Stanley Baugh Grant

Virginia Tech | VT · Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Humans create vast quantities of wastewater through inefficiencies and poor management of water systems. The wasting of water poses sustainability challenges, depletes energy reserves, and undermines human water security and ecosystem health. Here we review emerging approaches for reusing wastewater and minimizing its generation. These complementar...

Inland freshwater salinity is rising worldwide, a phenomenon called the freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS). We investigate a potential conflict between managing the FSS and indirect potable reuse, the practice of augmenting water supplies through the addition of highly treated wastewater (reclaimed water) to surface waters and groundwaters. Fro...

Freshwater salinity is rising across many regions of the United States as well as globally, a phenomenon called the freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS). The FSS mobilizes organic carbon, nutrients, heavy metals, and other contaminants sequestered in soils and freshwater sediments, alters the structures and functions of soils, streams, and ripari...

Permeable sediments, which make up almost half of the continental shelf worldwide, are potential sources of the important greenhouse gas N2O from coastal regions. Yet, the extent to which interactions between these sediments and anthropogenic pollution produce N2O is still unknown. Here we use laboratory experiments and modeling to explore the fact...

In this paper we demonstrate that several ubiquitous hyporheic exchange mechanisms can be represented simply as a one‐dimensional diffusion process, where the diffusivity decays exponentially with depth into the streambed. Based on a meta‐analysis of 106 previously published laboratory measurements of hyporheic exchange (capturing a range of bed mo...

The salinity of inland freshwaters is rising globally, particularly in human dominated landscapes that receive deicers in the winter. Here we show that the salinization of an urban stream in Northern Virginia (USA) can be linked to salt sources using stream water age as a master variable. Younger stream water is associated with either low salinity...

Freshwater Salinization Syndrome (FSS) refers to groups of biological, physical, and chemical impacts which commonly occur together in response to salinization. FSS can be assessed by the mobilization of chemical mixtures, termed “chemical cocktails”, in watersheds. Currently, we do not know if salinization and mobilization of chemical cocktails al...

There are challenges in monitoring and managing water quality due to spatial and temporal heterogeneity in contaminant sources, transport, and transformations. We demonstrate the importance of longitudinal stream synoptic (LSS) monitoring, which can track combinations of water quality parameters along flowpaths across space and time. Specifically,...

Current regulatory tools are not well suited to address freshwater salinization in urban areas and the conditions under which bottom-up management is likely to emerge remain unclear. We hypothesize that Ostrom’s social-ecological-systems (SES) framework can be used to explore how current understanding of salinization might foster or impede its coll...

Nitrogen (N) in urban runoff is often treated with green infrastructure including biofilters. However, N fates across biofilters are insufficiently understood because prior studies emphasize low N loading under laboratory conditions, or use “steady-state” flow regimes over short time scales. Here, we tested field scale biofilter N fates during simu...

Unsteady transit time distribution (TTD) theory is a promising new approach for merging hydrologic and water quality models at the catchment scale. A major obstacle to widespread adoption of the theory, however, has been the specification of the StorAge Selection (SAS) function, which describes how the selection of water for outflow is biased by ag...

The hyporheic exchange below dune-shaped bedforms has a great impact on the stream environment. One of the most important properties of the hyporheic zone is the residence time distribution (RTD) of flow paths in the sediment domain. Here, we evaluate the influence of dimensionless sediment depths d b * = 2 π d b / λ where λ is the dune wavelength...

Green stormwater infrastructure systems, such as biofilters, provide many water quality and other environmental benefits, but their ability to remove human pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) from stormwater runoff is not well documented. In this study, a field scale biofilter in Southern California (USA) was simultaneously evaluated f...

Factors driving freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS) influence the severity of impacts and chances for recovery. We hypothesize that spread of FSS across ecosystems is a function of interactions among five state factors: human activities, geology, flowpaths, climate, and time. (1) Human activities drive pulsed or chronic inputs of salt ions and m...

Stormwater capture systems have the potential to address many urban stormwater management challenges, particularly in water-scarce regions like Southern California. Here, we investigate the potential best-case limits of water supply and stormwater retention benefits delivered by a 10,000 m 3 stormwater capture system equipped with real-time control...

