The potential for streambank legacy sediments as nutrient sources for aquatic ecosystems has been understudied and is a critical gap in our knowledge. We hypothesize that erosion of streambank legacy sediments, especially from mid-Atlantic and northeastern watersheds, will result in substantial inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus to receiving waters. Contribution of legacy sediments/nutrients to sediment loads suspended by storm events will be determined using mixing models based on elemental, isotopic, biomarker, and microbial fingerprints and next-generation sequencing techniques.
Funded by: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Principal Investigator: Jinjun Kan
Collaborator: Shreeram Inamdar (University of Delaware)
Project Years: 2017, 2018, 2019
