Water & Land Stewardship | Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment | Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

Water & Land Stewardship

Protecting ecosystems. Sustaining resources. Shaping the future.

Across every landscape, water and land are foundational to life. Yet they face growing threats from pollution, overuse, and climate stress. At the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), we support scientists working at the intersection of ecology, hydrology, and data science to safeguard these natural systems.

iSEE researchers develop predictive tools, design nature-based solutions, and inform policy decisions that assist communities in managing their ecosystems. Whether restoring biodiversity, enhancing agricultural practices, or safeguarding drinking water sources, our work seeks to strike a balance between human needs and environmental resilience.

Focus Areas

Watershed Science and Water Quality
Monitoring watershed processes and quality, and providing high quality scientific and engineering analyses to policymakers, planners, and resource managers in the state of Illinois and beyond.
Groundwater Sustainability and Aquifer Protection
Identifying region-specific challenges and solutions to accommodate water needs in diverse sectors, such as ecosystems and agriculture, while preserving aquifers.
Ecosystem Restoration and Biodiversity
Assisting in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded, destroyed, or transformed, and maintaining local biodiversity.
Land Use Change and Ecological Modeling
Studying ecosystems using quantitative tools like spatial analysis, mathematical modeling, and statistics, which facilitate predictive tools under different climate and land use scenarios.
Soil and Sediment Dynamics
Understanding how soil and sediment move across landscapes and waterways, and how these processes influence erosion, water quality, habitat health, and long-term land and river system stability.
Environmental Sensors and Predictive Analytics
Utilizing field data to inform and validate predictive models.

Featured Researchers

Bin Peng
Assistant Professor of Crop Sciences

Professor Peng’s core research centers on unraveling the complexities of water, nutrient, and carbon cycles in diverse agricultural landscapes and their interconnectedness with downstream water quality. To tackle these complex challenges, he uses field measurements, modeling, remote sensing, geospatial big data, and artificial intelligence.

Illinois Experts
Wendy Yang
Professor of Plant Biology

Associate Director, Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC)

Deputy Director of Reseach & Development, Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI)

Professor Yang is tackling global climate challenges through her field research and her work at ASC, which focuses on understanding and mitigating soil nitrous oxide emissions. At CABBI, she guides overall R&D strategy and oversees a state-of-the-art stable isotope chamber, which allows researchers to explore carbon fluxes in crops and investigate the interactions between plants, microbes, and soil to improve crop resilience.

Illinois Experts
Andrew Margenot
Associate Professor of Crop Sciences

Associate Director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC)

Professor Margenot, a soils expert, leads an ASC project to quantify phosphorus leaching from streambank erosion in Illinois. Researchers want to pinpoint non-agricultural sources of phosphorus that leach into the Mississippi River, as part of a state plan to reduce phosphorus in waterways and protect water quality.

Illinois Experts

Impact Highlights

ASC researchers developed the first global model explaining variations in nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture

In addition, the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center launched N₂O Net, a global collaborative tracking system for this potent greenhouse gas.

The Levenick Center is supporting research on waste recovery, resource reuse, and pollution reduction in water and land systems

Launched in 2024 with a $10 million gift, the Levenick Center for a Climate-Smart Circular Bioeconomy is positioning the Midwest as a global leader in renewable resource systems that regenerate ecosystems, close carbon and nutrient loops, reduce emissions, and foster equitable development.