About

Richard Cooke is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on optimizing subsurface drainage system design, with an emphasis on maximizing soil water storage to mitigate flooding effects while maintaining crop yields. He aims to develop routines for evaluating the influence regions of subsurface drainage systems with irregularly spaced or randomly placed drains and for multiobjective design approaches that incorporate soil storage and water quality considerations. His work is intended to assist private, state, and federal agencies responsible for soil and water resources management, including farmers, the Soil Conservation Service, and local drainage planners. Cooke holds a B.S. in Agricultural Engineering from the University of the West Indies, a M.S. from the University of Guelph, and a Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. His academic positions include being an Adjunct Professor at Njala University in Sierra Leone, an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2001, and previously serving as an Assistant Professor and Research Associate. He has authored a book on the numerical analysis of tile drainage from cracked clayey soil and has taught courses related to water management, geomatics, and pollution processes. His contributions aim to improve subsurface drainage design practices to better manage water resources and support sustainable agricultural practices.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Engineering
• Biology
• Geology
• Pulp and paper industry
• Chemistry
• Water resource management
• Agronomy
• Computer Science
• Environmental engineering
• Organic chemistry
• Mathematics
• Geodesy
• Mechanics
• Metallurgy
• Botany
• Physics
• Oceanography
• Soil science
• Materials science
• Geotechnical engineering
• Agricultural engineering
• Environmental chemistry

Selected publications

• Development of Application Tools for Determining Installation Depths and Sizing of Subsurface Drainpipes

  Applied Engineering in Agriculture · 2025-01-01

  articleSenior author

  Highlights Newly developed interactive QGIS tools automate and optimize depth placement of drainpipes, reducing the complexity of subsurface drainage design. These tools accurately estimate pipe sizes for each drainage segment, sequencing both downstream-to-upstream and upstream-to-downstream. User-friendly and exportable outputs enable efficient decision-making, cost analysis, and seamless integration with drainage installation machines. Abstract. Our suite of QGIS tools addresses the crucial final aspects before the installation of subsurface drainage systems, essential for effective water management in agriculture, civil engineering, and land development. Accurate depth placement and sizing of drainage pipes significantly impact system efficiency, enhancing overall land productivity. Developed to meet this demand, our tools specialize in estimating the installation depths and sizing subsurface drainage pipes. The primary objective is to generate buried elevation depths and pipe sizes for each line segment within the drainage network, sequencing downstream-to-upstream and upstream-to-downstream, respectively. Determining minimum drainage main sizes relies on factors like burying order, end-point elevations, distances, and specified elevation depths and slopes. These user-friendly QGIS tools, utilizing Tile Order, Cumulative Flow Lengths, Burying Slope, and specifications like drain spacing and material, are vital for accurate pipe sizing. Burying and sizing data is exportable in various formats for drain installation machines, and with built-in cost analysis features, they facilitate informed decision-making and budget planning for drainage projects. Optimized for compatibility with all QGIS3 versions, these tools are freely available for download from the QGIS Plugin Repository. Successfully tested with the University of Illinois' South Farm drainage system, they effectively simplify the burying and sizing processes for drainage networks. Keywords: Drainage coefficients, Elevation depths, Pipe estimations, Pipe sizing distributions, Spreadsheet exports, Tile burying systems.

  PublisherDOI

• Beyond the Metrics: Context‐Aware Calibration for Better Drain Flow Modelling

  Irrigation and Drainage · 2025-11-20

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Robust hydrological and water quality modelling is essential for advancing the understanding and management of engineered agricultural subsurface drainage systems. Achieving credible model output hinges on calibration strategies that are both rigorous and context sensitive. At the field scale, accurately capturing the dynamics of nutrient load curves, particularly under conditions of intermittent zero flow, is a critical challenge. These systems often exhibit heteroscedastic residuals, complicating traditional calibration approaches. While the heteroscedastic maximum likelihood estimator (HMLE) has shown promise in watershed‐scale rainfall–runoff modelling, its applicability to field‐scale, process‐based models such as DRAINMOD remains widely underexplored. This study systematically evaluates the performance of the HMLE over widely used metrics—NSE and Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE)—across diverse error structures in subsurface (tile) drainage model residuals. Two key insights emerged: (1) KGE consistently outperformed the NSE across scenarios and (2) the HMLE's effectiveness was highly sensitive to the underlying error structure, ranging from superior to suboptimal. These findings underscore the necessity of adopting multiobjective calibration frameworks that integrate both statistical and graphical diagnostics. More critically, they challenge the notion of universal calibration metrics, emphasizing the imperative for modellers to tailor calibration strategies to the specific characteristics of their system and data.

