Anna Grace McCarty Presents Research at UCOWR Conference

University of Arkansas senior, Anna McCarty received a Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship to research atmospheric deposition in Arkansas and Tennessee with Dr. Brian Haggard, director of the Arkansas Water Resource Center.

Atmospheric deposition is a transportation process for gases and compounds from the atmosphere to Earth’s surface.

“We’re looking at eight different nutrients and elements such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, sulphate, nitrate, sodium and a couple of others,” McCarty said.

If concentrations of these nutrients are too high, they can potentially cause harmful algal blooms when they flow into water streams. Monitoring concentrations would help determine if there’s a need for worry or actions that need to be taken to protect water supplies.

“We’re using the National Atmospheric Deposition Program for our data source,” said McCarty.

There are stations all over the U.S. and McCarty and Haggard plan to look at six of them.

“So far, we’ve looked at the station here in Fayetteville, and calcium, magnesium, and potassium have not really changed much over time in concentration,” said McCarty. “Sulfate and nitrate are actually decreasing over time, which is cool to see, and ammonium is increasing over time.”

McCarty and Haggard will look at the next five sites to for trends. The analysis will show what is happening in the atmosphere currently, and whether it’s something to worry about.

“It’s more of an assessment of where we are currently, how it’s changed over time and if there needs to be any changes made in the future,” McCarty said.

McCarty plans to use this research for her honors thesis project. She also had the opportunity to present at the Universities Council on Water Resources Annual Conference at Colorado State University this month.

McCarty emphasized that this experience has been a great opportunity to network with professionals and become a better researcher.

“The UCOWR conference was a fantastic opportunity for me to gain experience presenting my work, learn about other current studies in many areas of water quality research and talk with experienced professionals about their careers,” said McCarty.