Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID MO-2025_Hassenmueller

Characterizing nutrient abundances across environmental compartments in the Mississippi River Basin to develop predictive contaminant transport models using Landsat surface reflectance data

Institute: Missouri
Year Established: 2025 Start Date: 2026-01-01 End Date: 2026-12-31
Total Federal Funds: $24,986 Total Non-Federal Funds: $26,750

Principal Investigators: Elizabeth A. Hassenmueller

Project Summary: Nutrients, like nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), often limit algal growth in aquatic environments. However, excess nutrients from agricultural runoff can cause nuisance and harmful algal blooms, leading to health risks for humans and aquatic life. Rivers polluted with excess nutrients can also cause eutrophication, fish kills, and hypoxic ?dead zones? when they reach lakes or the ocean. Sediment loads in rivers have changed alongside nutrient levels due to land use and engineering alterations. Prior research has mostly assessed dissolved nutrient levels, but a considerable proportion of riverine nutrients move with the suspended load. Thus, the suspended load's role in nutrient transport has been overlooked. By combining information about the characteristics of nutrients in different compartments of rivers with remotely sensed data, this study aims to provide a tool to better evaluate nutrient transport in the Mississippi River Basin that could improve efforts to mitigate nutrient pollution to downstream environments.ns. Prior research has mostly assessed dissolved nutrient levels, but a considerable proportion of riverine nutrients move with the suspended load. Thus, the suspended load's role in nutrient transport has been overlooked. By combining information about the characteristics of nutrients in different compartments of rivers with remotely sensed data, this study aims to provide a tool to better evaluate nutrient transport in the Mississippi River Basin that could improve efforts to mitigate nutrient pollution to downstream environments.