Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Drinking Water Contaminants: Lead, Bruce I. Dvorak, Becky M. Schuerman

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Any lead exposure, even low levels, can be a serious health concern, especially for infants, children, and developing fetuses. This NebGuide discusses how to safely manage lead in a domestic water supply (or often referred to as a private well). This NebGuide includes discussion related to topics such as lead services lines and changes in public water supply regulations related to lead in drinking water.

Engineering A Multicompartment In Vitro Model For Dorsal Root Ganglia Phenotypic Assessment, Sydney M. Caparaso, Adan Redwine, Rebecca A. Wachs

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Despite the significant global prevalence of chronic pain, current methods to identify pain therapeutics often fail translation to the clinic. Phenotypic screening platforms rely on modeling and assessing key pathologies relevant to chronic pain, improving predictive capability. Patients with chronic pain often present with sensitization of primary sensory neurons (that extend from dorsal root ganglia [DRG]). During neuronal sensitization, painful nociceptors display lowered stimulation thresholds. To model neuronal excitability, it is necessary to maintain three key anatomical features of DRGs to have a physiologically relevant platform: (1) isolation between DRG cell bodies and neurons, (2) 3D platform to preserve cell–cell …

Post-Processed Data And Graphical Tools For A Conus-Wide Eddy Flux Evapotranspiration Dataset, J. M. Volk, J. L. Huntington, F. Melton, B. Minor, T. Wang, S. Anapalli, R. G. Anderson, S. Evett, A. French, R. Jasoni, N. Bambach, W. P. Kustas, J. Alfieri, J. Prueger, L. Hipps, L. Mckee, S. J. Castro, M. M. Alsina, A. J. Mcelrone, M. Reba, B. Runkle, M. Saber, C. Sanchez, E. Tajfar, R. Allen, M. Anderson

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Large sample datasets of in situ evapotranspiration (ET) measurements with well documented data provenance and quality assurance are critical for water management and many fields of earth science research. We present a post-processed ET oriented dataset at daily and monthly timesteps, from 161 stations, including 148 eddy covariance flux towers, that were chosen based on their data quality from nearly 350 stations across the contiguous United States. In addition to ET, the data includes energy and heat fluxes, meteorological measurements, and reference ET downloaded from grid- MET for each flux station. Data processing techniques were conducted in a reproducible manner …

Soybean Crop Coefficients Under Different Seeding Rates And Full And Limited Irrigation And Rainfed Management, Suat Irmak, Rupinder Sandhu

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The effects of soybean seeding rates on evapotranspiration (ET_c) and grassand alfalfa-reference crop coefficients (K_co and K_cr) were investigated under five seeding rates (185,250, 247,000, 308,750, 370,500 and 432,250 seeds ha^-1) (62, 82, 103, 124 and 144% of the recommended seeding rate of 300,000 seeds ha^-1 in the experimental region) and different irrigation strategies (i.e. full irrigation treatment [FIT], limited irrigation of 75% FIT and 50% FIT and rainfed treatment). K_co and K_cr values were developed for each soybean growth stage. The seasonal ET_c ranged from 460 mm for …

Streambank Erosion Phenomena And Understanding: Current Research And Future Directions, Celso Castro-Bolinaga, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Kyle Mankin

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Streams are in dynamic equilibrium with their environments, and as that environment is altered by human development and changing climate, streambank erosion is a common, but little understood, result. This article highlights the contributions of the special collection “Streambank Erosion, Sediment Dynamics, and Restoration (SER),” which assembled six studies that represent key advances in streambank erosion research, highlight current research in the field, and identify directions for future research. The studies in this special collection were grouped into three central themes: (1) streambank erosion monitoring, (2) streambank erodibility characterization, and (3) streambank erosion loading. In this article, key findings within …

Toward Automated Irrigation Management With Integrated Crop Water Stress Index And Spatial Soil Water Balance, Sandeep Bhatti, Derek M. Heeren, Susan A. O’Shaughnessy, Christopher M. U. Neale, Jacob Larue, Steve Melvin, Eric Wilkening, Geng Bai

