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Correlating Suspended Sediment And Biological Metrics In East Tennessee Streams, Jeremy Robert Mefford

Masters Theses

Excessive suspended sediment is a major cause of pollution in US streams, as reported by the USEPA. Also known as siltation, having excessive sediment in a stream harms the biology of a stream through directly affecting living organisms, but also through harming natural habitats. Too much excessive sediment leads to a stream being declared impaired. Testing for suspended sediment levels is difficult and time consuming, so indirect methods of testing for total suspended solids (TSS) are desirable. While turbidity has been an oft used TSS surrogate in the past, this study takes the next step of looking at potential relationships …