49. Spatial Patterns of Land Use and Stormwater Mitigation Practices in Suburban and Urban Environments: Impacts on Water Quality and Quantity

Suburban and urban land use (LU) and landscape change can increase stormwater runoff, alter watershed flow paths, and elevate nutrient, sediment, and other pollutant loads, significantly impacting local and downstream aquatic ecosystems.  Management of LU and LU change requires an understanding of the environmental effects of the landscape alterations and the effectiveness of the environmental mitigation strategies utilized.  Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) are land management practices that allow suburban and urban LU while attempting to preserve (or at least mitigate) the ecological integrity of the aquatic ecosystems that receive the stormwater runoff.  This mitigation is done primarily by regulating stormwater runoff quantity and timing, but in some cases also by treating the stormwater to improve water quality.  The location, landscape pattern, type, and efficacy of stormwater BMPs are important to understanding the risk of adverse impacts from changing watershed LU patterns and are integral to restoring and maintaining water quality goals in local and regional watersheds such as the Chesapeake Bay.

This Mendenhall Opportunity focuses on examining spatial patterns of BMPs and land use, and the efficiency of suburban and urban stormwater BMPs at not only regulating water quantity and timing, but also providing improved water quality - an important ecosystem service.  Postdoctoral research will be done in close cooperation with existing partnerships within the USGS, other Federal agencies, county government, and local universities.  The Mendenhall Fellow will enhance our capabilities by focusing on developing a more quantitative interpretation of existing spatial databases of BMPs, associated land use, and stormwater infrastructure in two subwatersheds in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  Additional study sites can be added when possible.  In addition, the Fellow will design, establish, and manage targeted BMP monitoring protocols designed to better inform decision makers of the efficacy of landscape BMP mitigation strategies. It is anticipated that this research will provide an integration of spatial BMP utilization and land use analyses with targeted physical, biological, and water chemistry data to provide an analysis of the consequences of landscape change on ecological, biological, and hydrological landscape condition. 

The successful postdoctoral candidate should be comfortable with continuing the development of the GIS BMP databases, with conducing independent field and selected laboratory analyses, and with interacting closely with a diverse research team. 

Proposed Duty Station: Reston, VA

Areas of Ph.D.: Environmental science, environmental engineering, geography, ecology, biology, chemistry, biogeochemistry, or other related areas

Qualifications: Applicants must meet one of the following qualifications: Research Physical Scientist, Research Geographer

(This type of research is performed by those who have backgrounds for the occupations stated above. However, other titles may be applicable depending on the applicant's background, education, and research proposal. The final classification of the position will be made by the Human Resources specialist.)

Research Advisor(s): Dianna Hogan, (703) 648-7240, dhogan@usgs.gov

Human Resources Office contact: Brian Arnold-Renicker, (703) 648-7468, brenicke@usgs.gov

Summary of Opportunities