Emily Dean/ Winonan

Cole Tousignant, a senior majoring in environmental geoscience at Winona State University, was awarded the best undergraduate poster award in the Geoscience Society of America (GSA) environmental and engineering geology division last week.

Last Tuesday at the conference Tousignant presented his poster on a stream erosion conservation project he participated in over the summer and was judged by a number of professional geoscientists.

Tousignant’s involvement started last year when professor of geoscience, Toby Dogweiler, asked him to do a stream survey at Rice Ford Creek in Houston County, Minn. as an intern at the Water Resources Center over the summer.

Tousignant said his main job was to analyze the erosion of the stream bank using the Bank Erosion Hazard Index (BEHI).

Dogweiler said the BEHI method has been used over the last decade but was adapted through him and his student researchers.

Tousignant and Dogweiler’s team collaborated with the Minnesota Conservation Corps., who later anchored red cedar trees along the bank to help absorb energy from the water to help stop bank erosion, Dogweiler said.

He said sediment from bank erosion is the most common water impairment issue in Minnesota, as well as the rest of the country.

Dogweiler said another issue was the threat to personal property surrounding the bank.

“Often times these unstable banks are bordering pastures and farm fields,” Dogweiler said. “Overtime if the banks keep eroding its property loss.”

He continued and said bank erosion degrades habitat for fish and other creatures in the area.

Tousignant said the most rewarding part of his participation on this project was getting validation from his observations and hypotheses.

“It was rewarding to see after doing all of my observations that my data matched what I had expected it to be. It was the satisfaction of knowing I was making good observations,” Tousignant said.