University of Florida word mark

Thank you for those who participated in the UF Water Institute’s 2020 Photo Contest! We received beautiful photos representing a wide variety of UF water-related research, education and outreach programs and had a very difficult time narrowing it down to five winners. The winners will each receive a $100 prize. All photo entries may be used on UF Water Institute’s websites, printed materials, and social media accounts. A photo credit will be given whenever a photo is used for these purposes.

The UF Water Institute’s 2020 Photo Contest Winners are:

Sergio Gonzalez 
Agronomy

“Getting the water “right” has major implications downstream. Helping to provide water managers with data on the impacts of management decisions (or what could happen under certain conditions) is critical to preserving wilderness and wildlife, providing fresh water for human needs, mitigating flood events, and reducing the recurrence of harmful algal blooms. This is the southern Everglades under extreme drought conditions.”alligator in drought
 

Young Gu Her, Ph.D. 
UF Tropical Research and Education Center
“The aerial photo shows a set of turfgrass plots (20 ft by 20 ft) prepared for an irrigation experiment funded by Disney. We investigated how much water information-driven irrigation scheduling methods can save. Sixteen plots (at TREC) were randomized with four replications of each of four scheduling methods. We found soil water modeling and sensing approaches can save a significant amount of water while maintaining the quality of turfgrass.”
 

Caroline Huguenin
Geography
“This picture was taken at the Palo Verde National park in Costa Rica. After a long day of fieldwork, the students and faculty from the 2017 WIGF cohort, decided to explore the Park. We found this boardwalk and stayed to see the golden sunset.”
 

David Kaplan, Ph.D.
Environmental Engineering Sciences
“Submerged aquatic vegetation in the Rainbow River, photographed from above in a canoe. ESSIE faculty David Kaplan and Xiao Yu are studying the influence of vegetation structural properties and blade-to-blade interactions on springs hydrodynamics and ecology.”
 

Daniele Pinton 
Civil and Coastal Engineering
“The photo depicts us in the study area, which is a salt marsh on the southeast coast of Little Sapelo Island, Georgia, USA, waiting on the boat for the high tide. Here we used a couple of UAVs to release dye and collect Zenit images to develop a UAV-based dye-tracking technique to measure surface velocities over marsh systems. An accurate description of hydrodynamic processes in coastal wetlands will improve their management and conservation.”