2007-2008 TWRI grant recipients announced
COLLEGE STATION — The Texas Water Resources Institute has selected 10 water-related research
projects to fund during 2007–2008 from 20 submitted proposals. The projects will explore a wide
assortment of topics, and were developed by graduate students in collaboration with faculty members at
Texas A&M, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas Tech University, Baylor University and Rice
University.
The grants are funded through the U.S. Geological Survey as part of the National Institutes for Water
Research annual research program. Students are able to support their research projects and education
through this federal program. As a result, the institute will publish articles and reports about the progress of
these studies and their benefit to Texas water resources.
Students and their projects are:
- Narendra Das (advisor: Binayak Mohanty), Texas A&M University, “Development of an algorithm
to create repository of soil moisture and evapotranspiration maps for the State of Texas” - Stephanie Johnson (advisor: David Maidment), The University of Texas, “Intra-watershed modeling
of bacterial contamination” - Tae Jin Kim (advisor: Ralph Wurbs), Texas A&M, “Reallocation of reservoir storage capacity
between flood control and conservation purposes” - Steve Oswalt (advisors: Dick Auld, Thomas Thompson), Texas Tech University,
“Optimizing irrigation of oilseed crops on the Texas High Plains” - Nithya Rajan (advisor: Stephen Mass), Texas Tech, “Comparative evaluation of actual crop water
use of forage sorghum and corn for silage” - Kendra Johnson Reibschleager (advisor: Raghupathy Karthikeyan), Texas A&M, “Bacterial
impairment assessment for Lake Granbury watershed” - Ronnie Schnell (advisor: Don Vietor) Texas A&M, “Chemically treated compost biosolids enhance
water conservation and quality on urban landscapes” - Corinne Wong (advisor: Jay Banner), The University of Texas, “Evaluating the impacts of brush
clearing on recharge of a karst aquifer” - Theodore Valenti (advisor: Bryan Brooks) Baylor University, “Water quality influences on ionizable
contaminants in the Brazos River Basin: Implications for water resource management of urbanizing
watersheds” - Fanwei Zeng (advisor: Caroline Masiello) Rice University, “Carbon isotopic measurements of
dissolved inorganic carbon: A new tool to assess groundwater-river exchange in the Brazos River
Basin”