Ecohydrological regulation of carbon and water interactions in natural and managed environments

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My research program in ecohydrology has two long-term objectives: (1) to determine how multiple, interacting stressors (e.g., land-use and climatic change, and changes in water management) affect carbon and water interactions in natural and human-impacted ecohydrological systems; and (2) to leverage process-based knowledge from ecohydrology to improve the sustainability of land and water management. Improving our understanding of carbon fluxes between the biosphere, the hydrosphere and the atmosphere is essential for discerning human impacts on water and carbon cycles, as well as the climate system. This information is needed to develop and evaluate more sustainable soil and water management strategies under current and future climatic conditions. During the upcoming 5 years, I seek to address the following short-term objectives: [A] Evaluate aquatic metabolism as a control on ecosystem-scale carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes in wetlands; [B] Investigate controls on carbon transport, turnover, and fate in forested ecosystems; [C] Improve the sustainability of agricultural systems using a food-energy-water nexus approach; [D] Evaluate carbon fluxes in deep soil as a cross-cutting short-term objective. To address these objectives, we will employ several novel methods and refine analytical tools and techniques that we anticipate to be highly transferable beyond this program of research and significantly advance the field of ecohydrology. We will also utilize a custom data acquisition “ecosystem” that enables a common data pipeline across the different studies that comprise the proposed research program. In addition to streaming data from field-based sensors to a cloud-based server, it also permits remote activation of smart irrigation systems and smart water samplers. These can be triggered on demand and/or automated for activation based on environmental conditions (soil moisture levels in combination with weather forecasts for the smart irrigation system; streamflow levels and water quality status for smart water sampling). In addition to training in domain-specific methods and techniques, HQP will also be trained in automating data workflows, data grading, and management of data repositories and metadata. The proposed research program will provide training to at least 15 HQP, with considerations of equity, diversity and inclusion paramount at all stages, from HQP recruitment through to reference letters written at the end of training. Carbon fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) measured using eddy covariance flux towers along with assessments of aquatic metabolism and their controls in wetland, forested and agricultural systems will significantly advance our understanding of complex ecohydrological systems. This work will also evaluate opportunities to improve sustainability of the food-energy-water nexus, and to increase soil carbon sequestration.