Current
Projects
Human Settlements as Ecosystems: Metropolitan
Baltimore from 1797 - 2100 (Baltimore
Ecosystem Study)
The research on the Baltimore LTER
is governed by three questions: (1) What are the fluxes of energy
and matter in urban ecosystems, and how do they change over the long
term? (2) How does the spatial structure of ecological, physical,
and socio-economic factors in the metropolis affect ecosystem function?
(3) How can urban residents develop and use an understanding of the
metropolis as an ecological system to improve the quality of their
environment and their daily lives?
Sponsor: NSF/LTER Program
Investigators: Steward Pickett, Peter Groffman,
Larry Band, Morgan Grove, Alan
Berkowitz, Richard Pouyat, C. Welty, and many
others
Derivation of Reliable Pollutant Removal Rates for Municipal Street Sweeping
and Storm Drain Cleanout Programs in the Chesapeake Bay Basin
The goal of this project is to develop improved estimates of potential nutrient
and sediment reductions achieved through municipal street sweeping and storm
drain
cleanouts, based on literature review, a basin-wide municipal survey of existing
programs and an intensive field monitoring program within paired catchments located
in Watershed 263 in Baltimore, MD. The Center for Watershed Protection
heads up the project research team, which includes City of Baltimore Department
of Public Works, Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection
and Resource Management, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, and
the Baltimore Ecosystem Study.
Sponsor: EPA Chesapeake Bay Program
Investigators: Neely Law, Upal Ghosh, Bill Stack, Steve Stewart, Ken Belt, Claire
Welty, Brian Reed, Rich Pouyat
An
Integrated Spatiotemporal Data Warehouse for Knowledge Discovery
in Environmental Data
The purpose of this project is to design an integrated spatiotemporal data warehouse
to provide a data driven decision support tool for water resource managers. The
federal Clean Water Act (CWA, under Sections 303(d) and 305(b)) requires states,
territories and authorized tribes to report on the water quality status of jurisdictional
waters every two years. This is largely a data-driven process. Data are collected
on various measures which are used to determine water quality and are typically
collected at monitoring sites located on a stream reach. When a site is identified
as impaired, the causes of the impairment are possibly numerous, temporally variable,
and can be located throughout the watershed draining to the monitoring point.
Thus when determining water quality, a water resources manager must take into
consideration all characteristics of the monitoring site and its watershed as
well as the temporal properties of an amalgam of environmental variables. This
creates a need for systematic integration of data for the purposes of providing
decision support tools to allow water resources managers to visualize and analyze
data across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
Sponsor: USGS/NBII
and National Park Service
Investigators: Michael McGuire and Aryya Gangopadhyay
Cuyahoga
Sustainability Network
In Northeast Ohio, as in most of the nation, market-driven land development
decisions, modulated by hydrologic design for site development and stormwater
management, shape the cumulative stressors that drive aquatic and terrestrial
ecosystem responses. Yet the gaps between current decision making and our
emerging understanding of landuse-hydrologic-ecosystem interactions pose
some of the greatest challenges to sustainable development in the nation’s
urban-suburban metroplexes. The purpose of the The Cuyahoga Sustainability
Network (CSN) project is to cultivate a systems-oriented application of
science and engineering to sustainable development, focusing on land transformation
decisions and ecosystem serves at the urban-suburban fringe. With a regional
focus on the Cuyahoga River Valley and its built environments, the Cuyahoga
Sustainability Network is building a portfolio of collaborative science
and technology applications to support sustainable decision making at the
intersection of natural systems, engineered systems, and human social and
institutional systems.
Sponsor: US EPA
Investigators: Stu Schwartz (UMBC/CUERE), Allen Bradley
(IIHR Hydroscience & Engineering.
University of Iowa), Brian Mikelbank (Levin College of Urban Affairs. Cleveland
State University), Terry
Schwarz (Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, Kent State University)
Quantifying
Urban Groundwater in Environmental Field Observatories: A Missing Link
in Understanding How the Built Environment Affects the
Hydrologic Cycle
This WATERS
Test Bed project is one of eleven
environmental field observatories funded by National Science Foundation
in 2006 to advance concepts of digital watersheds, sensor networks, hydrologic
information systems, and design and operation
of large-scale field facilities. This project focuses on the Gwynns Falls watershed as the primary area of study. This site is also
part of the
NSF LTER Baltimore Ecosystem Study, chosen because it traverses an urban-to-rural
gradient of development. The watershed crosses the Fall Zone, the transition
between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and Piedmont physiographic provinces.
