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2016

Water Resource Management

Earth sciences

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Fresh Water Studies

Optical Water Quality And Human Perceptions Of Rivers, Amie West Aug 2016

Optical Water Quality And Human Perceptions Of Rivers, Amie West

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Understanding water quality dynamics in recreational rivers is integral in shaping management strategies that maintain ecosystem health, perceived value and appeal, and regional economic significance in a changing environment. Optical water quality describes the behavior of light in water as governed by its physical and chemical composition, and is among the strongest influences on human perceptions of water quality. Ethnohydrology is the study of culturally constructed knowledge and understanding of water. This work is the culmination of an interdisciplinary approach to water resources research—integrating optical water quality and ethnohydrology methods to recognize the intersection between measured water quality and visible …


Chlorine Demand Shows Thresholds And Hierarchy With Source Water Quality At Beaver Lake, Arkansas, Jaime M. Gile Aug 2016

Chlorine Demand Shows Thresholds And Hierarchy With Source Water Quality At Beaver Lake, Arkansas, Jaime M. Gile

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the effects of source water quality in Beaver Lake on the amount of chlorine (Cl) needed to develop decision support system to help guide chlorination practices in pre-treatment of source water. Chlorine demand assays were performed on water samples from Beaver Lake collected from the intake structure at Beaver Water District from March 2014 through August 2015, and using data from these assays, the two points of interest in this study were the Cl dose at which Cl residuals began to accumulate and the mean Cl demand occurring after that dose. Three methods of analysis were used …


Stream Microbial Communities As Potential Indicators Of River And Landscape Disturbance In North-Central Arkansas, Wilson Howard Johnson Aug 2016

Stream Microbial Communities As Potential Indicators Of River And Landscape Disturbance In North-Central Arkansas, Wilson Howard Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the past decade, 29 shale basins have been actively developed across 20 states for extraction of natural gas (NG) via horizontal drilling/hydraulic fracturing (=fracking). This includes ~5000 wells within the Fayetteville shale of north-central Arkansas. Development often impacts both river- and landscapes, and management requires catchment-level evaluations over time, with organismal presence/absence as indicators. For this study next-generation sequencing was used to identify/characterize microbial communities within biofilm of eight Arkansas River tributaries, so as to gauge potential catchment influences. Streams spanned a gradient of landscape features and hydrological flows, with four serving as ‘potentially impacted catchment zones’ (PICZ) and …


Trend Analysis Of Water Quality In Northwest Arkansas Streams Reflects Changes In The Watershed, Zachary Paul Simpson Aug 2016

Trend Analysis Of Water Quality In Northwest Arkansas Streams Reflects Changes In The Watershed, Zachary Paul Simpson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Watershed export of nutrients, sediments, and chemicals impacts receiving waters. Changes within the watershed (e.g., anthropogenic or climatic) can alter the transport of constituents in streams. Stream monitoring is crucial for understanding these effects. This study developed a potential improvement to flow-adjusting constituent concentrations in streams, an important step of analyzing monitoring data in lotic systems for trends. The method incorporates a K-fold cross-validation procedure to optimize a model explaining the relationship between the concentration and streamflow, thus providing a valuable tool to researchers in water quality. Additionally, two case studies were conducted on watersheds located in northwest Arkansas using …


Evaluating A Measure-Calculate Method For Determining Sediment Oxygen Demand In Lakes, Adrian Beirise Aug 2016

Evaluating A Measure-Calculate Method For Determining Sediment Oxygen Demand In Lakes, Adrian Beirise

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A steady-state mass diffusion model used with simple measurable and calculable inputs for determining sediment oxygen demand (SOD) is compared to an intact core incubation (ICI) SOD method using samples from three lakes. The mass diffusion model coupled with inputs is known as the measure-calculate method (M-C) and is a potential alternative to existing methods for measuring SOD which are more complex, time-consuming, and costly. The M-C method requires inputs for volumetric sediment oxygen uptake (Ṅsed), sediment density and porosity, and water properties. Ṅsed was determined by suspending sediment in oxygen-saturated water with a DO probe and determining the steady …