A frequent barrier to addressing some of our world's most pressing environmental challenges is a lack of funding. Currently, environmental project funding largely comes from philanthropic and public sources, but this does not meet current needs. Increased coordination and collaboration between multiple levels and sectors of government, in addition...

The hyporheic exchange below dune-shaped bedforms has a great impact on the stream environment. One of the most important properties of the hyporheic zone is the residence time distribution (RTD) of flow paths in the sediment domain. Here we evaluate the influence of an impervious layer, at a dimensionless sediment depth of d_b^*=(2πd_b)⁄λ where λ...

Presenting the best analytical representation for the hyporheic residence time distribution at different sediment bed depths in dunes-like bedforms. These analytical representations' accuracy is tested on estimating the Damköhler number. Estimation of the analytical representations' controlling parameters based on the sediment bed depths is also pr...

In-stream environments, many biogeochemical processes occur in the benthic biolayer, i.e., within sediments at a very shallow depth close to the sediment-water interface (SWI). These processes are important for stream ecology and the overall environment. Here, a 1D diffusive model is used to analyze the vertical exchange of solutes through the SWI...

Stormwater infrastructure substantially impacts water quality and supply. In the U.S., local agency investments rely on public support from taxes or fees. Assessing individuals’ knowledge and willingness to pay helps inform potential pathways to funding and green infrastructure implementation. Using a 2018–2019 survey of 868 University of Californi...

The synergetic effects of metal(loid)s and soil characteristics on bacterial antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) has been relatively understudied. Surface soil samples from six GSIs in Southern California over three time periods were assessed for selected ARGs, class 1 integron-integrase genes (intI1), 16S rR...

U.S. public university campuses are held directly responsible for compliance with many of the same federal- and state-level environmental regulations as cities, including stormwater management. While operating as ‘cities within cities’ in many respects, campuses face unique constraints in achieving stormwater regulatory compliance. To compare the a...

In this paper, we develop and validate a rigorous modeling framework, based on Duhamel's Theorem, for the unsteady one‐dimensional vertical transport of a solute across a flat sediment‐water interface (SWI) and through the benthic biolayer of a turbulent stream. The modeling framework is novel in capturing the two‐way coupling between evolving solu...

In this paper, we explore the use of unsteady transit time distribution (TTD) theory to model solute transport in biofilters, a popular form of nature-based or “green” stormwater infrastructure (GSI). TTD theory has the potential to address many unresolved challenges associated with predicting pollutant fate and transport through these systems, inc...

Many water quality and ecosystem functions performed by streams occur in the benthic biolayer, the biologically active upper (~5 cm) layer of the streambed. Solute transport through the benthic biolayer is facilitated by bedform pumping, a physical process in which dynamic and static pressure variations over the surface of stationary bedforms (e.g....

Inland freshwater salinity is on the rise in many regions across the globe—a phenomenon called the freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS). In this paper we investigate a potential conflict between managing the FSS and indirect potable reuse, the practice of augmenting water supplies through the addition of reclaimed wastewater to surface waters and...

Outdoor watering of lawns accounts for about half of single-family residential potable water demand in the arid southwest United States. Consequently, many water utilities in the region offer customers cash rebates to replace lawns with drought tolerant landscaping. Here we present a parcel-scale analysis of water savings achieved by a “cash-for-gr...

Ultrahazardous flooding (UHF) occurs on low relief topography at the foot of mountain catchments and is characterized by rapid‐onset, high‐velocity flood flows, large fluxes of sediment and debris, and unpredictable flow paths. 20th century stormwater infrastructure seeks to contain UHF, up to a design level, using combinations of basins, reservoir...

This preprint is in review with Water Resources Research, but also posted on the Open Access forum ESSOar. You can access the full manuscript at the following URL: https://www.essoar.org/doi/10.1002/essoar.10501298.1 Below is the abstract, and plain language abstract, for the article: Turbulent Mixing in the Benthic Biolayer of Streams Stanley B....

