Great Lakes beachgoers could spend a lot more time in the water if a beach forecasting tool under development by University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues is adopted throughout the region. The new forecasting tool would significantly reduce the number of days that Great Lakes beaches are unnecessarily closed to swimming due to inaccurate assessments of E. coli bacteria levels, according to David Rockwell of the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment. "My estimate is that 23 percent of the time that swimming is prohibited at Great Lakes beaches due to high bacteria levels, those decisions are actually mistakes," said Rockwell, beach water quality forecasting coordinator at the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research (CILER), a collaboration between the U-M and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Faced with increasing risks of intense storms, heat stress, clean water availability and economic hardship, municipal leaders are seeking high-quality, location-specific analyses to help plan for climate change impacts. That is the focus of a new $1.2 million University of Michigan research project called the Great Lakes Adaptation Assessment for Cities.
NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco hailed the science partnerships between her agency and the University of Michigan as an important tool in addressing the nation's environmental challenges.
More than 1.5 million U.S. jobs are directly connected to the Great Lakes, generating $62 billion in wages annually, according to a new analysis by Michigan Sea Grant at the University of Michigan. The analysis, released today, is based on 2009 employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and represents a conservative estimate of direct employment related to the Great Lakes in several industries, according to the authors, Michigan Sea Grant's assistant director, Jennifer Read, and research specialist Lynn Vaccaro.
University of Michigan researchers are available to discuss the potential impacts of President Obama's proposal, announced Monday, to reduce funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
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. 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.
Michigan Sea Grant today awarded a total of $409,417 to researchers from three Michigan universities. The research will focus on Michigan's coastal and Great Lakes issues involving wind power and restoring natural river flow in the Clinton River watershed. The funding will sustain three-year research projects and is contingent upon annual appropriations from Congress. The grant funds are leveraged by an additional $254,457 from non-federal sources, including state and university partners.
On June 8 University of Michigan students and faculty will meet with state and local stakeholders to kick off an innovative project intended to evaluate options for establishing sustainable eco-tourism in northeast Michigan. The Northeast Michigan Integrated Assessment project, coordinated by the Northeast Michigan Council of Governments and the Michigan Sea Grant program, is the largest collaborative effort of its kind in the state, according to Don Scavia, professor and associate dean of the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment.