Research Fellowships

Phosphorus Legacies in U.S. Landscapes

EPA Office of Research and Development

NSF Graduate Research Internship Opportunities for NSF Graduate Research Fellows

Current as of November 2016

Opportunity Title:

Phosphorus Legacies in U.S. Landscapes

Research Area:

Ecosystems

EPA Lab/Center/Office:

National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL)

Location:

Corvallis, OR

Duration:

6 months

Brief Summary:

Human alterations of the phosphorus (P) cycle associated with agriculture and food consumption have had a profound impact on water quality across the U.S. Phosphorus balances in watersheds tend to favor the retention of P in soils and ecosystems, which means that P can accumulate rapidly in systems, and then be released in unpredictable ways. This project will examine the inputs of P to the U.S. landscape over time and determine the impacts of these P legacies on watershed P balances and release of P to aquatic ecosystems.

Opportunity Description:

Anthropogenic alterations to the phosphorus (P) cycle are pronounced in the U.S., and policies have been put into place to minimize water quality impairment due to nutrient losses to waterways. However, we have yet to achieve high water quality across the nation. For example, high nutrient loads (P and N) to the Mississippi River Basin (MRB) continue to cause a large hypoxic zone, causing environmental and economic losses that are predicted to increase in coming years.

This year, EPA, in collaboration with the National Research Council (NRC) and Washington State University - Vancouver, has compiled and analyzed high resolution data on terrestrial P sources and losses of P to waters for 2012 for 72 watersheds, identifying a gap in our understanding of drivers of losses across the nation. There remains uncertainty about the importance of past P management on water quality and the potential lag time between the onset of improved management activities and subsequent water quality improvement. The goals of this research internship would be to aid in the collection and processing of historical data to contribute to a larger project aimed at better understanding the role of legacy P in water quality.

The fellow would have the opportunity to develop a project in these areas:

  1. 1) Digitizing census of agriculture data on major crops to estimate historical crop P uptake (every 5 years between 1969 and 2012)
  2. 2) Apply historical fertilizer and manure P application rates and crop uptake to maps of agricultural land use over time in ArcGIS
  3. 3) Extract the spatially explicit historical P application and removal rates for the study watersheds. 

Project scientists: 

Geneviève Metson and John Harrison, Washington State University Vancouver

Jana Compton, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Opportunities for Professional Development:

The fellow would be based at EPA’s Western Ecology Division, which is home to a number of research projects in the Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Research Program and the Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program. The fellow would gain an understanding of nutrient monitoring and inventory data systems within the federal government, and learn how this information is used to inform policy and management of nutrients.

Point of Contact or Mentor:

Jana Compton (compton.jana@epa.gov)

For more information about EPA Research Fellowship opportunities, visit: /research-fellowships/graduate-research-internship-program-grip-opportunities-epa