Projects

Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists are gathering and analyzing data on biogeochemical processes in urban areas to better understand how the natural and built environments interact and affect the microclimate of people who reside there. Their discoveries provide insight into how tree plantings and greenspace could alleviate heat in urban areas, where most of the world’s population resides.

The WaDE: Watershed Dynamics And Evolution (WaDE) Science Focus Area advances predictive understanding of how dominant processes controlling watershed hydro-biogeochemical function operate under a range of hydrologic regimes and vary along stream networks that drain heterogeneous land covers.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Biological Monitoring and Abatement Program uses an integrated approach for determining stream health, quantifying key metrics to assess both water quality and biodiversity, including concentrations and bioaccumulation of contaminants, fish and invertebrate community taxa richness, and laboratory-based standardized tests of toxicity for aquatic organisms. 

The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments in the Arctic project seeks to improve the representation of critical processes in ultra high-resolution Earth system models by focusing on systems that are globally important, sensitive to change, and understudied or inadequately represented in models. An Arctic-informed Earth system model can better predict key processes such as permafrost stability and land surface subsidence, the navigability of waterways, and disturbances such as wildfire and rain-on-snow. The model can also predict water availability for a variety of uses, including energy production, ice road construction, and drinking water. Near-term understanding of changes in the distribution and magnitude of important Earth system processes can inform placement and maintenance of critical Arctic infrastructure vital to America’s energy, national, and economic security.

An experiment to assess the response of northern peatland ecosystems to increases in temperature and exposures to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations.