Transcript Soil and Water Science in 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges

The University of Florida Water Institute
Wendy Graham, Ph. D., Water Institute Director, Carl Swisher Eminent Scholar
UF Water Institute Mission
To bring together talent from
throughout the University to address
complex water issues through
innovative interdisciplinary research,
education and outreach programs
Water Institute Goals
Improve basic knowledge of the physical,
chemical, and biological processes in aquatic
systems (rivers, lakes, estuaries, wetlands, soil
and ground waters).
Enhance understanding of the interactions and
interrelationships between human attitudes and
activities, and aquatic systems
Develop and promote the adoption of improved
methodologies for water management and policy
development based on a strong foundation of
science, engineering, management and law
Water Institute Strategies
Develop partnerships with internal and external
stakeholders to identify and prioritize critical
water issues requiring interdisciplinary expertise;
as well as to provide expertise and support for
addressing these issues.
Integrate and strengthen UF water faculty
expertise within existing Departments and
Centers.
Recruit and train excellent students to pursue
careers in water-related science, engineering,
policy, planning, and management, bringing with
them an interdisciplinary focus
Water Institute Programs:
Biennial Water Institute Symposium
Distinguished Scholar Seminar Series
Peer Review Services & Expert Assistance
Water Institute Graduate Fellows Program
Water Education Program for Public Officials
Program Initiation Fund
Interdisciplinary Research Projects
Examples of Interdisciplinary Water
Institute Research Projects:
Impact of Climate Variability and Climate Change on
Water Supply Planning: Evaluating Risks,
Increasing Resilience: Funded by NOAA
The Santa Fe River Basin Observatory: Exploring
linkages between geology, hydrology, ecosystems
and humans in a karst terrain: Funded by NSF
Understanding and Predicting the Impact of Climate
Variability and Climate Change on Land Use and
Land Cover Change via Socio-Economic Institutions
in Southern Africa: Funded by NASA
Coupling conflicting response times of human
decisions and natural systems in a water-subsidized
Pacific MesoAmerica basin: Funded by NSF
The Santa Fe River Basin Observatory: Exploring
linkages between geology, hydrology, ecosystems
and humans in a karst terrain
Goal: Improve
predictive
understanding
of hydrologic
flow paths and
travel times;
nutrient
sources,
transport &
transformation;
and karst
evolution and
within an
eogentic karst
basin
Santa Fe River Basin
Research Questions
What are the topographic, geologic and climatic controls
on streamflow generation processes and travel time
distributions in eogentic karst basins, how do these
affect the delivery of ecologically relevant solutes (e.g.,
C,N,P)?
What are the mechanisms governing coupled C, N, P
cycles in in spring-fed rivers?
How do variations in the sources, transport, and
mineralization rates of DIC/DOC/CO2 affect carbonate
weathering, dissolution and geomorphic evolution of
carbonate terrains?
Project Activities
Deploy high resolution sensors to investigate riverine
nutrient dynamics and ecosystem metabolism under
different hydrogeologic and flow regimes
Conduct dosing experiments in streams and aquifers to
understand effects of DOM lability, DO availability,
biological activity and flow regime on carbonate
dissolution
Develop integrated physically-based deterministic and
stochastic hydrologic models to investigate streamflow
generation processes, travel time distributions,
carbonate dissolution, and delivery of nutrients and
dissolution products to the river
Hydrologic Modeling Results
Using literature parameter values in
integrated land surface- surface-subsurface
hydrologic model (ParFlow)
• Water balance, groundwater response,
streamflow timing is good
• Issues with rate of stream flow
recession, especially after wet conditions
Hydrologic Modeling Results
End Member Mixing Analysis indicates:
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•
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Missing component is from groundwater
Large surface water-groundwater exchange
occurs during storm events.
GSA shows exchange is strongly influenced
by magnitude and contrast between porous
matrix and conduit permeabilitiies
Particle tracking:
Travel Time distributions by storm position
New
water
Old
water
Old
water
Particle tracking:
Effects of geology on
median age of water
Particle tracking
results: Effects of
geology on spatial
distribution of water
source and age
Particle age in days 50,000 days~140 years
No conduits, random k
No conduits
conduit k = 600 m/hr
Future Work
Test sensitivity of findings to model spatial discretization,
overland flow physics, conduit representation, degree of
small-scale geologic heterogeneity
Develop an extended Kalman filter to optimally estimate
spatially distributed model parameters and reduce model
prediction uncertainty using streamflow, groundwater and
EMMA data
Conduct particle tracking experiments to quantify effect of
geologic heterogeneity on streamflow generation areas,
travel paths and travel time distributions
Develop (semi-) analytical models to predict travel time
distributions in integrated conduit, porous media, stream
system.