Hyporheic flow and nutrient turnover in hyporheic systems are strongly influenced by in-stream bedforms. An accurate representation of topographical variations of the stream-streambed interface is therefore essential in analytical models in order to represent the couplings between hydrological and biogeochemical processes correctly. The classical T...

New experimental techniques are allowing, for the first time, direct visualization of mass and momentum transport across the sediment-water interface in streams. These experimental insights are catalyzing a renaissance in our understanding of the role stream turbulence plays in a host of critical ecosystem services, including nutrient cycling. In t...

Stream physics set the limits A combination of physical transport processes and biologically mediated reactions in streams and their sediments removes dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) from the water. Although stream chemistry and biology have been considered the dominant controls on how quickly DIN is removed, Grant et al. show that physics is wh...

Constructed stormwater wetlands provide a host of ecosystem services, including potentially pathogen removal. We present results from a multi-wetland study that integrates across weather, chemical, microbiological and engineering design variables in order to identify patterns of microbial contaminant removal from inlet to outlet within wetlands and...

One of the goals of urban ecology is to link community structure to ecosystem function in urban habitats. Pollution-tolerant wetland invertebrates have been shown to enhance greenhouse gas (GHG) flux in controlled laboratory experiments, suggesting that they may influence urban wetland roles as sources or sinks of GHG. However, it is unclear if the...

Green infrastructure (also referred to as low impact development, or LID) has the potential to transform urban stormwater runoff from an environmental threat to a valuable water resource. In this paper we focus on the removal of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB, a pollutant responsible for runoff-associated inland and coastal beach closures) in stormw...

Modeling and experimental studies demonstrate that ambient groundwater flow reduces the flux of water through the hyporheic zone, but the implications of this observation for stream N-cycling is not yet clear. Here we utilize a simple process-based model (the Pumping and Streamline Segregation or PASS model) to evaluate N-cycling over two scales of...

For many coastal regions around the world, recreational beach water quality is assessed using fecal indicator bacteria (FIB). However, the utility of FIB as indicators of recreational water illness (RWI) risk has been questioned, particularly in coastal settings with no obvious sources of human sewage. In this study we employed a source-apportionme...

Microbial contamination in urban stormwater is one of the most widespread and challenging water quality issues in developed countries. Low impact development (LID) best management practices (BMPs) restore pre-urban hydrology by treating and/or harvesting urban runoff and stormwater, and can be designed to remove many contaminants including pathogen...

Cities in drought prone regions of the world such as South East Australia are faced with escalating water scarcity and security challenges. Here we use 72 years of urban water consumption data from Melbourne, Australia, a city that recently overcame a 12 year "Millennium" drought, to evaluate 1) the relative importance of climatic and anthropogenic...

The exchange of mass between a stream and its hyporheic zone, or “hyporheic exchange”, is central to many important ecosystem services. In this paper we show that mass transfer across the streambed by linear mechanisms of hyporheic exchange in a gaining or losing stream can be represented by a thin film model in which: (a) the mass transfer coeffic...

The exchange of mass between a stream and its hyporheic zone, or "hyporheic exchange", is central to many important ecosystem services. In this paper we show that mass transfer across the streambed by linear mechanisms of hyporheic exchange in a gaining or losing stream can be represented by a thin film model in which: (a) the mass transfer coeffic...

Streambed hydraulic conductivity is an important control on flow within the hyporheic zone, affecting hydrological, ecological, and biogeochemical processes essential to river ecosystem function. Despite many published field measurements, few empirical studies examine the drivers of spatial and temporal variations in streambed hydraulic conductivit...

Natural treatment systems ( NTS ), such as constructed wetlands and stormwater ponds, are multibenefit, multidisciplinary approaches to sustaining water resources and reducing contaminant loading to urban streams. Surficial thin films (called surface microlayers) are not well characterized in NTS , but may have important implications for ecosystems...

discussion of particle and FIB measurements offshore of Huntington Beach

A report prepared for Caltrans

Catchment urbanization perturbs the water and sediment budgets of streams, degrades stream health and function, and causes a constellation of flow, water quality and ecological symptoms collectively known as the urban stream syndrome. Low-impact development (LID) technologies address the hydrologic symptoms of the urban stream syndrome by mimicking...