Course Overview

The objective of this course is to provide exclusive training to professionals on basic concepts involved in biogeochemical cycling of nutrients and other contaminants in wetlands, as related to soil, water, and air quality.

Wetland soils serve as sinks, sources, and transformers of nutrients and other chemical contaminants, and as such they can have a significant impact on water quality and ecosystem productivity. The primary driver of these processes is the ecosystem biogeochemistry, which includes chemical, biological and physical processes in the soil and water column. Often, these processes are ignored and the ecosystem is treated as a "black box" and a simplified input-output analysis is used to address water quality issues. This traditional empirical approach is inadequate for effective evaluation of an ecosystem’s performance.

Biogeochemistry is an interdisciplinary science, which includes the study of interactive biological, geological and chemical processes regulating the fate and transport of nutrients and contaminants in soil, water and atmospheric components of an ecosystem. Biogeochemistry also provides a framework to integrate physical, chemical and biological processes functioning in an ecosystem at various spatial and temporal scales.