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Environmental Sciences

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Virginia Commonwealth University

Theses and Dissertations

James River

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Essential Spawning Habitat For Atlantic Sturgeon In The James River, Virginia., Geoffrey Austin Aug 2012

Essential Spawning Habitat For Atlantic Sturgeon In The James River, Virginia., Geoffrey Austin

Theses and Dissertations

Substrate composition plays a critical role in determining the spawning success of Atlantic sturgeon. A benthic analysis of the tidal freshwater portion of the James River, Virginia, was performed to locate and protect remaining sturgeon spawning habitat within the James River system. I modeled structural habitat, substrate distribution, and river bathymetry from Richmond, Virginia to the Appomattox River confluence. A classification model was developed to describe the dominant substrate type (mud/silt, sand, gravel, bedrock) using side scan sonar data collected from August 2011-Febuary 2012. River depth, bottom imagery, substrate density (hardness), and ground truth substrate samples were interpolated into a …


Sources And Fates Of Nutrients In The Tidal, Freshwater James River, William Isenberg Apr 2012

Sources And Fates Of Nutrients In The Tidal, Freshwater James River, William Isenberg

Theses and Dissertations

Tidal freshwater reaches of estuaries may play an important role in mitigating nutrient fluxes from watersheds to the coastal zone due to their location at the interface between riverine and estuarine systems. We developed annual N and P budgets for the tidal, freshwater James River over 4 calendar years (2007-2010) taking into account riverine inputs at the Fall Line, local points sources (including CSO events), ungagued inputs, riverine outputs, and tidal exchange. The tidal freshwater James River experiences high areal loading rates of TN (383 mg/m2/d) and TP (70 mg/m2/d) due to the combined effects of large watershed area and …