Sept. 23, 2010

The University of Michigan and Michigan State University will jointly lead a federally funded effort to help Great Lakes-region residents anticipate and adapt to climate change. The interdisciplinary effort will be funded by a five-year, $4.2 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. SNRE Professor Don Scavia is a co-leader of the project.

The new Great Lakes Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center (GLISA) will focus initially on the watersheds of lakes Erie and Huron and three critical topics: agriculture, watershed management, and natural resources-based recreation and tourism.

The Great Lakes center is one of six new Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments awards, totaling $23.6 million, announced Wednesday by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

"Climate change is expected to dramatically impact the Great Lakes region. Tourism and agriculture, in particular, are extremely vulnerable, and disruption to those sectors will have wide-ranging detrimental effects for an already struggling Great Lakes economy," said Professor Scavia, co-leader of the new center, along with Michigan State's Thomas Dietz.

"This new collaboration allows us to build a team of top scientists to devise effective adaptation strategies," said Scavia, director of U-M's Graham Institute, special counsel to the U-M President for Sustainability, and a professor at the School of Natural Resources and Environment.

In addition to Scavia, initial U-M researchers on the GLISA team are Maria Carmen Lemos of the School of Natural Resources and Environment and Richard Rood of the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. GLISA also will include scientists from Ohio State University, and the grant is expected fund other researchers from across the region.