Marina Steiner, a graduate student with Greg Moller in the Soil and Water Systems Department, travels to Uzbekistan to help determine scope of water quality issues, read more.
A University of Idaho team, led by Professor Amin Mirkouei and supported by two recently graduated doctorate students, Rance Bare and Ethan Struhs, collaborated with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (Ken Overturf), U of I Aquaculture Research Institute (Brian Small) and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (Martha Chacón-Patiño, Amy Mckenna and Huan Chen) to design and custom-build an economical and sustainable water treatment system. This system was specifically developed to remove micronutrients, primarily phosphorus and nitrogen, from the wastewater…
Meetpal Kukal proposed the term “thirstwaves” to describe prolonged periods of agricultural exposure to extreme atmospheric evaporative demand for water. Read more in the University of Idaho news feature or read the paper published March 20.
Master’s student Mason Bull recently won the Boise State University three-minute thesis competition and placed third at the state competition. Mason was partially funded by a research initiation grant from the Idaho Space Grant Consortium (Idaho NASA EPSCoR). His research is using the Landsat record to classify landscape composition and quantify landcover and vegetation change in one watershed in the Kenai Mountains of south-central Alaska and the Sawtooth Mountains of southwest Idaho. He is finding that places in Idaho that…
Gianluca Blois, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Idaho’s Boise campus, works at the Center for Ecohydraulics Research (CER) with students to study how water moves through streams and rivers. Their research focuses on how stationary objects, like plants, affect water flow and the movement of sediments. This study used a specialized laboratory flume—a controlled stream environment—to measure water speed and pressure in aquatic systems. While scientists have long studied how landscape features like riverbanks and terrain…
Boise State University faculty Anna Bergstrom and her team investigated rain and snowmelt contributions to streamflow in the Mores Creek Watershed spanning the rain-snow transition zone in southwestern Idaho. Researchers commonly use naturally occurring water isotopes to track water sources allowing for the quantification of if streams are sourced from rain or snow. By developing new approaches to define rain and snow isotopic signatures, Bergstrom and team found that streamflow contribution estimates can vary by up to 20%, depending on…
University of Idaho faculty Karen Humes and Russell Qualls, along with their students, analyzed 30 years of crop water use data in southern Idaho to understand variations in irrigation application needs. Their research examined how differences in wet versus dry years and cool versus warm years influence crop water use and irrigation needs. By considering forecasted climate conditions, farmers can make informed decisions about crop selection and irrigation allocation, optimizing water use and improving overall agricultural efficiency.