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Developing Regional-scale Stressor Models for Managing Eutrophication in Coastal Marine Ecosystems, Including Interactions of Nutrients, Sediments, Land-use Change, and Climate Variability and Change
EPA Grant Number: R830882Title: Developing Regional-scale Stressor Models for Managing Eutrophication in Coastal Marine Ecosystems, Including Interactions of Nutrients, Sediments, Land-use Change, and Climate Variability and Change
Investigators: Howarth, Robert W.
Current Investigators: Howarth, Robert W. , Alber, Merryl , Boyer, Elizabeth W. , Marino, Roxanne M. , Scavia, Donald , Swaney, Dennis P.
Institution: Cornell University
EPA Project Officer: Smith, Bernice
Project Period: March 1, 2003 through June 8, 2007
Project Amount: $749,644
RFA: Developing Regional-Scale Stressor-Response Models for Use in Environmental Decision-making (2002)
Research Category: Global Climate Change , Ecological Indicators/Assessment/Restoration
Description:
Objective:Our goal is to develop a regional-scale model for analyzing nutrient inputs to coastal ecosystems, to develop a classification scheme for the comparative analysis of the sensitivity of coastal ecosystems to these nutrient inputs, and to develop quantitative approaches for evaluating how other stressors such as climate change, land-use change, and sediment fluxes interact with nutrient inputs to affect coastal ecosystems.
Approach:The project will have two interacting parts. First, we will continue to develop and test the Regional Nutrient Management Model (ReNuMa), a model designed to be used by managers to evaluate sources and magnitude nutrient and sediment fluxes from regions and large watersheds to coastal marine ecosystems, and to be responsive to watershed management practices. We will explicitly refine and modify this model to increase its effectiveness as a tool to investigate the interacting effects of climate variability, potential future climate change, and land-use change on fluxes of water, sediments, and nutrients from regions and watersheds. Second, we will analyze two large, independent data sets (NOAA and LOICZ) on physical and ecological aspects of coastal marine ecosystems as a step towards developing a construct or typology for evaluating the sensitivity of coastal marine ecosystems to nutrient enrichment, and to predict how climate change and other stressors such as sediment loading and water diversions interact with this sensitivity.
Expected Results:Nutrients are now the largest pollution problem in the U.S. This set of tools will allow environmental managers to set priorities for targets in nutrient reduction, by source of nutrient and among multiple watersheds in the context of relative benefit to be achieved in coastal water quality. It will also allow managers to explore scenarios for how land-use change and climate change may interact with plans for reducing nutrient pollution. This project will fulfill two high priority recommendations of the NRC (2000) report on coastal nutrient pollution.
Publications and Presentations:Publications have been submitted on this project: View all 58 publications for this project
Journal Articles:Journal Articles have been submitted on this project: View all 12 journal articles for this project
Supplemental Keywords:eutrophication, anoxia, hypoxia, nitrogen, phosphorus, nitrogen pollution, phosphorus pollution, global change. , Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Air, Scientific Discipline, RFA, climate change, Ecological Risk Assessment, Air Pollution Effects, Atmosphere, Chemistry, Regional/Scaling, Monitoring/Modeling, Ecology and Ecosystems, Environmental Monitoring, meteorology, climate model, UV radiation, Global Climate Change, nutrient fluxes, plankton, eutrophication, coastal ecosystems, stressor response model, land use, regional anthropogenic stresses, aquatic species vulnerability, climatic influence, climate models, anthropogenic, atmospheric chemistry, climate variability, ecosystem assessment, environmental measurement, environmental stress, coastal ecosystem, global change, anthropogenic stress, ecological models, biodiversity
Progress and Final Reports:
2003 Progress Report
2004 Progress Report
Final Report