Water Resources

Water is a principal resource essential for sustaining communities, economies, and ecosystems. Water quality and quantity are affected by numerous factors, including point and non-point source pollution, unchecked development, and disputes over allocation, interbasin diversions, and in-stream flows. Though once regarded as water rich, the Southeast has begun to experience some of the allocation conflicts that have affected the more-arid West for more than a century.

Research Agenda

The principal goals of this program are to assist UT faculty and staff in developing funded research projects that advance our understanding of the scientific/social/political issues affecting water resources, while also providing educational opportunities for students and service to the broader community. We propose to achieve this through: 1) promoting interdisciplinary research proposals and projects involving water-related researchers in academic departments and research institutes across campus and throughout the region; 2) interaction with funding agencies at the federal and state level to identify research needs and funding opportunities at an early stage of development; and 3) interaction with state agencies, communities, utilities, communities, watershed groups and other stakeholders that face water resource problems.

Illustrative Projects

Development and application of host-specific fecal indicators for identifying fecal inputs to streams, occurrence of viral pathogens in community water supply wells and, most recently, an NIH-funded project to examine microbial contamination and diarrheal disease in wells in Bangladesh.
Study of toxic algae and viruses in freshwater and marine systems, including development of real-time molecular probes, ecological characterization and efforts to prevent, control and mitigate harmful algal blooms
Modeling of water resource supply, demand, and vulnerability in the southeastern United States.

Water Resource Researchers at UT

Members of the Water Resources Program will interact with all of the other five ISSE program areas (especially Environmental Sustainability and Agriculture & Natural Resources), as well as with the Center for Environmental Biotechnology, the Water Resources Research Center, and other UT departments and institutes. Our members are frequently involved in collaboration with researchers at UT Chattanooga, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and many other state and federal organizations and agencies. A partial list of water researchers at UT is given below (linked to their personal web sites where available):

ISSE Staff: