Skaneateles Lake and its watershed are not only one of the most distinctive and beautiful natural features of the village, but they have also inspired a great deal of interest among the scientific community.

Soni M. Pradhanang, a PhD candidate at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, is among those researching the waters. The native of Katmandu, Nepal, has focused her doctoral work exclusively on the Skaneateles watershed.

She'll share some of that work next week. At 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8, at the Skaneateles Library, she will give a presentation titled “Monitoring and Modeling in the Skaneateles Lake Watershed: What Can Stream Flow and Pollutant Load Assessments Tell Us?”

The event, which is sponsored by the Finger Lakes Institute at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, will address topics such as the cumulative impact of land use in the watershed, how sediment and other things find their way to the lake and what effect this has on the water and agricultural best management findings based on her research.

Pradhanang said she has always had a deep interest in this kind of research, an interest that greatly influenced her educational choices.

Pradhanang received her bachelor's degree from Tribhuvan University in Nepal before going on to earn her master's in science with a concentration on environmental pollution and monitoring from Bangalore University in India, which in turn led her to her second masters in environmental science from Yale University.

“Getting close to nature was something that I always enjoyed,” Pradhanang said. “I also wanted to be an environmental ambassador for my country. I also see many opportunities for researches that I can conduct in my home country in collaboration with experts here in the U.S.”

Pradhanang was offered the opportunity to work with Professor Russell D. Briggs, whom she said is one of the top researchers in her field and also secured EPA funds for research specifically on Skaneateles Lake. That opportunity brought her to SUNY ESF.

“I really thought this was an interesting research,” Pradhanang said. “And it really is very interesting and something I am passionate about.”

Pradhanang said her work has focused primarily on assessing effectiveness of agricultural best management practices in improving water quality and application of water quality models in evaluating nutrient and sediment loadings in the Skaneateles Lake watershed.

Essentially she has monitored streams that flow into the lake and assessed what has been in the water and what its overall impact has been and may be in the future on the lake.

She went on to explain that agricultural best management practices can have many different effects.

But she said the main goal is to minimize pollution and an overabundance of nutrients and fecal matter from reaching the waters, to help ensure a better water quality for all that live within the watershed.

But to some extent this research is also intended to help expand people's views on watersheds and help everyone come to realize that what goes into the water has an impact on everyone.

“While not everyone lives next to a pond or stream, we all live in a watershed,” Pradhanang said. “Watersheds are the land area that contributes water to a specific water body, such as a pond, lake, wetland, or catchment area. Common activities like driving your car or hiking along a river can affect water quality. By paying careful attention to how you manage activities around your home and in places you like to visit, you can protect your watershed and the water you drink.”