A view of the Suwannee River.
Photo / University of South Florida
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UF Researchers Propose Hydrologic Observatory for Suwannee Watershed
By Patricia Casey
A group of University of Florida researchers has positioned UF as a leader of a multi-institution research team working to create a hydrologic observatory in the Suwannee River watershed.
The researchers have used mini-grant
funds from the School of Natural Resources and Environment to compete
for a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that would construct one
of five
hydrologic observatories throughout the United States. NSF is approaching
the proposal process as a series of smaller grants (in the few hundred
thousand to few million dollar range) that ultimately will lead to a
major request for proposals (RFP) for hydrologic observatories.
More than 70 researchers from several colleges and departments at UF and from other academic institutions and research organizations across Florida and Georgia are participating in the Suwanee River project.
"The funding we received through
the SNRE mini-grant allowed us to develop cross-campus collaborations
that would have been difficult to organize otherwise," said Jonathan Martin, a project leader and associate
professor in the UF Department of Geology.
"The grant was useful in allowing
us to complete several years of collaboration to prepare for the major
RFP," Martin said. "This
progress has situated UF as the state-wide leader of the Suwannee River
Hydrologic Observatory and one of approximately ten groups working nationally
toward developing observatory science."
According to the NSF, the hydrologic observatories will involve large-scale instrumentation of selected river basins. The agency wants the observatories to provide multi-disciplinary, multi-scale characterizations of the landscape in order to address major environmental challenges. The observatories will seek to improve the understanding of flow paths, fluxes, and residence times for water, sediment, nutrients, and contaminants across a range of spatial and temporal scales.
Each observatory will comprise a network of research stations within a single watershed. Eventually, all of the hydrologic observatories will collect similar data so that comparisons can be made across climatic and physiographic zones.
As a direct result of the SNRE funding, significant progress has been made toward collation and organization of existing data for the Suwannee Basin and toward the development of research objectives for large, basin-scale scientific inquiry.
The Suwannee River watershed extends into southern Georgia.
Image/USGS
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The team has created a spatial database containing data from multiple governmental organizations that characterizes the natural resources of the Suwannee River basin. This geodatabase is now being enhanced and maintained by the UF Water Institute.
"The mini-grant funding allowed us to pull together datasets and helped set the stage for justifying why the Suwannee River is a good place for a hydrologic observatory," said Wendy Graham, professor and chair of the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.
The hydrologic observatories will work with other NSF-sponsored programs already in place, namely the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI).
SNRE mini-grant support resulted in four proposals to NSF under different programs that will continue the momentum toward a Suwannee River Hydrologic Observatory:
- NSF Cyber-Infrastructure (with CUAHSI, Dr. Wendy Graham) - Develop and
standardize tools for integration and presentation of digital hydrologic
data among the CUAHSI community. $10,000 (UF portion only)
- NSF Earth Science - Instrumentation and Facilities (Dr. Kenneth Slatton and Dr. Matt Cohen) - Develop
new tools for the assessment of fine scale spatial variability in soil hydraulic
properties using laser mapping and soil spectroscopy. $350,000.
- NSF Hydrologic Sciences Declaration (Dr. Wendy Graham, Dr. Matt Cohen, Dr. Joseph Delfino, Dr. Jonathan Martin, and Dr. Kenneth Slatton) - Design
and demonstration of a distributed sensor array for predicting water flow
and nitrate flux in the Santa Fe Basin. Approximately $697,344
- NSF Combined Water and Carbon Cycle (Dr. Jonathan Martin, Dr. Joe Delfino,
Dr. Wendy Graham, Dr. Andy Zimmerman, Dr. James Sickman, Dr. Matt Cohen,
Dr. Jean-Claude Bonzongo, Dr. Tom Frazier, and Dr. Carlos Duarte) - Carbon
Processing and Fluxes through a Black-Water, Carbonate-Dominated Watershed.
Approximately $2.4 million.
The Suwannee's
Unique Qualities
The UF team says that four characteristics make the Suwannee River watershed
an ideal candidate for a hydrologic observatory:
1. Unregulated and Rural - The Suwannee River is one of only a few major
rivers in the U.S. with a largely unregulated flow through rural areas and is
relatively unimpaired with regard to water quality, leading to its designation
as one of 12 National Showcase Watersheds.
2. At Risk and in Transition - Land use trends toward more urbanization and intensive
agriculture threaten to increase nutrient loads and reduce water quality. Population
growth is also fueling increased groundwater withdrawals from the Floridan aquifer.
Inter-basin transfers from the lower Suwannee River to south Florida have been
suggested as one solution to south Florida's growing water crisis.
3. Three Distinct Hydrologic Regimes - The Suwannee River watershed comprises
three distinct but linked hydrologic landscape units. The upper Suwannee River
interacts with the surficial aquifer but is largely separated from the Floridan
aquifer by a confining unit. The middle Suwannee River interacts with both surficial
aquifers and the unconfined karstic Floridan aquifer. The lower Suwannee River
discharges to a deltaic estuary as surface water, along with diffuse submarine
groundwater discharge.
4. Extensive Existing Data Infrastructure - Some discharge data exists from the
turn of the 19th century to the present. More recently, the USDA Agricultural
Research Service, through the Southeast Watershed Research Laboratory, has monitored
the Little River watershed in Georgia at the headwaters of the Suwannee River
since 1965. The Suwannee River Water Management District has monitored the Suwannee
River watershed in Florida since 1972. Other groups (USGS, Suwannee River Partnership,
and individual university investigators) have long worked on specific, local
geological, hydrological, and biological problems within the watershed.
(Source: The Suwannee River: A Coastal Plain Watershed in Transition,
http://suwanneeho.ifas.ufl.edu)
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Collaborating Organizations
Florida A&M University
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Florida Geological Survey
Florida International University
Florida State University
Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission
Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Ohio State University
Princeton University
SDII Global Corporation
Suwannee River Water Management District
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Services
U.S. Geological Survey
University of Central Florida
University of Florida
University of Georgia
University of New Hampshire
University of North Florida
University of South Florida
Valdosta State University |
| UF Collaborators: | |
| Department | Collaborator |
| Agricultural and Biological Engineering | Wendy Graham, Jasmeet Judge, Rafael Munoz-Carpena |
| Civil and Coastal Engineering | Peter Sheng, Clint Slatton |
| Environmental Engineering | Mike Annable, Joe Delfino, Jim Heaney |
| Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences | Tom Frazier, Bill Lindberg, Ed Phlips |
| Geography | Mike Binford |
| Geological Sciences | Jonathan Martin, Liz Screaton |
| Microbiology | Eric Triplett |
| Soil and Water Science | Jim Jawitz, Ramesh Reddy, Jim Sickman, Sabine Grunwald |
Web Resource
http://suwanneeho.ifas.ufl.edu
Contact
Dr. Jonathan Martin
jbmartin@ufl.edu
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