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Decision support systems intended for precision irrigation aim at reducing irrigation applications while optimizing crop yield to achieve maximum crop water productivity (CWP). These systems incorporate on-site sensor data, remote sensing inputs, and advanced algorithms with spatial and temporal characteristics to compute precise crop water needs. The availability of variable rate irrigation (VRI) systems enables irrigation applications at a sub-field scale. The combination of an appropriate VRI system along with a precise decision support system would be ideal for improved CWP. The objective of this study was to compare and evaluate two decision support systems in terms of seasonal applied …

Toward Automated Irrigation Management With Integrated Crop Water Stress Index And Spatial Soil Water Balance, Sandeep Bhatti, Derek M. Heeren, Susan A. O’Shaughnessy, Christopher M. U. Neale, Jacob Larue, Steve Melvin, Eric Wilkening, Geng Bai

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Decision support systems intended for precision irrigation aim at reducing irrigation applications while optimizing crop yield to achieve maximum crop water productivity (CWP). These systems incorporate on-site sensor data, remote sensing inputs, and advanced algorithms with spatial and temporal characteristics to compute precise crop water needs. The availability of variable rate irrigation (VRI) systems enables irrigation applications at a sub-field scale. The combination of an appropriate VRI system along with a precise decision support system would be ideal for improved CWP. The objective of this study was to compare and evaluate two decision support systems in terms of seasonal applied …

High-Throughput Phenotyping Of Plant Leaf Morphological, Physiological, And Biochemical Traits On Multiple Scales Using Optical Sensing, Huichun Zhang, Lu Wang, Xiuliang Jin, Liming Bian, Yufeng Ge

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Acquisition of plant phenotypic information facilitates plant breeding, sheds light on gene action, and can be applied to optimize the quality of agricultural and forestry products. Because leaves often show the fastest responses to external environmental stimuli, leaf phenotypic traits are indicators of plant growth, health, and stress levels. Combination of new imaging sensors, image processing, and data analytics permits measurement over the full life span of plants at high temporal resolution and at several organizational levels from organs to individual plants to field populations of plants. We review the optical sensors and associated data analytics used for measuring morphological, …

Columbus, Nebraska: Southern Housing Development Design Proposal, Ryan Weyers, Caiden Dynek, Alex Papa, Brexton Robertson, Kaden Perala

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The following paper proposes the design and creation of a new housing development in the city of Columbus, Nebraska in a lot to the south of the city and directly north of the Columbus wastewater treatment plant. The goal of this proposal is to provide readers with confidence that our company is the most qualified to complete the project and will create the safest, most comfortable, most efficient, and most cost-effective final design. This proposal seeks to offer a solution to the lack of affordable housing for the growing workforce in Columbus. In order to arrive at this solution, each …

Potential Bioavailability Of Representative Pyrogenic Organic Matter Compounds In Comparison To Natural Dissolved Organic Matter Pools, Emily B. Graham, Hyun-Seob Song, Samantha Grieger, Vanessa A. Garayburu-Caruso, James C. Stegen, Kevin D. Bladon, Allison N. Myers-Pigg

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Pyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) from wildfires impacts river corridors globally and is widely regarded as resistant to biological degradation. Though recent work suggests PyOM may be more bioavailable than historically perceived, estimating bioavailability across its chemical spectrum remains elusive. To address this knowledge gap, we assessed potential bioavailability of representative PyOM compounds relative to ubiquitous dissolved organic matter (DOM) with a substrate-explicit model. The range of potential bioavailability of PyOM was greater than natural DOM; however, the predicted thermodynamics, metabolic rates, and carbon use efficiencies (CUEs) overlapped significantly between all OM pools. Compound type (e.g., natural versus PyOM) had approximately …

Drinking Water Contaminants: Bacteria, Bruce I. Dvorak, Becky O. Schuerman

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Testing drinking water for fecal bacteria or Escherichia coli (E. coli) is commonly used as an indicator of the presence of pathogenic microorganisms. The presence of pathogenic (disease-causing) microorganisms is a concern when considering the safety of drinking water. Pathogenic microorganisms can cause flu-like systems, intestinal infections, dysentery, hepatitis, typhoid fever, cholera, and other illnesses.

Disturbances In Primary Visual Processing As A Function Of Healthy Aging, Seth D. Springer, Tara D. Erker, Mikki Schantell, Hallie J. Johnson, Madelyn P. Willett, Hannah J. Okelberry, Maggie P. Rempe, Anthony Wilson

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

For decades, visual entrainment paradigms have been widely used to investigate basic visual processing in healthy individuals and those with neurological disorders. While healthy aging is known to be associated with alterations in visual processing, whether this extends to visual entrainment responses and the precise cortical regions involved is not fully understood. Such knowledge is imperative given the recent surge in interest surrounding the use of flicker stimulation and entrainment in the context of identifying and treating Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the current study, we examined visual entrainment in eighty healthy aging adults using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and a 15 Hz …

The Effect Of Relative Humidity On Eddy Covariance Latent Heat Flux Measurements And Its Implication For Partitioning Into Transpiration And Evaporation, Weijie Zhang, Martin Jung, Mirco Migliavacca, Rafael Poyatos, Diego G. Miralles, Tarek S. El-Madany, Marta Galvagno, Arnaud Carrara, Nicola Arriga, Andreas Ibrom, Ivan Mammarella, Dario Papale, Jamie R. Cleverly, Michael Liddell, Georg Wohlfahrt, Christian Markwitz, Matthias Mauder, Eugenie Paul-Limoges, Marius Schmidt, Sebastian Wolf, Christian Brümmer, M. Altaf Arain, Silvano Fares, Tomomichi Kato, Jonas Ardö, Walter Oechel, Chad Hanson, Mika Korkiakoski, Sébastien Biraud, Rainer Steinbrecher, Dave Billesbach, Leonardo Montagnani, William Woodgate, Changliang Shao, Nuno Carvalhais, Markus Reichstein, Jacob A. Nelson

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

While the eddy covariance (EC) technique is a well-established method for measuring water fluxes (i.e., evaporation or 'evapotranspiration’, ET), the measurement is susceptible to many uncertainties. One such issue is the potential underestimation of ET when relative humidity (RH) is high (>70%), due to low-pass filtering with some EC systems. Yet, this underestimation for different types of EC systems (e.g. open-path or closed-path sensors) has not been characterized for synthesis datasets such as the widely used FLUXNET2015 dataset. Here, we assess the RH-associated underestimation of latent heat fluxes (LE, or ET) from different EC systems for 163 sites in …

Secreted Metabolome Of Porcine Blastocysts Encapsulated With In In Vitro 3d Alginate Hydrogel Culture Systems Under Going Morphological Changes Provides Insights Into Specific Mechanisms Involved In The Initiation Of Porcine Conceptus Elongation, Sophie C. Walsh, Jeremy R. Miles, Corey D. Broeckling, Lea A. Rempel, Elane C. Wright-Johnson, Angela K. Pannier

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Context. The exact mechanisms regulating the initiation of porcine conceptus elongation are not known due to the complexity of the uterine environment. Aims. To identify contributing factors for initiation of conceptus elongation in vitro, this study evaluated differential metabolite abundance within media following culture of blastocysts within unmodified alginate (ALG) or Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD)-modified alginate hydrogel culture systems. Methods. Blastocysts were harvested from pregnant gilts, encapsulated within ALG or RGD or as non-encapsulated control blastocysts (CONT), and cultured. At the termination of 96 h culture, media were separated into blastocyst media groups: non-encapsulated control blastocysts (CONT); ALG …

Co-Culture Models Of Endothelial Cells, Macrophages, And Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells For The Study Of The Natural History Of Atherosclerosis, Martin Liu, Saurabhi Samant, Charu Hasini Vasa, Ryan M. Pedrigi, Usama Oguz, Sangjin Ryu, Timothy Wei, Daniel R. Anderson, Devandra K. Agrawal, Yiannis Chatzizisis

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Background

This work aims to present a fast, affordable, and reproducible three-cell co-culture system that could represent the different cellular mechanisms of atherosclerosis, extending from atherogenesis to pathological intimal thickening.

