Watershed-scale water quality and water availability are affected by the interaction between the landscape and surface and subsurface flows at multiple scales. Wide-spread agriculture leads to diffuse non-point sources of contamination by agricultural chemicals. Localized exchanges of surface water and groundwater through highly reactive streambeds can attenuate the impact of agricultural chemicals on water quality. Thus, understanding the patterns and trends in water quality within a watershed requires analyses at multiple scales to understand hydrologic processes and the integration of hydrology and water quality information. The main objective of my research is to develop a better understanding of the role of groundwater flow and transport on watershed system behavior. Understanding surface water – groundwater interaction is an important part of this is. Analyses of field data and simulation are used to characterize water and chemical mass balances in order to understand the relative importance of different flow pathways. Another objective of my research is to compare and contrast surface water-groundwater interactions and chemical fate in different hydrologic/environmental settings. Models developed for these studies can be used to test the impact of different management/remediation scenarios on water quantity/quality.
