Stroubles Creek Has Issues :(

Agriculture - not important??

A housing development, Fiddler’s Green, is in the process of being developed in the last space of agricultural land remaining in the Upper Stroubles Creek Watershed. The only saving grace for some of this agricultural land is that in 1991, Katherine Hoge entered into an engagement with the town of Blacksburg, in which thirty-two acres of her land was placed into a conservation easement. According to Andrew Warren, Zoning Administrator for the town of Blacksburg, this type of conservation easement is the only one of its kind in Blacksburg. Additionally, Warren has indicated that it would in violation of the easement if the thirty-two acres were to ever become abandoned or fallow, therefore indicating that this area must remain active agriculture in the future. In an article discussing the easement, it is reported that the land has been recently bought by Jim and Heather Cowan, in which the land will remain ninety percent agricultural with organic farm management practices, and will be used as a horse farm (Collegiate Times, November 19, 2008). Additionally, a second lake is going to be constructed on the property (increasing open water in Upper Stroubles Creek Watershed), which will act as a migratory bird habitat. Ironically, one of the selling points of trying to bring buyers to Fiddler’s Green is the close location to the easement and the beauty of being located near the horse farm.

Humans, always ruining something...

CRAZY!! Look at all that agriculture!! Look at it! It is amazing to go out and look at the world aroud us and to try to image what it used to be back then. Currently, urban land cover accounts for over 90% of the land cover in Upper Stroubles Creek Watershed, whereas agricultural was the dominate land cover in 1937 (about 75% land cover). On the other hand, it is interesting to note the lack of forest cover in this image due to the complete flattening of land in the past for agriculture. So, even though urbanization is the present day man-made issue, there were other issues in the past, such as forest clear-cuts.

The wonderful world of ArcMap

This is a map of the upper Stroubles Creek watershed. This is the area of Stroubles Creek I'm doing research on!
The green dots represent testing sites reported on by student's at Virginia Tech. The watershed has been "clipped" in ArcMap to only show the watershed boundary defined as the upper limits (above the Virginia Tech duck pond). This tool allows me to plot student testing locations along with government and community organizations who have done testing on the stream. The map gives insight to those reading my report and makes the material more comprehensive.

New areas of interest!

This project on designing a rainwater harvesting system for a resort in the Dominican Republic has really sparked my interest in two new areas. The idea of saltwater intrusion is intriguing and incredibly multifaceted. I was born and raised on the coast of Virginia so I love water and love the beach. Unfortunately, however, coastlines all across the world are witnessing saltwater intrusion in various ways. The complex modeling and countless factors that are evaluated in order to calculate the rate and angle of saltwater intrusion is incredibly intricate. I am going to continue to learn more about the modeling that goes into evaluating saltwater intrusion after I complete this project.

The second area of interest is eco-tourism and the need to build sustainable tourism. I really fear that if more resorts and companies don’t start looking towards the environment, so many fragile and one-of-a-kind ecosystems could be lost forever. This project has definitely showed me the importance of looking to see if that future vacation destination is ecologically friendly. It has also made me question the idea of eco-tourism? I hope to evaluate a possible question such as "What is the biggest/smallest/longest/shortest impact on the environment when traveling?" and "What exactly is eco-tourism?"