Jason R. Sorenson

Nutrient and Sediment Concentrations, Yields, and Loads in Impaired Streams and Rivers in the Taunton River Basin, Massachusetts, 1997?2008 Jason R. Sorenson

Rapid development, population growth, and the changes in land and water use accompanying development are plac- ing increasing stress on water resources in the Taunton River Basin. An assessment by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection determined that a number of tribu- tary streams to the Taunton River are impaired for a variety of beneficial uses because of nutrient enrichment. Most of the impaired reaches are in the Matfield River drainage area in the vicinity of the City of Brockton. In addition to impair- ments of stream reaches in the basin, discharge of nutrient-rich water from the Taunton River contributes to eutrophication of Mount Hope and Narragansett Bays. To assess water quality and loading in the impaired tributary stream reaches in the basin, the U. S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection com- piled existing water-quality data from previous studies for the period 1997?2006, developed and calibrated a Hydrological Simulation Program?FORTRAN (HSPF) precipitation-runoff model to simulate streamflow in areas of the basin that contain the impaired reaches for the same time period, and collected additional streamflow and water-quality data from sites on the Matfield and Taunton Rivers in 2008. A majority of the water- quality samples used in the study were collected between 1999 and 2006. Overall, the concentration, yield, and load data presented in this report represent water-quality conditions in the basin for the period 1997?2008.