Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Hydrology’ Category

Jul 25

1 Comment

Which Factors Make Rain Gardens More Effective? (Part 2)

Scientists often evaluate Low Impact Development (LID) design by quantifying how much stormwater rain garden systems (cells) can divert from the sewer system.  But Dr. Amanda Cording and her research team want to understand what’s happening inside the cell in order to improve the effectiveness of rain garden design (see part 1).  Below are the results of their research.

Picture of yellow flowers

Deep rooted systems were found to have a much better ability to hold the soil in place and remove nutrients.

Key Findings

Cording says that some of her key findings were that the soil media and vegetation selection is absolutely crucial to the performance of these systems. Cording’s team looked at the root layering perspective in three dimensions and found that deep rooted systems were found to have a much better ability to hold the soil in place and remove nutrients throughout the life cycle of the cell. The more surface area the roots covered, the more pollutants the cell would remove.  She adds, “Cells with deep-rooted plants were found to be resilient during increased precipitation due to climate change, did well at retaining peak flow rates, and performed well at removing total suspended solids and nutrients predominantly associated with particulates.”  Labile nutrients, Cording says, were a completely different story. She says the bioretention systems have to be specifically designed to remove  those nutrients through sorption (P) and denitrification (N).

Researcher holding dirt in cupped hand

Compost was found to have a negative effect on water quality.

Compost, which is often used as an organic amendment in the soil media to help remove heavy metals and provide nutrients for the plants, was found to have a negative effect on water quality overall, due to the high pre-existing labile N and P content. She says, “It’s intuitive, but at the same time, a lot of these systems are designed based on bloom time and color, and not necessarily on the physical and chemical pollutant removal mechanisms at work.”

Green algal bloom in a freshwater lake

Green algal bloom in a small freshwater lake in New Zealand. (Image: Massey University)

What Lies Ahead?

Cording also tested a proprietary bioengineered media in two of her cells which was designed to remove the phosphorous that causes algal blooms in the rivers and streams.  She says, “It did a phenomenal job. There was very little phosphorous coming out compared to the traditionally-designed retention cells.  Cording, who is now based in Honolulu and works for an ecological engineering company called EcoSolutions, is looking at how to use natural, highly-leached iron rich soils, to get a similar amount of phosphorous removal, and how bioretention can be designed with anoxic storage zones to remove nitrate via denitrification. She says, “These nutrients can be easily removed from stormwater with a little conscious design effort and a splash of chemistry.”

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

Jul 15

1 Comment

Which Factors Make Rain Gardens More Effective?

Low Impact Development (LID) is an approach to development (or re-development) that mimics pre-development hydrology and uses ecological engineering to remove pollutants in stormwater and wastewater so it can be reused or replenish groundwater supplies. Examples of LID features include porous pavement, constructed wetlands, green roofs, and rain gardens. LID stormwater bioretention systems such as rain gardens have been proven to work, but are they designed as effectively as they could be?  Dr. Amanda Cording (formerly at the University of Vermont) and her team wanted to understand which design factors would make rain gardens more resilient, increase phosphorus adsorption, and reduce nitrates.

Rain Garden aerial view

Cording and her team wanted to understand what was happening inside bioretention cells.

What’s Happening Inside?

Scientists often evaluate LID design by quantifying how much stormwater the systems (cells) can divert from the sewer system.  But Cording and her team wanted to understand what was happening inside the cell.  They wondered which types of soil media and infrastructure would optimize a stormwater bioretention system’s ability to improve water quality.  She says, “We wanted to gather water quality information coming in and going out of the system. I designed inflow and outflow monitoring infrastructure to measure nutrient and sediment pollution.”   The system monitored pollution by sampling stormwater runoff from a paved road surface before and after it went through bioretention cells. Each cell was constructed with different features to test the influence of vegetation and soil media on pollutant removal capabilities.

Bioretention cells diagram

Bioretention cells at the newly constructed Bioretention Laboratory at the University of Vermont.

