health?
Does dissolved phosphorus reveal any information that total phosphorus does not?
Can dissolved phosphorus be predicted?
By utilizing the programming language R, this thesis provides answers for all three questions, leading to an ultimate recommendation to River Watch that they can discontinue dissolved phosphorus testing in good conscience. This report proposes a linear model to predict dissolved phosphorus, as well as recommendations for future work.