Spring floods across the Midwest are expected to contribute to a very large and potentially record-setting 2013 Gulf of Mexico "dead zone," according to SNRE's Don Scavia and colleagues.
In an op-ed article appearing this month in NOLA, SNRE Professor Don Scavia talks about the Gulf of Mexico dead zone: its natural and political causes and two possible paths to resolve the annual problem. This year's zone, at 6,800 square miles, would have been larger if not for Tropical Storm Don stirring the waters.
A report released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts a 2011 Gulf dead zone of at least 8,500 square miles, which would make it the largest dead zone on record, due to increased stream flows from the flooding of the Mississippi River. "Stream flows were nearly double normal during May, delivering massive amounts of nutrients to the Gulf, and that's what drives the dead zone," said Don Scavia, Special Counsel to the U-M President for Sustainability, director of the Graham Sustainability Institute and SNRE professor and a member of NOAA's Gulf hypoxia research team.
Extreme flooding of the Mississippi River this spring is expected to result in the largest Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" on record, according to a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist and his colleagues. The 2011 forecast, released today by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), calls for a Gulf dead zone of between 8,500 and 9,421 square miles, an area roughly the size of New Hampshire.
On the heels of last week's federal recommendations to help prevent another BP oil spill disaster, a University of Michigan researcher says the tragedy has come close to acting as a catalyst for deeper change---but not quite. "The BP oil spill is, potentially, a 'cultural anomaly' for institutional changes in environmental management and fossil fuel production," said Andrew Hoffman, professor of management and organizations at the Ross School of Business and a professor at the School of Natural Resources and Environment. "But true change in our approach to handling issues related to oil drilling, oil consumption and environmental management have yet to occur."
University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Donald Scavia and his colleagues say this year's Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" is expected to be larger than average, continuing a decades-long trend that threatens the health of a $659 million fishery. The 2010 forecast, released today by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), calls for a Gulf dead zone of between 6,500 and 7,800 square miles, an area roughly the size of Lake Ontario.
University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Donald Scavia and his colleagues say this year's Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" could be one of the largest on record, continuing a decades-long trend that threatens the health of a half-billion-dollar fishery. The scientists' latest forecast, released today, calls for a Gulf dead zone of between 7,450 and 8,456 square miles---an area about the size of New Jersey.
The New Jersey-size Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" will likely grow in coming years unless federal policies to control it change, in part because the demand for corn-based ethanol fuel will worsen the problem, University of Michigan scientists say. The dead zone forms each spring off the Louisiana and Texas coast when oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters. This summer the oxygen-starved zone swelled to 7,900 square miles, the third-largest Gulf of Mexico dead zone recorded since measurements began in 1985.