Watershed Lab’s 2024 in Review

We are one amazing research group.

We are a faculty lead (Anne), a technician (Andrea), a post doc (Lakelyn), a PhD student (Suffiyan), 2 MS students (Nurjahan and Sabrina), 6 undergraduates (Casey, Kayleigh, Arden, Morgan, Hope, and Henry), and 1 closely-affiliated faculty member (Liz).

• We had 1 graduate student finish her MS degree (Nageen Farooq at Kent State).
• We had 1 undergraduate researcher finish her BS degree (Casey Benderoth at UVM).
• We have 1 PhD student admitted and starting in January (Jill Sarazen).
• We have 1 post-doc position to be advertised soon.

We published great science in four papers.

1. Stantis, C., Serna, A., Verostick, A., Tipple, B., Jefferson, A.J., Bowen, G.J. 2024. Isotopic Heterogeneity in U.S. Urban Water Supply Systems Reflects Climatic, Environmental, And Sociodemographic Factors: Implications for Forensic Identification. PLOS ONE, 19(11): e0311741, doi: 10.1371/journal. pone.0311741.
2. Safdar, S., Jefferson, A.J., Costello, D.M., Blinn, A. 2024. Urbanization and suspended sediment transport dynamics: a comparative study of watersheds with varying degrees of urbanization using concentration-discharge hysteresis. ACS ES&T Water, 4, 9, 3904–3917, doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.4c00214.
3. Hassan, Z.U., Jefferson, A.J., Avellaneda, P.M., Bhaskar, A.S. 2024. Assessment of hydrological parameter uncertainty versus climate projection spread on urban streamflow and floods. Journal of Hydrology, 638, 131546. doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.131546.
4. Back, M.P., Jefferson, A.J., Ruhm, C.T., Blackwood, C.B. 2024. Effects of reclamation and deep ripping on soil bulk density and hydraulic conductivity at legacy surface mines in northeast Ohio, USA. Geoderma, 442, 116788. doi: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2024.116788.

3 of those papers were student-led, 1 based on research conducted as an undergraduate!

We have more great papers coming soon.

• 2 papers are in final review after minor revisions from the last round of review
  • 1 of those papers has 3 graduate students.
  • 1 of those papers has 4 undergraduate students.
• 2 papers recently were submitted for review, both from our CIROH funded research
• 2 papers are waiting for revisions by the authors after positive and constructive review

We shared our science in other ways too.

• We gave 7+ conference presentations at 3 conferences, including 2 undergraduate posters at AGU. Our collaborators gave many more.
• Anne gave 1 seminar to an academic and local government audience.
• Anne led a Vermont 4-H Teen Science cafe on plastic pollution.
• Our work on microplastics was featured on local TV news.

We are funded to continue to do exciting and relevant work.

The Watershed Lab is supported by 5 active grants, including one that started December 1. We have 8 pre-proposals pending (!!). January will be an exciting and busy time if some of those advance to full proposal stage.

We collected lots of data and we’re analyzing it to see what insights it gives us.

• 202 beach and river samples collected for microplastics analysis
• 6 new local urban stream research sites instrumented
• 2 trips to Cleveland wrapped up last of our planned Ohio data collection
  • 10 stream reaches assessed for trash
  • >100,000 trail camera images analyzed
  • dozens of grain size photogrammetric measurements made
  • 1000s of total station survey points analyzed in GIS
• Dozens of focus group and interview collected and analyzed!
• 100+ survey responses collected
• 8 flood inundation mapping visualizations diagnosed.

We did good science, while respecting and supporting each other throughout the year.