On Dec. 31, UI was awarded a grant for a modeling project that seeks to enhance resilience to water scarcity across the nation. The project is titled “Improving Hydrological Predictions across the Continental United States through Better Characterization of Below-ground soil-vegetation processes.”
This grant, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 104g National Competitive Grant, was for more than $618,000, according to a news release. The federal funds are $309,324 with 100% matching funds from the university.
According to the project description, “The overarching goal of this project is to improve water budget predictions over the Continental United States (CONUS) through better characterization and parameterization of below-ground soil-vegetation processes. Improving water budget predictions is fundamental to enhancing the nation’s water supply and availability. Vegetation dominates the partitioning of precipitation into evapotranspiration, streamflow, and land water storage. Climate change and human-induced land use change will significantly impact vegetation behaviors and, thus, the water cycle.”
The completion of the project will be led by Meng Zhao, assistant professor of earth and spatial sciences at UI, in collaboration with Yanlan Liu at Ohio State University and Howard Reeves at USGS Upper Midwest Water Science Center.
The grant will fund the completion of a hydrologic model, which is a representation of the real-world water cycle to understand and successfully manage water resources. This model will stand apart from others as it factors in the role of groundwater in the water cycle. Most current models do not account for how soil and vegetation interact with water. However, this model will consider how much water can be held in the root zone, how much water plants take up, and how water flows across different types of soil layers.
The model’s findings are predicted to improve the modeling of water supply and availability across the United States. As the climate evolves, this becomes increasingly important as water may become scarcer.
The model will also help scientists understand how the nation’s water budget is changing, Meng Zhao claimed. According to the USGS, a water budget is a tool that accounts for the rates of water movement and changes in water storage throughout different parts of the atmosphere. Better comprehension of the water budget will lead to an increase in the nation’s resilience to water scarcity. The model will be modified to incorporate various water budget findings to create the most refined and reliable model possible.
Furthermore, the modeling project will capture weather conditions at four-kilometer grid spacing, allowing the scientists to factor the differences in microclimates into their findings. USGS describes such microclimates as localized climatic conditions including, but not limited to, air temperature, soil temperature, wind speed, moisture levels, and light. By measuring these factors, the results of the hydrologic finding will be that much more accurate.
“Water lost to the atmosphere from plants and soils is the primary way our groundwater is returned to the atmosphere, putting limitations on the amount of water available for irrigation and recreation,” Zhao told the university. “By improving our modeling of groundwater, we will know how much water is left for us human beings to use.”
Rebekah Weaver can be reached at [email protected].