Green Horizons

Jason Hubbart is passionate about what he does.

Hubbart, an assistant professor of Forest Hydrology at the University of Missouri, studies how physical processes affect living organisms – how cutting down a few trees in a forest can affect the water quality in a nearby stream, for example. Hubbart says he could spend “24 hours a day” thinking about how everything on this planet is interconnected. And, he says, that begins with trees.

Hubbart stands by one of the monitoring stations as part of his Hinkson Creek project.

Hubbart joined the MU forestry faculty in 2007 and has already taken on various projects across the state. He administers about $2 million in grants from the University, Environmental Protection Agency, Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, City of Columbia, and Boone County; and employs nine students and one post-doctoral associate to assist with these projects.

At the Ozark-situated University Forest, Hubbart is looking at the effects of long-term managed burning on soil and water infiltration. His findings show repeated fire slows down infiltration – water doesn’t easily get to roots – not great for the trees. In addition, these prescribed burns lower species diversity in the forest.

Hubbart is looking at light and energy attenuation through the forest canopy at the MU Baskett Wildlife Research and Education Center in mid-Missouri. This study focuses on tree density and growth – if too many trees are removed from an area, for example, stream water heats up. Stream temperature is critical to the health of a body of water.

At the Prairie Fork Conservation Area in eastern Missouri, Hubbart monitors a site that has been converted from agricultural land, to prairie, and eventually, to a woodland. He is quantifying the physical differences between the three land uses – water amounts, erosion, etc.

Finally, Hubbart’s largest project looks at mid-Missouri’s “impaired” Hinkson Creek Watershed. This project studies the effects of urbanization to the stream, which begins in a rural area and flows into the city.

“What happens when you build Columbia?” Hubbart said. “Everything changes.”

Although Hinkson Creek has been on the EPA’s list of “impaired” waterways since 1998, no one has monitored the waterway that has resulted in pinpointing exactly what’s wrong with it. Hubbart’s crew has set up five $60,000 monitoring sites along the stream to measure the environment, sediment, nutrients, water temperature and water levels, for example. Hubbart is comparing the data taken from the different sites – some forested or agricultural, some more urban.

The project has a variety of goals, the first of which is to get the Creek removed from the EPA’s “impaired” list. Hubbart wants to see if flood plains are still effective today, relative to 100 years ago; see how land use affects the flux of nutrients; and gauge climatic differences between the more forested and the urban areas of the stream. So far, Hubbart has determined it is warmer in Columbia, less humid and with more precipitation. Couple that with the low infiltration of Missouri soils, and storm water run off becomes a big problem – higher sediment loads for the creek, more flooding, etc.

One solution he sees already? Rehabilitating old flood plains – with trees, of course!

“Everything influences and is influenced by our forested systems,” Hubbart said. “I take a systems approach – I like to see how it all fits together.”