Katie Skiles using ArcGIS to analyze environmental data variables in rice growing regions
Author: Katie Skiles | Major: Biological Engineering | Semester: Fall 2022
Hello! I’m Katie Skiles, and I am a senior pursuing Biological Engineering with a Sustainability minor through the College of Engineering. Over the past 2 years, I have been working with Dr. Runkle of the Biological Engineering department on two projects: a joint project with University of North Texas (UNT) and my honors thesis. I got connected with Dr. Runkle after he spoke in one of my classes about an opening in his research group. He needed someone to create figures for his research papers and proposals, and I had just finished a course learning AutoCAD and ArcGIS that enabled me to do just that. Initially, I was brought on only to create maps for the UNT project. After a couple months, my role expanded to include data analysis and eventually writing portions of the paper. My honors thesis is a spinoff of the UNT project that uses similar methodology but focuses on a more specific region. The Honors College Research Grant has funded two semesters of my research, and I will be defending my thesis in Spring 2023. After college, I’m looking forward to starting as an Engineer-In-Training on the Hydrology & Hydraulics team for a Civil Engineering firm in Dallas, Texas!
My research focuses on the rice fields across Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Missouri which account for nearly 80% of all rice grown in the United States as of 2021 (USDA-ERS, 2021). Rice fields generate methane emissions because the plants are grown in flooded fields, and researchers are investigating different irrigation practices that reduce water consumption and methane emissions. Eddy covariance towers can measure the amount of methane produced in rice fields, but the equipment is expensive to install and maintain. From a practical sense, you cannot place a tower in every rice field, so researchers need to be able to use the data collected for areas that do not have towers. My goal is to analyze the environmental characteristics of the rice fields with towers so I can draw conclusions about where tower data can be used accurately. For example, data collected by a tower in clay soils in an area with high precipitation cannot be applied to areas with sandy soils and low precipitation.
I chose this topic because of my experience and interest in the UNT project that researches the same eddy covariance towers across the entirety of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi for all land cover types, not just rice. One focus of Dr. Runkle’s research group is in the reduction of rice-related methane emissions through irrigation changes. After learning more through group meetings and reading papers, I became really interested and narrowed my thesis topic to rice fields in the south. Over the last two semesters, I have gathered my thesis committee, developed my proposal, gathered environmental data, and begun my analysis. However, I have also faced challenges and slowdowns along the way. I underestimated the difficulty of preparing the data prior to analysis because I assumed that my experience with the UNT project would make it easy; I was wrong. The initial proposal involved an extensive amount of coding in python which I have never done and was going to require more time than I had available. As I delved further into my research, I realized I was extremely out of my league and began to stress about whether I could even complete the project. Under Dr. Runkle’s guidance, I have adapted my project to better suit my technical skills and allow for more qualitative analysis that relies on my biological engineering background. By being honest and upfront about my concerns with my faculty advisor, Dr. Runkle was able to help me refocus my thesis into a more manageable project. He also encouraged me to reach out to other members of his research group who have more expertise in coding which has been incredibly helpful. My research still involves coding, extracting data from unfamiliar sources, and other tasks with learning curves. However, I am now more confident in my abilities, less afraid to ask for help, and excited to focus on the reason I became interested in the first place: rice-related methane emissions!
References:
USDA-ERS. (2021). USDA ERS – Rice Yearbook. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/rice-yearbook/rice-yearbook/#U.S.%20Acreage,%20Production,%20Yield,%20and%20Farm%20Price