EcoTalk: Wetland Monitoring

Donnie Knight – US Fish and Wildlife Services

Monitoring an H2Ohio Wetland in Clermont County – Performance of a Floodplain Riverine Wetland for Runoff Treatment

Ryan Winston, PhD, PE, Associate Professor, The Ohio State University

This EcoTalk will focus on a large constructed wetland complex constructed in 2022 near Williamsburg, Ohio. This wetland treats stormwater from the East Fork of the Little Miami River during rainfall events, reducing nutrients upstream of Harsha Lake, which is impacted by algal blooms. As part of the wetland complex construction, an abandoned drinking water reservoir was repurposed to provide storage for flows upstream of the wetland. This talk will report on 2 years of monitoring and hydraulic modeling that has been undertaken thus far by Ohio State University to help to benchmark water quality treatment by floodplain wetlands. The data support the use of these systems for flood mitigation and to improve water quality.

Ryan Winston is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering and Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering at Ohio State University. He is also a Core Faculty of the OSU Sustainability Institute. Ryan leads the Ohio State University Stormwater Management Program, which provides urban stormwater and stream management research and technical assistance to urban water to federal and state agencies, local governments, and watershed groups. We conduct applied research at the practice, site, and small watershed scales to help understand the cost, benefits and ecosystem services provided by stormwater control measures. Ryan has led more than 100 research projects focused on urban stormwater monitoring and modeling. Ryan has particular interest in applying lessons learned in field-based research projects to inform design of new stormwater controls.