Recipient Organization
STATE UNIV OF NEW YORK
(N/A)
SYRACUSE,NY 13210
Performing Department
Environmental Resources Engineering
Non Technical Summary
Cities are home to an increasing percentage of US citizens, growing from 10% in 1900 toapproximately 50% today, and projected to reach 70% this century [1]. Through urbanization we havecreated an "urban biogeochemistry" that involves imbalances in watershed nutrient cycles, pollutedwaterways, and compromised ecosystems due to adverse interactions between society and theenvironment [2]. Excess and bioavailable nitrogen is of particular concern in developed environmentssince it can accelerate eutrophication and degrade aquatic systems. The intersection of a plethora ofintended and unintended nitrogen leaks and the expansive hydrologic connectivity of impervious coverurban areas has led to nitrogen-rich stormwater and degraded aquatic ecosystems [3]. Communities andresearchers are working on many methods for nitrogen load reduction, including denitrification viavarious stormwater control measures, otherwise known as green infrastructure [ 4]. My research is basedon enhancing nitrogen removal with green infrastructure, and it considers how social components, or softengineering, can enhance the technical components of green infrastructure. This approach is innovativecompared with prior research that has treated social and technical issues as two separate entities [5]. Myresearch uses the community based i-Tree watershed tools to incorporate institutional and socioeconomicfactors into watershed planning.Rural and urban communities can engage in the stewardship of their watershed and, through suchengagement, create economic, environmental, and social sustainability in watershed management plans.Community members help plans identify goals, constraints, and priorities as well as inform plans foradaptive changes in behavior. Community-based data collection of watershed land cover data, forexample, initiates useful feedback loops where knowledge ofland cover effects on water qualityinfluences the establishment of new urban forest and green infrastructure cover. Our software tool, i-Tree(www.itreetools.org) utilizes this strategy to help cities improve environmental quality via strategic landcover management. The i-Tree software suite is developed by the USDA Forest Service and otherpartners, and my SUNY ESF advisor, Theodore Endreny, is the chief designer of the i-Tree Hydrowatershed tools. My research advances urban sustainability by creating new algorithms (aka modelroutines) for i-Tree Hydro to represent how community engaged watershed stewardship interruptsnitrogen pollution and improves environmental sustainability.Awarded End Date: 6/1/13End Date: 5/31/16 (as of 6/15/16)Sponsor: Mianus River Gorge Preserve
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
100%
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
My goal is to facilitate sustainable watershed management by incorporating citizen-based scienceinto the i-Tree tools, including the Hydro model. The i-Tree model presently quantifies the impacts ofvegetation, such as trees and shrubs, on air temperature, runoff volumes, and water quality, among otherenvironmental variables. The water quality estimates of i-Tree Hydro are based on proven event meanconcentration algorithms advocated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and used in manywatershed models, including the US EPA Stormwater Management Model (SWMM). While the eventmean concentration algorithms are based on empirical data and are able to predict stormwater nitrogenloads in i-Tree, i-Tree does not have the next-step algorithm that simulates how vegetation can interceptand filter nitrogen from the stormwater.
Project Methods
To achieve my technical objective I will use my academic year to research and program into iTreea process-driven mechanistic representation of the nitrogen cycle. My routine will utilize processesmodeled successfully by the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) developed by the USDA AgriculturalResearch Service, the Hydrological Simulation Program-Fortran (HSPF) model, and others. My focuswill be to take these existing nitrogen algorithms and incorporate elements from them into i-Tree Hydroto produce estimates which are scientifically robust and appropriate for our desired audience. During thisprocess my high school partner would be invited to receive updates on the scientific advances. I willdevelop training modules on how to program and test the various components in my nitrogen algorithmsthat can be used by my partner and later with the community members who are interested in the science.Visual and intuitive programming has been proven accessible to. motivated yet non-technical people and Iwill use these approaches to engage my partner and others.My university, SUNY ESP, is located in the Syracuse urban core and has access to field sites andextensive instrumentation of urban biogeochemistry that facilitates my development and validation of thenew i-Tree nitrogen algorithm. My project in the Mianus River Gorge watershed and nearby watersheds(i.e. the Saugatuck River and Five Mile River watersheds) provides the needed test sites for modelverification, as well as the opportunity to engage community members in model application. For theSyracuse watershed of Onondaga Creek I have access to the necessary land cover, topography, andweather data. For the Mianus River Gorge watershed these data are available using standard USDA ForestService methods for photo-interpretation along with federal and other agency data sets. I will coordinatewith Nicole Davis of the South Western Regional Planning Agency (SWRPA) to access current dataarchives.My methods include building on the extensive planning performed by the SWRPA team. SWRPAhas created watershed management plans for the Mianus, Saugatuck, and Five Mile River watershedsusing first order estimates of water quality impacts from impervious cover; the i-Tree Hydro processbasedmodel can enhance these plans, as it simulates the effect of spatial patterns and functions of greeninfrastructure on water quality. Our model also utilizes the USDA Forest Service Canopy tool to get amore accurate sense of the land cover classes in the watershed, augmenting SWRPA estimates by usingsampling-based photo-interpretation of several hundred randomly chosen points within current aerialimages.My methods also include gathering the necessary nitrogen algorithm input data in order tosimulate the study area watersheds in the improved i-Tree Hydro model. In addition to the remotelysensed land cover inputs, I will gather tree characteristic data, temperature and precipitation data, streamflow data, and initial estimates of nitrogen cycle parameters. I will use field methods to gather local treecanopy characteristic data, which is a fun and achievable project for involving my high school studentpartner. We have access to the proper procedures and equipment for collecting such data through ourpartnership with the USDA Forest Service. My model runs will utilize robust automated methods for