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Natural infrastructure in large river basins: quantifying nutrient and hydrologic effects using “big” data and modeling
Citation:
Golden, H., A. Rajib, S. Mengistu, C. Lane, J. Christensen, E. DAmico, AND A. Prues. Natural infrastructure in large river basins: quantifying nutrient and hydrologic effects using “big” data and modeling. AGU Fall 2018 Meeting, Washington, DC, December 09 - 14, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Integrating natural infrastructure into traditional stormwater and nonpoint source nutrient management is gaining popularity, particularly for challenges such drinking water protection and solutions to harmful algal blooms. This approach often involves a balance of maintaining in situ floodplains, riparian areas, and wetlands (i.e., natural infrastructure), building new green infrastructure, and developing engineered stormwater management structures. However, many scientific questions remain regarding these methods, specifically the role natural infrastructure alone plays in mediating water quality (e.g., nutrient pollution) and flood/drought hydrology across large river basins. We begin to interrogate publicly available spatial and “big” data using novel mixed modeling approaches to understand how floodplains and wetlands mediate nutrient pollution across the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB), an approximately 490,000 km2 system. We take two approaches: (1) modifying existing process-based models to integrate floodplains, landscape depressions, and wetlands into large-scale hydrological models and (2) applying statistical approaches to gain insights into how various landscape network nodes (e.g., surface depressions, wetlands) and edges (flowpaths) interact with sources to influence total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) concentrations. The former approach affords hydrological improvements in large scale process based modeling to support quantification of nutrient dynamics in floodplains and wetlands. The latter provides key insights on the degree to which landscape nodes, edges, and sources of nutrients influence TN and TP within the UMRB. This presentation will provide an overview of research at the vanguard of linking natural infrastructure to water quality across large river basins, providing supportive research for future nutrient management.
Description:
Integrating natural infrastructure into traditional stormwater and nonpoint source nutrient management is gaining popularity, particularly for challenges such drinking water protection and solutions to harmful algal blooms. This approach often involves a balance of maintaining in situ floodplains, riparian areas, and wetlands (i.e., natural infrastructure), building new green infrastructure, and developing engineered stormwater management structures. However, many scientific questions remain regarding these methods, specifically the role natural infrastructure alone plays in mediating water quality (e.g., nutrient pollution) and flood/drought hydrology across large river basins. We begin to interrogate publicly available spatial and “big” data using novel mixed modeling approaches to understand how floodplains and wetlands mediate nutrient pollution across the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB), an approximately 490,000 km2 system. We take two approaches: (1) modifying existing process-based models to integrate floodplains, landscape depressions, and wetlands into large-scale hydrological models and (2) applying statistical approaches to gain insights into how various landscape network nodes (e.g., surface depressions, wetlands) and edges (flowpaths) interact with sources to influence total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) concentrations. The former approach affords hydrological improvements in large scale process based modeling to support quantification of nutrient dynamics in floodplains and wetlands. The latter provides key insights on the degree to which landscape nodes, edges, and sources of nutrients influence TN and TP within the UMRB. This presentation will provide an overview of research at the vanguard of linking natural infrastructure to water quality across large river basins, providing supportive research for future nutrient management.