Spring Ecosystem Metabolism
Flow creates coherent (diel) downstream signals
from cooupled ecosystem metabolic processes
Raw Data: March 2011
•
Carbon: Diel O2 for riverine
GPP, R (Odum 1956)
•
Carbonate Dynamics: Diel Sp
Cond. for carbonate
precipitation/dissolution
•
Nitrogen: Diel NO3 for
autotrophic N demand
(Heffernan and Cohen 2010)
•
Phosphorus: Diel SRP for
geochemical and biological P
removal
Coupled Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles
DIRECT: Net primary
production and
assimilative uptake of N
are strongly correlated
and yield plausible C:N
20
Uden (%)
INDIRECT: Uptake due to
denitrification is correlated
with respiration and
previous days’ GPP (short
and long term coupling)
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0
-10
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GPP (%)
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SRP Dynamics
P removal due to assimilation and co-precipitation
which produce signals that are out of phase
Ecosystem Scale C and P Coupling
Coherent diel [SRP] signal, varying amplitude
Signal is convolution of 2 out-of-phase
processes
– Calcite co-precipitation (ca. 30% of removal)
– Biotic assimilation (ca. 70% of removal)
– Combined removal < 10% of total P flux
Calcite-corrected removal yields plausible C:P
P assimilation lags GPP by ca. 8 hours
– Signal from the cell to the ecosystem?
Future Work
Improve understanding of
nutrient uptake in rivers by
using diel signals to
estimate nutrient use
Compare nutrient supply
and use to better
understand nutrient
limitation
Evaluate coupled element
cycles across the periodic
table (e.g., beyond C, N, P)
Improve understanding of
the role of rivers in both
permanent and transient
contaminant removal
Kurz Diagram
Interdisciplinary Research
Challenges:
Effectively engaging diverse groups of faculty and
students can be difficult : goals, values,
vocabularies differ and take time to resolve
Participation is voluntary: the best are busy and
don’t need money; must provide intellectually
stimulating interactions
Funding is tight, and national sources are
extremely competitive: patience and persistence
are important
Can be difficult to quantify value added by formal
interdisciplinary institutes: technically nothing
prevents faculty from self-organizing
Water Institute Accomplishments:
Changing the culture of how faculty and students work
together to understand and solve interdisciplinary
water-related problems
Facilitating networking both on campus and externally,
with proactive focus on building new linkages between
social and natural sciences
Providing platform for engaged scholarship on water
issues
Serving as a go-to place for peer review and expert
assistance for state agencies and legislature
Decreasing transaction costs associated with, and
building the portfolio of, interdisciplinary research
projects
In summary…
the Water Institute Provides…
Decision-makers, regulatory agencies, resource
managers, industry and non-governmental organizations
help in defining, understanding and solving large-scale
interdisciplinary water resource problems
Graduate students, post-doctoral associates, faculty
members, and sabbatical fellows an intellectually
stimulating environment in which to develop and apply
fundamental knowledge to important water resource
problems
Employers a pool of well-trained water-related scientists,
engineers, planners, and policy-makers.
Questions…. Comments?
Impact of Climate Variability and Climate
Change on Water Supply Planning:
Evaluating Risks, Increasing Resilience
Goal: To
increase the
relevance and
usability of
climate and sea
level rise
models and
reduce risk
associated with
water supply
planning in
Florida
Project Activities
Develop a collaborative Working Group comprised of
public water suppliers, water resource managers, climate
scientists, and hydrologic scientists
Evaluate the practical applicability of current climate
data/models predictions at utility relevant space-time
scales
Evaluate the usefulness of these data/models for
minimizing current and future public water supply risks
associated with climate variability/climate change and/or
sea level rise
Academic Partners: UF Water Institute ; UF Southeast Climate Consortium ; UF Center for
Public Issues Education; FSU COAPS; U Miami RSMAS
Public Utilities: Broward County; West Palm Beach; GRU; Miami-Dade County; OUC; Palm
Beach County; Peace River Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority; Tampa Bay Water
Water Management Districts: SFWMD, SWFWMD; SJRWMD
Evaluate the applicability and usefulness of climate
data/models/tools for water supply
 SEASONAL SCALE PREDICTIONS– Diagnose
and improve seasonal predictability and forecast
skill for precipitation, temperature and streamflow
 SEA LEVEL RISE – Improve understanding of
potential impacts of sea level change on coastal
aquifers, water resources, and ecosystems
120
Gobs
BCSD_daily
SDBC
BCSA
100
variogram (mm2)
 LONG TERM CLIMATE PROJECTIONS–
Evaluate the ability of downscaled reanalysis data
and retrospective GCM output to reproduce
historic climate and hydrologic patterns, and
explore implications of future GCM projections on
climate and hydrologic patterns
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distance (km)
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