Updated 31-Mar-2006

 

A research initiation website exploring the role of small, artificial water impoundments
in landscape-scale biogeochemistry and biocomplexity

Man-made ponds -- agricultural and aquacultural, ornamental, recreational, and for habitat or water management -- have been features of human-altered landscapes for millennia.  Their numbers and densities have tracked the explosion of population, economic development, and technology over the past 50-100 years.  Neither their locations nor their functions replicate natural small water bodies, yet their pervasive influence on surface hydrology, biogeochemisty, and ecology has not been systematically studied.


This project has evolved from synergistic interactions of several overlapping teams of collaborators, linked by common interests in large-scale processes, geospatial data, and the power of the developing scientific culture of "informatics." The website is an ongoing experiment (perpetually 'under construction') in information and idea-sharing.

The following publications serve to define the ideas being developed (right-click to download pdf files):

Budgets of Soil Erosion and Deposition for Sediments and Sedimentary Organic Carbon Across the Conterminous United States. S.V. Smith, W.H. Renwick, R.W. Buddemeier, and C.J. Crossland. 2001. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 15(3):697-707.
(pdf file)

Distribution and Significance of Small, Artificial Water Bodies across the United States Landscape. S.V. Smith, W.H. Renwick, J.D. Bartley, and R.W. Buddemeier. 2002. The Science of the Total Environment, 299:21-36. (pdf file)

Fates of Eroded Soil Organic Carbon: Mississippi Basin Case Study. S.V. Smith, R.O. Sleezer, W.H. Renwick, and R.W. Buddemeier. 2005. Ecological Applications, 15(6), 2005, 1920-1940. (pdf file)

The Role of Impoundments in the Sediment Budget of the Conterminous United States. W.H. Renwick, S.V. Smith, J.D. Bartley, and R.W. Buddemeier. 2005. Geomorphology, 71 (2005) 99-111. (pdf file)

Detection and Characterization of Small Water Bodies. A Final Technical Report for the NASA-EPSCoR/KTech-funded project, "Landscape-Scale Detection and Classification of Small Water Bodies: Temporal Integration of Diverse Types of Data." Compiled by R.W. Buddimeier (PI), with contributions from F.J. deNoyelles, S. Egbert, R.O. Sleezer, D.P. Young, X.-Y. Zhan, Z. Andereck, M. Houts, B. Mosiman, P. Taylor, J. Vopata, Wilson, W.H. Renwick, and S.V. Smith. 2006. Kansas Geological Survey Open File Report 2006-9. (pdf file)

Other pages on this site will describe:

"Exploring the global significance of ponds, puddles, and transient damp patches"