The goal is to establish a methodology to quantify flowpaths, fluxes, and
stores
of groundwater in urban areas at multiple scales. Examples of scientific
questions that can be addressed with the test-bed include: evaluating the
effect of subsurface
infrastructure
on
groundwater
flowpaths
and fluxes, closing the urban water budget at multiple scales, and
improving estimates of nutrient export from urban watersheds through a better
understanding of the groundwater component of the hydrologic
cycle.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Investigators: Claire Welty, Andrew Miller, Jim Smith, Kenneth
Belt, Larry Band, Robert Ryan, Juying Warner, Todd Scanlon, Robert Shedlock,
Mike McGuire, Peter Groffman
Integrating
Real-Time Sensor Networks, Data Assimilation, and Predictive
Modeling to Assess the Effects of Climate Variability on Water
Resources in an Urbanizing Landscape
The goal of this project is to establish a real-time observing system with
wireless telemetry and advanced visualization tools for simultaneous display
of the temporal and spatial patterns of all components of the hydrologic
cycle at sites throughout an urbanizing watershed in the Baltimore
metropolitan area. This end-to-end system will be integrated with a fully
coupled groundwater/surface water/land surface model and with a simpler
flood forecasting system. Real-time and near real-time data, visualization
products and modeling results will be broadcast through a web site that
can be accessed and utilized by agency partners and managers, by educators
and students, and by the public at large. The project will advance the
ability of decision makers in the climate-sensitive water resources sector
to make more effective use of NOAA’s climate products.
Sponsor:
NOAA
Investigators: Claire Welty, Andrew Miller, Jim Smith, Robert Shedlock,
Mike McGuire,
Reed Maxwell
Collaborative Research: Dynamic Coupling of the Water
Cycle with Patterns of Urban Growth
The objective of this project is to link an urban growth model (SLEUTH) with
a fully-coupled, physically-based three-dimensional hydrologic model (PARFLOW-CLM)
to evaluate the effects of growth on water availability and limits to water supply
using the Baltimore metropolitan region as a case study. Combining a physically-based
regional hydrologic model with an urban growth model will allow an assessment
of the coupled feedbacks
between
growth projections (and the socio-economic variables that affect growth)
and surface and subsurface water resources. Changes in stream baseflow
and groundwater availability may in turn influence regulatory decisions
on development permits in exurban areas.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation, Biocomplexity/Coupled Human and Natural
Systems
Investigators: Claire Welty, Andrew Miller,
Bernadette Hanlon, Michael McGuire, James Smith, Mary Lynn Baeck, Claire Jantz,
Scott Drzyzga, Reed Maxwell, Gary Fisher
Pervious
Concrete: Technology Demonstration and Information Needs
Among low impact development hydrology practices, pervious concrete
and other pervious paving systems offer great promise for on-site infiltration-based
storm water management in urban and suburban development. Despite this
potential and a substantial body of proven experience with the material,
pervious concrete is not widely used in the state of Maryland or the Chesapeake
Bay watershed. To overcome the barriers to successful specification, design,
and regulatory approval of pervious concrete as a valuable element in environmental
site design, CUERE is developing (a) a well-instrumented pervious concrete demonstration/research
site with long-term monitoring for performance evaluation and (b) educational
and outreach workshops to deliver design, specification, installation and
permitting information to regulators, practitioners, and community stakeholders.
This project integrates field demonstrations and education and
outreach workshops with rigorous site monitoring to address the need for
consistent knowledge and information that currently limits the effective
use of this material as an integral component of environmental site design
in the state of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Sponsor: Chesapeake Bay Trust
Investigator: Stu Schwartz
Recently Completed Projects
The Impact of Demographic Change and the Expansion of Urban Areas in
Rural Maryland Since 1970
This project analyzed the impacts and drivers of urbanization
in rural Maryland. Through an examination of Landsat
remote sensing data, the Agricultural Census from 1978
to 2002, population and economic censuses, and Maryland
Property View, we identified the primary factors that
explain the encroachment of urbanization on the rural
landscape since the early 1970s. The analysis of the
Landsat imagery enabled us to determine land use change
for three time periods: 1986, 1995, and
2001. We established a methodology using Landsat data
to measure fragmentation of agricultural land for urbanizing
counties in Maryland. The methodology was demonstrated
on Frederick County. In terms of the socioeconomic analysis,
we described the changes in demography, agriculture and
economy of rural Maryland in recent decades. The results
of this analysis enabled us to develop a model to predict
the probability of an agricultural property changing
to an urban property during a certain time period. This
model found that the location of highway exits, the distance
from non-agricultural properties, and the crop yield
were significant factors that determine land use change.
