EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Farm Pond Watch: A framework for monitoring subseasonal dynamics of farm ponds to enhance water resource resilience

This project aims to provide a fellowship to an Associate Professor and training for a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oklahoma. Small farm ponds have been widely constructed in the Southern Great Plains as a means of mitigating water scarcity due to irregular precipitation patterns and frequent droughts. These small impoundments offer landowners an affordable source of water for livestock watering, irrigation, fish production, and recreational activities, while also serving as stormwater retention structures and wildlife habitats.

However, the impacts of high-density farm ponds on the alteration of water balance and streamflow regimes have long been overlooked. The objective of this project is to bridge this knowledge gap by using advanced Earth observation technologies to monitor farm pond dynamics on a regional scale. The project’s outcomes are anticipated to contribute to broader national interests by improving water management, supporting rural economies, and advancing scientific understanding of hydrological processes.

The collaboration between the principal investigator (PI) and collaborators from the NASA Marshall Flight Center will not only lay a solid research foundation for the PI and postdoctoral researcher, but also enhance the research capacity of the University of Oklahoma, benefit agencies and organizations of the state of Oklahoma, and raise awareness of water use among broader communities in Oklahoma.

This project addresses a fundamental open question in water resource management: How can new sensors and cutting-edge remote sensing methods be used to map the dynamics of small farm ponds continuously? The lack of long-term small farm pond dynamic information substantially impedes not only the timely management of land and water use but also water resource resilience research.

The PI will fill this knowledge gap by analyzing the time series of very high-resolution satellite data with high revisit frequency. The detection of change of small farm ponds is data-driven, automated, adaptive, and effective. Tracking water cover changes in time enables characterization of water dynamic processes, which include intermittent stream, ephemeral wetland, and farm pond construction.

The proposed method can serve as an alert system for drought and flooding. By obtaining timely water change information, this project builds a robust foundation to understand the drivers of small farm pond dynamics and its relationship with local environmental disturbance and anthropogenic activities. In turn, this work will advance the development of water ecology and resilience science.

This collaboration will leverage the PI’s expertise in remote sensing image classification and NASA MSFC collaborators’ complementary expertise in accuracy assessment and validation. This project will provide timely and updated information on small farm ponds as well as their stages to researchers and stakeholders as a foundation to support sustainable water usage and environmental conservation.

The monitoring framework developed in this project will improve our understanding of the past, present, and future impacts of agriculture on water resources in the Southern Great Plains.

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.