In this Update: we highlight lake sturgeon long-term recovery in the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers; new research to enhance the management of US estuaries; our approach to cultivating nationally-relevant collaborative research; a new project video highlighting restoration efforts in Lake Michigan’s Green Bay; and an interview with atmospheric chemist Dr. Andrew Ault about lake spray aerosols and their place in freshwater research.

Jennifer Read
Director, U-M Water Center

WATER CENTER QUICK LINKS

• Event: Valuing Ecosystem Services
• Webinars: Great Lakes Water Levels
• New Research Products
• About the Water Center

Share this newsletter:

Sturgeon Restoration Shows Promising Results

Fish restoration partners received welcome news about endangered lake sturgeon spawning on constructed reefs in the St. Clair and Detroit rivers, a collaborative project the Water Center has been facilitating.

Read More

NERRS Research & Integrated Assessment Awards

The National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) Science Collaborative recently awarded a new set of three-year research and integrated assessment grants to support end user-driven projects that adopt a collaborative approach to design and implementation to address reserve management needs.

Read More

U-M Water Center Convenes Science Council & Advisory Board

A new Science Council and reconfigured Advisory Board will provide direction for the Water Center’s work of bringing together researchers and practitioners to address critical water issues.

Read More

Restoring Green Bay Under a Changing Climate (Video)

This Water Center project video describes how high nutrient and sediment loads delivered to Green Bay drive recurring summer hypoxia and algal blooms. It outlines the project team’s development of a linked model framework for simulating how the Green Bay system works, and how the Bay might respond to changes in climate, land use, and/or land management decisions.

Watch the Video

Featured Projects

Assessing Information Needs and Developing Tools for Great Lakes Ecosystem Management

Researchers hosted workshops with policymakers and natural resource managers to shape the content and interactive components for the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework (GLAHF), a publically-accessible spatial database and decision-support tool for Great Lakes aquatic habitat data. Read More

Coupling Mercury, Lead, and Strontium Isotopes in Archived Great Lakes Precipitation Samples to Improve Pollutant Source Apportionment with New and Novel Techniques

The project team developed a new method to “fingerprint” mercury, lead, and strontium pollutants at various locations across the Great Lakes basin, giving restoration managers a new method for linking specific pollutants to their sources. Read More

Advancing Student Learning in Freshwater Science: Curriculum development and research experiences for undergraduates in aquatic biogeochemistry

The purchase of a state-of-the-art analytical tool, called an Aqualog, has opened up new frontiers for aquatic geochemistry teaching, research, and outreach at U-M. Read More

Developing Indicators to Track the Remediation of Harmful Algal Blooms in Sodus Bay, Lake Ontario

Researchers developed indicators to help natural resource managers better track the characteristics of harmful and nuisance algal blooms (HNABs) and design monitoring programs for HNABs throughout New York and other parts of the Great Lakes Basin. Read More

Water Perspective:
An interview with Dr. Andrew Ault

Lake pollutants and harmful algal blooms add urgency to understanding the characteristics and possible public health effects of freshwater aerosols generated by breaking waves along lakeshores. In this interview, we feature Dr. Andrew Ault, an atmospheric chemist and Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and of Chemistry at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Ault is the co-principal investigator of the project Lake Spray Aerosol Emissions of Toxins and Pollutants to the Atmosphere in the Great Lakes Region supported by the Water Center.
Read More

Featured Products

Learn more about water research and its applications through these products.

• Lake Spray Aerosol: A Chemical Signature from Individual Ambient Particles – A publication from the project Lake Spray Aerosol Emissions of Toxins and Pollutants to the Atmosphere in the Great Lakes Region, led by Andrew Ault and Kerri Pratt.
• Lake Spray Aerosol Generation: A method for producing representative particles from freshwater wave breaking –A publication from the project Lake Spray Aerosol Emissions of Toxins and Pollutants to the Atmosphere in the Great Lakes Region, led by Andrew Ault and Kerri Pratt.
• Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework website (www.glahf.org) – An online decision support tool developed from the project, Assessing Information Needs and Developing Tools for Great Lakes Ecosystem Management, led by Catherine Riseng.

The U-M Water Center addresses critical and emerging water resource challenges through collaborative research projects. The Center is part of the Graham Sustainability Institute, which engages, empowers, and supports faculty, staff, and students from all U-M units and integrates this talent with external stakeholders to foster sustainability solutions at all scales. We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion are key to individual empowerment, and the advancement of sustainability knowledge, learning and leadership.

graham.umich.edu/water
graham-water-center@umich.edu