Hydrology and Water Quality
Because of the endangered species present and because the Lake Tahoe Basin comprises the headwaters of the Truckee River, the river has been the focus of several water quality investigations, the most detailed starting in the mid-1980s. Under direction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a comprehensive dynamic hydrology transport model was developed by Earth Metrics Inc. The model's name was subsequently changed to DSSAM, and it was applied to analyze land use and wastewater management decisions throughout the Truckee River Basin of 3,120 square miles (8,081 km2) and to provide guidance in other U.S. river basins. Analytes addressed included nitrogen, reactive phosphate, dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids and nine other parameters. Based upon use of the model, some decisions have been influenced to enhance riverine quality and aid the viability of associated biota. Impacts upon the receiving waters of Pyramid Lake were also analyzed.
Read more about this topic: Truckee River
Famous quotes containing the words water and/or quality:
“What a dissimilarity we see in walking, swimming, and flying. And yet it is one and the same motion: it is just that the load- bearing capacity of the earth differs from that of the water, and that that of the water differs from that of the air! Thus we should also learn to fly as thinkers—and not imagine that we are thereby becoming idle dreamers!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The point is, that the function of the novel seems to be changing; it has become an outpost of journalism; we read novels for information about areas of life we don’t know—Nigeria, South Africa, the American army, a coal-mining village, coteries in Chelsea, etc. We read to find out what is going on. One novel in five hundred or a thousand has the quality a novel should have to make it a novel—the quality of philosophy.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)