  PublisherDOI

• Do England's new Environmental Land Management support schemes meet the requirements for regenerative farmers?

  International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · 2025-12-10

  articleOpen access1st author

  The United Kingdom's departure from the European Union has led to a revision of its agricultural and environmental policies. For England, a new system of support payments to farmers is the Environmental Land Management Scheme. Concurrently, regenerative agriculture is gaining traction as a farming system in England to produce food alongside sustained environmental improvements. This paper examines the policy process and development of new English schemes, specifically the Sustainable Farming Incentive and the revised Countryside Stewardship; in turn, followed by a review of regenerative agriculture identifying its core principles. An innovative qualitative scoring system is developed to map the aims and actions of the new schemes, as introduced at the end of 2023, against these core principles for regenerative farming. The scoring system offers a policy tool for aligning regenerative principles with current and future iterations of agri-environmental support schemes. The results of the scoring system find that the new schemes meet the principles of regenerative farming, with the marked exception of the integration of livestock into the production system. The English schemes will need to address the role of livestock in regenerative farming systems as regenerative farming principles gain more popularity, following the more recent example of Scotland.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring the engineering-scale potential of designer biochar pellets for phosphorus loss reduction from tile-drained agroecosystems

  Water Research · 2024-09-21 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access

  • Biochar pellets were applied for non-point phosphorus loss reduction from drainage. • Biochar pellets significantly reduced the dissolved reactive phosphorus load. • Multi-factors affected the performance of biochar pellets under field condition. • The employment of biochar pellets in drainage is economical and sustainable. • Strategy was proposed to boost technology adoption and benefit stakeholders. Artificial drainage has led to significant amounts of non-point dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) loss from tile-drained agroecosystems, jeopardizing water quality and triggering harmful algal blooms. Designer biochar has shown great promise on the laboratory scale for removing DRP from contaminated water. However, whether its removal performance, stability, and engineering value can be sustained under field conditions over time remains unclear. This study reported the first engineering application of designer biochar pellets used in an intensely tile-drained agroecosystem to reduce DRP losses from drainage water. Two types of designer biochar pellets with different particle sizes (Phase I - biochar pellets size 2-3 cm vs . Phase II - biochar pellets size <1 cm) were manufactured and placed into the specifically designed phosphorus removal structure (i.e., biochar-sorption chamber) to capture DRP from tile drainage water. Field demonstrations revealed that small-sized biochar pellets (<1 cm) were significantly more efficient at capturing DRP than larger pellets (2-3 cm). A comprehensive analysis further indicated that multi-factors could affect the performance of designer biochar pellets in DRP loss reduction, such as influent DRP concentrations, drainage flows, and biochar pellet sizes. Techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment indicated that the designer biochar pellets have notable economic and environmental benefits. On the pilot scale, the average production cost of designer biochar pellets was $413/ton biochar. The average DRP removal cost was $359±177/kg DRP for tile-drained agroecosystems under wide economic and system design parameters. Furthermore, utilization of designer biochar pellets to remove DRP from drainage in combination with subsequently using spent biochar as a soil amendment provides environmental benefits to achieve negative global warming potential (-200 to -12 kg CO 2 eq/kg DRP removal) and energy production. Overall, this work offers a novel strategy to explore the potential for engineering-scale application of biochar for sustainable water quality protection and helps elucidate the costs and benefits in the context of watershed nutrient loss management.

  PublisherDOI

• Nitrous oxide and methane production and consumption at five full-size denitrifying bioreactors treating subsurface drainage water

