Notes from Long Beach: Irrigation Show and Conference 2015

Earlier this month I attended the Irrigation Association’s Irrigation Show and Education Conference in Long Beach, CA. The UF contingent included me, Bernard Cardenas and Drs. Michael Dukes and Kati Migliaccio. We were among the several thousand experts, contractors, technicians and brand reps whom coursed through the Long Beach Convention Center over seven days.

Like the bat-signal, but for certified irrigation pros!

Nerd Alert

In addition to the usual classes and technical sessions, this year’s event featured an ASABE/IA Irrigation Symposium to showcase peer-reviewed research, and a Drought Summit to strategize around water scarcity.

Soil moisture sensor expert Bernard Cardenas during the first of two presentations

Of course, the symposium is where us researchers shine. We presented on soil moisture sensors, weather-based controller programming, sustainable landscapes and water-use efficiency and smart phone apps for irrigation scheduling and management.

A crowd forms for more info following Dr. Migliaccio's talk on irrigation apps

Roving Reporter

I was in full media mode during conference week – tweeting, periscoping and shooting video for a collaborative project with the Irrigation Foundation’s E3 Program. The E3 program sponsors students and instructors from across the country to attend the IA Conference and immerse themselves in all the industry connections and expertise the week affords one. 

Live-tweeting novices & experts alike, stop by 102b tonight. Let's talk social media for everyone. #irrigationshow15 pic.twitter.com/hqSNRTCg1Q

— UF/IFAS IrriGator (@IrriGatorUF) November 10, 2015

I also had the honor of presenting on social media best practices alongside longtime colleague/mentor Richard Restuccia.

On the Cusp

You cannot report back about the Irrigation Show without mentioning the product expo. Every year the expo floor seems to grow larger and this year was no exception. I was on the hunt for new/interesting urban landscape irrigation products and these days that usually means cloud-based and wireless.

Cloud-based soil moisture sensors are a thing!

I managed to locate a couple of new WaterSense certified timers in this category. I also stumbled upon a soil moisture sensor touting said features. The future looks bright for remotely accessible smart irrigation!

On-site Insight

From my perspective, conferences like IA’s are invaluable as conduits for in-person contact with industry peers. For instance, while gathering content for a high-efficiency nozzle video for Miami-Dade’s Urban Conservation Unit, I learned from the EPA WaterSense team attending the conference that pressure regulating sprinkler (PRS) bodies are a more reliable means for water savings in the landscape.

Learning about @Hunter_Ind's MPR rotator & pressure regulating sprays! #videoproject #irrigationshow15 pic.twitter.com/DzoX8YPoxa

— UF/IFAS Miami U.C.U. (@MiamiUCU) November 12, 2015

In fact, WaterSense has plans to certify PRS bodies in the near future. For incentive-based programs like Miami-Dade’s this is a critical new development. And for an irrigation-head like me, well this is the kind of on-site insight that I am ALL about. See you next year in Las Vegas! 

WaterSmart Innovations 2015: Thoughts and Impressions

By Mackenzie Boyer

Full disclosure: WaterSmart Innovations is my favorite conference. I love the focus on real-world utility projects, with a sprinkling of university-generated research (like my own). This was my second time attending, and I’m already thinking of how to return in 2016. What follows are some insights and reflections on my WaterSmart experience this fall.

Speaker badge so you know it's real

Gator Nation Rolls Deep

This year representing the IrriGators in Las Vegas were: Drs. Michael Dukes, Melissa Baum-Haley (’11), Stacia Davis (’14), and myself. Also representing UF was Scott Knight (Environmental Engineering ’15), who had received a Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) scholarship.

From left: Drs. Michael Dukes, Melissa Baum-Haley, Stacia Davis and PhD candidate Mackenzie Boyer

In the Audience

Some of the more memorable sessions I attended included:

Karen Guz’s (San Antonio Water) first presentation was such a well told story that I went back for two more or her talks. I especially liked her anecdotes about conservation efforts well-intended but misguided (like the reuse system with potable backup that used more potable water than if the system had just avoided reuse altogether), or with an ulterior motive (like a certain water tower that doubles as an advertisement). 

San Antonio Water's Karen Guz

I saw several presentations on Cash for Grass programs including Sarah Fleury with Castaic Lake Water Agency (take away message: don’t automatically trust customers when they say they have turf in their landscape) and Melissa Baum-Haley with Municipal Water District of Orange County. Both projects were hugely popular. In MWDOC’s case, paper applications were literally stacking up day after day - the rebates of $2-$8/square foot of turf removed coupled with California’s historic drought made the program too attractive to too many customers.

Watershed Management Group's Kiernan Sikdar

Kiernan Sikdar had me ready to move from Gainesville to Tucson just so I could join in Watershed Management Group’s co-op program. A “barn-raising” model that can teach me how and then help me get a gorgeous landscape that thrives from harvesting on-site water? Sign me up!

Waterless and fabulous: Mackenzie Boyer with urinal

At the WaterSmart product expo, I talked shop with other attendees: “You have AMI data?! I want AMI data!” and “Oh you aggregate your data to the census tract level before running correlations? That’s a great approach!” I also couldn’t help but cuddle up to a urinal in honor of some other unnamed Gator engineers who love urine way too much. 

At the Podium

As for my presentation on water restrictions in Florida's Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, I had to begin with the embarrassing admission that my title - Irrigation water restrictions, not as good as you think - although supported by my preliminary data, was incongruous with the presentation I was about to give. 

