Annika Quick

What Lies Beneath and Above

A serious conversation that has been ongoing among the scientific community is the topic of global warming. Concern has grown as temperatures have increased and ecosystems have begun to suffer.

The final seminar of the winter semester, April 11, 2025, was given by Dr. Annika Quick. Her presentation was titled "What Lies Beneath and Above," which covered much of her work with biogeochemistry in the hyporheic zone of rivers and urban watersheds. Dr. Quick currently works as an assistant professor of Earth and Environmental Science at Virginia Wesleyan University. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in geology at BYU before receiving her Ph.D. at Boise State University. In addition, she worked in various capacities at Bloomsburg University, Harvard University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

As a biochemist with a special focus on river systems and a background in geology, Dr. Quick has had a unique research career, beginning with volcanology, then glaciology, and finally rivers and sewage. She recently has been studying river systems in urban areas—specifically what the relationship might look like between a city's high population density, the geomorphology of the river system, and the hydrology of the water itself. One aspect in particular that she studied was the interaction of the nitrogen cycle with the hyporheic zone, the region of a body of water where surface water and groundwater meet and mix. This process plays a large role in the nutrient cycling of carbon and nitrogen.

Rivers and streams are large contributors to the total amount of nitrous oxide (N₂O) global emissions, which is a greenhouse gas. Combined with emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels, modern agricultural practices, and several other factors, N₂O has quickly become a concern for its potentially devastating effects on the environment. There are disagreements on just how much rivers and streams contribute; thus, Dr. Quick and her team created a lab model that simulated conditions similar to that of a stream in order to understand what processes might control those emissions of N₂O. By studying the hyporheic zones and their role in the nitrogen cycle with denitrification, where NO₃ turns to N₂O and then to N₂, they found that both the location and timing are important regulators. If NO₃ entered the soil at the wrong angle, or if the resulting N₂O from NO₃ stayed in the soil for too long or not long enough, then more emissions of N₂O were produced. Therefore, avoiding excess emissions of N₂O requires the perfect amount of time in the soil.

One important aspect of this experiment that was initially overlooked was the role that carbon plays in this process. Dr. Quick and her team decided that carbon as a variable was too important to ignore, so they began another project called CURB, or the Carbon in Urban River Biogeochemistry project. Their purpose is to measure the effects of human and biophysical controls on dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in urban riverine environments, a vital factor in the health of these ecosystems. Among their findings, they have concluded that there was a significant impact on these river systems that varied from city to city, where the DOC was affected by a multitude of different practices such as storm drains, faulty sewer systems, and combined sewer overflows. As a result, the affected DOC levels caused faster respiration rates and denitrification in the river, potentially leading to more emissions of CO₂ and N₂O gases.

It's safe to say that human activities and practices have led to significant damage to the environment. Fortunately, Dr. Quick's research is giving us a better idea of how we can improve our systems and preserve the beauty of our planet.