Water and Life
Biological considerations are important when considering the overall health of watersheds, lakes, and streams. Using unique facilities like SAFL's Outdoor StreamLab and the EcoFlume, SAFL researchers are able to conduct a wide range of experiments and field campaigns that look to better understand the interactions between physical, chemical, and biological stream processes. Projects that include observing young life stages of endangered fish in a laboratory environment, bringing in native mussels to study how they respond to differences in flow and sediment concentrations, working to understand the best environmental conditions under which wild rice can grown, and even mapping the swimming signatures of microalgae to determine how to promote the best biofuel production are but a small subset of examples of how SAFL research looks to promote healthier lakes, rivers, and streams.
SAFL Affiliated Faculty
Xue Feng
Jacques Finlay
Miki Hondzo
Crystal Ng
SAFL Researchers
Matt Hernick
Jessica Kozarek
Read more about SAFL water and life related projects/research:
(filter "Water and Life" if needed)
Harnessing clean energy from rivers through hydrokinetic turbine arrays
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Hydrokinetic turbines are an emerging hydropower technology that take advantage of moving water currents to generate power.
SAFL team designs flume to support juvenile fish studies
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The United States Geological Survey (USGS) tasked SAFL researchers with the design of a race-track style flume, with the geometry and hydraulic conditions for early life stages of pallid sturgeon, an ancient but endangered fish species which historically inhabited the Missouri and lower Mississippi rivers
Channel belt evolution in braided rivers
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Channel belts are wide corridors created by the movement of a river over time, as shown by geologic indicators such as abandoned channels and eroded valley margins. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how channel migration causes individual braided channel belts to grow using SAFL's main channel.