Are irrigation water restrictions effective? @UF's Mackenzie Boyer presents her findings today @ 3pm Napa A #WSI2015 pic.twitter.com/lApgbCxvuv

— UF/IFAS IrriGator (@IrriGatorUF) October 8, 2015

Going from two day per week allowable irrigation to one day per week allowable irrigation reduced annual irrigation demand by about 14%. However, these trends don’t hold true for all customers. In a newer part of the City of Tampa, customers actually increased their irrigation when restrictions tightened to fewer days. What’s unique about our study is that the evaluation period is over a decade long, where previous studies on water restrictions have been limited to evaluation periods of two months to two years. 

Best Coast?

I spent a summer during college in Arizona working as an intern with the Indian Health Service. I fell in love with the desert landscape and that dry heat that is absolutely nothing like Florida’s sticky, humid summers. Not quite being able to experience the western environment while in a conference all day, Stacia Davis and I headed out to explore a few parks after the conference ended. 

Standing atop Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, I felt like I could do anything- like maybe even graduate one day. When Stacia and I stopped by Lake Mead, we saw firsthand why over 1,000 professionals attended WaterSmart: Conservation is key. 

You can revisit all the great work presented at WaterSmart Innovations 2015 here.

The SERC Experience: My Summer on the Chesapeake Bay

Rather than being knee-deep in water quality research at my home base in Gainesville, I spent this past summer at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center located in Edgewater, MD, on the iconic Chesapeake Bay. 

Research activities at SERC encompass virtually all aspects of coastal ecosystems: wetland biogeochemistry, marine biodiversity and invasions, plant and animal population dynamics, water quality, effects of global change and land use, and more! You can check out highlights of SERC research on twitter @SmithsonianEnv.

We're out to tag 6,000 blue crabs this summer. And we want you to find them after we do http://t.co/4xR9iRKkrH pic.twitter.com/HWzXjyh9qk

— SmithsonianEnv (@SmithsonianEnv) July 10, 2015

Step One: Get a GRIP
So, how did I end up in Maryland? The story begins with the National Science Foundation (NSF). Every year, NSF funds graduate studies through their Graduate Research Fellowship Program. NSF recently created a new initiative called the Graduate Research Internship Program (GRIP). NSF GRIP offers NSF Graduate Research Fellows the opportunity to expand their research and spend a few months at a national lab or federal agency. I received a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship at the beginning of my graduate studies, so I was eligible for this new internship program - I applied, and I got a GRIP! 

The Global Change Research Wetland
During my 10-week stay this summer, I joined the Biogeochemistry Lab, whose Principal Investigator is Dr. Pat Megongial. Much of the Biogeochemistry Lab’s research takes place at the Kirkpatrick Marsh, which is also referred to as the Global Change Research Wetland. The Global Change Research Wetland is the world’s premier field site for research on tidal wetland responses to global change, and has been home to experiments and observations on the interactions between salt marsh plant communities, CO2, nitrogen, and sea level for almost 30 years. Essentially, researchers at the Global Change Research Wetland are increasing our understanding of the fate tidal marshes face in a future world.

Aerial view of the Global Change Research Wetland at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, taken by Dr. Chuck Gallegos.

Every summer, the experimental chambers in the marsh are comprehensively surveyed. Data collected during these surveys are used to understand how experimental and natural changes influence the marsh plant community, which can then assist efforts to understand how these changes might scale to other tidal marsh systems. One of my internship goals was to get my feet wet and hands dirty in Global Change Research Wetland activities (figuratively and literally!), and I was not disappointed! In July, I had the opportunity to assist with a few aspects of the aforementioned marsh survey, including stem density and dimension measurements.

Top to bottom: in the marsh and field station (credit: SERC)

How to MarshCycle

As part of my internship, I was also graciously included in a project called MARSHCYCLE. MARSHCYCLE investigators – including Dr. Maria Tzortziou of CCNY, lead Principal Investigator, and co-Principal Investigators Drs. Pat Neale and Pat Megonigal at SERC, among other scientists – are integrating field, modeling, and remote sensing approaches to disentangle and quantify key carbon processes taking place along the wetland-estuary boundary (where land meets water). My specific role was to evaluate the hydrology of the main tidal creek flooding and draining the Global Change Research Wetland. Information about flow patterns can be used to complete mass balances of water quality constituents entering and leaving the marsh, as well as to clarify mechanisms related to the release and capture of these constituents within the marsh.

The mouth of the Global Change Research Wetland tidal creek. 

On Transducers
To carry out this analysis, the creek needed to be instrumented with flow and depth measurement devices. The selected flow meter was equipped with acoustic and pressure transducers. Acoustic transducers emit sound pulses that bounce off of particles and debris floating in the water. The instrument measures the amount of time it takes for the sound pulses to return to the acoustic transducer after having bounced off of the particles in the water, and can then calculate the velocity of water moving through the creek. This measurement principle is based on the Doppler effect. The pressure transducer measures the surrounding pressure, which corresponds to the depth of the water column. Flow can then be calculated by knowing the depth and velocity of the water.

Taking flow measurements at the Global Change Research Wetland tidal creek.

The flow meter was situated on the creek bottom about 1.5 meters below the water surface.

Collected data are still being analyzed, but we’re starting to see some interesting patterns using time series analysis approaches. Stay tuned for results in the future!

Growing in Work

This internship experience was wonderful in so many ways. I was able to get involved in SERC research and outreach happenings, gain new colleagues and mentors, work in a cutting-edge environmental research facility, learn about water resources issues in a different part of the country, and make some wonderful friends! 

Unpacking our vessel after taking a flow transect of the Rhode River.

Graduate students often don’t create time for these external opportunities because of the various pressures associated with research and school, but I can think of no better supplement to my scientist-engineer training than to have experienced a different work culture and learned from a group of world-renowned scientists outside of my immediate academic circle.

Until next time: A Chesapeake Bay reminder...

Natalie Nelson is a PhD student in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at UF. Her previous IrriGator contributions covered the Annual International Meetings of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (here and here).