This model can be used for planning purposes, and enable
us to determine the extent to which current trends are
likely to displace Maryland’s best farmland and
absorb the state’s most valuable rural resources.
The final report can be downloaded from The
Harry R. Hughes Center for
Agro-Ecology.
Sponsor: Harry R. Hughes
Center for AgroEcology, Inc.
Investigators: Bernadette Hanlon, Marie
Howland (UMD College Park), Michael McGuire
Markets for Preserving Farmland in Maryland: Making TDR Programs
Work Better
Twelve counties in Maryland have Transferable
Development Rights (TDR) programs to preserve
farmland and open space. In this study, seven
of these were examined, representing a range
of programs types and outcomes. The primary focus
was on the economic aspects of TDR programs,
i.e., to determine whether the market is working
such that transactions are occurring and land
is being preserved and density is being transferred.
Background information is presented on housing
and agricultural markets, population growth,
and zoning regulations in each county, as these
factors are important in explaining the success
or failure of the programs. Factors affecting
both supply and demand in the markets are examined,
and an assessment is made as to whether the goals
of the programs are being met. When data are
available, TDR transactions are examined, as
well as zoning regulations, subdivision activity,
and TDR price trends. Based on evidence from
the detailed review, conditions under which TDR
programs are most likely to succeed are identified.
The final report can be downloaded from The
Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology.
Sponsor: Harry R. Hughes Center for
AgroEcology, Inc.
Investigators: Virginia McConnell, Margaret Walls (Resources for the
Future)
Collaborative Research on Hydrology, Hydraulics and Hydrometeorology of
Flood Response in Urbanizing Drainage Basins
This research
focuses on three key questions: (1) How does the scale-dependent flood
response of urban drainage basins depend on the space-time structure of
rainfall for warm season systems of thunderstorms? (2) How does flood response
vary with land-surface properties including impervious cover and structure
of the urban drainage network? and (3) What is the relative role of changing
channel/floodplain morphology due to urbanization, as compared with geologic
controls of channel floodplain morphology, in determining the transmission
and attenuation of flood waves in an urbanizing drainage basin? Efforts
focus in several study watersheds in the Baltimore metropolitan area with
varying patterns of urban development, infrastructure and geologic controls.
Sponsor: NSF/Hydrologic Science
Investigators: Andrew J. Miller, Jim Smith (Princeton)
Assessment of LIDAR for Hydraulic Modeling of Flood Hazards
This project provided technical assistance to the
Maryland Department of Environment in planning
the use of high-resolution
digital data sets for mapping
flood hazard zones. We surveyed channel and floodplain
topography along several stream reaches in the Baltimore metropolitan
area where LIDAR
data are already available and we conducted 1-D (HEC-RAS)
and 2-D (TELEMAC) hydraulic
modeling studies using both data sources. We provided
an assessment of the reliability of the results derived
from hydraulic modeling of streams
at several different scales and in several different
settings. The goal was to provide guidelines on how much
field surveying is needed to augment
the
remotely-sensed data in each case and how the amount
needed varies as a function of stream
size,
scale, and other physical characteristics.
Sponsor: Maryland Department of the Environment
Investigator: Andrew Miller
Determination of Sediment
Erosion and Deposition Rates for Valley Creek in Valley Forge National
Historical Park
The objective of this study was to measure sediment erosion and deposition
volumes and rates in the 2.1-mile portion of Valley Creek that
runs through Valley Forge National Historical Park in Chester County,
Pennsylvania.
The study provided baseline data for the National Park Service
to utilize in assessing future perturbations to the stream affecting
erosion
and sedimentation rates.
Sponsor: Department of Interior, National
Park Service
Investigators: Andrew Miller,
Claire Welty, Robert Ryan (Temple University)
Collaborative
Research (CLEANER): Cyberinfrastructure Needs for an Environmental Field
Facility in Baltimore, MD as part of an Engineering Analysis Network
The objectives of the work were to: (1) assess the
current state of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study LTER as a
model environmental engineering field facility;
(2) identify other initiatives or
similar networks
for
comparison; and (3) formulate key characteristics
that will need to be addressed for a successful development
of a
EFF to be part of a EAN and CLEANER.
Sponsor: NSF/Environmental Engineering
Investigators: Claire Welty and Michael McGuire; Michael
Piasecki (Drexel University)
Modified 12/31/07
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Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education
UMBC, Technology Research Center 102
1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, Maryland 21250
Phone:410-455-1763 Fax: 410-455-1769 Email: cueremail@umbc.edu