Eutrophic Ponds

Aaron Mittelstet is an award-winning associate professor of biological systems engineering and a courtesy professor with the School of Natural Resources. He is an expert in watershed modeling, interaction between surface and groundwater, water quality and streambank erosion. He advises the university’s Fountain Wars Design Team, for a hands-on competition where teams of students use PVC pipe, couplers, fittings, valves, nozzles and pumps in a challenge to design a fountain. Funded research includes a project to establish management practices to reduce groundwater nitrate concentrations; an evaluation of groundwater nitrate concentrations in the related to manure application and fertilizer management; restoration of eutrophic ponds that have excessive plant and algae growth often because of nutrient runoff; and reducing highway flooding in Nebraska’s Sandhills. (Updated November 2024.)