UAH researcher to study changes in water quality in Mobile watershed

HUNTSVILLE – Dr. Paresh Samantaray, an assistant professor of chemical and materials engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, has won a National Academies Early-Career Research Fellowship to study changes over time in the water quality of the Dog River Watershed in Mobile.

The region encompasses a 95-square-mile area that drains into Mobile Bay and the Gulf coast. The $76,000 award is part of the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The project is slated to run through December 2026. 

The fellowship supports emerging scientific leaders who take on untested research ideas, pursue unique collaborations and build a network of colleagues to advance the safety of the offshore energy system in ways that improve the well-being of coastal communities and ecosystems. Fellowship cohorts follow two tracks: environmental protection and stewardship; and education research. 

“Under the framework of the environmental protection and stewardship track, my main focus is to understand the temporal changes in the watershed and then use the data to fabricate separation strategies to tackle the pollutants found,” Samantaray said. “This research is of utmost importance as, due to climate change, this watershed experiences significant sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) after rainfall-catalyzed infiltration events.

“These SSOs, comprised of raw sewage with pathogenic microorganisms, cause severe deterioration of water quality and affect the local ecosystem.” 

The Dog River Watershed in southwest Mobile County covers 55,000 acres. The northern portion of the watershed, including part of downtown Mobile, is highly urbanized.  

“The watershed ultimately drains into Dog River, Mobile Bay and eventually the Gulf itself,” Samantaray said. “According to the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, the watershed experiences recurring SSOs, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has documented Florida manatee, Gulf sturgeon and Alabama red-bellied turtles as three key threatened and endangered species in the region, which makes the water quality monitoring critically important.” 

Samantaray, a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, is a materials scientist and will be mentored on the initiative by Dr. Michael Anderson, chair of the UAH Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Samantaray’s expertise is in decoding water quality standards from spectroscopic, microbiological and chemical characterization viewpoints.  

“This allows me to comprehensively define the microbial ecology – bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoan, helminths, etc. – as well as inorganic contaminants, microplastic  content, pharmaceutical substances and pesticides, and heavy metals present in water,” he said. “By gaining a deep understanding of these water quality parameters, I develop designer membranes and nanocomposite modules that can effectively combat these pollutants selectively.”  

Thinking small 

Nanocomposite membranes are a group of novel filtration materials where “nano” refers  to something extremely small – specifically one-billionth of a meter.  

“In perspective, consider the thickness of human hair,” Samantaray said. “A single strand of hair is roughly 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers thick. So, if we take something that’s just 1 nanometer in size, it would be about 80,000 to 100,000 times smaller than the width of a single human hair.” 

Nanocomposite membranes are used to filter water by selectively allowing water to pass through while blocking unwanted substances.

“They are designed by combining unique characteristics of organic and inorganic materials into a polymeric matrix where, using specific chemistry, the size of the pores can be reduced,” Samantaray said.  

A sustainability advocate, Samantaray focuses in particular on upcycling plastic waste using adaptable networks to molecularly transform plastics and improve water remediation by analyzing microbial ecology, contaminants and microplastics. The researcher’s work also emphasizes green solvents and solventless chemical approaches to address environmental challenges. 

“By sampling the water quality, one can underpin the key ecological considerations before designing a water treatment plan that can comprehensively tackle pollution and does not overburden the existing hydro ecology negatively,” Samantaray said. “This is of paramount importance, because the one-size-fits-all strategy for water treatment processes is inadvertently leading to antimicrobial resistance in microorganisms. The use of bleaching, UV sterilization and antimicrobials in purification strategies is forcing existing microbes to undergo directed evolution and transform into resistant strains that can pose significant threats compared to their native forms that can be otherwise tackled by less harsh purification strategies. 

“My efforts align with the Dog River Clearwater Revival’s movement to improve the water quality in the streams, creeks, rivers and wetlands of the Dog River Watershed and to restore and maintain the quality of life and the best possible environment for fish and wildlife, public recreation and commerce.” 

The GRP was founded in 2013 to enhance offshore energy system safety and protect human health and the environment while generating long-term benefits for the Gulf and the nation. The program has $500 million for use over 30 years to fund grants, fellowships and other activities in the areas of research and development; education and training, and environmental monitoring and synthesis.