UMass Dartmouth researchers win MIT Sea Grant for shellfish water quality project

Researchers will deploy micro-underwater vehicles and fluorescent sensors to improve wastewater monitoring near shellfish aquaculture areas

A UMass Dartmouth team from the School for Marine Science and Technology received a $250,000 award from MIT Sea Grant to develop and test a rapid-response monitoring system for wastewater contamination in shellfish growing areas. 

The project, led by Assistant Professor of Estuarine & Ocean Sciences Micheline Labrie and Professor of Estuarine & Ocean Sciences Miles Sundermeyer, will use micro-uncrewed underwater vehicles, or micro-UUVs, equipped with tryptophan-like fluorescence sensors to track wastewater plumes from combined sewer overflows. The work will focus on Clark’s Cove, a sub-embayment of Buzzards Bay between New Bedford and Dartmouth near commercial shellfish aquaculture areas.

Combined sewer overflows can release untreated sewage and stormwater into coastal waters during heavy rain events, creating public health concerns and triggering shellfish closures. Current closure decisions rely in part on potentially conservative estimates about bacterial loading, dilution, and plume movement. By collecting real-time, in situ data, the UMass Dartmouth team aims to support precise and data-driven closure decisions that protect public health while reducing impacts on shellfish growers.

The project brings together marine technology, water quality monitoring, and shellfish management to address a challenge facing coastal communities. Using small, rapidly deployable underwater vehicles and sensors, the research team will evaluate where wastewater plumes travel after discharge events and how quickly they dilute.

The research team will work with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, Jaia Robotics, Inc., and local commercial oyster growers. The project will develop transferable methods for in situ wastewater plume monitoring that can be applied to other estuarine systems.