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

飓风等热带系统有可能产生极高的风，也可能在大空间尺度上产生持续数天的强降雨。当这些风暴经过喀斯特地区的农业景观（即碳酸盐岩环境）时，它们会对补充喀斯特含水层的地下水的质量和数量产生深远的影响。这一点很重要，因为喀斯特是一种独特的环境，更容易溶解基岩，形成独特的孔隙，可以快速响应地表水动力学的变化。在喀斯特农业景观中，营养物质被飓风大小的风暴带来的严重洪水淋滤和动员，它们对地下水质量的影响可能是深远的。然而，极端风暴（如飓风Idalia）对喀斯特含水层养分和农业溶质动员的影响却没有得到太多关注。因此，目前还不清楚这些热带风暴对地下水和接收地表水的质量有什么直接、短期和长期的影响。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。研究成果将有助于改善水质管理，并为水文和溶质运移模型提供信息，从而支持农业受损水系统的恢复。研究人员将监测营养物质和溶质浓度，并量化飓风Idalia在佛罗里达州北部喀斯特佛罗里达含水层系统（FAS）中的地下水补给。他们将在受飓风影响的不同春季盆地和墨西哥湾的苏万尼河末端收集水样，以监测墨西哥湾的营养负荷程度。除了测量之外，他们还将使用遗留数据来量化与平均条件相比的过量营养和溶质负荷。这些调查将提供有关热带系统对接收水体的营养和溶质负荷影响的问题的答案。项目成果将与Suwannee河水管理区共享，也将用于南佛罗里达大学水文学专业本科生的教育。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.