Methods Used

To understand what was happening within eight bioretention cells at the newly constructed Bioretention Laboratory at the University of Vermont, Dr. Cording and her team investigated the mechanisms influencing greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient transformations at various depths in engineered soil media. In addition to using her own monitoring infrastructure, Dr. Cording used soil moisture sensors to measure water content within the soil media. She says, “I was comparing different vegetation treatments while simulating increased precipitation due to climate change in the Northeast.  I put the soil probes in at 5 cm and 61cm, one on top of the other.  Then I looked at the way the EC and the volumetric water content (VWC) changed prior to a storm event, during a storm event, and after a storm event.”

Garden in bloom in the rain

One of the team’s bioretention cells at the University of Vermont.

Cording says the EC and VWC sensors allowed them to get a general sense of what was happening inside the cell over time.  She adds, “I used the data when I needed to know more of the story, such as how the conductivity at the surface compared to other depths so we could see if the nutrients in the soil were migrating, and how much was moving down.  We were also able to use the sensors to compare the VWC around the roots of different vegetation types. It provided a lot of insight into the dynamic world that exists below the soil surface.”

Next Week:  Read about the team’s key findings and what lies ahead for this research.

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

Jun 24

1 Comment

Lysimeters Determine If Human Waste Composting Can Be More Efficient (Part 2)

In Haiti, untreated human waste contaminating urban areas and water sources has led to widespread waterborne illness.  

Hospital rooms in Haiti with patients infected with cholera

Waterborne disease is the leading cause of death for children under 5. Currently, Haiti is battling the largest cholera outbreak in recent history. Over 1/6 of the population is sickened to date.

Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) has been working to turn human waste into a resource for nutrient management by turning solid waste into compost.  (See part 1).  

Water ways infected with waste and trash

Contaminants making their way into the waterways.

The organization plans on performing experiments with lysimeters, to determine if human waste will contaminate Haitian soil during the composting process.

A river infected with waste right below a huge forest

Even in places where there are toilets, they are often poorly designed or poorly placed. This latrine is located just above a river, where people are getting their bathing and drinking water.

Lysimeters Help Assess Health Hazards

SOIL will use G3 passive capillary lysimeters in an experiment to determine if composting human waste without a barrier between the waste and the soil will result in ecological and/or health hazards.  Why? The problem is “jikaka,” or “poo juice.”  The compost facility currently redistributes it onto the compost and finishing piles, but they would rather not have to manage it. They believe if they remove the concrete slab and allow composting to occur in contact with soil, the composting process will be easier and faster.

Mounds of dirt behind a tree

SOIL’s agricultural team conducts studies on the use of compost to improve farming practices and maximize economic benefits of targeted compost application.

The Experiment

The organization will test their idea as they expand their facility. New compost bins and staging areas for finishing have been built absent concrete pads. G3 passive capillary lysimeters have been installed, three beneath the compost bin, and four beneath the first staging area for finishing. They will be used to monitor the amount of moisture (jikaka) that travels through the soil as well as check for anything harmful that travels with it.

Children holding soil in their hands

SOIL’s human waste compost was found to increase sorghum yields by 400%.

What’s the Future for Konpòs Lakay?

SOIL’s agricultural team studies the use of their compost (Konpòs Lakay) in order to optimize farming practices and the economic benefits of targeted compost application. The data they collect will help them expand the market for Konpòs Lakay, which in turn will support the sustainability of SOIL’s sanitation programs.

For more information on SOIL’s waste treatment efforts, visit their website, or watch the video below, a TEDx talk given by SOIL co-founder, Sasha Kramer.

Discover G3 Drain Gauge passive capillary lysimeters→

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

Jun 17

1 Comment

Lysimeters Determine If Human Waste Composting Can Be More Efficient

In Haiti, untreated human waste contaminating urban areas and water sources has led to widespread waterborne illnesses such as typhoid, cholera, and chronic diarrhea.

