Achievement

Ecosystem Informatics IGERT trainee Nicole Czarnomski (Water Resources Engineering) has been collaborating with co-PI Ed Waymire, her faculty advisor Desiree Tullos (biological and Ecological Engineering) to develop a mathematical model of the fluid dynamics and sediment transport in stream channels where vegetation occurs. An IGERT internship at the USDA-ARS National Sedimentation Laboratory in Oxford, Mississippi (internship mentor Andrew Simon) enabled Nicole to conduct a flume experiment testing the mathematical model. Nicole’s modeling and experimental work shows that stream restoration involving the planting of vegetation along streambanks can accelerate bank erosion under certain circumstances, producing an undesirable outcome from restoration activities, which are intended to stabilize streambanks and prevent erosion.