The state of Michigan has approximately 16,000 km of cold water stream habitat, supporting biodiversity, improving water quality, and acting as a refuge to temperature sensitive fish species in a warming climate. However, because of climate change, cold water streams in the state are at risk along with many of their associated aesthetic, regulating, supporting, and provisioning services. To support cold water stream resilience, managers need information on the spatial and temporal variability in key water quality parameters including temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), and specific conductance. We deployed AquaBOT, an aquatic drone developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, along the Muskegon River in Michigan to monitor spatial changes in water quality during summer 2024. AquaBOT allowed the team to collect hundreds of observations along a river course and navigate to tributary mouths to document water quality from contributing sub-watersheds. We observed changes in shallow water temperature (min: 14.9°C to max: 21.7°C), DO (min: 6.6 mg/l to max: 10.7 mg/l), and specific conductance (min: 339.8 μS/cm to max: 431.4 μS/cm) from tributary and groundwater contributions. The detailed spatial maps of water quality that resulted will aide in decision-making for stream restoration efforts and provide a pathway for gathering low cost high spatial resolution data to inform protection and restoration plans in other impacted watersheds.

Emerald ash borer (EAB) ( Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire), an invasive, phloem-feeding beetle native to Asia, has killed millions of ash ( Fraxinus spp.) trees in North America since it was detected in southeast Michigan in 2002. Consistently high mortality of black ash ( Fraxinus nigra) and green ash ( F. pennsylvanica) which often occur in riparian forests is a concern given their role in regulating soil moisture and shallow groundwater levels. We monitored hydrologic processes in a riparian forest in southwest Michigan to assess impacts of EAB invasion and subsequent ash mortality. From 2018-2022, we recorded soil moisture, depth to groundwater and meteorological variables at 15-min intervals throughout the growing season in a canopy gap following EAB-caused ash mortality and in adjacent, unaffected forest in the Augusta Creek riparian zone. Groundwater contributions to evapotranspiration (ET G) were estimated using a groundwater level fluctuation (WLF) method. Significant differences in volumetric soil moisture content (16-26% higher in the gap than forest), average depth to water (10 cm in the gap vs 70 cm below land surface in the forest) and mean daily ET G (0.6 in the gap vs 3.0 mm per day in the forest) persisted across four growing seasons. Within the gap, prolonged saturation of the near surface may be contributing to a shift from a forested riparian ecosystem to herb and sedge-dominated wetland. These differences have implications for an array of riparian zone ecosystem services, a concern given the extent of ash mortality already sustained in much eastern North America.

Emerald ash borer (EAB) ( Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire), an invasive, phloem-feeding beetle native to Asia, has killed hundreds of millions of ash ( Fraxinus spp.) trees in the USA and Canada since it was detected in southeast Michigan in 2002. Consistently high mortality of black ash ( Fraxinus nigra) and green ash ( F. pennsylvanica) is a particular concern given the role both species play in regulating soil moisture and shallow groundwater levels in riparian forests. Here we present the first longitudinal observations documenting hydrologic effects resulting from EAB-caused ash mortality in a riparian zone at the W.K. Kellogg Experimental Forest in southwest Michigan. From 2018-2022, we monitored soil moisture, depth to groundwater and meteorological observation at 15-min intervals throughout the growing season in two adjacent plots (gap, forest) in the Augusta Creek riparian zone. We estimated groundwater evapotranspiration (ET G) using a groundwater level fluctuation (WLF) method. Significant differences in volumetric soil moisture content (16-26% higher in the gap than forest), average depth to water (10 cm in the gap vs 70 cm below land surface in the forest) and mean daily ET G (0.6 in the gap vs 3.0 mm per day in the forest) persisted across four growing seasons. Prolonged saturation of the near surface is driving hydric soil formation, contributing to an ecosystem regime shift from forested riparian to herb and sedge-dominated wetland. These changes have important implications for riparian zone ecosystem services including nutrient cycling, sediment transport, and greenhouse gas emissions, especially when considering the extent of ash mortality already sustained in much eastern North America.

Meteotsunamis are both a well-known and poorly understood phenomenon. In particular, the influence of and disturbance by meteotsunami on coastal wetlands is largely unknown. This paper documents a case illustrating how water levels in an isolated wetland, specifically an incipient foredune/swale complex, in northern Lake Michigan responded to a meteotsunami event. We identified potential meteotsunami influence on wetland water levels through slope-break analysis, verified the presence of meteotsunami waves at surrounding lake water level gauge stations with wavelet analysis, analyzed both regional and small-scale meteorological data to establish what source of atmospheric forcing resulted in meteotsunami formation, and used a hydrodynamic model to simulate lake surface response and meteotsunami generation. Here, we present what we hypothesize reflects an idealized response of wetland water levels to meteotsunami influence where an atmospheric bore propagating away from a convective system formed a meteotsunami event that was captured in subsurface water levels beneath the isolated wetland. While this event produced an obvious response, the potential for multiple sources of meteorological forcing and secondary wave refraction highlights several of the challenges with predicting generation of and hazard from meteotsunami events. These issues equally translate in how the current methodology can be applied to isolated wetland systems. The event presented in this study make a strong case for focused research on coastal wetland response to meteotsunamis (and meteotsunami-like events) to address this understudied impact given its implications for coastal processes and resiliency.