Joseph Smith

DepartmentOrganizationEmailPhoneAddressAnnapolis , Maryland 21402United StatesBioDr. Joseph P. Smith is an environmental chemist whose primary reseach interest is in using radiochemical and biogeochemical tracers to investigate the cycling of inorganic and organic constituents in water, soil, and sediments in linked watershed-estuarine-coastal systems and to identify material sources and quantify material transport and fate.

Research interests include:

Watershed-estuarine-coastal systems processes
Biogeochemical cycles in methane hydrate bearing sediments and permafrost
Polar science
Climate change and the perturbed carbon cycle
Runoff, wastewater, stormwater impacts on urbanized watershed-estuarine-coastal systems
Unmanned and autonomous sensor platforms
Mineralogy, geochemistry, and bacterial species diversity in soils and dust in arid regions

Interests

Sea Ice, Permafrost, Physical Science, Interdisciplinary Research

Science Specialties

Biogeochemistry

Current Research

The Alaska North Slope Material Flux Study (AKMFS), is a multi-year field project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) The AKMFS is a collaboration between the U.S. Naval Academy Polar Science & Technology Program (USNA-PS&TP), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research & Development Center, Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), Fairbanks, AK, the U.S. Military Academy (USMA), and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (USCGA). The overall goal of the AKMFS project is to investigate how seasonal-to-interannual variability in landscape-specific source contributions changes surface water chemistry in the Sagavanirktok and Kuparuk Rivers on the North Slope of Alaska and how material and heat fluxes through these rivers change as they flow from the Brooks Range to the Beaufort Sea.