| Affiliations: | |
| Project Leader: | Hope Hui Rising, Ph.D. hope.rising@tamu.edu Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning |
| Faculty Mentor: | |
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Meeting Times:
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TH 1 PM-2PM |
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Team Size:
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3
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| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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Earning co-authorship on publications, or becoming a full member of my research group in the future should there be funding available
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Team Needs:
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Experience with 1) irrigation, plant germination, environmental control, and green house experiments; 2) setting up hydroponic/aeroponic system; 3) product/architectural design; 4) prototyping using 3D modeling, digital fabrication, soft robotics, and arduino; 5) signal processing in Matlab; 6) machine learning in Matlab or Python; 7) statistics software, such as SPSS, AMOS, R, or SAS; 8) writing literature review manuscripts for subjects related to aeroponics, hydroponics, space habitats, and monitoring of plant germination and growth. |
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Description:
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The proposed research intends to prototype soil-less green infrastructure for flood, drought, and extreme temperature adaptation. By hybridizing hydroponic and aeroponic systems, a soil-less prototype will be optimized for germinating and growing fescue with nutrient water or mist. Fescue is selected because it is drought and salt tolerant and prevalent in the coastal regions of Texas. It is also one of the few lawn species available as affordable DIY seed blankets, which encapsulate seeds within biodegradable fabrics coated with nutrients. For each prototype unit, aeroponic germination fabrics will be set between the fescue seed blanket and a perforated panel over a dark enclosure with a water-level control and a sensor-controlled mister. Supplemental water tank and autofill float valve will be used to maintain the nutrient water level. Sensors will be used to measure the internal moisture level and temperature (recorded at 6” below the top of the enclosure), microclimatic humidity level and temperature (recorded at 6” above the top of the enclosure), macroclimatic humidity level and temperature of the external environment, plant germination and growth rate, light exposure, and nutrient water contents, including pH value, electrical conductance (EC), and dissolved oxygen (DO). Experiments will be conducted in a greenhouse within set ranges of humidity, temperature, and light exposure (to simulate typical climatic conditions) and in plant growth chambers with temperature, moisture, and light controls (to simulate extreme climatic conditions). The goal of this research is to optimize water retention capacity and moisture level to modulate the effects of macroclimatic humidity and temperature on the prototype’s system performance (Aim 1), plant performance (Aim 2), and overall performance (Aim 3). To maximize the prototype’s capacity to retain water during flooding, the enclosure will use the lowest water level (LWL) required to keep the mister running to calculate the highest water retention capacity (HC). The highest water level (HWL) that can be contained within the prototype without overflows will be used to calculate the lowest water retention capacity (LC). The mean water level (MWL), the average of LWL and HWL, will be used as calculate mid water retention capacity (MC). The sensor-controlled mister will be set to turn on and off to keep the enclosure’s humidity level at 60%, 80%, and 100% to test the effects of the low-moisture (LM), mid-moisture (MM), and high-moisture (HM) conditions. Aim 1: Optimize factors that mediate macroclimatic effects on system performance. Correlation analyses will identify parameters with significant relationships as covariates for mediation analyses, which will test whether water retention capacity (M1) or internal moisture level (M1) mediates the effect of macroclimatic temperature (IV) on the prototype’s water use efficiency (DV1), internal temperature (DV2), and microclimatic temperature (DV3) and humidity level (DV4). Aim 2: Optimize factors that modulate macroclimatic impacts on plant performance. Mediation analyses will be conducted to test whether water retention capacity (M1) or internal moisture level (M1) mediates the effect of macroclimatic temperature (IV) on the germination rate (DV4) and growth rate (DV5) of fescue. Correlation analyses will be used to identify parameters with significant relationships for inclusion in the mediation analyses as covariates. Aim 3: Optimize factors that temper macroclimatic influences on overall performance. Continuous recordings of significant parameters from Aim 1 and 2 will be imported into MATLAB Deep Learning Toolbox to create an artificial neutral network app. The app will help determine the water retention capacity and moisture level for responding to macroclimatic changes while maximizing the prototype’s multifunctional performance, including water use efficiency, microclimatic comfort, and the germination, survival, and growth rates of fescue. Intellectual Merits. Recent development of green infrastructure largely focuses on soil-based infiltrative systems. However, they have often encountered frequent loss of plants to sedimentation, inundation, drought, and heat. Compared to infiltrative systems, soil-less systems, such as hydroponics and aeroponics, consume less water to support plant growth, detain more stormwater to mitigate flooding, provide greater microclimatic comfort, and enable more visually pleasing plants to survive. Yet, the feasibility of hydroponics and aeroponics as outdoor applications has not been investigated. Broader Impacts. There is a lack of proactive financing mechanism for flooding, drought, and extreme temperature adaptation. This research will help mainstream decentralized green infrastructure systems among smaller-scale residential landscapes for recreation and food production as a bottom-up private financing mechanism for climate adaptation. When integrated within rights-of-way and parking lots as weight-bearing systems, soil-less green infrastructure systems can outperform infiltrative counterparts in detaining and treating vehicular runoff, thus further reducing adverse impacts of urbanization on the environment. The proposed research helps build more resilient communities and economies and through upscaling green infrastructure to mitigate the impacts of flooding and drought. Specifically, soil-less green infrastructure can help coastal communities and industries increase their resilience to flooding and drought, thus minimizing economic disruption. The results of this research will provide the critical parameters for upscaling the lab prototype into outdoor pilot projects. In addition, the optimization app will help integrate weather stations with soil-less green infrastructure to make it easy to operate and maintain among public and private users and more effective in adapting to macroclimatic changes. We hope to enter the EPA People, Plant, and Prosperity (PPP) Design Competition to seek grants to develop this prototype further. 7. Programmatic Justification The most flood-prone communities nationwide are located along the tidal-influenced waterways vulnerable to storm surge flooding. These waterways create a funneling effect to drastically increase the magnitudes of storm surges. The storm surge flooding can also be compounded by the convergence of runoffs from upstream communities and local impervious surfaces. Widespread applications of soil-less green infrastructure across a watershed will help absorb and isolate sources of flooding by storing runoff as close its source as possible to better flood-proof these communities. In addition, soil-less green infrastructure can be used to contain and treat flood-related water pollution to better protect coastal ecosystems and industries. 8. Current Project Status Most of the prototype materials have been situated in a research green house with a custom water supply system, smart sensors, and water pumps, and a mobile data collection point. We will need to integrate a high-pressure nozzle with each aquarium and then install a low-pressure irrigation system for germination before starting to grow lawn with these prototypes. A review of aeroponic and hydroponic literature and patents can be conducted in the meantime before the experiment is fully set up. |