Non-point source (NPS) pollution is a leading cause of surface water degradation in most developed countries, including the U.S. Controlling NPS pollutants, such as sediment and nutrients, from widely dispersed source areas has proven to be an extremely difficult and expensive process. The long-term goal of this planning visit is to develop an international, multidisciplinary research program with the South African Water Research Commission (WRC) that results in a better understanding of how to effectively manage NPS pollutants. The planning visit to South Africa will enable us to meet with our collaborators and to visit potential field sites. This visit should allow us to better develop a collaborative research program that can (1) improve upon conceptual and mathematical models of sediment and nutrient delivery to streams and reservoirs over a continuum of spatial scales, ranging from an individual agricultural plot to the entire watershed, (2) develop new, geochemically-based methods of tracking NPS pollutants through watersheds, and (3) evaluate transport and storage of pollutants by biogeochemical cycles during migration.
This project will build upon an existing program by the WRC to develop predictive management tools for NPS pollution. Our collaborations will be mutually beneficial as the U.S. team will have the opportunity to utilize WRC's extensive field instrumentation, data, and expertise while providing a different, but complimentary set of approaches to the investigation of sediment and nutrients. We expect that the ensuing program will provide research experiences for undergraduate and graduate students and will result in improved methods of predicting the impact of NPS pollutants on aquatic resources, both in South Africa and the U.S.
