Andrew Tota, an undergraduate civil and environmental engineering student, won second place in the Undergraduate Division of the 2022 Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) Congress for his paper, Experimental Investigation of Flow Characteristic within Mussel’s Mesohabiats. Tota is an undergraduate student in Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Abul Baki’s Lab.
Tota’s paper looks at the declining populations of freshwater mussels worldwide, especially in North America. In an attempt to investigate local flow fields around freshwater mussels, specifically Elliptio complanata, a sequence of mesohabitats were created in an open-channel flume. The setup contains a sand-gravel mixture bed with a riffle, run, pool, and glide mesohabitat sequence based on measurements from the nearby Grannis Brook, located in Canton, NY. The results of this study may help to improve restoration of degraded freshwater mussel habitats. This is a collaborative research project with Professor Alan Christian of the Biology department.
The Environmental & Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers is ASCE’s technical source for environmental and water-related issues. EWRI is one of nine ASCE technical institutes. Their members include professionals whose focus areas are:
- the Environment;
- Groundwater;
- Surface Water;
- Hydraulics and Waterways;
- Irrigation and Drainage;
- Planning and Management;
- Urban Water Resources;
- Water Supply, Wastewater, and Stormwater;
- Watershed; and
- Domestic and International Interdisciplinary Issues.
https://www.clarkson.edu/news/clarkson-undergraduate-student-awarded-prize-technical-paper