A Strong Presence At Water Conference

By Jason Moak, Research Manager

Phinizy Center scientists contributed four poster presentations and six oral presentations at the South Carolina Water Resources Conference in Columbia this week.  This is a biennial conference organized in 2008 by Clemson University for the purpose of sharing important and useful information regarding water research, policy, and management.  This year’s conference had over 300 attendees that included students and professors from multiple universities, state and federal resource agency personnel, consulting firms, utilities, and other non-governmental organizations.

Oscar Flite led off for Phinizy Center Wednesday morning with a presentation on the results our initial river metabolism study which involved continuous dissolved carbon dioxide measurements while floating for five days and 150 down the Savannah River.  That afternoon, Carson Pruitt presented the results of our ongoing effort to describe and predict how rainfall affects water flow in Augusta’s urban streams.  That evening, Oscar, Damon Mullis, Katie Johnson, and Jason Moak presented their posters detailing some preliminary results from our study of Savannah River oxbow lake ecology and hydrology which we recently completed.

Thursday afternoon was a busy one for Phinizy scientiests as we gave four oral presentations.  In the Stormwater session, Katie provided an in-depth look at the methods we are using to assess the geomorphology of streams in Augusta.  Damon presented results illustrating how water temperature from Thurmond Dam effects the communities of aquatic insects downstream in the Savannah River.  Kelsey Laymon explained the experiment we conducted in which we compared differences between aquatic insects collected using three different types of passive sampling devices.  Lastly, Shawn Rosenquist, who is now with Savannah State University, provided an interesting look at the history of nutrient levels in the Savannah River and what implications they may have for future planning.

Phinizy Center’s presence at this conference was impressive and important.  It allowed us to share our research with other scientists and resource managers and further build our reputation for conducting useful basic and applied water science.  It also allowed us to strengthen and build new relationships with other regional scientists and learn about their work .