Methods and results

We built four culture models: (i) Culture model #1 (representing normal arterial intima), where human coronary artery endothelial cells were added on top of Matrigel-coated collagen type I matrix, (ii) Culture model #2 (representing atherogenesis), which demonstrated the subendothelial accumulation and oxidative modification of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), (iii) Culture model #3 (representing intimal xanthomas), which demonstrated the monocyte adhesion to the endothelial cell monolayer, transmigration into the …

Soil Water Sensors For Irrigation Scheduling In The United States: A Systematic Review Of Literature, Sumon Datta, Saleh Taghvaeian

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Soil water sensors (SWS) have been widely researched and practiced for irrigation scheduling. Due to popularity of this approach, there is a need for frequent reviews of the SWS literature to keep the researchers, extension professionals, and end-users updated and to help with defining and modifying future directions. In addition, existing literature reviews do not systematically report and summarize the results of previous studies. To address this gap, a systematic review was carried out to identify and analyze related literature published in the United States in the past two decades. Two focus areas were SWS accuracy assessment and SWS application …

Evaluation Of Artificial Intelligence Algorithms With Sensor Data Assimilation In Estimating Crop Evapotranspiration And Crop Water Stress Index For Irrigation Water Management, Abia Katimbo, Daran Rudnick, Jingwen Zhang, Yufeng Ge, Kendall C. Dejonge, Trenton E. Franz, Yeyin Shi, Wei‑Zhen Liang, Xin Qiao, Derek M. Heeren, Isa Kabenge, Hope Njuki Nakabuye, Jiaming Duan

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Irrigation water management using automated irrigation decision support system (IDSS) as a smart irrigation scheduling tool can improve water use efficiency and crop production, especially under circumstances of limited water supply. The current study evaluated the performance of different artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and their ensembles in forecasting Crop Evapotranspiration (ET_c) and Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) against calculated single crop coefficient FAO56 ET_c and Jackson’s theoretical CWSI, respectively. Soil moisture, canopy temperatures (T_c) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were all measured from irrigated and non-irrigated maize plots in West Central Nebraska during 2020 …

Nebraska Water Center Annual Report 2023, Nebraska Water Center, Daugherty Water For Food Global Institute

Nebraska Water Center: Administrative Materials

The report's highlights updates including the water sciences laboratory, AltEn contamination monitoring and the Know your well project.

Impact Of Eastern Redcedar Encroachment On Water Resources In The Nebraska Sandhills, Yaser Kishawi, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Troy E. Gilmore, Dirac Twidwell, Tirthankar Roy, Nawaraj Shrestha

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Worldwide, tree or shrub dominated woodlands have encroached into herbaceous dominated grasslands. While very few studies have evaluated the impact of Eastern Redcedar (redcedar) encroachment on the water budget, none have analyzed the impact on water quality. In this study, we evaluated the impact of redcedar encroachment on the water budget in the Nebraska Sand Hills and how the decreased streamflow would increase nitrate and atrazine concentrations in the Platte River. We calibrated a Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT model) for streamflow, recharge, and evapotranspiration. Using a moving window with a dilate morphological filter, encroachment scenarios of 11.9%, 16.1%, …

Complab V1.0: A Scalable Pore-Scale Model For Flow, Biogeochemistry, Microbial Metabolism, And Biofilm Dynamics, Heewon Jung, Hyun-Seob Song, Christof Meile

