Nutrient and Contaminant Export Dynamics in a Larger-order Midwestern Watershed: Upper White River, Central Indiana, USA

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)The transport of excess nutrients, sediment, and other contaminants to surface waters has been shown to cause a number of environmental and human health concerns. An understanding of the export pathways that these contaminants follow to surrounding water bodies is crucial to the anticipation and management of peak concentration events. Several studies have demonstrated that the majority of annual contaminant loading in the Midwest occurs during periods of elevated discharge. However, many studies use a limited number of sampling points to determine concentration patterns, loadings, and fluxes which decreases accuracy. Through high-resolution storm sampling conducted in a 2945 km2 (1137 mi2) area of central Indiana’s Upper White River Watershed, this research has documented the complex concentration signals and fluxes associated with a suite of cations, nutrients, and contaminants and isolated their primary transport pathways. Additionally, by comparing the results of similar studies conducted on smaller areas within this watershed, differences in concentration patterns and fluxes, as they relate to drainage area, have also been documented. Similar to the results of previous studies, NO3- concentrations lacked a well-defined relationship relative to discharge and was attributed to primarily subsurface contribution. DOC was exported along a shallow, lateral subsurface pathway, TP and TSS via overland flow, and TKN through a combination of both. Near or in-channel scouring of sediment increased DOC, TKN, TP, and TSS concentrations during Storm 2. Atrazine export was attributed to a combination of overland and subsurface pathways. 2-MIB and geosmin derived from different sources and pathways despite being produced by similar organisms. 2-MIB concentration patterns were characterized by dilution of an in-stream source during Storm 1 and potential sediment export during Storm 2 while in-stream concentrations or a sediment source of geosmin was rapidly exhausted during Storm 1. Many of the concentration patterns were subject to an exaggerated averaging effect due to the mixing of several larger watersheds, especially during Storm 1. This research illustrates the need for high-frequency sampling to accurately quantify contaminant loads for total maximum daily load (TMDL) values, developing best management practices (BMPs), and confronting the challenges associated with modeling increasingly larger-scale watersheds

Applied Solutions for Water Resource Challenges: Floods, Contamination and Upland Water Storage

poster abstractThe Center for Earth and Environmental Science, an IUPUI Signature Center, is working on a series of water resources problems and creating solutions. A series of collaborative projects are underway with the HUD, FEMA, the Office of Community and Rural Affairs, the United States Geological Survey, the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, and an international corporate partner in Berlin, KompetenzZentrum Wasser Berlin. Flood Erosion Hazard Program CEES, the USGS, and Polis are working with HUD and the Office of Community and Rural Affairs, though the Indiana Silver Jackets, to create tools for the State of Indiana to incorporate flood erosion hazard risk assessments into community planning. Flooding remains the most costly natural hazard in the US and Indiana. Flood losses continue to rise despite billions of dollars in mitigation. The causes are complex and related to land use, infrastructure design and climate change. Following the June 2008 floods in Indiana, 39 counties were listed as Federal disaster areas. In early 2005, 90% of Indiana counties were declared federal disaster areas after heavy rains fell on saturated soil. There have been seven major regional flooding events since the “Great flood of 1913”. The frequency of large floods appears to be increasing. Four of the eight major floods have occurred since 1982 and the last two occurred in 2005 and 2008. From 1998 through 2007, total insured flood losses in Indiana exceeded $39.8 million. While more restricted in area than the floods of 2008; record flooding occurred again throughout central and southern Indiana in early 2011 following heavy rains in February and March. Traditional flood protection usually consists of three components: flood control reservoirs, urban levees/floodwalls, and agricultural levees. These traditional flood protection methods are focused on one aspect of flooding – inundation. However, the largest single source of flood losses, both in terms of cost and number of affected persons, is damage to transportation infrastructure. Fluvial erosion is a principal cause of this damage. This significant flood-related natural hazard – the “fluvial erosion hazard” (FEH) – is not a specific component of State and local mitigation programs. This project aims to generate the tools for inclusion of FEH into statewide and local community planning. Aquisafe II - Performance Analysis of Selected Mitigation Systems Used to Attenuate Non-Point Source Agricultural Pollution Aquisafe is an international research collaboration with Veolia Environment based in Paris, their corporate partner in Berlin (KompetenzZentrum Wasser – Berlin Center of Competence for Water), the German Federal Environmental Agency, German university partners, and French quasi-governmental agencies in Brittany, France. The project goals are to create new mitigation systems to capture and treat polluted agricultural water running off farm fields prior to flowing into area streams, especially those used for drinking water supplies. The contaminants of specific concern are nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and pesticides (atrazine – a corn-herbicide with potential endocrine disrupting effects). We are testing 2-stage, constructed wetlands in Indianapolis, Indiana and Brittany, France that have been designed to intercept and convert contaminants to harmless compounds. Site designs are guided by laboratory technical scale experiments conducted in Berlin that identified the hydrologic retention times and suitable sources of organic carbon necessary for mitigating contaminants. Construction of the experimental systems will begin in April in the Eagle Creek Watershed in cooperation with a private farmer with initial results expected this summer

