Water Research Initiative

Research Summary

Systems approaches where industrial ecology concepts are applied to water and land management, both in agricultural and urban contexts.

Current/recent/pertinent projects

• Plant based approaches to hydraulically control contaminated groundwater plumes and remove contaminants from subsurface water; development of plume bio-monitoring techniques
• Using halophytes (salt tolerant plants) to treat produced waters from gas extraction
• Sustainable production of ligno-cellulosic energy crops feedstock; validate landscape strategies for the utilization of alternative water and land resources to increase biomass productivity while providing water quality improvements and other environmental services by bioenergy crops
• Field research scaling up to watershed scale
• Testing technologies to remove mercury from industrial wastewater to attain the ultra-low limits mandated by the Great Lakes Initiative- testing from laboratory to pilot scale has demonstrated successful removal of mercury to the single part-per-trillion level
• Metagenomics of Chicago Area Waterways: determine sources and sinks of microorganisms and direct remedial actions in the Chicago River system (with Dr. Jack Gilbert)
• Nutrient, water and energy management in the urban environment (pending)

General Interests/Thoughts

• Water smart plants: exploiting the hydraulic redistribution of water by plants, nutrient transport through plants and their rhizosphere associations to improve yields in drought conditions
• The genetic basis of the phreatophyte trait and water conservation – drought and salt tolerance in plants
• Energy and water reuse in urban environments, including green infrastructure for stormwater management and landscape design for water reuse
• Nutrient recovery through source separation

Bio

During her 20-year Argonne appointment, M. Cristina Negri (Agronomist, University of Milan, Italy, 1981) conducted and directed laboratory to full scale multidisciplinary projects developing technologies for environmental remediation and stewardship, including soil and water remediation. She has applied sustainable technologies to address issues of brownfield remediation and more recently to non-point source pollution management. Her interests are in systems approaches where industrial ecology concepts are applied to water and land management, both in agricultural and urban contexts.

Prior to Argonne, M.C. Negri worked 10 years in private industry in Italy as R&D manager and liaison with universities and other Italian national research organizations. Research focused on developing methods for the sustainable, beneficial reuse of industrial and urban waste and for pollution mitigation in agriculture. This work was in support of a state-of-the-art, innovative, large facility for the treatment and beneficial recovery of waste products in agriculture. She also served as the Convener of a CEN (the European Standardization Organization) Working Group, leading experts from European Union Nations towards the creation of European environmental standards for agricultural commodities.

---