Sustainability at PSU

2023 Award Recipients:

  • "Developing tools and workflows for acoustic unattended monitoring of river bedload" - David Burnett (PSU) and James White (USGS)

    Abstract: Bedload transport, the movement of gravels, cobbles, and other clasts that roll and bounce along the river bed, is a foundation component of hydrology, geomorphology, and riverine ecosystems. When and where bed sediment moves along the river corridor, and how much bed sediment a river carries, has ramifications for natural hazards, such as flooding and erosion, as well as water availability and infrastructure. Despite this importance, measuring and modeling bedload flux - the amount of sediment material that moves downstream - remains challenging and is subject to high levels of uncertainty. Passive acoustic samplers are electronic instruments that continuously record underwater sound using underwater microphones known as hydrophones. Pairing hydrophone data with signal processing techniques to assess, for example, frequency content during flood events, can facilitate more accurate assessments of bed-material movement along rivers compared to conventional methods. However, this is an emerging technique and current instruments and analytical approaches are limited in utility, reliability, and accessibility. This new collaboration between PSU and USGS aims to develop a new generation of low-power, deployable hydrophone instruments by improving instrument accuracy, reliability, and longevity, as well as making the tools and signal analysis needed to characterize sediment transport more accessible to a broad range of users.

2021 Award Recipients:

  • "Willamette Water Quality Past and Present" - Olyssa Starry (PSU), Jen Morse (PSU), and Jennifer Morace (USGS)

    Abstract: Portland has invested billions of dollars over the last decade to manage its combined wastewater treatment system. As a result of this success, very minimal combined sewer overflow has occurred to the downtown reaches of the Willamette River in recent years. Levels of E. coli have remained well within recreational use standards. This has led to a resurgence in public use of the river. At the same time, stormwater input from the separated system, numerous priority industrial cleanup sites, a major urban tributary, and a lagoon feature representing algal bloom potential may still present some safety risk to swimmers. In this proposal we detail our plan to 1) utilize historical data to document and evaluate changes in the Willamette over the past ten years, 2) in collaboration with local managers as well as local algae experts, initiate a sampling plan that addresses new contamination concerns at six local beaches, and 3) initiate a social survey to understand how beach users determine swimming risk for themselves. Goals of this work are to inform future monitoring and management plans as swimming and restoration efforts continue, and to contribute to the academic discourse on recreational water use standards and large river ecology.

     
  • "Tree-ring Reconstruction of Historical Groundwater-Streamflow Dynamics" - Andrés Holz (PSU) and Tess Harden (USGS)

    Abstract: The McKenzie River is a key snow-fed source of water for water-use intensive regions of Oregon, particularly during summer months. As such, assessing the long-term variation in snowpack and drought in its headwaters at Clear Lake in the Cascade Range are critically important for regional water resources. The overall goal of this project is to better quantify the residence time of groundwater supplying Clear Lake, and, by extension, the lag-time between climate variability (or landscape/ecosystem change) and ecological and downstream water resources impacts. To accomplish this goal, this project will expand on a novel groundwater-supply reconstruction based on tree rings. We will compare radial growth in trees near lake level at the outlet to that of adjacent more water-limited trees on the slopes above the lake. Groundwater-dependent differences could be quantified from their respective tree ring growth patterns. By quantifying the relationship between the discharge of Clear Lake and climate (and groundwater residence time), climate forecasts could be used to help predict water availability and quality (less water = higher temps) for the McKenzie River. This proposed research project is a new collaboration between Portland State University and the U.S. Geological Survey. 

2020 Award Recipients:

  • "Deciphering the influence of surface-water and groundwater exchange on active slow-moving landslide velocity" - Adam Booth (PSU), Hank Johnson (USGS), and Steve Gingerich (USGS)

    Abstract: The purpose of the proposed work is to develop a new collaborative USGS-PSU research project on interactions among surface water, groundwater, and ground deformation of slow- moving landslides. Slow-moving landslides transport rock and soil downslope at rates of up to several meters per year and are often kilometers in scale, occupying entire mountain sides. Groundwater exerts a fundamental control on landslide movement rate by setting the distribution of pore water pressure on the landslide’s slip surface. Small streams, referred to here as “gullies”, are also ubiquitous on the surfaces of slow-moving landslides, but interactions between that surface water and the groundwater within slow-moving landslides have rarely been documented quantitatively. Doing so is important because gullies may drain the subsurface of the landslide and contribute to its stability or recharge groundwater and promote instability. This proposed work would combine USGS expertise in measuring surface-water and groundwater flow with PSU expertise in landslide mechanics to collect initial data on the above research question, providing a pilot study to leverage for a future, more comprehensive external proposal to the National Science Foundation Hydrologic Sciences program.

     
  • "Eagle Creek Fire Impacts to Cold Water Refuges in the Columbia River Gorge, an Opportunity for Student Training, Public Service, and Research Collaboration" - Kelly Gleason (PSU) and Sylas Daughtery (USGS)

    Abstract: The Eagle Creek Fire burned much of the forest around Eagle Creek with moderate severity, Tanner Creek with high severity, and a small portion of Herman Creek with low severity (Figure 1). These watersheds span from the seasonal snow zone to almost sea level, and serve as indicator watersheds for disturbance effects in the nearby Bull Run Watershed, the primary source of drinking water to the City of Portland. The watersheds affected by the Eagle Creek Fire may be representative of a “new normal” of Western Cascade forest fire occurrences. Understanding these watersheds provides a unique opportunity to characterize the influence of varying forest fire severities on snowmelt, stormflow, peakflow, and baseflow, and associated stream temperature and turbidity. This project establishes an ideal backyard laboratory to engage and train PSU students in hydrologic science, collect and provide important data for monitoring post-fire hydrologic recovery, and create the framework to invest in cross-disciplinary and inter-agency collaboration which will benefit PSU, the USGS, and serve the greater Columbia River Watershed communities for years to come.

     
  • "Examining pharmaceutical and microplastic pollution co-occurrence: a tool for pinpointing microplastic sources in Oregon waters" - Elise Granek (PSU) and Elena Nilsen (USGS)

    Abstract: The inability of wastewater treatment systems to remove pharmaceuticals from the waste stream, and the resultant presence of these compounds in effluent waters, is well established in the literature (e.g., Meador et al. 2016, Gaw et al. 2014). Similarly, emerging literature indicates that microplastics are not fully removed during treatment (e.g., Mason et al. 2016). However, a number of other sources of microplastics exist, making it difficult to pinpoint sources and percent contribution of various sources. We propose to capitalize on existing samples from a tank experiment examining effects of wastewater effluent exposure on coastal bivalves. From this experiment, we have appropriately preserved samples of both wastewater effluent and bivalve tissue from organisms exposed to wastewater during a 12-week experiment. We will analyze samples to enumerate both microplastic and pharmaceutical types and concentrations then use linear regression models to determine whether the two types of pollution co-occur. If co-occurrence is established, we will build a simple model that others can utilize to predict concentrations of one of these pollutants if the other pollutant is measured and quantified in a set of samples. A future step in the work will be to validate the model using a larger set of samples from diverse locations and wastewater treatment types.