Welcome to the Environmental Research Laboratory of Dr. Nathaniel Weston, in the Department of Geography and the Environment at Villanova University.

Sandbar Bonfire!

We parked our boat on a sand bar on the falling tide in the middle of Plum Island Sound at …

Large-Scale Lateral Exchange

We have moved our lateral exchange measurements to the mouth of Plum Island Sound and to each of the major …

Gabriella Giordano completes her Senior Thesis

Undergraduate Gabriella Giordano completed and presented her Senior Thesis in Spring 2020. Gabriella’s thesis is titled “Spatial Analysis of Heavy …

Sandra Demberger defends her MS thesis

Sandra Demberger successfully defended her MS thesis titled “Quantifying and Valuing Carbon and Nitrogen Sequestration as Ecosystem Services in Salt …

Kristen Jezycki defends her thesis

Kristen Jezycki successfully defended her MS thesis “Assessing Heavy Metal Pollution in Estuarine Systems Along the Eastern United States in …

Graduate Wetland Field Research Course Visits Plum Island

Six graduate students in the Masters in Environmental Science program at Villanova University visited the Plum Island research site in …

Research in our laboratory is focused on understanding how human activities such as climate change and land use alterations impact tidal wetland ecosystem function. We’re especially interested in the response of microbial and plant communities to rising sea-levels and salt-water intrusion, changing organic matter sequestration and sediment accretion rates, and the resultant alterations to ecosystem function. We are also interested in the impacts of natural gas extraction (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) from the Marcellus Shale on surface and ground-water quality.  More information of research in our laboratory can be found in the research page.


Marshes and Sea Level Rise
How climate change is impacting marshes

The National Science Foundation’s “Science Nation” features research on impacts of climate change on marshes in the Delaware River estuary.