Upper Mississippi River Basin Envirohydrologic Observatory

The University of Iowa's IIHR — Hydroscience & Engineering is creating an envirohydrologic observatory on Pool 16 of the Upper Mississippi River. Centered at the Lucille A. Carver Mississippi Riverside Environmental Research Station (LACMRERS), the observatory's sensor network will collect highly time resolved data to support modeling efforts for water quality and watershed process studies. Coupling sensor data with models will enable testing of existing hypotheses and will generate new hypotheses focused on water quality, nutrient, and sediment fluxes as they relate to food webs containing freshwater mussels and microbes. One hypothesis currently under investigation is that intense deposition of particulate organic matter from extreme flooding alters these food webs through physical and chemical means.