NSF $4.8M award: urban environment study led by Claire Welty
September 2, 2020 by Sarah Hansen
There is an essential resource constantly flowing beneath our feet:
groundwater. Urban denizens may not think about it often, or at all,
because they don’t rely on wells, “but it’s still there,” says
hydrologist Claire Welty, and it’s critical to understanding the health of urban ecosystems.
Welty is director of UMBC’s Center for Urban Environmental Research
and Education (CUERE) and a professor of chemical, biochemical, and
environmental engineering. Groundwater is just one piece of a
complicated puzzle that she and her team will work to put together over
the next five years. A $4.8 million Critical Zone Collaborative Network
grant from the National Science Foundation will make the large-scale
project possible. The grant will support researchers at UMBC and eight
other institutions that are part of the UMBC-led Urban Critical Zone
Cluster.
Welty’s team will explore Earth’s critical zone, which extends from
the tops of trees to the base of weathered bedrock, in urban centers
along the Eastern Seaboard. In particular, they’re interested in how
natural, geological processes occurring below the Earth’s surface and
human-driven processes interact. Human influences include road salt
application, polluted stormwater runoff, and soil-disturbing
construction. These factors can all significantly influence urban water
quality, water chemistry, and weathering processes.
Most Critical Zone grants are for work in more pristine wilderness
areas, because the added effects of urban processes make the research
more complicated. But, Welty says, “that’s the most interesting part.”
The Earth’s critical zone extends from the treetops down to bedrock below ground. Image by the National Science Foundation.
Focus on the Fall Zone
The research will take place in four East Coast cities: Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Washington, and Raleigh. The researchers strategically
selected these urban centers because they align in a north-to-south
corridor along what geologists call the “Fall Zone.” The Fall Zone
exists at the transition from the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain, and is an area of intense interest for geologists.
“We think of this landscape as ancient, but recent research has led
to a different understanding about how the Fall Zone in our region has
evolved,” says geomorphologist Andrew Miller, UMBCprofessor
of geography and environmental systems and a collaborator on the new
grant. Glaciers to the region’s north played a role, and “human activity
has also caused profound changes,” Miller says. “All of this forms the
background for the work we are planning to do on this project.”
Miller (left) and Welty in Catonsville at one of their research field sites. Photo by Victor Fulda.
Philadelphia to Raleigh: An urban corridor
The Fall Zone’s unique topography made it a natural place for some of
the first American cities to emerge. Dramatic elevation changes
characterize the Fall Zone, “so that’s where waterfalls formed,
providing hydropower, so mills were set up,” Welty explains. Population
centers grew up around the mills. Elevation changes at the Fall Zone
boundary also limited water transport further inland, making it the
natural place to build port cities. Today’s I-95 corridor links these
urban centers.
The north-south corridor also gives the researchers an opportunity to
examine how climate affects the movement of substances, such as
sediment and dissolved materials, through the natural and built
environments. Natural and human-introduced substances can affect
everything from water quality to how quickly the bedrock wears away over
time.
Of the four cities, Raleigh is distinct in ways that offer unique
opportunities. As a younger city, it’s laid out differently. It may also
have newer water, sewer, and other systems that could affect its
underground properties in ways that differ from older, industrial cities
like Baltimore and Philadelphia.
The
U.S. Northeast and mid-Atlantic at night, showing the urban corridor.
Image courtesy NASA Earth Observatory, by Joshua Stevens.
Long-term legacy
Baltimore, in particular, is well-suited to host this research,
because scientists have collected environmental data on the region for
over twenty years through the Baltimore Ecosystem Study
Long-Term Ecological Research Project (BES). The BES team has installed
scientific instruments all over the region. Students, faculty, and
sensors have been recording data consistently for decades, painting a
picture of Baltimore’s watershed, ecology, and social issues related to
the environment.
However, “the subsurface has for the most part been ignored,” Welty
says. With funding from other sources, she and her field assistants have
drilled 35 monitoring wells—but there’s more to be learned.
“We’ve got all this incredible science that’s been going on for 20
years of the BES,” Welty says. With the Critical Zone grant, “Now we
want to look at the subsurface to complement all the data and
information and instrumentation—you name it, we have it,” Welty says.
“We think it’s really important to marry these two together.”
In addition to adding more and different data to an already huge
archive, the Baltimore-based team also plans to leverage their existing
data in new ways. “We’re going to use stream chemistry as a window into
the subsurface,” Welty says. The researchers will also examine land use
patterns and analyze bedrock and soil cores. Tools that act like an
x-ray or MRI will enable them to visualize the structure and properties
of the subsurface that are impossible to observe directly.
Baltimore skyline. Photo by Adam Lindquist, used under CC-BY-NC 2.0.
