Kary García-Robledo
Kary García-Robledo is a Research Associate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as part of the U.S. Forest Service’s Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP). Kary’s graduate major is Forest Resources with focus in watershed management and forest hydrology. She earned her bachelor’s degree (2003) in environmental science and geography at the University of Puerto Rico. Kary was a Congressional Intern in 2004.
Kary’s current project includes a spatial analysis in the towns of Canaan, North Canaan, and Norfolk, northwestern Connecticut. The Watershed Management Priority Indices (WMPI), a GIS-based method, is used to identify conservation, restoration, and stormwater priorities in the three towns with focus on the Great Mountain Forest (Canaan and Norfolk). This analysis quantifies the influence of land use and site characteristics on overall water quality, leading to a more reliable landscape assessment. The final goal is to protect water resources for ecosystems and public health.
As a graduate student and research assistant, Kary worked on several projects applying the WMPI method to several towns and to the Westfield River watershed in western Massachusetts. Kary’s M.S. project integrates spatial approaches (WMPI for water quality and groundwater) and hydrometeorological (water budget, hydrologic response ratio and flood-frequency/flow per unit area) analyses in the Westfield River watershed. The main goal is to use these approaches as tools for watershed management and planning. Previous research includes the application of the WMPI in five towns in western Massachusetts, Ashfield, Chesterfield, Conway, Goshen, and Williamsburg in support of locally-based land protection efforts.
