Jay Zarnetske
Michigan State University, MI·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
As water flows through soils and plants, it picks up dissolved organic carbon (DOC), which is carbon from decaying plant and soil material that dissolves in water. This movement helps decide whether an ecosystem stores carbon or releases it, so it matters for the global carbon cycle.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Ecology & Evolution
- Topics
dissolved organic carbon
carbon cycle
watershed hydrology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Test assumptions about how dissolved organic carbon (DOC) moves into and out of watersheds across diverse ecoregions and flow conditions, including floods, using data synthesis and new sensor technologies.
- Determine whether river DOC movement can be estimated from local to continental scales using river flow and watershed properties, through modeling that identifies the key watershed and climate controls.
- Develop undergraduate curriculum based on human-centered design in which students create hydrology outreach materials for K-12 audiences, lifelong learners and policymakers with five partner outreach institutions.
More about the research
DOC also affects water quality for drinking, farming and industry. Scientists still know little about how and when DOC moves through different kinds of rivers and landscapes, especially during floods.
Why it matters
Dissolved organic carbon affects both drinking and irrigation water quality and how much carbon landscapes store or release as climate and land use change. Better forecasts of carbon movement through rivers, especially during floods, could help water managers plan for water used in homes, farms and industry, and could improve estimates of carbon sources and sinks.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Catherine Clark
Western Washington University, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure the composition and amount of dissolved organic matter (DOM) exported from a salt marsh into the Padilla Bay estuary across tidal cycles and seasons, using spectroscopy, dissolved organic carbon and water-flow measurements.
Jacqueline Gerson
Cornell University, NY·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify long-term trends in streamwater concentrations of 60 trace and ultratrace elements in boreal streams from 1985 to 2023, across decades and across nested catchments.
Catalina Segura
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Determine how burning of vegetation alone versus vegetation and soil changes snow accumulation, snowmelt, streamflow and underground water storage in burned Willamette National Forest watersheds, using snow surveys, geophysics and soil infiltration tests.
The school
Michigan State University: 28 labs on PI Pages, $932M a year on research, 555 research doctorates a year.
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