This project adds value to the ongoing 2014 Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx) which designed in support of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite mission and sponsored by NASA's PMM (Precipitation Measurement Missions) Program. This project will conduct a field campaign that will take place in the complex terrain region of the Southern Appalachians to carry out intensive hydrological observations. The research will advance our understanding of the critical pathway of water in several benchmark watersheds across the transition from the Blue Ridge to the Piedmont. The activities will extend and complement IPHEx data collection to include water cycle processes in the lower troposphere, and in the subsurface. The project will introduce 10 graduate and 12 undergraduate students from 14 different academic institutions to use the vast array of instrumentation deployed during IPHEx and provide students training and experience with the use of the instruments.
This study extends the ongoing study of the 2014 Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx) which designed in support of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite mission and sponsored by NASA's PMM (Precipitation Measurement Missions) Program. This proposal is to conduct a field campaign that will take place in the complex terrain region of the Southern Appalachians to carry out intensive hydrological observations. The proposed research will advance our understanding of the critical pathway of water in several benchmark watersheds across the physiographic and hydrogeological transition from the Blue Ridge to the Piedmont. The proposed activities will extend and complement IPHEx data collection to include water cycle processes in the lower troposphere, and in the subsurface. The project will introduce 10 graduate and 12 undergraduate students from 14 different academic institutions to use the vast array of instrumentation deployed during IPHEx and provide students training and experience with the use of the instruments.
We often taken the ample supply of fresh water from rainfall as granted. Rainfall totals are often too small to satisfy demand, or too large, leading to flood damage. Quantitative precipitation estimates are needed to guide forecasts for flood warning and flood control. Currently, forecasts of accumulated precipitation are often inaccurate for a range of reasons. To first order, precipitation is driven by the large-scale meteorological situation, e.g. the moisture content of the atmosphere and the movements of frontal systems. However, to predict accumulated precipitation at a specific site, local features such as the presence of low-level fog as well as the speed and direction of surface runoff must be taken into account. We are interested in how local meteorology and hydrogeology interact to modulate rainfall and water routing through watersheds to streams in the southern Appalachians. The research supported by this award was designed to contribute specific observations to a large scale multi-agency effort – the IPHEx campaign – that was geared towards improving quantitative precipitation forecasts and overall understanding of the hydrologic cycle. Specifically, our experiments were designed to study two aspects of the hydrologic cycle in the mountainous southern Appalachians: (1) how atmospheric aerosols, tiny particles that are suspended in the atmosphere, serve as seeds for the condensation of fog droplets, and (2) how long water resides in the soils and rocks of watershed groundwater systems, from recharge at the water table to discharge at springs and streams. This award supported measurements of aerosol microphysical properties for a 6 week duration near Maggie Valley, NC. The data were collected to help initialize models of fog formation. The results of our experiments produced new insights into how air pollution may change the composition low-level fog and, in turn, how the absence or presence of that low-level fog may change rainfall totals. We also studied groundwater residence time in the Jonathan Creek watershed in Maggie Valley. Most groundwater discharging from hillslope springs had ages of 2-5 years (age at one site was slightly older, about 8 years). These findings are similar to previously-published results from farther north in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. It is possible that older groundwater also plays a role in the hydrologic cycle of this mountainous area, but only young groundwater was detected in the course of this study. Finally, one of the main objectives of this RAPID proposal was to provide educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at North Carolina State University. A total of three students gained hands-on experience with experimental design, field based research and computational data analysis.