  The Science of The Total Environment · 2024-02-14 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  Nitrate (NO3−) removal in denitrifying bioreactors is influenced by flow, water chemistry, and design, but it is not known how these widely varying factors impact the production of nitrous oxide (N2O) or methane (CH4) across sites. Woodchip bioreactors link the hydrosphere and atmosphere in this respect, so five full-size bioreactors in Illinois, USA, were monitored for NO3−, N2O, and CH4 to better document where this water treatment technology resides along the pollution swapping to climate smart spectrum. Both surface fluxes and dissolved forms of N2O and CH4 were measured (n = 7–11 sampling campaigns per site) at bioreactors ranging from <1 to nearly 5 years old and treating subsurface drainage areas from between 6.9 and 29 ha. Across all sites, N2O surface and dissolved volumetric production rates averaged 1.0 ± 1.6 mg N2O-N/m3-d and 24 ± 62 mg dN2O-N/m3-d, respectively, and CH4 production rates averaged 6.0 ± 26 mg CH4-C/m3-d and 310 ± 520 mg dCH4-C/m3-d for surface and dissolved, respectively. However, N2O was consistently consumed at one bioreactor, and only three of the five sites produced notable CH4. Surface fluxes of CH4 were significantly reduced by the presence of a soil cover. Bioreactor denitrification was relatively efficient, with only 0.51 ± 3.5 % of removed nitrate emitted as N2O (n = 48). Modeled indirect N2O emissions factors were significantly lower when a bioreactor was present versus absent (EF5: 0.0055 versus 0.0062 kg N2O-N/kg NO3-N; p = 0.0011). While further greenhouse gas research on bioreactors is recommended, this should not be used as an excuse to slow adoption efforts. Bioreactors provide a practical option for voluntary water quality improvement in the heavily tile-drained US Midwest and elsewhere.

  PublisherDOI

• Sorption materials for phosphorus reduction in drained agricultural fields: Gaps between the results from laboratory evaluation and field application

  Ecological Engineering · 2024-07-26 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Phosphorus (P) losses from drained agricultural fields are a major cause of eutrophication. In this study, we evaluated the performance of three types of phosphorus sorbing materials (PSMs), including P polymer sorbent pellets, designer biochar pellets, and iron shavings materials, in removing dissolved P at both laboratory and field scales. The laboratory experiments revealed the following order of P removal efficiency with initial P concentrations of 1 mg L−1 and 50 mg L−1: designer biochar > P polymer sorbent > iron shavings. Based on the laboratory results, the designer biochar and P polymer sorbent were considered promising PSMs, especially the designer biochar achieved excellent P removal efficiency (>90%). On the contrary, subsequent field-scale applications demonstrated another story. Field results indicated that the designer biochar pellets could reduce up to 37% dissolved P from the drainage systems during a three-month period. Unfortunately, we encountered difficulties gathering data regarding the efficacy of P polymer sorbent pellets for P removal since the pellets disintegrating into small particles and being partially washed out through the drainage pipes. This failure case shows the importance of long-term field-scale validation monitoring and improving the toughness of materials under complex changes. Overall, our study has shown the discrepancy between laboratory and field evaluation, highlighting the critical needs to refine the laboratory evaluation methods and narrow the gaps between laboratory -scale research and field-scale application.

  PublisherDOI

• Impact of Subsurface Drainage System Design on Nitrate Loss and Crop Production

  Applied Sciences · 2024-11-06 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Subsurface (or tile) drainage offers a valuable solution for enhancing crop productivity in poorly drained soils. However, this practice is also associated with significant nutrient leaching, which can contribute to water quality problems at the regional scale. This research presents the findings from a 4-year tile depth and spacing study in central Illinois that included three drain spacings (12.2, 18.3, and 24.4 m) and two drain depths (0.8 and 1.1 m) implemented in six plots under the corn and soybean rotation system (plots CS-1 and CS-3: 12.2 m spacing and 1.1 m depth, plots CS-2 and CS-4: 24.4 m spacing and 1.1 m depth, and plots CS-5 and CS-6 18.3 m spacing and 0.8 m depth). Our observations indicate that drain flow and NO3-N losses were higher in plots with narrower drain spacings, while plots with wider drain spacing showed reduced drain flow and NO3-N losses. Specifically, plots set up with drain spacings of 18.3 m and 24.4 m showed significant reductions in drain flow compared to plots featuring a 12.2 m drain spacing. Likewise, plots characterized by 18.3 m and 24.4 m drain spacings (except CS-4) showed better NO3-N retention and lower leaching losses than those with 12.2 m spacing (CS-1 and CS-3). Crop yield results over a 3-year period indicated that CS-2 (wider spacing plot) showed the highest productivity, with up to 13.6% higher yield compared to other plots. Furthermore, when comparing plots with the same drainage designs, CS-2 and CS-4 showed 5.1% to 2.6% higher corn yield (3-year average) compared to CS-1 and CS-3, and CS-5 and CS-6, respectively. Overall, a wider drainage system showed the capacity to export lower nutrient levels while concurrently enhancing productivity. These findings represent that optimizing tile drainage systems can effectively reduce nitrate losses while increasing crop productivity.

