Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering

Program: Environmental Stewardship Engineering
Degree: Ph. D.
Major Professor: Dr. Matthew Helmers
Office Address: 111 Davidson Hall
Office Phone: 515-294-7224
Email: qzhimingiastate.edu

Zhiming is a doctoral student working on the effect of different land covers on the subsurface drainage and nitrate leaching.

The research project that I am working on gives me a chance to practice solving academic problems independently. Having been supervised by my major professor Dr. Helmers, I set my research goal to investigate the subsurface drainage, water and nitrate dynamics under different land covers in Iowa and have conducted field and laboratory experiments to test my hypothesis. Two kinds of cover crops, perennial living mulches and annual winter cover grass are being grown in field experiment plots. I have been measuring the weekly soil water content, crop growth parameters since the spring of 2006. I am also monitoring drainage and soil moisture in lysimeters with rye, using bromide as a tracer for water and nutrient uptake. I will be modeling the subsurface drainage, soil water and nitrate dynamics using DASIY and MIKE-SHE.

For further information about me, please visit my homepage http://www.public.iastate.edu/~qzhiming/

I grew up in the Jiangxi Province, a humid southern China region (66 inches rainfall per year). For a long time I have had a strong awareness of the importance of ditch drainage especially during the flooding season. Driven by my interest, I enrolled in the Department of Hydraulic Engineering, China Agricultural University and majored in Irrigation and Drainage in 1996. Two things that impressed me the most when I was an undergraduate were the most challenging course Structural Mechanics, and the 2-month field work on hydrogeology and hydraulic engineering which was of great fun. In the fall of 2000, I entered the Graduate School working with Dr. Feng in the Water Resources and Environment Group. We set up field and laboratory experiments to investigate the effect of wastewater irrigation on crop, soil and groundwater, and model the transport of heavy metals. After graduation, I got an assistant engineer position in Beijing Hydraulic Research Institute. I became an irrigation engineer and continued my research on wastewater irrigation.

In the past my research focus was on irrigation since China is more concerned about water-saving. Now I am on the other track: drainage. To reduce the nitrate leaching in subsurface drainage system, alternative cropping systems have been proposed. I am working with Dr. Helmers as a Ph.D. student on testing the hypothesis that these cropping systems can reduce nitrate loss in Iowa. Two kinds of cover crops, perennial living mulches and annual winter cover grass are being grown in field experiment plots. I have been measuring the weekly soil water content, crop growth parameters since the spring of 2006. I am also monitoring drainage and soil moisture in lysimeters with rye, using bromide as a tracer for water and nutrient uptake. I will be modeling the soil moisture and nitrate using DASIY and MIKE-SHE.

For further information about me, please visit my homepage http://www.public.iastate.edu/~qzhiming/