The Water Seminar Series continues with "Assessing the Ecohydrological Effects of Land Use Change Across Multiple Scales: From Leaves to Watersheds," at 3:30 p.m., April 18 in the Hardin Hall auditorium.
The presentation will be led by Heidi Asbjornsen, associate professor of natural resources at the University of New Hampshire.
Lectures in the series are free and open to the public.
Asbjornsen’s research interests fall broadly within the disciplines of ecosystem ecology, applied forest ecology, and sustainable agriculture, while encompassing aspects of plant ecophysiology, restoration ecology, and ecohydrology, and sustainability science. She currently has active research projects focusing on enhancing agricultural sustainability in the Midwest through the integration of perennial vegetation; understanding the effects of land use change on the ecohydrology of montane tropical cloud forests in Mexico; and exploring the response of northern hardwood forests to climate change altered nutrient availability in the northeastern United States.
In this talk, Asbjornsen will discuss how cycling and fluxes of water through vegetation influences watershed processes such as runoff and stream flow is critical to managing landscapes for multiple ecosystem services. Several examples will be presented. Also, the potential use of stable isotopes to examine ecohydrological effects of land use and climate change, with an emphasis on plant water recycling, will be explored.
The Water Seminar series is organized and sponsored by the Nebraska Water Center, part of the Daugherty Water for Food Institute, with support from Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and School of Natural Resources.
For more information on the 2012 Water Seminar Series, go to http://go.unl.edu/o4r.