Field Trips & Tours
Working Lands Tour: Central Mississippi River Basin LTAR Site
Managed by: USDA-ARS Cropping Systems and Water Quality Research Unit
Tour Provided by:
Adam Schreiner-Mcgraw, Research Hydrologist at USDA-ARS
Audience Type:
Open to all attendees
Date:
November 13th, 2026
Description:
The Central Mississippi River Basin (CMRB) LTAR site, managed by the USDA-ARS Cropping Systems and Water Quality Research Unit, centers on the Goodwater Creek Experimental Watershed (GCEW) in northeast Missouri, a region defined by claypan soils that create high runoff potential and influence agriculture, erosion, and chemical transport. The site supports research aimed at improving agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability across scales, and sits within the Salt River Basin, which feeds Mark Twain Lake and drains toward the Mississippi River.
Instrumentation across the watershed includes multiple weather stations, an extensive rain gauge network, eddy covariance towers in varied ecosystems, runoff gauges and samplers, groundwater well nests, planned soil moisture sensor networks, and laboratory capabilities for nutrient, herbicide, gas, and soil health analyses, providing visitors a comprehensive view of the tools and landscape used to study hydrology, agriculture, and environmental processes.
Ecosystem Observatory Tour: Missouri Ozarks AmeriFlux (MOFLUX) Site
Managed by: University of Missouri and Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Tour Provided by:
Jeffrey Wood, Assistant Professor at University of Missouri
Audience Type:
Open to all attendees
Date:
November 13th, 2026
Description:
The Missouri Ozarks AmeriFlux (MOFLUX) site was established in 2004 at the University of Missouri’s Baskett Forest. The site is uniquely located in the ecologically important transitional zone between the central hardwood region and the central grassland region of the US. The MOFLUX tower is 105 feet tall and equipped to measure the “breathing of the forest”. A comprehensive suite of other biometric and ecophysiological measurements are maintained to enable understanding of forest functioning from roots-to-shoots, and leaf-to-landscape.
Science at MOFLUX aims to enhance scientific understanding and prediction of plant function and responses to environmental conditions, how extreme events and droughts impact forests, and forest changes over time and responses to changing climatic conditions.
The tower is home to several instruments used to monitor net ecosystem exchanges by measuring wind velocities, gas concentrations, and temperature. This provides data to look at how eddies (whirls of air) move gases and heat – and how much of each is exchanging between the forest and atmosphere.