We recently covered the expedition to Peru by the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research (ACEER) to measure water quality along the new Transoceanic Highway, which will cross South America from east to west when finished.
The ACEER team
We recently covered the expedition to Peru by the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research (ACEER) to measure water quality along the new Transoceanic Highway, which will cross South America from east to west when finished.
The ACEER team has been using stream surveys and leaf packs developed by the Stroud Water Research Center in Pennsylvania as relatively simple assessment tools, before the full impacts of the emerging road are in swing.
ACEER now has some more results to share (you can also view field notes on their Facebook page).
The project is being supported by National Geographic and the Blue Moon Fund. Field operations are led by Bern Sweeney of the Stroud Center. In the first phase of a two-year project, conducted in late spring, study sites were established from Cuzco to Puerto Maldonado in Peru, along the highway corridor.
ACEER team members then conducted benthic surveys by wading into a stream and collecting aquatic insects with a net. Scientists examined the catch through a microscope, and used an assessment of the populations of so-called indicator species as an estimate of the health of the ecosystem.
The team explains, “In this study, ten watersheds were assessed with 2 point sampling sites in each: one site as a pristine control point and the other as a variable in that it would be a likely impacted site. Final reports provide to us interpretations of the patterns of distribution of invertebrates and the possible correlational or causal