Human wastes are making their way into Haiti’s waterways.

Human wastes are making their way into Haiti’s waterways.

Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) has been working since 2006 to shift human waste as a threat to public health and source of pollution to being a resource for nutrient management by turning solid waste into compost.  This effort has been critical to sustainable agriculture and reforestation efforts, as topsoil in Haiti has severely eroded over time, contributing to Haiti’s extreme poverty and malnutrition.

Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic from an aerial view

This is a very famous image of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It’s often used to demonstrate how badly off Haiti is relative to their neighbors. What you’re actually seeing is the environmental scars of a very different post-colonial history.

Why Compost?  

Topsoil erosion in Haiti was estimated to be 36.6 million metric tons annually in 1990, and it is estimated that only one sixth of the land currently cultivated in Haiti is suitable for agriculture. SOIL combats desertification by producing over 100,000 gallons of agricultural-grade compost made from human waste annually.  SOIL research has shown that this compost can increase crop yields by up to 400%.  The organization has sold over 60,000 gallons of this compost to local farmers and organizations, increasing soil organic matter and nutrients throughout the country.

Waste covers the urban area infecting people and causing problems

Today in Haiti, only 25% of people have access to a toilet – meaning people are forced to go to the bathroom outside or in urban areas, in a plastic bag, which often times gets disposed of in a canal or an empty lot.

How Do They Do It?

SOIL distributes specially constructed toilets throughout Haiti that separate urine from solid waste.  Odors are reduced by covering the solid waste with organic cover material.  The toilet utilizes a five gallon bucket to collect solid waste that can be swapped out when full.

Toilet in Haiti

Instead of flushing nutrients away with fresh water, people use a dry carbon material to cover it up so that it doesn’t smell, and it doesn’t attract flies. This material also provides food for the microbes that will ultimately transform the poop.

The five gallon buckets are collected weekly and taken to the composting facility, where they are dumped into large composting bins.  It takes about 1500 buckets (3-4 days worth) to fill each bin. Bins are required to reach 122°F and left for 2.5 months in order to kill all pathogens.

Waste water transformation chart

Wastes are safely transformed into nutrient-rich compost in a carefully monitored composting treatment process that exceeds the World Heath Organization’s standards for the safe treatment of human waste.

The compost is then removed from the bin and turned by hand. There are three concrete slabs used to manage the finishing process.  Compost is turned horizontally and then moved forward to the next slab, allowing multiple batches to be finishing at the same time, each at a different stage.  After processing, the compost is sifted, bagged, and sold, reinvigorating the agriculturally-based Haitian economy.  

Students study plants sold for agriculture

The compost SOIL produces is bagged under the Haitian Creole brand name “Konpòs Lakay” and then sold for agricultural application, improving both the fertility and water retention of soil. With over four billion people worldwide currently lacking access to waste treatment services, finding ways to provide waste treatment services profitability through the private sector has the potential to dramatically improve public health and agricultural outputs globally.

Continue reading part 2→

Understand the Impact

Watch this 5 minute video filmed by independent parties to see how SOIL is impacting Haitian citizens and the environment.

Read how experiments using lysimeters will help SOIL make the composting process more efficient.  

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

Jun 11

Founders of Environmental Biophysics: Champ Tanner

Champ Tanner

Champ Tanner (November 16, 1920 – September 22, 1990) Image: soils.wisc.edu

We interviewed Gaylon Campbell, Ph.D. about his association with one of the founders of environmental biophysics, Champ Tanner.

Who was Champ Tanner?

Champ Tanner was a dominant scientist in his time and a giant among his colleagues.  He was the first soil scientist to be elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences: the highest honor a scientist can achieve in the United States.  Some may not realize that throughout a career filled with achievements and awards, he battled the challenges of a debilitating illness.  He didn’t let that limit his passion for science, however.  His efforts to understand and improve measurements generally went beyond those of his fellow scientists.  One of his colleagues once said of him, “Champ’s life exemplified goal-oriented determination and optimism regardless of physical or financial impediment.”

