SAFE PASSAGES:
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE FOR UNDERGRADUATES PROGRAM
Introduction:
Design and operation of the nation’s surface transportation system is moving well beyond its original objective of providing citizens with safe and efficient passage. While maintaining this basic focus, there are ever increasing efforts to also consider the safe passage of the wildlife and aquatic organisms whose habitats the system traverses. The Safe Passages REU site will research this complex issue of simultaneously providing for safe passage of humans, wildlife, and aquatic organisms through rural transportation corridors. A 90 mile stretch of U.S. Highway 191 near MSU, which follows pristine mountain waterways and traverses part of Yellowstone National Park, will provide an ideal field site for students to pursue nationally replicable solutions to these issues. The REU site is hosted by the Western Transportation Institute (WTI) at Montana State University (MSU), which has established a national reputation for cutting edge interdisciplinary research on rural transportation safety, operations, and system impacts on the natural environment. Experienced WTI research staff and faculty will mentor a diverse group of eight undergraduate students each summer from all fields of engineering, as well as ecology, biology, and the environmental sciences. In addition to their project involvement, the students’ REU experience will be enriched by research seminars, training workshops, and similar educational activities over the course of the 10 week program.
Program Dates:June 1 – August 7, 2009
Ten-week summer program
Location:Montana State University
Bozeman, Montana
Stipend:$4,500 (paid in three increments of $1,500)
Travel:Travel reimbursement up to $900 for travel costs to MSU
Housing:Program covers all on-campus housing expenses for participants
Eligibility:Undergraduates from all fields of engineering, ecology, biology, environmental sciences, and related fields are invited to apply. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Application Deadline:March 2, 2009
Program Description:
Safe Passages REU research will seek solutions for improving motorist safety, safe wildlife and fish passage across the roadway and environmental protection. The REU program will actively foster an interdisciplinary team environment in order to attain innovative solutions to problems associated with rural two-lane highways traversing environmentally sensitive regions.
The Safe Passages REU program will center around three interdisciplinary topic areas:
1. Water and Fish Passage
There is a need to better understand the effects of road crossings on all aquatic organisms, and to evaluate present design, construction and maintenance practices. Research in this area will focus on how roads impact fisheries, water quality, wetlands, habitat connectivity, exotic species invasions, and subsurface hydrology as well as on standards for best mitigation methods for particular species or habitats.
2. Habitat Connectivity and Wildlife Movement
Habitat fragmentation, animal aversion or attraction to roadways, and wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) can all have detrimental effects on wildlife populations. REU research in this area will focus on road impacts on habitat connectivity and wildlife movements as well as on the ever evolving strategies that are being employed to mitigate these impacts.
3. Public Safety and Mobility
Rural highways provide valuable conduits for human movement. They also pose a variety of formidable challenges in ensuring the safety of the motorists that use them. Rural highways pose special challenges related to roadway alignment issues (relatively sharp horizontal and vertical curves), limited sight distances, dangerous weather conditions, relatively long incident response times (i.e., due to distances that must be traveled), and less than optimum communications (i.e., limited or no cell phone or radio communications). REU research in this area will focus on the complex issues related to public safety and mobility along U.S. 191 as a model for developing integrated solutions to improve safe human passage along rural highways nationwide, while maintaining ecosystem integrity and fiscal affordability.
The Laboratory:
All REU research will center around U.S. Highway 191 between Bozeman and West Yellowstone. U.S. 191 provides an excellent test bed for research in the three focus areas as it follows the Gallatin River, is located within the boundaries of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and is subject to inclement weather, high traffic volumes, and worrisome accident rates. As a bonus, students will have the opportunity to conduct field work and research in one of the most beautiful outdoor laboratories available.
To download an application, click here: APPLICATION FORM
Priority deadline for applications is March 2, 2009.
For additional information, contact:
Susan Gallagher
Education Program Coordinator
Western Transportation Institute
Montana State University
PO Box 174250
Bozeman , MT 59717-4250
Phone: (406)994-6559
Email: sgallagher at coe.montana.edu
2009 REU Project Descriptions
An interdisciplinary team of two undergraduate students will be selected to work together on each of the four 2009 REU projects described below. Applications should indicate or rank the project or projects of interest.
1) Effect of Alignment and Sight Distance on Drivers' Speed Selection in the Gallatin Canyon
The selection of safe/appropriate speed for prevailing conditions is critical from a traffic safety perspective. While enforced speed limits are intended to discourage excessive speeds at any highway location, geometric or environmental conditions could be more restricting than the posted speed limit. Geometric conditions mainly involve alignment and the available sight distance. Environmental conditions involve fog, blizzards, snowfall and other extreme weather conditions. The focus of the proposed research is the geometric conditions that affect the selection of safe / appropriate speed by drivers below the posted speed limit.
While it is well established that alignment and sight distance are major determinants of average travel speed at any particular highway location, there is no real understanding of how drivers respond to these restricting features of highway geometrics. The main objective of the proposed research is to investigate drivers’ response to these restricting features in terms of their selection of the speeds they perceive safe for the conditions. Such an understanding is critical in devising safety countermeasures including ITS warning systems, advisory speed signs, or other speed control techniques.
US 191 through the Gallatin Canyon between Bozeman and Big Sky, Montana provides an excellent test bed for the proposed research as it follows the winding layout of the Gallatin River, is located within relatively difficult terrain, and is subject to inclement weather, high traffic volumes, and worrisome accident rates.
Desired Qualifications:
- Background in Engineering, statistics, or related field.
