Research

CONCEPTUAL DIAGRAM OF RESEARCH FOCI

Figure 1. Our research foci are presented within the context of sustainable watershed management. Click on the yellow circles to read a descriptions for each focus area. 

CURRENT PROJECTS

Sponsored by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

The goal of the proposed work is to further our understanding for the potential of NASA datasets to advance Environmental Justice (EJ) initiatives local to Charlotte, NC. We hypothesize that synergistic opportunities exist between current EJ initiatives being carried out at the Charlotte community-level, North Carolina state-level, and NASA (federal-level), for EJ initiatives to be advanced through the sharing of local knowledge and professional datasets. Outcomes of this work will benefit the three levels of stakeholder engagement that will be targeted, including EJ community members, state organizations, and NASA. 


Sponsored by NSF

The overall goal of this project is to develop a workshop for the 2022 Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) conference to engage the community and identify strategies to promote retention and increase success of Black, junior faculty in Environmental Engineering. The number of Black, Environmental Engineering faculty has stagnated despite efforts of academic institutions to target and recruit Black applicants. 


Sponsored by North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT)

The main scope of this project is to provide a definition for transportation inequity, identify North Carolina communities that have experienced inequitable distribution of the benefits and/or burdens of prior inequitable transportation policies and investments, and deduce potential improvement opportunities. 



COMPLETED PROJECTS

Sponsored by NCDOT

The goal of this research is to evaluate the cost-effective use of biochar for maximal stormwater infiltration and runoff quality in amended soils and assess its ability to provide social and ecological co-benefits resulting from healthy landscapes.  In doing so, biochar’s effectiveness will be assessed over a range of application rates and clay soils native to North Carolina. And a triple bottom line model for assessing co-benefits of stormwater BMPs based on landscape improvements will be developed.

Sponsored by California Department of Pesticide Regulations

This project aims to evaluate WWTP discharge contributions to California receiving streams under varying streamflow conditions and spatially identify watersheds that may be more susceptible to pesticide loadings from point and nonpoint pesticide sources. 

Sponsored by North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute

At low concentrations, antibiotics may pose a constant selection pressure on bacterial populations, where bacteria generate antibiotic resistance to survive. This study incorporated multiple potential sources of antibiotics in a geographic information system (GIS) framework to identify the most-impacted watersheds by antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and to analyze the spatial distribution of ARGs within the most-impacted watersheds across North Carolina. Field analysis was performed to assess antibiotic concentrations and ARG presence at the modeled most-impacted watersheds and upstream locations predicted to be ARG least-impacted sites.

Sponsored by UNC Charlotte

This project improved the GIS-based spatial analytics and modeling capabilities for monitoring the (potential) outbreak of COVID-19 on campus, and thus provided solid support for timely and spatially informed decision making . This significantly increased the visibility of our wastewater surveillance initiative and has been used to leverage further funding for COVID-19 analysis in collaboration with local agencies.