Measuring Nitrate Levels Along Buffalo Bayou, Patail, Nimrah
College of Science and Mathematics
Buffalo Bayou is a large body of water flowing through Houston, Texas. It begins in Katy, Texas, and flows approximately 53 miles east to the Houston Ship Channel and then into Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. One purpose for conducting a study on Nitrate values across various points across Buffalo Bayou was to hopefully identify areas suggestive of point-source pollution. The data collected shows the only nitrate values that were low enough to meet the water quality standard were found the Gay Hills area with a mean value of 1.1 mg/L. Nitrate levels greatly increase at Mayde Creek, which should ideally be another undisturbed area that neighbors Gay Hills. Instead, Mayde Creek water exhibited an average Nitrate value of 7.6 (including the outlier of .4 mg/L, which makes our average seem smaller than it probably is). We continued to measure the trail of Buffalo Bayou at various points to monitor the nitrate trend as the bayou emptied out into Galveston Bay. The average nitrate level grows in an exponential manner by the time the bayou empties out into Galveston with an average ppm of 103.6. The three Arboretum ponds (which serve as a model of an undisturbed ecosystem) sustain fairly constant, low nitrate values, suggesting that the large values of Nitrates in surrounding bodies of water are the result of human activity.
