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Charles Dow, Ph.D.

500 500 Stroud Water Research Center
Charles Dow, Ph.D.

Director of Information Services
Research Scientist

Information Services Group

Contact

cdow@stroudcenter.org
tel. 610-268-2153, ext. 1259
970 Spencer Road, Avondale, PA 19311

Interests and Expertise

Charles Dow’s research interests primarily involve land use/land cover impacts and their effects on water quality and quantity. Despite the large volume of research devoted to relating watershed conditions to stream water quality, many uncertainties remain. One such challenge is in separating geophysical controls (i.e., geology, soils) from human-driven land use/cover influences in terms of explaining stream chemistry. Likewise, incorporating issues of scale (whole watershed versus riparian area versus reach) and proximity of land use/cover to a stream into a statistical framework for explaining stream chemical and biological patterns is also an important area of ongoing research. Further work is also needed in integrating different means of assessing in-stream water quality to provide a more holistic view of stream ecosystem health. The ongoing challenge is to take different water quality assessment methods and incorporate them into a single picture of stream health, highlighting each measure’s unique aspects and the overlapping aspects between measures, leading to multiple lines of evidence for defining water quality conditions.

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Education

  • Ph.D., forest resources, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.
  • M.S., environmental pollution control, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.
  • B.S., chemistry, DeSales University, Center Valley, Pennsylvania.

Professional Experience

  • Director of information services, research scientist, Stroud Water Research Center, 2002–present.
  • Project coordinator, project manager, research scientist, Stroud Water Research Center, 2000–2006.
  • Research scientist, New Jersey Pinelands Commission, New Lisbon, New Jersey, 1996–2000.
  • Graduate research assistant, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 1991–1996.
  • Graduate teaching assistant, The Pennsylvania State University, School of Forest Resources, University Park, Pennsylvania, 1996.
  • Laboratory technician, Agricultural Products Department, Stine-Haskell Research Center, DuPont Company, Newark, Delaware, 1988–1990.

Publications

Specific conductance and pH as watershed disturbance indicators in streams of the New Jersey Pinelands, U.S.A.

Dow, C.L., and R.A. Zampella. 2000. Environmental Management 26(4):437–445.

Trends in evaporation and Bowen Ratio on urbanizing watersheds in eastern United States

Dow, C.L., and D.R. DeWalle. 2000. Water Resources Research 36(7):1835–1843.

Detecting baseflow trends in Coastal Plain streams

Dow, C.L. 1999. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 35(2):349–362.

Sulfur and nitrogen budgets for five forested Appalachian Plateau Basins

Dow, C.L., and D.R. DeWalle. 1997. Hydrological Processes 11:801–816.

Blizzard’s effects on Appalachian stream chemistry assessed

Dow, C.L., D.R. DeWalle, J.A. Lynch, and W.E. Sharpe. 1994. Eos: Earth and Space Science News 75(34):389.

See all publications by Stroud Center authors

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