CAREER: From Substrate to Surface: Quantifying the Impact of Aquatic Vegetation on Exchange Processes

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This project seeks to understand the effects of flow and vegetation on gas transfer in natural waters, from the water-sediment interface to the water surface. Understanding such processes, from substrate to surface, will allow development of process-based models for management and restoration of wetlands, estuaries, and vegetated coastal areas, and will inform models of global greenhouse gas fluxes in natural waters. The research effort addresses challenges at the interface of Geomorphology, Ecology, and Fluid Dynamics. It is coupled with an education and outreach plan that will foster a STEM-oriented, school-to-college pipeline for at-risk young boys; and will develop advanced but accessible educational material for Universities, agencies, and policy makers dealing with floodplains, wetlands, and coastal areas worldwide.The project seeks integration of the various impacts of aquatic ecosystems in sediment and oxygen dynamics in natural waters. An extensive experimental study, using quantitative flow imaging, acoustic, and optical sensors, will fully characterize coupled water-air-vegetation-sediment interactions, by monitoring turbulent flows, sediment-oxygen demand, and their impact on gas transfer. The four unique, state-of-the-art laboratory facilities to be used will recreate unidirectional and oscillatory flow conditions at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, representative of streams, wetlands, and coastal areas.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.