Putting science into practice
Urban groundwater processes fascinate Welty. She’s driven by a
fundamental desire to better understand what’s going on underneath
cities in the Fall Zone. And there are practical reasons why this work
is important, too.
“At UMBC, we’re always interested in informing policy with the
scientific projects we do,” she says. “We have strong relationships with
partners in Baltimore, and folks in the other cities do as well. They
pay attention to what we do.”
Those relationships work in both directions. Sometimes the research
informs new policies around development, water treatment, or salt use.
Other times, questions from regional leaders inspire additional
research, including student projects.
Some public concerns have involved hazards to the urban drinking
water supply and salinization of streams, which could be detrimental to
wildlife. “We’re making connections and providing a foundation of
knowledge,” Welty says, so policymakers can make decisions grounded in
science.
In addition, Alan Berkowitz from the Cary Institute is on the team to
help bring these important ideas to K-12 students. Berkowitz will work
with the researchers to develop an Earth science module for local
schools, which will eventually be available to educators nationwide.
Berkowitz will also work with the team to develop a citizen science
program focused on the urban critical zone theme.
“Alan has his ear to the ground on what the schools are interested
in, and he knows how to make that translation from the scientific
project to this kind of outreach,” Welty says. This work will bring the
project full circle, inspiring another generation of minds to explore
the world beneath their feet.
Banner image: Claire Welty (left) and Andrew Miller at a field
research site in Catonsville. The site is a buried stream that doubles
as a storm drain and is part of a restoration project. Photo by Victor
Fulda, an engineering technician in UMBC’s chemical, biochemical, and
environmental engineering department.
###- For additional UMBC Science and Technology stories, visit the UMBC News site.
- For additional stories about the UMBC community, visit the UMBC Magazine site.
- For additional COEIT stories, visit the COEIT site.
- For additional COEIT Research Highlights, including Publications Spotlights, visit the COEIT Research pages on the COEIT Dean's Office site.
The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) is one of only two urban
Long-Term Ecological Research projects initially funded by the National
Science Foundation, and this year it turns 20. When the BES was founded
in 1998, “The field of urban ecology basically didn’t exist,” says Claire Welty,
director of UMBC’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and
Education. Since then, the field has flourished, in no small part thanks
to dedicated researchers in Baltimore.
The BES has succeeded in compiling massive datasets on the Baltimore
region’s watershed, ecology, and sociological issues related to the
environment. The extent of these data are unparalleled anywhere else in
the world. That makes the study “an international icon,” Welty says, and
its wealth of fully public data provides “a rich resource for people to
use in their research.”
“We’re living in a rapidly changing environment,” says Andy Miller,
professor of geography and environmental systems (GES) and chair of the
department when the study was founded. The long-term data the BES
collects allows researchers to document “how systems change in response
to what we do” on and to the landscape, Miller explains. That includes
large-scale development of previously undisturbed ecosystems. If we can
learn enough, Miller says, that knowledge may create “opportunities to
mitigate the effects of urbanization.”
Claire Welty, director of UMBC’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education.
Moving on those opportunities requires collaboration with
policymakers at many levels. Over the course of the BES, its researchers
have gained the trust of local and state officials who have found BES
data helpful in informing policy discussions, says Miller. Employees
from the Maryland Department of the Environment, Department of Natural
Resources, and others regularly attend BES quarterly meetings.
Beyond the flood of data and influence on policy, “The impact of the
BES on research infrastructure and training in Baltimore has been so
important,” says Miller. The BES is headquartered on UMBC’s campus, and
the presence of the program here has helped faculty successfully apply
for funding to support related projects. It even enabled the launch of
UMBC’s graduate program in GES by facilitating funding of the program’s
first students through the NSF’s Integrative Graduate Education and
Research Traineeship program.
The education component of the BES extends far beyond the graduate
level. Its education arm works with K-12 students throughout the
Baltimore region to teach them about their local ecosystems and the
importance of caring for the environment, with the goal of raising a
generation of young people committed to environmental stewardship.
Andy Miller (left) and Matthew Baker, professors of geography and environmental systems at UMBC.
Today, “More than half of the world’s population lives in cities,” says Chris Swan,
professor of GES and a BES scientist, “and understanding how these
environments function from the natural, physical and social science
perspectives has never been more important.”
Plus, the effects of climate change don’t necessarily show up
immediately, but can accumulate over time, explains Welty, “so it’s
important that the data collection continue,” especially as climate
change accelerates.
The BES is unique because it “brings scientists, stakeholders, policy
makers, and students to the table on a regular basis to perform
research, interpret results and understand outcomes,” says Swan. This
level of collaboration on such a large scale enables BES to have a
substantial impact, locally and in other urban areas around the world.
This impact can be felt in the well-being of urban residents, he adds,
“none more so than the people of Baltimore.”
Banner image: Chris Swan tends native plants at a UMBC greenhouse. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.
