HydroSoilSense
Team information
Category:
Yeji Kang
Bachelor
Simon Fraser University
Kaidin Sheehan-Davies
Bachelor
Simon Fraser University
Tavleen Sihota
Bachelor
Simon Fraser University
Amalya Drysdale
Bachelor
Simon Fraser University
Hieu Tran
PHD
Simon Fraser University
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About the team
We are team “HydroSoilSense” developing a nature-based smart irrigation system. With expertise in diverse engineering fields, we aims to create a practical solution to address challenges in Mississippi. We are driven by this challenge because it goes beyond a purely technical solution and recognizes nature as a key to tackling future challenges. We are motivated to explore how nature-based solutions could be integrated with engineering solution to support sustainability.
Our vision
The vision by 2120 for the Mississippi River Delta region is to create systems that work with the surrounding water, rather than trying to defend the region from it. Instead of relying on rigid levee based engineering, the systems in place will allow for the environment to evolve with the natural processes like sediment flows, salinity gradients, and seasonal flooding. It is crucial to address changes such as land loss, saltwater intrusion, aquifer depletion, storm surge risk, and biodiversity decline as interconnected system failures. Therefore, a focus will be placed on regionally specialized solutions to address the unique circumstances within the region’s ecosystem. The Mississippi River Delta comprises 5 subregion complexes, known as the Teche Delta, Atchafalaya Delta, Lafourche Delta, Plaquemines Delta, St. Bernard Delta Complex. The Teche Delta complex can be transformed into a climate-adaptive agricultural basin. By incorporating “smart agriculture zones” through precise watering, salinity tolerant crop rotation, hedgerow biodiversity corridors, and agrivoltaics shading systems, the crops will be able to react to changing conditions innately. Further, the Atchafalaya Delta Complex can become the delta’s sediment engine. Controlled diversions will allow for land to accumulate and be built strategically and by stabilizing it with biodegradable coir logs and native willow and cypress it will create an ideal environment for forested wetland growth. Additionally, the Lafourche Delta Complex will adapt rather than resist change, by becoming the home to floating bio-islands that host aquaponic food systems, filter nutrients, and protect transit corridors such as LA-1. Moreover, in the south the Plaquemines Delta Complex, will become the surge shield by incorporating natural defenses such as dense mangrove marsh buffers that store blue carbon and protect estuarine mariculture. Lastly, in the St. Bernard Complex, oyster reef systems will function as living breakwaters, improving water clarity and rebuilding habitats.
Our inventory & analysis
The Mississippi River Delta is one of the world’s most dynamic and engineered delta systems. It has been ever-changing through thousands of years of sediment deposition from the Mississippi River. The process of sediment depositing, shifting, and abandoning has created diverse freshwater marshes, brackish wetlands, cypress swamps, and fertile agricultural plains. The region’s use of levees, navigation channels, oil and gas canals, and urban expansion has heavily contributed to the regions significant land loss. The delta is both an ecological landscape and an economic front for the region. It is home to fisheries, energy production, large-scale agriculture, and communities that reside near the water. It faces pressures, due to subregions having land degradation, sea level rise, groundwater depletion, and habitat loss. Each of these pressures reinforce each other, therefore contributing to the decline in the health of the delta. Within the five regions that the delta comprises, there are unique conditions and challenges. A sustainable future requires region specific strategies that work alongside the environment. By incorporating these challenges the delta will be able to continue to grow alongside the challenges rather than freezing in time.