Justice in entrepreneurial organizations

Purpose – Justice is a traditional and central moral criterion in society, and is determined, expressed, and assessed differently in different social settings. The purpose of this paper is to propose a justice perspective from contemporary political philosophy in order to explore and prescribe ethical justice behavior in the context of entrepreneurial firms. Design/methodology/approach – John Rawls' influential political theory of justice is examined and then discussed as a potential guide for the ethical decision making of founders of new organizations. Findings – The empirical realities of entrepreneurs are curiously analogous to Rawlsian choosers in the original position as they operate under a similar veil of ignorance. As a development of the authors' argument, three entrepreneur-inspired justice principles are suggested. Social implications – A society of entrepreneurs who value fairness with regard to their stakeholders is likely to shape the business environment in ways that figure into assumptions of business decisions for all organizations, which may in turn result in a society in which all organizational stakeholders are treated fairly. Originality/value – The paper shows that a Rawlsian justice perspective is plausible, illuminating, and potentially useful when applied to the entrepreneurial context.Entrepreneurialism, Ethics, Political theory

Assessing Efficacy of Solid Phase Adsorption Toxin Tracking (SPATT) as an Indicator of the Presence of Cyanotoxins in the New York Finger Lakes

Solid Phase Adsorption Toxin Tracking (SPATT) uses passive samplers designed to concentrate dissolved cyanotoxins over time, thereby providing relative concentrations of cyanotoxins in water bodies across known deployment periods. SPATT can confirm the presence of cyanotoxins in natural systems where the temporal and spatial variability of cyanotoxin concentrations are below the detection threshold of common analytical techniques (e.g., ELISA, LC/MS/MS). In 2019, ninety-one SPATT samplers were deployed at U.S. Geological Survey surface water monitoring platforms located on three of New York’s Finger Lakes: Owasco, Seneca, and Skaneateles. SPATT samplers were deployed at near-surface, mid-depth, and near-bottom depths, with deployment periods ranging between five and twenty-two days. Extracts from samplers were analyzed for four classes of cyanotoxins using ELISA with confirmatory analyses by LC/MS/MS. Discrete water quality samples for cyanotoxins, cyanotoxin synthetase genes, and phytoplankton community identification and enumeration were collected during sampler deployment and retrieval. Multi-parameter sondes deployed at the same depths as the SPATT samplers collected continuous water quality data during each deployment. A summary of preliminary data will be presented alongside complementary data to assess the efficacy of SPATT technologies and their potential utility to resource managers as early detection tools for the presence of cyanotoxins

Transferts culturels et droits dans le monde grec et hellénistique

Le colloque international Transferts culturels et droit dans les mondes grec et hellénistique étudie les phénomènes de réceptions, d'emprunts et d'adaptations dans la sphère juridique, depuis la naissance du droit grec, à l'époque archaïque durant l'âge des législateurs, jusqu'à l'établissement du pouvoir romain sur l'espace méditerranéen. La problématique envisagée a permis des échanges entre spécialistes venus d'horizons différents, historiens, juristes, anthropologues, hellénistes, romanistes, démotisants, sémitisants, orientalistes, dont les regards sur le monde grec et hellénistique sont complémentaires. Leurs deux préoccupations principales ont été, d'une part, de revenir sur les dynamiques juridiques internes au monde grec et, d'autre part, de mesurer les influences réciproques des droits des mondes grecs et des mondes « barbares ». Ce colloque complète et approfondit une première rencontre organisée en Sorbonne, durant l'année 2004 sur le thème Transferts culturels et politique dans le monde hellénistique (Jean-Christophe Couvenhes et Bernard Legras éd., Publications de la Sorbonne, 2006). L'histoire juridique de la Méditerranée antique sur un temps long permet en effet de mesurer comment l'élargissement du monde grec avec la conquête d'Alexandre, puis la formation de l'Empire mondial des Romains ont suscité l'élaboration d'une koinè juridique, qui a offert à des peuples de traditions différentes de vivre globalement en paix dans des sociétés pour l'essentiel multiculturelles