William Anderson Ph.D.

Dr. Anderson has been a member of the Appalachian geology faculty since 2004 and Chair of the department since 2013. He also served the department as a temporary faculty member in 1998. In the intervening six years he taught as a tenure-track professor at Illinois State University and Radford University. He teaches courses in Physical Geology, Environmental Geology, Hydrogeology, and Advanced Environmental and Engineering Geology. The last two classes in this list are upper level courses that are primarily taken by seniors and students in the environmental geology concentration. Dr. Anderson has three areas of research interest. One aspect focuses on aquifer recharge, including quantification with mathematical and modeling techniques and the effect of natural climate oscillations on recharge rates. This work utilizes data collected at a field site on Hatteras Island. Another aspect of his research focuses on groundwater-surface-water interactions, including the role that groundwater discharge plays in controlling stream temperatures and stream salinity. This work is being done in collaboration with Carol Babyak (Chemistry) and Chris Thaxton (Physics & Astronomy) and involves the collection of data from Boone Creek, a stream which runs through campus and downtown Boone. The third aspect of his research involves the study of groundwater flow within fractured bedrock aquifers. This work is being done in collaboration with the USGS' North Carolina Water Science Center in Raleigh and involves field sites throughout the High Country.

There are 11 included publications by William Anderson Ph.D.:

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Air-Stream Temperature Correlation In Forested And Urban Headwater Streams In The Southern Appalachians 2014 972 Air temperature can be an effective predictor of stream temperature. However, little work has been done in studying urban impacts on air-stream relationships in groundwater-fed headwater streams in mountainous watersheds. We applied wavelet coherence...
Bank Thermal Storage As A Sink Of Temperature Surges In Urbanized Streams 2011 1666 A poorly-studied benefit of bank storage is the ability of the streambed to act as a thermal sink to streams influenced by urban runoff (e.g. bank thermal storage. Headwater streams, with their low thermal inertia, are particularly susceptible to the...
Changes In Stream Temperatures In Response To Restoration Of Groundwater Discharge And Solar Heating In A Culverted, Urban Stream 2010 2142 Boone Creek is a mountainous headwater stream that lies within an urbanized environment in northwestern North Carolina. The primary source of thermal pollution in Boone Creek is the urban infrastructure, which affects stream temperatures through (1) ...
Creating False Images: Stream Restoration in an Urban Setting 2013 2060 Stream restoration has become a multibillion dollar business with mixed results as to its efficacy. This case study utilizes pre- and post-monitoring data from restoration projects on an urban stream to assess how well stream conditions, publicly sta...
“Creating False Images: Stream Restoration In An Urban Setting” REPLY TO DISCUSSION by David L. Rosgen 2015 745 No abstract available.
Effect Of Interannual And Interdecadal Climate Oscillations On Groundwater In North Carolina (Article #1) 2008 740 Multi-year climate oscillations such as the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) affect precipitation and stream discharge rates in the western hemisphere. While inferences may be drawn between these hydroclimatol...
Effect Of Interannual Climate Oscillations On Rates Of Submarine Groundwater Discharge (Article #2) 2010 487 Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) is an important component of the coastal hydrologic cycle, affecting mixing and bio-geochemistry in the nearshore environment. El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences rates of precipitation and groundwater...
On The Interpretation Of Recharge Estimates From Steady-State Model Calibrations 2007 1610 Ground water recharge is often estimated through the calibration of ground water flow models. We examine the nature of calibration errors by considering some simple mathematical and numerical calculations. From these calculations, we conclude that ca...
Reconstructing Holocene Sea-Level Change From Coastal Freshwater Peat: A Combined Empirical And Model-Based Approach 2014 1504 This paper presents a novel method to reconstruct sea-level change in coastal freshwater back-barrier marshes. Freshwater environments have long been considered to be unsuitable for the reconstruction of Holocene sea level changes as they provide lim...
Riparian Biogeochemical Hot Moments Induced By Stream Fluctuations 2012 858 Hyporheic exchanges in riparian zones induced by stream stage fluctuations, referred to as bank storage, can influence contaminant transport and transformation when mixing of groundwater and surface waters with distinct chemical signatures occur, whi...
The Role of Overwash in the Evolution of Mixing Zone Morphology Within Barrier Islands 2008 1124 Overwash is a major controlling factor in the morphology of the mixing zone of coastal aquifers. Conceptual models of the mixing zone describe an interface controlled by tidal oscillations, wave run-up, and other factors; however, few describe the in...