What Is the Clarksburg Monitoring Partnership?
The Clarksburg Monitoring Partnership is a consortium of universities and local and federal agencies. The Partnership is a collaborative approach to monitoring the long-term aquatic ecosystem changes to stream systems resulting from the associated landscape transition from agricultural to medium- and high-density residential, commercial, and industrial land uses. The results of the monitoring will provide a comprehensive approach to document the effectiveness of land use planning and the implementation of modern sediment and erosion control and stormwater management best management practices (BMPs).
Who Does the Partnership Include?
The Clarksburg Monitoring Partnership team includes:
Return to Top
What Is the Partnership Investigating?
The Clarksburg team is using a Before, After, Control, Impact (BACI) design approach to assess the land use changes and the accompanying or resulting impacts on stream conditions. The opportunity to study the development process from beginning to end will help in assessing how the changes in topography and imperviousness will affect the hydrology and geomorphology of the receiving streams.
The study involves documenting changes in the area by monitoring:
- Stream flow by collecting continuous data at USGS flow gauges
- Local rainfall amount and intensities at two rain gauge stations
- Landscape change and alteration mapping using LiDAR imagery
- Hydrology and geomorphology and linking them to changes in biological communities (benthic macroinvertebrates, fish, and stream salamanders)
- Groundwater levels and quality
- Stream ecosystem structure and function through advanced studies of community metabolism, nutrient uptake, and decomposition
This collaborative approach to monitoring long-term change in an aquatic ecosystem has resulted in a comprehensive approach to documenting the effectiveness of land use planning and the use of modern sediment and erosion control and stormwater management BMPs.
Return to Top
BMP Mapping Project
Dianna Hogan of the USGS's Eastern Geographic Science Center is creating a database and geographic information system (GIS) application for the stormwater management BMPs in the Clarksburg study area. This database will track the installation of sediment and erosion control devices, the conversion to stormwater management BMPs and the many different stormwater management (SWM) quality and quantity structures being installed in the landscape. The database will include detailed information on each BMP and related biological, physical, and chemical monitoring information.
The SWM structures are installed in "treatment trains"; that is, the stormwater runoff goes through multiple treatment devices that remove the many pollutants from the dirty runoff, infiltrate the resulting clean water into the ground, and allow the runoff to enter streams in a non-erosive manner.
A goal of this effort is to map and interpret the use and effectiveness of BMPs. The research will provide analysis of:
- Spatial distribution of BMPs around new construction
- Water flow regimes
- BMP effectiveness
- Older versus newer, state-of-the-art BMPs
- Watershed development and BMP use correlated with stream analyses
- Change in water quality and quantity parameters as a result of development using BMPs
- Different uses of BMPs with similar land use patterns
- Spatial patterns of type-specific BMPs (proximity, serial use, type)
- How all these factors can affect mitigation success
In addition to the goals listed above, the USGS is interested in understanding the ability of BMPs to mitigate altered water quality and hydrology in developed landscapes. The agency is also interested in how to communicate this information to other local and regional-scale sites within the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
This PowerPoint presentation on the BMP mapping research describes the research effort in detail.  (PDF, 26 pp, 6.8Mb)
Return to Top
Location of Study Sites
Three test areas were selected—two in the Newcut Road neighborhood and one in the Cabin Branch neighborhood. An undeveloped control area was established in Little Bennett Regional Park, and a final developed control area was set up in Germantown.
Return to Top
Ecological Assessment Information and Planning
The results of the Integrated Ecological Assessment inform the planning effort for development within the Clarksburg SPA. Listed below are presentations used in planning meetings for the County.
Who does the IEA? How does that realate to the Partnership?
- Montgomery County Planning Board Meeting, July 9, 2009: Agenda Item 7. MNCPPC Staff Report (PDF, 7 pp, 1.5Mb)
- MNCPPC Staff Analysis (PDF, 26 pp, 2.5Mb)
- County Council Planning, Housing, and Economic Development/Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Joint Committee Hearing, July 27, 2009 (PDF, 32 pp, 2Mb)
Additional Resources
Return to Top | 
