Watershed Influences on Coastal Environments: Characterization of Sources and Loadings
Employing an ecosystem approach is necessary in order to fully understand the relationship between land-use and human health. Linking the influences terrestrial and coastal ecosystems have on each other leads to increased knowledge on the relationship between water quality and potential human health risks. One of the overall goals for the Center is to develop better models for prediction of water quality impacts associated with pathogens in the Great Lakes due to septic tanks and combined sewer overflows. Surface water inputs vary with tributary size and groundwater inputs vary with near-shore topographic features. Contamination effects are related to the levels of human activity in watersheds and the position of inland lakes and wetlands. We are developing an integrated monitoring and modeling framework that encompasses all dynamically relevant spatio-temporal scales to better understand coupling between land and coastal environments via groundwater and surface water. A fundamental objective of research task 1 is to extend and adapt GLERL's Large Basin Runoff Model (LBRM) for depiction and predictions of spatial surface and subsurface storages and flows to support forecasting of storm water, sewage, nutrients, contaminants, and microbial loadings from non-point sources. This would help define hydrologic pathways from land surface to the lake, prediction of magnitude and timing of flow events and how development and climate change interact to alter flow regimes (especially maximum flow rate), and support of viral transport models and research on the effects of surface water hydrology on virus transport.
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Projects
| Project Title | Researcher(s)/Affiliation |
| Next Generation Large Basin Runoff Model | Tom Croley (NOAA/GLERL) |
| Extensive Data Collection and Development of GIS Model for Grand River Watershed | Mantha Phanikumar (MSU), Joan Rose (MSU) |
