Worcester's Blackstone River: Industrial Legacy, Watershed Resilience, and Ecosystem Restoration

**This event takes place at the Worcester Public Library. A shuttle from Holy Cross - WPL - Holy Cross will be available for students. If you would like to sign up for the shuttle, please register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdLPhzacnqkwXMKQUWOXwWbe7iFlsV-B49zFGYCk-soo6CuUg/viewform?usp=header



Join Professor Bill Sobczak of the Biology Department to learn about his fascinating research on the Blackstone River.

"The American Industrial Revolution was powered by New England rivers. Worcester, MA, an
inland city, is located over 100 km west of Boston, MA and 100 km north of Providence, RI.
Despite this seemingly geographic limitation, the city emerged as a hub for urban development,
attracted diverse industries and workers, and produced pivotal technologies due to its cultural
and geographic relationship with the Blackstone River. The river’s forested headwaters provide
high water quality and predictable annual discharge regimes, thus allowing the industrial
riparian zone to extend south through Rhode Island with a final destination of Narragansett
Bay. The Blackstone River was “the hardest working river in the world” during the initial
industrial revolution for about 20 years. Here we describe the Blackstone River’s
biogeochemistry, community ecology, hydrology, and restoration initiatives at the watershed
scale. We also share recent education and community-based learning initiatives at College of
the Holy Cross and the larger Worcester community that may be strategically adapted for other
inland rivers with industrial legacies. Urban rivers and watersheds are under-appreciated and
under-valued."

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