Jennifer Cooper, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Rhode Island, will discuss how impacts from climate change such as increased surface temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and sea level rise impact conventional septic systems and alternative technologies.

Cooper has been working Jose Amador, URI professor of natural resources and the team’s research leader, and George Loomis, soil scientist and director of the New England Onsite Wastewater Training Center at URI, to look at current designs and parameters for septic systems against various climate-change scenarios. Cooper, more specifically, has been investigating two types of alternative systems more commonly used in Rhode Island, which both utilize a pressurized shallow narrow drainfield (PSND) technologies that either applies an advanced treated wastewater using sand filtration or just the surface soil for treatment.