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Microbial activity and chemical reactions in porous media depend on the local conditions at the pore scale and can involve complex feedback with fluid flow and mass transport. We present a modeling framework that quantitatively accounts for the interactions between the bio(geo)chemical and physical processes and that can integrate genome-scale microbial metabolic information into a dynamically changing, spatially explicit representation of environmental conditions. The model couples a lattice Boltzmann implementation of Navier–Stokes (flow) and advection–diffusion-reaction (mass conservation) equations. Reaction formulations can include both kinetic rate expressions and flux balance analysis, thereby integrating reactive transport modeling and systems biology. We also …

Evaluating Management Zones And Crop-Sensing Relationships For Improved Irrigated Maize Nitrogen Management, Joel D. Crowther, John Parrish, Joe Luck, Richard Ferguson

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Active crop canopy sensors and management zones (MZ) are two methods of directing variable-rate, in-season nitrogen (N) fertilizer applications in maize (Zea mays L.). Researchers have suggested that integrating these two approaches may result in improved performance of sensor-based N application algorithms through increased N use efficiency and profitability. The objectives of this research study were to (1) identify soil and topographic variables that are related to in-season canopy reflectance and yield for soil-based MZ delineation and (2) determine if delineated MZ can identify areas with differential crop response to N fertilizer. N ramp blocks were placed end-to-end in field-length …

Evaluation Of Cytocompatability And Safety Of Nerve Retraction Compounds For Local Disc Denervation To Treat Disc-Associated Low Back Pain, Fei San Lee, Uyen N. Nguyen, Rebecca A. Wachs

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Aberrant nerve growth into intervertebral discs is a common pathological feature of disc-associated LBP. Current treatments rely on short-term solutions using opioids or anti-inflammatory prescriptions which can lead to addiction and side effects, respectively. We hypothesize that removal of aberrant nerve fibers in the disc using nerve retraction compounds can alleviate discassociated LBP. We performed screening of nerve retraction compounds using adult rat dorsal root ganglia (DRG) explant culture in hydrogels to mimic disc innervation in vitro. Capsaicin, known to induce nerve retraction, was used as a positive control …

A Methodology To Optimize Site-Specific Field Capacity And Irrigation Thresholds, Hemendra Kumar, Puneet Srivastava, Jasmeet Lamba, Bruno Lena, Efstathios Diamantopoulos, Brenda Ortiz, Bijoychandra Takhellambam, Guilherme Morata, Luca Bondesan

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The determination of field capacity (FC), irrigation thresholds, and irrigation amounts is characterized by site-specific soil hydraulic properties (SHPs). This study, conducted in two zones (zone 1 and zone 2) delineated based on soil, topography, and historical crop yield in Alabama (USA), focused on determining zone-specific FC using negligible drainage flux (q_fc) criterion. The HYDRUS-1D model was used to optimize zone-specific SHPs using measured soil matric potential (h). The zone-specific FCs were determined using optimized and raw SHPs at 0.01 cm/day as q_fc. The results showed that the optimized FC at q_{fc …}

Agricultural Machinery Operator Monitoring System (Ag-Oms): A Machine Learning Approach For Real-Time Operator Safety Assessment, Terence Irumva, Herve Mwunguzi, Santosh Pitla, Bethany Lowndes, Aaron Yoder, Ka-Chun Siu

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The 2015 CS-CASH (Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health, 2015) Injury Surveillance Surveys showed that around 19% of injuries to agricultural producers are related to tractors or large agricultural machinery, yet only a limited number of studies are found that address tools and methods for monitoring safety behaviors of agricultural machinery operators in real-time. The current safety behavior monitoring approaches require an in-person presence, which can be both time- and cost-inefficient, and the other available methods lack a feedback element to alert operators in realtime. As a result, the research presented in this study aimed to develop an …

Crop Stress Sensing And Plant Phenotyping Systems: A Review, Geng Bai, Yufeng Ge

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Enhancing resource use efficiency in agricultural field management and breeding high-performance crop varieties are crucial approaches for securing crop yield and mitigating negative environmental impact of crop production. Crop stress sensing and plant phenotyping systems are integral to variable-rate (VR) field management and high-throughput plant phenotyping (HTPP), with both sharing similarities in hardware and data processing techniques. Crop stress sensing systems for VR field management have been studied for decades, aiming to establish more sustainable management practices. Concurrently, significant advancements in HTPP system development have provided a technological foundation for reducing conventional phenotyping costs. In this paper, we present a …

