Max Robinson

My research will be carried out on the Salmon River at Queen’s Kennedy Field Station. Land use near the river includes agriculture and residential cottages, which raises issues such as agricultural runoff and effluent from septic tanks. The reach of the stream that will be examined is a mixed primarily gravel-cobble stream, starting below the Laraby Rapids Dam. Gravel-cobble streams are common in areas that are moderately steep, as opposed to sand-bed streams with low gradients. These gravel-cobble beds are studied in laboratories extensively, however, in contrast to the case of sand streams, only a few isolated field studies aimed at understanding their hydrodynamics and sediment transport mechanics have been carried out to date. This research project is a great opportunity to considerably advance our understanding of such streams. The first part of this project will focus on the flow hydrodynamics and the coupling of flow to sediment transport and the second part will look at the growth and decay of biofilms within the stream. Biofilms are clusters of microorganisms that attach to non-biological surfaces, such as cobbles. They are important when considering the health of a stream because of their ability to recycle organic material and play a vital role in the ecosystem, however, their formation and fate are not completely understood.