Novel approaches in the assessment of agricultural tile-drain chemical transport
by Greg Goodwin, Senior Agriculture Engineer
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Applying creative approaches to overcome the innate hurdles associated with complex study designs is another day at the office for the experts on on our field studies team. Never was this more true then when one of our clients asked for our help in satisfying the new EPA goals surrounding the effects of nutrient transport outlet water. Conventional study work would have unnecessarily wasted precious time and resources
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and was certainly not in our client’s best interest.
Excess nutrient transport from agricultural settings have contributed to a hypoxic zone in the Mississippi River basin and Gulf of Mexico, which, in turn led the EPA to form the Hypoxia Task Force with a goal to reduce the size of the hypoxic zone to less than 5,000 km2 by 2035. The Task Force also has an interim goal of a 20% reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus loading by 2025. Unsurprisingly, these environmental goals have created an urgent need for studies to better understand nutrient transport in agricultural landscapes.
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At our client's request, a Waterborne team established a large-scale field study to observe the effects of treatments on the nitrate-nitrogen concentration in outlet water of a tile-drain corn and soy rotated field. The study design included 37 discrete tile monitoring stations, making for quite a large monitoring effort! Our team went to work to evaluate possible monitoring approaches that could be employed in this case. It didn’t take long to realize that a conventional >>Read the rest of the article
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Waterborne and the case of the determined rodent |
In the summer of 2018, we on the Waterborne field team found ourselves facing an unprecedented hurdle: someone had built a home made of mud and sticks smack in the middle of our testing zone. Unbeknownst to us, one of our creek monitoring sites had gained a new resident in the form of one large (and very determined) beaver. Over the weeks we became well-acquainted with our furry friend’s work as he made a point of blocking off the stream just a little before our monitoring equipment, making it impossible for the intake lines to get enough water for proper sampling. The field team that first found the issue promptly documented and then broke apart the dam; a brief but intense labor given the size of the logs. Their efforts were in vain as the dam was back the following week.
As scientists we know that beavers build dams for shelter and to stop the sound of rushing water, which is apparently one of the biggest triggers urging them to build. But, after removing the same complex structure multiple times, it was hard for us not to take the whole dam thing personally. But, after removing the same complex structure multiple times, it was hard for us not to take the whole dam thing personally. We did everything we could to discourage the behavior—breaking the dam upon every visit—but there it was, in its full mud and stick glory, with each subsequent visit. After some weeks of this back and forth, we finally... >>Read the rest of the article
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Applications of Bathymetry and Hydroacoustic Technology |
Bathym… what?!” You read correctly. Bathymetry, a form of hydroacoustics, may seem like a strange word but it represents a common field study measurement of water depth, typically in oceans, seas or lakes. Using echolocation, where sound waves are sent out and returned, bathymetry surveys are used to map out beds of bodies of water to establish depth and any underwater features (i.e., underwater canyons, the mid-Atlantic Ridge, underwater volcanos).
Typically with bathymetry, equipment is attached to a survey boat and the boat drives across the are to be surveyed. That equipment uses echolocation to measure the time it takes the sound waves to travel first from, then back to the boat. From that measurement the depth can be determined.
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Getting to know Waterborne's Travis Thompson |
If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting or working with Travis, we’d like to formally introduce you to this key member of our field studies team. Travis Thompson, or “Thompson,” as he’s most commonly referred to within the Waterborne team, has been with us for about four years. >>Read the rest of the article
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Introducing our new Field Studies Monitoring WebTool |
In response to the growing needs of our clients, Waterborne data scientists recently saw an opportunity to develop a Monitoring WebTool that aids in management decisions related to modeling, field investigations, and stewardship activities.
Our WebTool combines monitoring data with a spatial component that can be rendered on the fly from GIS mapping data, with basic statistical outputs. The interface provides the end user with a number of options for filtering the data, based on location or compound of interest. By integrating field study data and national datasets that have been scrubbed by our scientist, users are given an in-depth view of their product chemistry within the United States.
Our WebTool allows for large sets of monitoring data to be spatially and tabularly contextualized, which provides a multitude of beneficial options for our clients Product use and chemical presence identified by location help to inform regulatory decisions... >>Read the rest of the article
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A focus on Field Studies training |
Although the implications of a global pandemic certainly impacted some of our field study activities, we made wise use of our time by expanding training across our field studies team. Since we work in a regulated industry, keeping up on Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) training is imperative to ensure that defined processes and standards of quality are being followed and maintained, even when not in the field. To that end, our Field Studies team buckled down on the following training:
First Aid. As anyone who has worked in the field knows, there are times when we are miles away from the nearest person, much less a medical facility. With this in mind, our Field Studies team reviewed our First Aid protocols and any team member who needed it completed a First Aid Certification program.
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Waterborne Environmental is a renowned consulting firm that has provided innovative solutions to the world’s most complex environmental problems since 1993. Our experienced, unbiased scientists and engineers work across industries to evaluate environmental, ecological, and human risks. Our work spans across industry and regulatory agencies to support the balance in the needs of a growing population with the environmental impact on our valuable natural resources.
Our The Current Newsletter is published monthly. Visit us online to find more articles, videos, and information about our work. Click here to contact us.
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