Goniometer In The Air: Enabling Brdf Measurement Of Crop Canopies Using A Cable-Suspended Plant Phenotyping Platform, Geng Bai, Yufeng Ge, Bryan Leavitt, John Gamon, David Scoby

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) quantifies the distribution of the spectral reflectance of a target surface at various viewing and illumination angles. In-field measurement of the BRDF of vegetation canopies improves the characterization of offnadir measurements and informs radiative transfer models of canopy reflectance, where the Lambertian assumption does not hold. However, current field goniometers are unable to measure BRDF efficiently, especially for tall vegetation across the growing season because of the limitations of clearance, field accessibility, and flexibility of the sensor field of view. In this study, we explored the potential of using a large-scale cable-suspended field phenotyping …

Osc-Co2: Coattention And Cosegmentation Framework For Plant State Change With Multiple Features, Rubi Quiñones, Ashok Samal, Sruti Das Choudhury, Francisco Muñoz-Arriola

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Cosegmentation and coattention are extensions of traditional segmentation methods aimed at detecting a common object (or objects) in a group of images. Current cosegmentation and coattention methods are ineffective for objects, such as plants, that change their morphological state while being captured in different modalities and views. The Object State Change using Coattention-Cosegmentation (OSC-CO²) is an end-to-end unsupervised deep-learning framework that enhances traditional segmentation techniques, processing, analyzing, selecting, and combining suitable segmentation results that may contain most of our target object’s pixels, and then displaying a final segmented image. The framework leverages coattention-based convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and …

Clim4omics: A Geospatially Comprehensive Climate And Multi-Omics Database For Maize Phenotype Predictability In The United States And Canada, Parisa Sarzaeim, Francisco Muñoz-Arriola, Diego Jarquin, Hasnat Aslam, Natalia De Leon Gatti

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The performance of numerical, statistical, and data-driven diagnostic and predictive crop production modeling relies heavily on data quality for input and calibration or validation processes. This study presents a comprehensive database and the analytics used to consolidate it as a homogeneous, consistent, multidimensional genotype, phenotypic, and environmental database for maize phenotype modeling, diagnostics, and prediction. The data used are obtained from the Genomes to Fields (G2F) initiative, which provides multiyear genomic (G), environmental (E), and phenotypic (P) datasets that can be used to train and test crop growth models to understand the genotype by environment (GxE) interaction phenomenon. A particular …

Estimating Battery Size Requirements For Tractor Electrification Of Row-Crop Planting Operations, Cheetown Liew, Andrew Donesky, Mark Freyhof, Ian Tempelmeyer, Santosh Kumar Pitla

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Power sources such as batteries, used for both on-road and off-road vehicles, are advancing at a rapid pace. Electric batteries are becoming more power dense, thus allowing them to be used as a power source to replace previous diesel or gasoline-powered systems. Efforts are underway to transition off-road agricultural vehicles from Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs); however, the energy requirements of typical agricultural field operations need to be fully understood before such a transition can occur. Theoretical prediction equations available in the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) standards or the use of engine …

The Combined Impact Of Redcedar Encroachment And Climate Change On Water Resources In The Nebraska Sand Hills, Yaser Kishawi, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Zablon Adane, Nawaraj Shrestha, Paolo Nasta

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The Nebraska Sand Hills (NSH) is considered a major recharge zone for the High Plains Aquifer in the central United States. The uncontrolled expansion of the eastern redcedar (Juniperus Virginiana) under climate warming is posing threats to surface water and groundwater resources. The combined impact of land use and climate change on the water balance in the Upper Middle Loup River watershed (4,954 km²) in the NSH was evaluated by simulating different combination of model scenarios using the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. A total of 222 climate models were ranked according to the aridity …