In wonderful news, my NSF Hydrologic Sciences grant is officially funded. The project, "Conceptualizing and quantifying the function of beaver dams and stormwater ponds on the hydrology and biogeochemistry of urban streams" will last for three years (8/1/2020-7/31/2023), and I am ecstatic to be working with my colleagues Luke Pangle (GSU), Elizabeth Sudduth (Georgia Gwinnett College), Sandra Clinton (UNC Charlotte), and Diego Riveros-Iregui (UNC). We plan to test a conceptual model of the function of urban beaver ponds at water and solute retention and compare them to stormwater ponds across the Piedmont ecoregion. One MS student has already been recruited for Fall 2020, but I will be looking to recruit two more MS students at a later date. GSU was awarded $324,364 for our portion of the project. Read the full abstract below. This project will test a conceptual model of how the physical features of urban beaver and stormwater ponds impact streamflow attenuation and water quality. Cities are spending billions of dollars on installing green infrastructure to capture stormwater runoff, when cities in the southeastern U.S. may have infrastructure that fills a similar role already in beaver ponds. The functioning of beaver ponds compared to stormwater ponds has not been systematically studied anywhere. The three project objectives are (1) quantify the nutrient and sediment retention of beaver and stormwater ponds, (2) quantify the transit time of water through beaver and stormwater ponds and floodplain-stream reconnection around dams at both high and low flow, and (3) use remote sensing products and GIS to estimate the total number of beaver ponds in cities and scale-up quantification of retention to the whole-city scale. The hypothesis for objectives 1 and 2 is that the hydrologic and nutrient retention response of the pond will be driven by the hydrologic source of the water—specifically inflows dominated by surface or groundwater—and readily quantifiable metrics of pond geomorphology. The hypothesis for objective 3 is that identified ponded water from aerial imagery can be combined with the drivers of beaver habitat, including stream slope and vegetation, to pinpoint locations of beaver activity. These objectives will be met by closely monitoring 6 sites - 3 beaver and 3 stormwater- over two years in each of three southeastern metropolitan areas: Atlanta, GA, Charlotte, NC, and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC. These 18 sites will be specifically chosen to represent a variety of hydrologic sources and pond morphologies to test the hypothesis driving objectives 1 and 2. Through the development of this conceptual framework, and its rigorous testing using intensive field studies, this proposed research will yield new and transformative knowledge within the field of urban hydrological science. Many factors could drive pond response including, but not limited to, size, watershed land use, sediment, geology, and infrastructure age. Studying ponds across a range of these factors, but with underlying similarities due to their location in the same physiographic region, allows us to narrow in on controlling drivers and predict the response in other systems. In addition, larger-scale mapping of these systems helps scale up to evaluate landscape-level impacts on entire cities. In addition to this intellectual merit, this project will increase diversity in STEM by recruiting underrepresented students to complete M.S. degrees at minority serving institutions, mentored by a diverse group of faculty. The project will also entail public outreach on the ecological benefits of beaver leveraging existing relationships with non-profit conservation groups. Beaver are considered a nuisance species, and thus to reap the benefits their ponds may have on hydrologic and nutrient retention, conversations between watershed managers and beaver pond neighbors must be facilitated to allow for science-based decisions on the fate of these ponds.
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