Green wheat stalks

Dr. Tanner was one of the pioneers in applying micrometeorology to agriculture.

What were his scientific contributions?

Champ was an extremely careful experimentalist who was gifted at developing instrumentation.   He started out making significant contributions in soil physics such as improved methods for measuring water retention, particle size distribution, air-filled porosity, and permeability.  He was one of the pioneers in applying micrometeorology to agriculture and was passionate about finding ways to improve the precision and reliability of measurements.  No measurement was too difficult.  He designed and built his own precise weighing lysimeters which provided measurements of evapotranspiration in as little as 15 minutes.   Later, he switched to plant physiology, reading almost every published paper on the subject and then building his own thermocouple psychrometer and plant pressure chambers, making important contributions in that field.

His largest contribution, however, was the measure of excellence he inspired in the students that he trained.   I don’t know of anybody, anywhere in the world, that produced a crop of students that has attained the levels that his have.  They’ve all made enormous contributions in many different fields.  Perhaps it was because he was a pretty hard taskmaster.   He expected the students to meet a standard, and the ones that struggled with that had a hard time. In fact, to this day one former student complains, “About once a year, I have a nightmare in which Champ appears.”

Boy walking through a library

I don’t know of anybody, anywhere in the world, that produced a crop of students that has attained the levels that his have.

Champ wanted his students to measure up, but he also cared about them.  His fellow scientist, Wilford Gardner, described him this way, “There was a transcendent integrity to his personality that permeated everything he did.  He could be blunt, candid and forthright, but he was never lacking in compassion and concern for students, colleagues, and friends.”

What was your association with him?

I had a wonderful relationship with Champ, although I wasn’t one of his students. One of his former students came to WSU as a visiting scientist and told him about what I was working on.  As a result, he brought me into his inner circle of associates and played a vital role in the success of my research.  This association even extended to my family who were with me on one of my many trips to Madison. Despite my numerous and occasionally unruly progeny, he and his wife welcomed us like long lost relatives and made each of the children feel special.  That’s who they were: the most caring and outgoing people.

Champ also had a sense of humor.  He used to call me up to have long discussions about science, and because he was two time zones ahead, it would get pretty late for him. We’d be having an intense discussion about experimentation, and all of a sudden he’d stop and say, “Oh, I’d better cut this off, or I’ll get home to a cold supper and a hot wife.”

What kind of a person was he?

If you worked in his lab, you needed to tow the mark.  You didn’t leave tools around, and you didn’t mess them up. If you left out a screwdriver, you’d find it on your desk the next morning with a terse note.  And if you took the diagonal pliers, cut some hard wire with it and left some nicks, those would be on your desk too. It was a sort of tough love, but he used it to train his students to the highest possible level.  

Researcher looking through a microscope

He taught his students to be rigorous in their measurement protocols

He wanted his students to stand up and argue for their point.  If you were the kind of person that could stand your ground and put up a good defense, he loved that.  Gardner described Champ in this way, “His work hours were legendary.  His standards of science and personal integrity were almost unrealistically high.  The stories his students now pass on to their students may sound apocryphal to those who did not know Champ.  But it was impossible to exaggerate where Champ was concerned.”

What do you think scientists today can learn from him?

What we can learn from Champ Tanner is not to fool ourselves.  He thought you should try to come to an answer in a few different ways, to be sure that it really was the answer. He taught his students to be rigorous in their measurement protocols in order to get the noise out of their experiments.  He wanted them to dig to the bottom of problems and understand the details.  In his mind, you couldn’t be a scientist and rely on somebody else to figure out heat transfer or radiation. He thought you should understand it well enough that you could defend it yourself.   

You can read more about Champ Tanner’s life and scientific contributions in this biographical sketch, written for the National Academy of Sciences when he died.

