2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference

March 13 - 15, 2022

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5/21/2019 | 9:30 AM - 9:45 AM | FILAMENTOUS ALGAE RELATIONS TO SURFACE AND GROUNDWATER NUTRIENT PATHWAYS IN THE KARST WATERSHED OF THE FIRST NATIONAL RIVER (BUFFALO RIVER, ARKANSAS) | 150 DEF

FILAMENTOUS ALGAE RELATIONS TO SURFACE AND GROUNDWATER NUTRIENT PATHWAYS IN THE KARST WATERSHED OF THE FIRST NATIONAL RIVER (BUFFALO RIVER, ARKANSAS)

Filamentous algae density in the Buffalo River in Arkansas, the first National River established in the US, seems to be increasing in recent decades. In response to extensive filamentous algae blooms in the summers of 2016 and 2017, an investigation was initiated in 2018 to determine relations between algae coverage and nutrient sources and pathways. Understanding the hydrological mechanisms of nutrient transport in this karst area is relatively complex given the many springs, seeps, caves and sinkholes in the watershed that are conduits for water. Filamentous algae coverage and nutrient analyses conducted for samples collected from mainstem sites, adjacent springs, and shallow wells in the summer and fall of 2018 seem to indicate that nutrients entering the Buffalo River through groundwater pathways (i.e. from springs and hyporheic storage in gravel bars) could be as important to filamentous algae growth as nutrients entering from surface-water pathways. Ongoing data collection should provide insight into whether nutrient concentrations in groundwater are exhibiting chronic increases over time or if surface-water/groundwater interactions are so substantial that concentrations in groundwater are indicative of nearby land use and associated surface-water runoff.

Algae
Water Quality
Eutrophication

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Presenters/Authors

Billy Justus (), USGS, Little Rock, AR, bjustus@usgs.gov;