RAPID: Monitoring water quality changes in an agricultural karst aquifer after a major storm

热带系统，如飓风，有可能产生极强的风，还可能在大的空间范围内产生几天的暴雨和大量降雨。当这些风暴经过岩溶的农业景观时，它们可能会对补给岩溶含水层的地下水的质量和数量产生深远的影响。这一点意义重大，因为岩溶是独特的环境，在那里更容易溶解基岩，产生特有的孔隙度，可以对地表水动态的变化做出快速反应。在喀斯特农业地貌中，飓风规模的风暴带来的严重洪水会淋溶和调动养分，它们对地下水质量的影响可能是深远的。然而，伊达利亚飓风等极端风暴对岩溶含水层养分和农业溶质调动的影响尚未引起太多关注。因此，目前还不清楚这些热带风暴对地下水质量和接收地表水体的直接、短期和长期影响。研究人员将调查佛罗里达州北部喀斯特农业系统中污染养分的动员情况。成果将有助于改善水质管理，并为支持恢复农业受损的水系统的水文和溶质运移模型提供信息。研究人员将监测营养物质和溶质浓度，并量化飓风艾达莉亚在佛罗里达州北部岩溶弗洛里丹含水层系统(FAS)的地下水补给。他们将在受飓风影响的不同泉水盆地和墨西哥湾苏万尼河的终点站收集水样，以监测向墨西哥湾输送营养物质的程度。除了他们的测量之外，他们还将使用遗留数据来量化与平均条件相比的过量养分和溶质负荷。这些调查将为回答有关热带系统对营养物质和溶质输送到接收水体的影响的问题提供信息。项目成果将与苏万尼河水资源管理区分享，也将在南弗罗里达大学的水文学本科生教育中分享。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Tropical systems such as hurricanes, have the potential to generate extremely high winds and can also generate heavy and substantial rainfall for several days, over large spatial scales. When these storms pass over agricultural landscapes in karst, which are carbonate rock environments, they can have profound impacts on the quality and quantity of the ground water that recharges the karst aquifers. This is significant because karst are unique environments where easier to dissolve bedrock creates characteristic porosity that can respond to changes in surface water dynamics rapidly. In karst agricultural landscapes, where nutrients are leached and mobilized by heavy flooding from hurricane size storms, their impact on groundwater quality can be profound. However, the impact of extreme storms, such as hurricane Idalia, on nutrient and agricultural solute mobilization in karst aquifers has not received much attention. Therefore, it is unclear what immediate, short, and long-term effects of these tropical storms are on the quality of groundwater and receiving surface water bodies. The researchers will investigate mobilization of polluting nutrients in a karst agricultural system in northern Florida. Outcomes will contribute to improve water quality management and inform hydrologic and solute transport modelling that support the restoration of agriculturally impaired water systems. The researchers will monitor nutrient and solute concentrations and quantify groundwater recharge from Hurricane Idalia in the karstic Floridan Aquifer System (FAS) in northern Florida. They will collect water samples at different spring basins impacted by the Hurricane and at the terminus of the Suwannee River, at the Gulf of Mexico, to monitor the extent of nutrient loadings to the Gulf. In addition to their measurements, they will use legacy data to quantify excess nutrient and solute loading compared to average conditions. These investigations will inform answers to questions about the impacts of tropical systems on nutrient and solute loading to receiving water bodies. The project outcomes will be shared with Suwannee River Water Management District and also in the education of undergraduate students in hydrology at the University of South Florida.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.