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

Jun 3

1 Comment

Are Biodegradable Mulches Actually Better for the Environment? (Part II)

In a continuation of last week’s post, Henry Sintim, PhD student at Washington State University is investigating whether biodegradable mulches are, in fact, what they claim to be (see part I).

Resercher gathering data from an installation site

Lysimeter readings revealed higher EC measurements.

Leaching

Sintim and his team want to understand what’s leaching through the soil as the mulches degrade.  He installed passive capillary lysimeters at a 55 cm depth to collect leachate samples for analysis of BDM particulates.  He was surprised when the lysimeter readings revealed higher EC measurements. However, the EC in the PE, paper mulch, and no-mulch treatments were also high, hence that could be due to the leaching of accumulated salts in the soil surface. He says, “We have yet to examine the leachate samples for the presence of particulates.”   

Researchers installing lysimeters

Installing lysimeters

Composting Alternatives

If the team finds that some of the BDMs do not biodegrade very well in the field, the alternative could be on-farm composting, which would be more viable than having to deal with polyethylene plastic.  Sintim and his research team have set up a composting study where they have been digitizing the images of the mulches degrading.  He adds, “We buried the mulches in a mesh bag, and periodically we retrieve the bags to study the mulch. There was some black staining on the mesh bag, which we suspect is a nanoparticle called, “carbon black,” used as reinforcing filler in tires and other rubber products.

Scientist studying how mulches degrade over time

The team buried the mulches in compost, and periodically they retrieve the mesh bags to study the mulch.

Sintim says the manufacturers do not disclose the actual constituents of their mulches, so he has arranged to examine the mesh bags with WSU’s scanning electron microscope in order to confirm that the stains were due to the presence of particulates. Sintim confirmed that carbon black was used in their experimental BDM, but they don’t know whether the carbon black was made from petroleum products, as there is non-petroleum-based carbon black.  He is going to determine whether these particles leach through soil by examining leachate samples from the lysimeter. He will also perform more tests to make sure that these nanoparticles are not going to have any adverse effects on the agro-ecosystem.

What’s in the Future?

While Sintim and his colleagues have made important discoveries, there is still work to be done. He and his team are going to collect three more years’ worth of data to see if there really is a BDM that delivers on its promises and if leaching particles pose a threat to the groundwater.

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

May 27

1 Comment

Are Biodegradable Mulches Actually Better for the Environment?

Henry Sintim, PhD student at Washington State University, is investigating whether biodegradable mulches are, in fact, what they claim to be.

Plant row farm with dirt between each row

Application of plastic mulches conserves water, and helps in weed, pest, and disease control.

He and his research team want to understand what leaches into the soil as the mulches degrade and which ones perform as well as polyethylene-made plastic mulches (PEs) at weed, pest, and disease control.

Plastic Mulch

Application of plastic mulches in agriculture is a common practice by specialty crop producers worldwide. It conserves water, and helps in weed, pest, and disease control, subsequently improving crop yield and quality. Because PE is durable and does not degrade in the soil, you cannot leave it in the field, which ultimately leads to the question of disposal.  When PE is buried in the field, it becomes contaminated with soil and can’t be recycled but instead requires transport to a landfill, increasing production costs. Another problem arises when landfill facilities are not available. When this is the case, growers stockpile PE on their farm, where the rain can wash the mulch down to streams and water bodies. Henry Sintim and his team are investigating whether or not biodegradable plastic mulches (BDMs) could be a viable alternative.

Researchers digging a site up for installation

The team installs a lysimeter beneath the mulches.

Biodegradable Alternatives

Substituting PE with BDM could alleviate the need for disposal. However, Sintim says the potential impact on agricultural soil ecosystems needs to be assessed before adopting biodegradable mulch for field use. For instance, do biodegradable mulches really degrade?  Sintim explains, “By BDM, we mean it is plastic mulch, but it has been made from pure or partial biobased materials. Though there are plastic mulches advertised as biodegradable, none have actually been proven to biodegrade, so the team is examining degradation of different commercial BDM types over time. They have also included an experimental BDM, in which the constituents were specified by the team.”

