Home page / Fellows & Labs / Fellows & Alumni / Ophelie Fovet
France
Country of destination:United Kingdom
My research project is dealing with the general challenge of linking the macronutrients cycles (C, N, P) in landscape hydrology. The scientific question is to understand how the inter-dependant processes between Carbon, Nitrogen, and possibly Phosphorus, which are controlling the chemical quality of stream waters. Although dissolved organic matter is acknowledged as the dominant form of exported C to hydrosystems, its importance for N and P cycling has to be better evaluated, in relation with the fate of dissolved organic nitrogen. There is a need to quantify the changes of river capacity to retain and transform macronutrients with stoichiometry.
I am a young researcher in Water Sciences recruited as permanent researcher at French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) in 2011. I am interested on understanding and modelling the processes controlling water chemistry in headwater catchments especially rural catchments in relationship with landscape management and agriculture features. My research project aims at advancing the current understanding of the coupled biogeochemical cycles (C,N, and P):
(i) How these elemental cycles are interacting with each other?
(ii) How their stoichiometry is impacting aquatic ecosystems in receiving waters?
I would define myself as a “water quality modeller”, and rather than developing a specific model, I am more interested in comparing different modelling approaches, either for testing different hypothesis of processes (physical or conceptual modelling) or for answering specific environmental issues at specific time and spatial scales, and in consistence with available data. Therefore, I am also interested in the definition of relevant internal catchment signatures which would contain enough information for properly constraining models and in the use of monitoring technologies of water quality with high temporal or spatial resolution.
Fovet O., Humbert G., Dupas R., Gascuel-Odoux C., et al., 2018. Seasonal variability of stream water quality response to storm events captured using high-frequency and multi-parameter data. Journal of Hydrology 559: 282-293.
Abbott B.W., Moatar F., Gauthier O., Fovet O., Antoine V., Ragueneau O., 2018. Trends and seasonality of river nutrients in agricultural catchments: 18years of weekly citizen science in France. Science of The Total Environment 624: 845-858.
Dupas R, Mellander PE, Gascuel-Odoux C, Fovet O, et al., 2017. The role of mobilisation and delivery processes on contrasting dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus exports in groundwater fed catchments. Sci Total Environ.; 599600:1275-1287.
Fovet O, Ruiz L, Faucheux M, Molenat J, et al., 2015. Using long time series of agricultural-derived nitrates for estimating catchment transit times. Journal of Hydrology 522: 603-617.
Hrachowitz M, Fovet O, Ruiz L, Savenije HHG., 2015. Transit time distributions, legacy contamination and variability in biogeochemical 1/fα scaling: how are hydrological response dynamics linked to water quality at the catchment scale? Hydrological Processes 29(25): 5241-5256.