- Good analytical and presentation skills using office applications.
- Completion of one or more transportation courses is desirable.
2) Examining the Effect of Traffic Noise on Avian Species along US Highway 191
Evidence is mounting that noise pollution may be one of the most far-reaching effects of traffic on bird populations. Many bird populations are in a state of decline for reasons not fully understood, including some birds previously thought of as common. Any future mitigation of traffic noise pollution will require knowledge about which species are negatively affected and reasons that might explain why certain species are more susceptible than others.
Traffic noise is believed to have a population density-depressing effect on birds in roadside habitats. This phenomenon appears to be widespread with as many as 50% of breeding bird species studied being affected, however, little is known about this effect on North American birds. This project seeks to better understand the effect of traffic noise on birds and to determine if it is possible to predict which species are most susceptible.
This pilot study will help determine whether species richness is a useful indicator for the effect of traffic noise on birds. It will also explore the complicated relationship between traffic noise, bioacoustics and habitat quality to determine if it is possible to predict which bird species may not occupy habitats near traveled roads.
Desired Qualifications:
- Have background in wildlife biology/environmental sciences, earth sciences/GIS, electrical engineering and/or acoustics/computer science.
- Able to identify Western birds by sight and sound (or learn quickly).
- Know how to use a map/compass and GPS.
- Able and willing to walk off trail on uneven terrain for up to a thousand meters from a road.
- Familiar with computers and able to learn how to use recording equipment.
- Able to manage data using spreadsheets and databases.
- Good oral and written communication skills.
- Enthusiastic and detail-oriented.
3) Assessment of Aquatic Connectivity for Fish across the Gallatin River Corridor
Aquatic connectivity is a critical component for the long-term viability of fish and other aquatic organisms. Research has shown that many fish species (and all salmonid species) move considerable distances both up- and downstream through watersheds in order to find habitats necessary for completion of their life histories and survival. As a world-class watershed, the Gallatin River corridor supports a variety of fish species, including a species of special concern, the westslope cutthroat trout. The watershed has a variety of land ownership including federal, state and private owners. There is a complex set of roads throughout the watershed, many of which utilize culverts to pass stream flow. Presently, there is not a watershed-scale assessment of the degree to which these roads fragment aquatic connectivity for fish species and various life stages throughout the watershed. Therefore, there is a need to perform a large-scale assessment of the aquatic connectivity across the Gallatin River watershed. The over-arching research question to be addressed in this research is: What is the level of aquatic connectivity for fish across the Gallatin River watershed?
Desired Qualifications:
- Comfortable working in and around mountain streams and in various field conditions.
- Educational background in civil or environmental engineering, geosciences, ecology or equivalent.
- Self-motivated, detail-oriented, and creative.
- Willing to work in both field and office settings.
- Competent with Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
- Desire to work in an interdisciplinary environment.
4) Field Demonstration of An Autonomous and Self-Sustained Sensing System to Monitor Water Quality near U.S. Highway 191
As a major source of the non-point source pollution, highway runoff has adverse effects on the adjacent aquatic resources when no measures are taken to remove the excessive contaminants accumulated from highway construction, operation, and maintenance. To comply with water quality regulations and minimize adverse environmental impacts of highway operations, state departments of transportation (DOTs) need accurate and cost-effective methods to monitor water quality along roadways. While the current practice for water quality monitoring (i.e., manual data-collection) provides many environmental benefits, an autonomous and self-sustaining sensing system recently developed at WTI has numerous additional advantages. First of all, the autonomous feature of the system minimizes the need for frequent manual sampling and testing, a time-consuming, costly, and sometimes dangerous task. Second, the self-sustainability of the system promises a reliable solution to long-term, wide-area monitoring of water quality along highways, as the system will demand minimum amount of maintenance or can operate in a reliable manner without any servicing. Third, the in-situ feature of the system will enable near-real-time monitoring of water quality and minimize the possibility of missing short-lived events due to the need to collect water samples or to change batteries. Such near-real-time data on water quality at distributed locations along highways, transmitted via telecommunication, will enable state DOTs to promptly detect and mitigate toxins and pollutants in highway runoff. Finally, the system provides state DOTs an efficient tool to identify seasonal trends in selected parameters of water quality (such as chloride and sediment loadings) along highways, to assess the impact of various highway activities on the water quality, and to evaluate the performance of various highway-runoff BMPs (Best Management Practices) over time. Deploying such systems at distributed locations of concern may require a relatively high capital investment; in the long run however, it should be more cost-effective than manual data-collection activities as it minimizes labor hours required for water quality monitoring.
Novel devices, such as microbial fuel cells (MFCs), will be used in conjunction with sensors, microcontrollers and transceivers, to in situ monitor and collect real-time measurements for continuous water quality monitoring. Our multi-disciplinary research team at Montana State University has chosen all the water quality sensors, the micro-controller, and the communication devices; analyzed their voltage, current, and power requirements; and designed a DC/DC power converter. The research team has chosen a sacrificial anode and a bio-cathode and tested their performance in stream water and in the presence of added bacteria, and designed a novel microbial fuel cell (MFC) and preliminarily tested its performance. The Safe Passage REU Program will field test and demonstrate the use of such a system in the field environment.
Desired Qualifications:
- Educational background in electrical engineering, environmental engineering, or equivalent.
- Self-motivated, detail-oriented, and creative.
- Hands-on experience in sensor technology, power electronics, or microbial fuel cells and experience with water quality monitoring is preferred.
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