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GLERL 1996 1997 RESEARCH - Accomplishments, Plans, and Partnerships
II. FY96-97 Accomplishments and Plans (Cover Page)
GLERL's research is organized under eight Research Programs
which encompass major environmental issues for the Nation's Great
Lakes and coastal environments, as well as the expertise and
training of our scientific staff. Each Research Program contains
one or more Research Tasks that are composed of multiple projects
led by one or more principal investigators and often involving
scientific teams and collaborations or partnerships with other
agencies, research institutions, and universities.
Below is a list of GLERL's major Research Programs and a brief
synopsis of the Research Tasks they contain. By clicking on one
of the Research Program name, you will move to a document that
provides an overview of that Program, the Research Tasks, and the
projects it contains, as well as project-level progress and
accomplishments for FY 1996 and research plans for FY1997. The
GLERL Principal Investigator and collaborating scientists for
each project are also identified.
Circulation Modelling
Research Task 1: Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System (Task Leader: David Schwab) -- fully implement a system of computer-based models that can simulate and predict the 3-D structure of currents, temperature, water levels, wind-waves, and sediment transport in the Great Lakes, and integrate these models with real-time observations, in order to produce timely forecast products.Nearshore Processes
Research Task 3: Great Lakes CoastWatch (Task Leader: George Leshkevich) -- provide Federal, state, and local decision makers, and other clients access to near real-time and retrospective NOAA satellite and aircraft observations and other products for the U.S. coastal ocean and Great Lakes.
Research Task 2: Nearshore Hydrodynamics (Task Leaders: David Schwab and James Saylor) -- synthesize the results of research studies on coastal hydrodynamics, biological processes, and water chemistry of the nearshore region and apply them to practical problems of coastal environmental management and planning.Water Resources Research
Research Task 4: Hydrologic Processes (Task Leader: Thomas Croley) -- adapt or develop models that couple atmospheric and hydrological processes to gain predictive capability for rainfall-runoff, evapotranspiration, moisture storage, lake surface flux, thermal structure, heat storage, and other processes relating to the hydrologic cycle, and apply these models to water resources forecasting and climate change assessments.Aquatic Contaminants
Research Task 5: Water Resources Forecasting (Task Leader: Thomas Croley) -- develop a system for nowcasts and 1-day-to-3-month probabilistic forecasts of water supplies, lake levels, and connecting channel flows, with consideration of basin moisture storage and lake heat storage variables, to produce useful and timely forecast products and capabilities.
Research Task 6: Aquatic Contaminants (Task Leader: Peter Landrum) -- determine processes that govern contaminant fluxes into and out of sediments, that mix contaminants within sediments, and that control the transfer of contaminants from sediments into the food chain. Develop methods for assessing the extent or degree of sediment contamination and for determining bioavailability and bioaccumulation of sediment- associated contaminants. Monitor long-term trends in population abundances of benthic macroinvertebrates in selected areas of the Great Lakes and determine the significance and reasons for any observed changes.Biogeochemistry Research
Research Task 7: NECOP (Task Leader: Brian Eadie) -- determine quantitative relationships between coastal primary productivity and anthropogenically enhanced nutrient inputs and assess the impacts of enhanced productivity on water quality. Determine the fate of carbon fixed through enhanced productivity and its impact on living resources and the global carbon cycle.Ecosystem Dynamics
Research Task 8: Biogeochemistry of Lakes and Coastal Ecosystems (Task Leader: Brian Eadie) -- employ radioactive and stable isotopes to establish geochronologies and probe major Great Lakes and coastal ecosystem processes and their alteration by anthropogenic stresses such as contamination and climatic variations, with emphasis on the carbon and nitrogen cycles, and the use of natural and fall-out radioisotopes.
Research Task 9: Ecosystem Dynamics Research (Task Leader: Gary Fahnenstiel) -- improve our knowledge and understanding of lower food web processes and dynamics, and their relationship to environmental quality and living resources in Great Lakes and coastal marine ecosystems. Apply this knowledge better understand the causes, effects, and solutions to problems such as eutrophication, toxic contaminants, nonindigenous species invasions, habitat modification, and climatic variations.Nonindigenous Species
Research Task 12: Episodic Events (Task Leader: Gary Fahnenstiel) -- determine the importance of episodic events, e.g., storms, runoff-events, downwelling, upwelling, lake ice cover, and thermal bar formation, on ecosystem processes that affect the structure and function of nearshore ecosystems. Incorporate episodic events into ecosystem models, to advance the prediction of, and management response to, both anthropogenic and natural perturbations to ecosystem structure and function.
Research Task 10: Nonindigenous Species Research (Task Leader: Henry Vanderploeg) -- expand our knowledge and understanding of the ecology of nonindigenous (invasive) species and their impact on the ecosystems of the Great Lakes, especially at the lower trophic levels and in the benthic community, with emphasis on the zebra mussel invasion of the Great Lakes. Use laboratory and field-based studies focused on Saginaw Bay, Lake St. Clair, and western Lake Erie to evaluate weak links in zebra mussel life history; explore the relationship between zebra mussels and nuisance blue-green algal blooms, and the effects of zebra mussels on nutrient and toxic chemical cycling.Climate Change and Variability
Research Task 11: Climate Variability (Task Leader: Frank Quinn) -- conduct studies to identify and improve our understanding of the interactions and impacts of climate change and variability with socio-economic frameworks and ecosystem structure and function, to improve planning for regional adaptation strategies. Analyze and model climate variables over the last 100 years to identify the implications to regional water resources, ice cover, water levels, and ecosystem health in the Great Lakes basin.
RETURN to 1996 1997 Overview page
Last updated: July 10, 2002 mbl