Fiscal Year 1984 Program Report

Abstract

The Program Report of the University of Minnesota Water Resources Research Center presents a summary of activities for fiscal year 1984, covering the period of October 1, 1984 through September 30, 1985. The Report describes the research activities of the Center, its involvement in training water scientists and its efforts information in transfer and the findings of six sponsored projects. These findings include: 1. Unsaturated flow patterns are shown to have higher rates of removal of pentachlorophenol than saturated flows which limit oxygen. 2. Atrazine and nitrates have been detected in water samples examined from two Karst springs in southeasternMinnesota. 3. Coliform bacteria are shown to enter groundwater in we1ls in Olmsted County, Minnesota, following rainfall events that exceed 1/4 inch. 4. Drought tolerance in crop plants showed: that lower water potentials of young expanding leaves are the result of solute accumulation, which contributes to the high turgor pressure necessary for growth; that the leaf elongation rate and stomatal conductivity relationship is species characteristic; that accumulation in stem cells of drought adapted plants was greater than non-adapted plants, and that a drought adaptation includes reducing the vascular bundles and vessels. 5. Laboratory experiments on the effects of acid precipitation on Minnesota lakes and in situ porewater sampling have identified sulfate reduction and calcium- cation exchange is major mechanisms of internal alkalinity generation. 6. Efforts to improve liaison between the Water Resources Research Center and State and Federal agencies has resulted in the involvement of eight university researchers from four departments in a cooperative research project with Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and state Planning Agency, the United States Geological survey, and the Natural Resources Research Institute, University of Minnesota, Duluth.