Sintim is monitoring the degradation of BDM by assessing the material properties and measuring the particle size and surface area via photography: digitizing and analyzing them using Image J software.

Researchers standing at an installation getting data

There are indications that some of the BDMs are performing well.

How Well Do the Mulches Compare?

Sintim also wants to find out how well BDMs maintain microclimate in comparison to PE. Since soil temperature and moisture content are important parameters that govern chemical reaction rates and microbial activity, and are likely to vary among the different BDM treatments, he is monitoring soil moisture dynamics using soil moisture and temperature sensors installed at 10 cm and 20 cm depths. In addition, the team has installed sensors directly underneath the mulches to measure surface temperature and light penetration. Reduction of light penetration is the attribute that helps plastic mulches to control weeds. The team is also assessing soil quality using the USDA Soil Quality Test Kit.  

Sintim says so far one of the commercial BDMs and the experimental BDM had the same yield performance as PE.  He adds, “We don’t have final results yet, and there are a lot of variables that could come into the picture. But I will say there is an indication that some of the BDMs are performing well.”

Next week:  Find out how Sintim will determine what’s leaching into the soil and another alternative for polyethylene plastic mulch.

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to water potential”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

Apr 7

Green Roofs—Do They Work? (Part II)

Innovative soil scientist, John Buck, and his team have discovered that green roofs have more capacity than people imagined (see part I).  Below are some of the challenges he sees for the future, and the type of measurements he suggests researchers take, as they continue to validate the effectiveness of these urban ecosystems.

Green and whited plant on a garden rooftop with orange rocks

A green roof is essentially a garden on a roof, but rather than growing plants in soil, installers use a synthetic substrate made of expanded shale, expanded clay, crushed brick, or other highly porous, lightweight material.

New Challenges for Green Roofs

Green roof results are promising, but they present a new challenge:  making sure the plants have enough water. The crux of the challenge is that the lightweight, expanded shale/clay substrate material, the standard in green roof design, does a good job of soaking up the water, but has some peculiar properties that are unlike typical soils.  Specifically, the expanded shale and expanded clay media tend to be dominated by sand and fine gravel-sized particles that provide a high proportion of macropores, but the interior porosity of the large particles is dominated with micropores.  That pore size distribution leads researchers to two important questions— How much water will be readily available for plant growth? And, will the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity be adequate to avoid starving the roots under high-evaporative demand by allowing water to flow to roots from the bulk soil? These are critical questions as green roof technologies continue to evolve.

Overhead close up of garden roof plant

Researchers wonder, will the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity be adequate to avoid starving the roots under high-evaporative demand.

Measurements Required for Green Roof Validation

Still, Buck has learned a great deal from his work.  Considering the wild spatial distribution of summer storms, quantitative green roof performance studies require that rainfall be measured locally. Monitoring of soil volumetric moisture content measurements in concert with rainfall and soil lysimeter measurements of drainage, reveal the degree of total and capillary saturation, drainage rate, and porosity available for storage. Soil water potential sensors, placed within the capillary fringe of water ponded over subsurface drainage layers, can provide useful insights regarding the dryness of the drainage layer and overlying soil, as well as the available storage of stormwater within the drainage layer.

Direct measurement of soil drainage using lysimeters is a key supplemental measurement on green roof performance quantification projects because there is an unmeasured component of water storage where drought-resistant alpine succulents (typically Sedum species) are used on green roofs.  The Sedum plants can absorb up to 10 mm of rainfall equivalent in their plant tissues.

Plants poking out of the soil in front of a house

Measurement of soil drainage using lysimeters is a key supplemental measurement on green roof performance quantification projects.

Other Projects and Future Plans

At ground level, Buck is quantifying the performance of intensive stormwater infiltration areas known as rain gardens, bioretention areas, or more generically, infiltration-based stormwater best management practices (Infiltration-based BMPs).  When monitoring infiltration-based stormwater BMPs, Buck has used similar tools to those used on green roofs, but has added water-level sensors and piezometers.  Buck has found that ancillary measurements of electrical conductivity, often available on water content sensors, along with surface and pore water sampling, can be used to document transformations taking place in infiltration systems.  These measurements now combine to show that green roofs and infiltration-based BMPs are indeed making a difference to urban environments and contributions to CSOs.  The challenge now is how to implement this technology more widely.  But, with the validation now in hand, that job should be quite a bit easier.

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to water potential”—>

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

Apr 1

1 Comment

Green Roofs—Do They Work?

Green roofs are being built in large cities to provide stormwater management, reduce the urban heat island effect, and improve air quality—but are they effective?   John Buck, an innovative soil scientist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been trying to quantitatively answer this question in many different cities using soil monitoring equipment in order to determine the efficacy and best types of green infrastructure for managing stormwater.  

Garden on a rooftop with flowers and a city around it

A green roof installation site at the Allegheny County Office Building in Pennsylvania.

Why Green Roofs?

In older cities, stormwater runoff is typically combined with sewage flows, and these combined waters are treated at a sewage treatment plant during dry weather and light rain events. Unfortunately, during more substantial storms (sometimes just a few mm of rain) the combined flows exceed the ability of the sewage treatment plant, and are discharged without treatment to surface waters as “combined sewage overflows” (CSOs). One of the ways to mitigate CSOs is to capture and store stormwater to keep it out of the combined sewer.  

A green roof is essentially a garden on a roof, but rather than growing plants in soil, installers use a synthetic substrate made of expanded shale, expanded clay, crushed brick, or other highly porous, lightweight material with high infiltration rates.  During a storm event, water will soak into the air-filled pore space in the substrate, which acts like a sponge to soak up the rain. Excess water will flow into a subsurface drainage layer and will leave the roof garden via existing roof drains. Because a substantial fraction of the stormwater is stored in the substrate, it can later dissipate through evapotranspiration instead of contributing to stormwater volume and CSOs.

Researcher kneeling testing soil with a soil sensor

Researchers are using soil moisture sensors for measuring temperature, bulk electrical conductivity and volumetric water content in green roofs and green infrastructure.

Finding Answers

Designers and regulators want to know how well green roofs work and if they are being over-engineered. They want answers to questions such as: “What sort of substrate should I be using? What type of plants can survive green roof conditions? Will I need to irrigate the green roof when there are no storms to water the plants?” and, “Will the green roof work as well during a one-inch storm that occurs over a half hour versus a five-inch storm that occurs over five days?”  

Buck is using soil lysimeters and modified tipping bucket rain gauges to measure the quantity, intensity, and quality of water coming into and going out of the green roofs.  He also tracks weather parameters and calculates daily evapotranspiration of landscapes.  Using soil sensors, he measures electrical conductivity (dissolved salts), volumetric water content, and temperature.  He has installed data loggers that send data to the web via GSM cellular connection, allowing stakeholders access to the data in real-time.  This data telemetry provides additional data security, immediately updated results, instant feedback of system problems, and an easy way to share data with others.

Green Roof Runoff Reduction graph

Visualized data of the 87% annualized runoff reduction at Phipps Conservatory green roof site in Pittsburgh, PA.

What Has Been Learned?

Buck discovered that green roofs have much more capacity than people ever imagined.  At The Penfield Apartments in St. Paul, Minnesota, the green roof retained enough water to reduce runoff to about half of a conventional roof, and the peak intensity of the runoff was about one-quarter of what it would have been without the green roof.  At Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, there was an 87% annualized runoff reduction and almost no runoff from typical summer rain events.  Buck comments, “Interestingly, on the Penfield project, we expected better hydrologic performance where soils were thicker, but there was no difference, or results were slightly the reverse of expectations. That reversal was likely due to the confounding influence of irrigation, which was probably non-uniform and not metered or measured by the rain gauge.”

