Lucille A. Carver Mississippi Riverside Environmental Research Station (LACMRERS)

IIHR’s LACMRERS is a unique research facility on the Upper Mississippi River near Muscatine, providing space for in-depth study and education. Made possible by a generous gift from the Carver Foundation, LACMRERS offers well-equipped laboratory spaces and research vessels.

 
LACMRERS building
Facilities Location Map

Supporting Research on the Mississippi River

Larry Weber speaks with visitors at the Ship Hydrodynamics research space

University of Iowa expands research on the Mississippi River

Thursday, April 3, 2025
IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering is part of a new $6 million initiative funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and based at Auburn University to create the National Information Collaboration on Ecohydraulics (NICE) to improve the understanding of ecological impacts from navigation locks and dams on fish and rivers.

Did You Know?

  • LACMRERS offers educational opportunities for students in engineering, biology, English, and more
  • Each summer, LACMRERS hosts a water-quality class, which gives students plenty of fieldwork time on the Mississippi River
  • Short courses for international students and STEM festivals (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) draw hundreds of K-12 students to LACMRERS
  • LACMRERS research staff have developed manuals on modeling tools that educators can use in the classroom

Laboratories & Equipment

field equipment

Field Equipment

LACMRERS is equipped with an array of research vessels and sampling and monitoring equipment for biological and chemical research:

  • Nets and waders
  • Alkalinity kits
  • Multiprobes
  • River samplers (for parts-per-billion analysis) and autosamplers
  • A Fultz groundwater pump system
  • Teflon samplers
  • Churn splitters
  • Filters and bottles
  • YSI multiprobes (for dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, and SpC)
  • Nitrate and turbidity sensors
  • Three self-contained underwater field fluorometers
water quality testing

Sediment & Water Quality

Sediment:

  • A Sedigraph III x-ray analysis machine
  • An Ankermid particle size analyzer 
  • A gamma source radionucleotide tracer/spectroscopy system to reveal where sediments originated

Water Quality: Mississippi River water pumped directly into the lab can be sampled and analyzed in real time.

  • A Turner lab and field fluormeter, with lab spectrometer, allow algal research and rapid water assays.
  • IDEXX rapid bacteria system can test for waterborne pathogens, such as E-coli and fecal bacteria.
Coring

Coring & Bathymetry

Coring: Vibracore coring equipment can collect core samples of underwater sediments, used for a variety of research projects:

  • Grain size and shape analysis
  • Depositional history
  • Compaction of sediments for structures
  • Sediment composition

Bathymetry:

IIHR’s multibeam echo sounder collects data resulting in a 3-D map of the river bottom for research, including:

  • Analysis of river management on corridors and watersheds
  • Documentation of habitat characteristics
  • Evaluation of scour around structures