For the entirety of her career path, Kate Buckman has been committed to studying the aquatic sciences. She has a PhD in biological oceanography, was a research scientist at Dartmouth College studying contaminant transfer through aquatic food webs with a focus on mercury, and now works at the Connecticut River Conservancy where she holds the position of Aquatic Ecologist. Her responsibilities include working with migratory fish in the main stem of the river and its tributaries and she also helps run community science programs such as sea lamprey nest surveys. 

Through her work, Buckman plays an integral role in helping to protect aquatic environments in the Northeast, so we decided to talk to her and hear more about how her studies are impacted by development and what she sees as the path forward for bringing together both community and environmental needs. Here’s what she had to say. 

Buckman on how she became an Aquatic Ecologist: 

My entire career has been working in aquatic sciences and it has been pretty variable throughout it. I have a PhD in biological oceanography. I did my graduate work and a lot of work before that in deep sea ocean environments. I like to joke that I’m like a migratory fish who has moved back upstream to where I came from. I was a research scientist at Dartmouth College for many years, working in aquatic ecosystems and looking at contaminant transfer through food webs, specifically around mercury, but other contaminants as well. And then I started at Connecticut River Conservancy (CRC) in 2022. I was the first full-time River Steward for New Hampshire, which is an advocacy position, and then shifted lanes in the beginning of this year to what aligns more with my education background and strength area; I am now  CRC’s Aquatic Ecologist. I do a lot of work with migratory fish in the main stem and tributaries, including running community science programs with sea lamprey nest surveys. I also work with state and federal agencies collecting data as well as conducting education and outreach around migratory fish and the issues surrounding them and other aquatic organisms with my colleagues at CRC. Ecology is all about understanding connections, and while I think about fish a lot, ecology includes all the other aspects of the physical, chemical, and biological function in a system that may support that fish’s existence.

I’m hoping to start some community science macro invertebrate monitoring in different areas soon, to address water quality and lower food chain connections. I’m also fortunate to be in a position where I can direct our efforts to where they’re going to have impact on  policy and advocacy work in addition to data collection to understand ecological functions. 

Buckman on the balance of human needs and aquatic health: 

There is inherently going to be a tension between land development and land conservation and the preservation of natural spaces. That tension has always been there, and it’s always going to be there. One of the things that I admire about Vermont is that the state has tried to implement policies that encourage Vermonters to actively think about that tension and try to approach it from different ways. But I think one of the things that sometimes gets lost in the conversation about development is a real understanding of the connectivity between different places and the services that place may provide to humans. I feel that organisms have an inherent right to exist, but as humans, we tend to think primarily about the benefit that places and things provide to us as humans. Yet that benefit may not always be readily visible or easily measurable.

There is, in a holistic sense, a real connectivity between how different environments interact that sometimes gets lost in our personal value system about how we feel about different areas. For a long time, wetlands were considered garbage land because we couldn’t use them in the way that we could use some other areas. But in reality, wetlands provide really critical ecological services that promote the things that a lot of humans do value, such as flood resilience, clean water, and unique species. And so that tension between development and conservation of those lands can certainly come to a head. One of the things this summer has really made me think about is groundwater. We’ve had a severe drought. It’s pretty extreme in some areas. There is a lot of dependence on well water in rural communities and so we’re extracting groundwater for our own purposes, and I don’t always think that we consider where that groundwater’s coming from or what it’s also doing besides coming out of our faucets. Wetlands are often areas where groundwater is coming up to the surface, and that could be a spring fed pond or the headwaters of a stream. The existence of those places downstream of the wetland are critically tied to that place of connection between surface water and groundwater. And then there are other areas where you may have a wetland or a particular type of area that’s actually recharging an aquifer. So one problem that we’re consistently faced with is the lack of understanding of the importance of wetland in the groundwater-surface water cycle and how that relates to human water use in our everyday lives. 

Sometimes we make decisions about what’s an appropriate place to develop without really understanding some of those types of connections. And that’s hard because it takes time to really go through and evaluate a place and ask, “Does this wetland contain endangered species? Is this wetland an important place for headwaters? Is it an aquifer recharge zone? How much water does it store during a flood?” We don’t know those answers for a lot of places. And so that can be challenging in terms of thinking about where there may be appropriate places to impact wetlands versus not, and which wetland is more or less valuable. That value system is subjective, and we’ve defined it through legislative actions in a lot of ways. But I think that tension exists between development and conservation, and it’s a fine line to walk to provide space for growth while preserving natural spaces. Humans deserve safe, healthy spaces to live, yet so do the fish and wildlife communities we share our watershed with. 

I live in a rural area and I understand why other people  want to live here. But I also don’t want to see some of the characteristics that makes this community feel special go away because of more or poorly planned development. It does take a hard and thoughtful approach in terms of how you think about that question of where to build and how to minimize environmental impacts. These are not easy questions to answer, but they are worth grappling with

Buckman on how her work informs conversations about flood resilience, community sustainability and steward healthy waters:

I am not the person who directly works with landowners or developers on these issues. My role, in part, is to be the person that is excited about wetlands and aquatic environments and conveying that excitement to others so we can all understand the role these systems play in making their lives better. And, I am also collecting data that can help inform decision making.

I’m not necessarily the person that is having the conversation with somebody who wants to develop a space, but I do think it is helpful to get information out there so that people are really aware of what these places do to make their lives better and to make their space in the world more livable, even if these waterways and waterbodies aren’t located on their property.

In my work, I might consider if we have an area where you really concentrate development and maybe impacted a wetland in the course of concentrating that development, how has that changed how the watershed is functioning. I might be thinking about contaminants in both surface water and groundwater. So if you’ve impacted a wetland, you’ve maybe taken away some of its ability to be a sponge and filter for getting contaminants out of water that is then going into a stream. You’ve maybe reduce the ability to store flood waters so they are more likely to encroach on developed areas and pick up contaminants. And you’ve also probably increased the amount of impervious surface area in the course of development so that you’re then directly contributing more potential contamination to wherever your runoff is going. And that contamination usually ends up in a water body either directly piped there because you’re collecting runoff that’s going into a sewage treatment plant or indirectly. Through this theoretical development you may have diminished that area’s capacity to deal with filtering and cleaning contaminants while also increasing the inputs of contaminants into a water body by concentrating development there.

You may also end up in a situation where you have a popular swimming hole or fishing area that’s five miles downstream, but it’s been negatively impacted because this whole water course is connected to everything that’s happening upstream and downstream too. I and other ecologists will likely be studying and trying to prevent or mitigate the interrelated impacts on habitat and organism health. And so as I mentioned earlier, ecology is really looking at and understanding connections between environments and organisms. And humans are very much a part of that. 

I don’t know if there’s ever a good answer to the question of where we should develop because it’s always going to have an impact. But I think being aware of what that potential impact is and thinking about our value system to ask “Do we have an area where we know there’s an incredibly sensitive environment?” There may be endangered species there, and maybe it’s the headwaters for a stream that is really a valuable recreational resource within the state. So maybe that’s an area where we want to think a little bit more closely about increasing development and recognize that small changes in a development plan, say increasing a buffer size beyond what’s legally required, may end up having disproportionately large positive benefits for the environment and ecology of the area. And that is something that’s worth thinking about and understanding before you make a change that you can’t reverse.