Doctoral Dissertation Research: Nutrient Pollution, Riverine Mud Investment, and Environmental Governance

The incorporation of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous into agricultural fertilizing practices over the last century has enabled a dramatic increase in both the scale and efficiency of agricultural production. An additional consequence, however, has been an increase in the pressure placed upon local ecosystems to absorb the excess leaching of such nutrients from agricultural fields.

This phenomenon, referred to as nutrient pollution, has notably been found to significantly threaten the health of critical freshwater supplies as excess nutrients can encourage the growth of harmful algae blooms which release harmful toxins to both human and nonhuman populations. As a result, there has been recent scientific and legal investment in riverine mud located on the periphery of industrial farmlands, which mediate the transference of nutrients from fields to waterways in critical, albeit little understood ways.

This project, which supports the training of a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, investigates how scientific and legal framings of riverine mud create a new tool for confronting the problem of nutrient pollution and the consequences of such a tool for local and national health and governance.

Through participant observation, interviews, focus groups, ethnographic film elicitation, archival research, and the creation of a regional-specific historical database of the social and environmental significance of riverine mud, the investigators will examine the practical, scientific, and bureaucratic work carried out by state-funded scientists and policy makers to transform riverine mud into a valuable resource for environmental governance. Following such practices across scientific field sites in farmlands near major freshwater supplies, laboratories where nutrient pollution is studied, and offices where nutrient pollution policy is created, this research aims to clarify the technical complexities of environmental governance practices more broadly.

Additionally, by focusing on the specific material of riverine mud and its relation to the problem of the nutrient pollution governance practices, this research aims to better understand how specific material and historical concerns inflect contemporary state efforts to govern in ways which are both environmentally sustainable and economically viable.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.