Achievement

GLOBES Faculty Advisor Jen Tank and GLOBES IGERT Trainees Sarah Roley and Mia Stephen reported their findings in the January 2012 edition of Ecological Applications on the efficacy of two-stage ditch design. Streams of the agricultural Midwest export large quantities of nitrogen which impair downstream water quality, notably in the Gulf of Mexico. In the two-stage ditch, floodplains are constructed adjacent to incised agricultural streams. In this design, water flows across the floodplains during high flows, increasing benthic surface area and the potential for nitrogen removal via denitrification. To determine two-stage ditch nitrogen removal efficacy, the researchers measured denitrification rates in the channel and on the floodplains of a two-stage ditch in northern Indiana for one year before and two years after restoration. They found that floodplain restoration enhanced nitrogen removal but maximum reductions occur in concert with complementary landscape management practices.