Danika Wanish

Research interests: cold region hydrology, engineering modeling, nutrients, water quality
Current project: For my senior honors thesis, I am investigating urban water quality. Stormwater runoff leaches phosphorus from fallen tree leaves on impervious surfaces in urban areas, and phosphorus pollutes waterways via eutrophication. I am quantifying the amount of phosphorus that can be leached from the tree species Crab Apple (Malus sylvestris), Freeman Maple (Acer freemanii), and White Ash (Fraxinus americana). These values will fill gaps in the current literature and will be used in the i-Tree Canopy Stormwater Calculator, a tool to simulate how trees, leaves, and their management affect annual stormwater runoff pollutant loads, to build the inventory of trees with available data. Additionally, I am using a paired model comparison analysis to evaluate annual stormwater runoff phosphorus load predictions between the i-Tree Canopy Stormwater Calculator and WinSLAMM and conduct a sensitivity analysis for each model. The results will inform recommendations for future improvements for the models and help determine their capability for municipal use in modeling phosphorus reduction from leaf management practices.