  PublisherDOI

• Development of Drainage Tools for Facilitating the Creation of topologically-Sound, Unidirectional Flow Tile Networks

  Journal of the ASABE · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Highlights New publicly accessible drainage design QGIS plugins were developed. These tools were successfully used to create topologically-sound subsurface drainage layout networks. The tools are easy to use and reduce the level of expertise required to prepare drainage networks that can be successfully sized and buried. Abstract. An important step in designing a drainage system is laying out the network. Successful installation and sizing of the system require that the network be topologically sound and unidirectional. Online digitization of drainage systems does not always result in networks that meet these criteria. Tile lines may not be consistently digitized from upstream to downstream, and there may be disconnected segments, dangles, and overshoots. We have developed a set of open-source tools (plugins) in QGIS that convert a series of laterals and mains digitized on a map into a topologically-sound drainage network to facilitate both burying and sizing the drainage lines. Steps include reversing node numbering, if necessary, to ensure that tile nodes are numbered from upstream to downstream, connecting the ends of tile lines that are within a certain tolerance of each other, correcting overshoots, and setting an order for burying or calculating cumulative flow in line segments. An application example is presented using a proposed tile network layout at the university farm to demonstrate the capacity of these new tools to fix topologically disconnected tile lines and generate sound tile networks that can be successfully buried and sized. These easy-to-use tools are compatible with all versions of QGIS3 and may be freely downloaded or installed from the official QGIS Plugin Repository. Keywords: Line Geometry, Plugins, QGIS Software, Tile Layout Routines, Tile Nodes and Lines.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Denitrifying bioreactors and dissolved phosphorus: Net source or sink?

  Journal of Environmental Quality · 2024-05-06 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Understanding the world through a lens of phosphorus (P), as Dr. Andrew Sharpley aimed to do, adds a deeper dimension for water quality work in the heavily tile‐drained US Midwest where nitrate is often the nutrient of biggest concern. Denitrifying woodchip bioreactors reduce nitrate pollution in drainage water, but dissolved phosphorus leached from the organic fill is a possible pollution tradeoff. Recent work by Dr. Sharpley and others defined such tradeoffs as strategic decisions in which a negative outcome is accepted with prior knowledge of the risk. In this vein, we assessed 23 site‐years from full‐size bioreactors in Illinois to determine if bioreactors were a net dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) source and, if so, to determine flow‐related correlation agents (1904 sample events; 10 bioreactors). DRP was removed across the bioreactors in 15 of 23 site‐years. The 23 site‐years provided a median annual DRP removal efficiency of 12% and a median annual DRP removal rate of 7.1 mg DRP/m 3 bioreactor per day, but the ranges of all removal metrics overlapped zero. The highest daily bioreactor DRP removal rates occurred with high inflow concentrations and under low hydraulic retention times (i.e., under higher loading). Dr. Sharpley was one of the first to explore losses of DRP in subsurface drainage and performed decades of useful applied studies that inspired approaches to management of P loss on both drained and undrained land. We seek to honor this legacy with this practical study of the DRP benefits and tradeoffs of denitrifying bioreactors.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• QGIS‐based support tools to simplify the complex design challenges of subsurface drainage systems

  Irrigation and Drainage · 2024-08-06 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract We developed a comprehensive set of tools to simplify the design and layout of subsurface drainage systems. These tools, which utilize publicly available LiDAR (light detection and ranging) datasets, may also be used for other applications. The tool streamline operations include harmonizing geographic information system (GIS) layers into a single State Plane or Universal Transverse Mercator Coordinate System, clipping and thinning LiDAR data within a defined boundary, generating drainage networks with contour lines and laylines for surface flow visualization, identifying depressions and creating gridlines with user‐specified angles and spacings. To showcase their use, an illustrative example using a diverse dataset from the University of Illinois’ South Farm is provided. These user‐friendly tools, optimized for compatibility with all versions of QGIS3 (quantum geographic information system 3), are freely accessible for download or installation from the official QGIS plugin repository. A user manual with step‐by‐step instructions is available online on the Illinois Drainage Guide website.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Laura E. Christianson

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  33 shared

• Mark B. David

  Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

  24 shared

• Lowell E. Gentry

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  23 shared

• M. C. Hirschi

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  22 shared

• Reid Christianson

  21 shared

• Rabin Bhattarai

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  20 shared

• J. K. Mitchell

  Knox College

  16 shared

• John B. Chambers

  British Cardiovascular Society

  16 shared

Awards & honors

• Honors Dissertation Research Award, Virginia Polytechnic Ins…
• Sigma Xi (1995)