Water Challenges

PI: Keith Cherkauer (ABE);  Co-PIs: George Zhou (ABE/EEE); Cary Troy (Civil), Melba Crawford (Civil; AGRY);  Funding: NASA

The Purdue team draws on significant expertise, resources, and experience to develop methods for improved quantification of the linkage between the optical and thermal properties of lake and river water and their biogeochemical states. The team will then integrate remote sensing, in-situ water quality sampling and supplemental information on land use, soils, climate and the dynamics of thermally driven river plume mixing using machine learning based approaches to improve the prediction of water quality indicators in waters heavily impacted by agriculture.

PI: Laura Bowling (AGRY);  Co-PIs: Shaun Casteel, Keith Cherkauer, Katy Mazer, Daniel Quinn, Juan Sesmero;  Funding: USDA-NIFA

The overall goal of this research is to ecologically intensify corn and soybean management using existing depressional storage of drainage water for irrigation and fertigation to maximize crop production and profitability while enhancing nutrient use efficiency and minimizing downstream impacts. The team will accomplish this by: 1) monitoring the effectiveness of drip fertigation using DWR, 2) monitoring the potential for wetland enhancement using water level management, 3) quantifying the watershed-scale water quality and quantity benefits using distributed water storage, 4) evaluating the economic feasibility of using DWR for supplemental fertigation, and 5) communicating and disseminating findings to advance knowledge on eco-intensification using subsurface drip fertigation from DWR.

Co-PI: Venkatesh Merwade (CIVL);  Purdue team: David Yu (Poli Sci, Industrial Eng.); Ayman Habib (CIVL);  Funding: NSF

The team is one of nine selected by NSF to be part of the NSF Convergence Accelerator initiative as part of their 2019 Cohort. The theme for this focus was, “Accelerating research to impact society at scale.” Over the next 24 months, the selected teams will continue to apply Convergence Accelerator fundamentals to include leveraging innovation processes and integrating multidisciplinary research and cross-cutting partnerships to develop solution prototypes and to build a sustainability model to continue impact beyond NSF support.

PI: Jake Hosen (ABE);  Co-PIs: Laura Bowling (AGRO); Funding: USDA-NIFA

Through this research project, the team will develop a mechanistic understanding of the water quality function of agricultural wetlands and environmental regulation of other ecosystem services (ie, water for irrigation) and disservices (ie, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions).  The team builds on the assumption that strategic targeting of wetland plant species and water table management will maximize nutrient retention, improve water storage for irrigation use during dry periods, and reduce release of potent GHGs.

PI: George Zhou (CE, EEE);  Funding: Water Quality Research Foundation

Point-of-use (POU) water treatment systems provide many benefits to remove trace-level contaminants that remain in treated drinking water. Membrane filtration systems and activated carbon systems are two highly efficient POU systems, but their potentials to remove emerging contaminants have not been fully explored. Additionally, microbial growth is often observed on membrane surface or activated carbon particles and results in reduced treatment efficiency and high maintenance costs, but there is still a knowledge gap on how different water sources and water quality are related with POU treatment efficiencies and microbial growth in POU systems. The overall research objective is to systematically evaluate emerging contaminant removal with POU systems.