Next week:  Read about some of the challenges John Buck sees for the future, and what kind of measurements he suggests researchers make, as they continue to validate the effectiveness of these urban ecosystems.

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy

Mar 23

1 Comment

Can Wastewater Save The United Arab Emirates’ Groundwater? (Part II)

With very little recharge and irrigation comprising 75% of groundwater use, natural water resources in the United Arab Emirates region are disappearing fast (see part I).  Wafa Al Yamani and her PhD advisor, Dr. Brent Clothier, are investigating using treated sewage effluent and groundwater for irrigating the desert forests along UAE motorways.

Abu Dhabi from the ocean looking at the city

Abu Dhabi

Infiltrometers Predict Dripper Behavior:

Wafa and her team used what they call, “the Ankeny twin head method” for site evaluation with infiltrometers, and they’ve been able to use it to predict dripper behavior.  They begin with the head at -60 mm, do a series of measurements to measure steady infiltration, and repeat the process at -5 mm.  They use those measurements to solve Woodings equation which has two unknowns: saturated hydraulic conductivity and capillarity.  Dr. Clothier says, “We’ve done it at two heads, and we can use Woodings equation to solve for the slope of the exponential conductivity curve.  Hence, I can predict with time, the movement of the wetting front away from the dripper.   That’s been very useful to work out what volume of soil we’re wetting.  It tells us if we should have one or two drippers.  In this forest, we think we can get away with two drippers because if they irrigate for two hours, the radius of the wet front will be 20 cm, and the depth will be about 40 cm, which is a sufficient volume of water for the tree roots.”  Dr. Clothier says they also constructed a small dyke around the drippers so they could contain the water inside the drip zone in case of hydrophobicity or uneven sand.  

researcher recording data while sitting on the floor

Wafa on site, using the twin head method.

Treated Effluent Resolves Salinity Issues

Historically, the UAE pumped their sewage effluent into the Arabian Gulf, but recently, there has been a shift toward seeing it as a valuable water resource, not only for the desert forest, but for irrigation of fruit crops and date palms.  Dr. Clothier says, “Once we started getting our results we realized we were irrigating with groundwater that had high salinity, about 10 dS/m, and that treated sewage effluent had only 0.5 dS/m.  This was an important discovery because with the high salinity groundwater, you have to over-irrigate to maintain a salt leaching fraction.  However, when we apply the treated sewage effluent, we immediately see a response in the trees because it has 1/20th of the salt load.”

Dr. Clothier says that there is one problem with the trees responding so well to the sewage effluent.  The treated sewage effluent makes the trees grow taller and faster, so if the ecosystem service you want from the desert forest is that they’re 4-6 meters high, it becomes an issue.  He adds,”This is actually a positive problem, because we can now induce deficit irrigation, thereby creating a larger resource of treated sewage effluent in order to irrigate far more forests.”

Large white irrigation tanks sitting in sand in the desert

Researchers irrigated with water from these tanks which stored groundwater and treated sewage effluent.

What’s The Future?

Dr. Clothier says they started with a pilot study in the UAE in 2014, and it was so successful that they ended up with two fully-funded four-year projects, one on treated sewage effluent, and one investigating the irrigation of date palms. He says they have another 3 ½ years of work in the UAE on these projects, and in the end, their goal is to develop a model for forestry irrigation and soil salinity management, along with developing capability for the measurement and modeling of irrigation impacts on sustainable forestry.  They have recently developed a prototype of a computerized decision support tool for irrigation which will provide sustainable irrigation advice to optimize water use.  The support tool takes into account the need to maintain salt leaching, and actual irrigation records can be entered to enable real-time use.

Download the “Researcher’s complete guide to soil moisture”—>

Get more information on applied environmental research in our

LinkedInMessengerRedditThreadsCopy
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »