Humanity can farm more food from the seas to help feed the planet while shrinking mariculture’s negative impacts on biodiversity, according to new research led by the University of Michigan.
To try to understand how harmful algal blooms might evolve in Lake Erie in a warming climate, University of Michigan scientists helped conduct a survey of cyanobacteria in a gulf of Kenya’s Lake Victoria.
Water desalination plants could replace expensive chemicals with new carbon cloth electrodes that remove boron from seawater, an important step of turning seawater into safe drinking water.
Research led by the University of Michigan shows that communities of color in Texas face pronounced risks of E. coli exposure in nearby waters after intense rain.
The Mellon Foundation has awarded nearly $4 million in a first-of-its kind grant to bolster the University of Michigan’s leading work in environmental justice.
In certain parts of the U.S., the ability of residents to prepare for and respond to flooding is being undercut on three different levels.
The University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) and U-M's Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering have been awarded a $199,993 grant from the State of Michigan to develop a Michigan maritime strategy focused on climate action.
U-M has received a $25 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to support collaborative research initiatives addressing critical environmental challenges in U.S. coastal communities.
Wetlands are threatened by a variety of factors, including nutrient runoff from lawns and agricultural operations. This excess of nutrients can promote the growth of invasive species and disrupt the delicate ecosystem balance.
Anyone who’s spent their winter months around the Great Lakes has probably had the uncanny experience of living through three seasons in a single weekend. According to new research from U-M, these wild weather swings are poised to become even more common in the future.
As sea ice disappears and grows less reflective, the Arctic has lost around a quarter of its cooling power since 1980, and the world has lost up to 15%, according to new research led by U-M scientists.
Southeast Michigan’s Huron River abounds with picturesque natural scenes, including burbling streams, graceful trumpeter swans, towering leafy trees, and… polluted foam? More than just an eyesore, this foam—now a common sight in waterways across Michigan and much of the U.S.—often contains a group of harmful synthetic chemicals called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which have been linked to a variety of negative health effects.
A grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Integrated Ocean Observing System will establish a Great Lakes Biodiversity Observation Network to coordinate with and learn from biodiversity observation networks along the U.S. coasts and ocean waters and other BONs in ocean and freshwater habitats worldwide.
Nestled by the St. Clair River, a small rural neighborhood in St. Clair Township, Michigan, is surrounded by a high concentration of hazardous crude oil and natural gas facilities. For decades, Murphy Drive residents have been exposed to unreported chemical releases, oil spills, poor air quality and harmful odors.
A team of scientists, including a U-M aquatic ecologist, is forecasting an above-average summer “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico covering about 5,827 square miles—an area roughly the size of Connecticut.
“As people are worried about climate, we shouldn’t forget that a big part of the climate story is the ocean, which stores and transports a lot of heat and carbon.”
Great Lakes researchers at U-M have been awarded a $6.5 million, five-year federal grant to host a center for the study of links between climate change, harmful algal blooms and human health. Increased precipitation, more powerful storms and warming Great Lakes waters all encourage the proliferation of harmful algal blooms composed of cyanobacteria.
Three new U-M sustainability catalyst grants will support novel research projects to address vexing environmental challenges. “Catching the Waves” focuses on deploying wave energy converters to power remote coastal communities, starting with Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. “Mussel Roads” uses biomimicry to enhance asphalt durability by developing materials inspired by mussel-binding proteins. “Plast-ick,” leverages artificial intelligence and satellite data to predict pollutants like PFAS in water bodies.
Michigan is home to 43 species of native freshwater mussels, 30 of which are considered to be at risk of extinction. Among the many factors that threaten the hard-shelled bottom dwellers are competition from invasive zebra and quagga mussels, water pollution, and—especially—dams.
The new projects include “Plast-ick,” which leverages AI and satellite data to predict pollutants like PFAS in water bodies; “Catching the Waves,” which focuses on deploying wave energy converters to power remote coastal communities; and "Mussel Roads," which uses biomimicry to enhance asphalt durability by developing materials inspired by mussel-binding proteins.
In a new effort to support decarbonizing the maritime shipping industry, U-M has entered into a strategic partnership with the Copenhagen-based Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping.
Researchers at U-M’s Rogel Cancer Center want to build a movement to understand how exposures to toxic metals, industrial pollution and “forever chemicals” called PFAS, are impacting the health and cancer risk of residents across Michigan.
The ice-out, declared on March 16 this year, comes after the latest-recorded Douglas Lake “ice-in” occurred on Jan. 6—making this the shortest season of lake ice cover recorded at the U-M Biological Station, at 70 days. For 93 years, scientists at the Biological Station, the 10,000-acre research and teaching campus nestled along Douglas Lake near Pellston in the northern Lower Peninsula, have made the calls based on their observations of the lake.
U-M is marking late March and all of April with a series of events focused on sustainability and climate action, continuing a tradition that began with the first “Teach-In on the Environment” in 1970—which grew into what is now known as Earth Day.
When climate scientists look to the future to determine what the effects of climate change may be, they use computer models to simulate potential outcomes such as how precipitation will change in a warming world. But U-M scientists are looking at something a little more tangible: coral.
The global challenges posed by climate change are widespread, impacting various aspects of human life, with water resources at the forefront of these challenges. As climate change advances, it is projected to exacerbate water scarcity and access issues, given the intensification of water-related hazards (such as hurricanes and flooding) and rising temperatures that will lead to sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion.
Rackham Ph.D. candidate Etienne Herrick-Sutton works with Great Lakes region farmers to identify strategies for improving the environmental and economic outcomes of cover cropping.
Six new research projects will investigate the shifting dynamics of harmful algal blooms, economic trends in coastal communities, emerging fish viruses, and other issues relevant to the Great Lakes.
The threat of harmful algal blooms (HABs) continues to plague Lake Erie, prompting intensified efforts from binational jurisdictions to address this persistent environmental challenge. Central to this endeavor is the mitigation of phosphorus, recognized as a key driver of algal blooms, through coordinated action plans.
Fiber optic cables that line ocean floors could provide a less expensive, more comprehensive alternative to the current buoys that act as early warning systems for tsunamis, says a U-M researcher.
U-M is a partner in the Great Lakes Water Innovation Engine, one of ten regional hubs the National Science Foundation announced this week as part of a program that’s among the largest broad investments in place-based research and development in the nation’s history, according to NSF.
New, nontoxic materials could one day keep solar panels and airplane wings ice-free, or protect first responders from frostbite and more, thanks to a new U-M-led project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Existing materials used to accomplish these feats come with serious downsides. For instance, road salts prevent pavements and streets from freezing but also corrode concrete and enter natural freshwaters through runoff, to the detriment of aquatic life.
Middle-aged women with elevated levels of heavy metals are more likely to have depleted ovarian function and egg reserves, which may lead to earlier arrival of menopause and its negative health effects, a new U-M study shows.
This winter, researchers at the U-M Biological Station in northern Michigan are strengthening their snow science with new technology to track the snowpack at an hourly rate and get a deeper understanding of the complexities of global environmental change.
A conservation easement permanently protects private land by limiting the type and amount of development on a property, and restricting other uses that would damage natural features such as rich soils and high functioning wetlands.
The need for a compact came when, twenty-five years ago, a Canadian company decided they could fill tanker ships with Great Lakes water to sell to countries with water shortages. Wanting to protect the lakes, the Great Lakes states, along with Ontario and Quebec, began the complex negotiations that would lead to the formal agreement detailing how they’d work together to manage as well as protect the Great Lakes.
Since 1930, U-M has maintained the Edwin S. George Reserve (ESGR) to provide research and educational opportunities, as well as preserve native flora and fauna. The 525-hectare fenced ESGR is located in Livingston County, Michigan (about 25 miles northwest of Ann Arbor) and hosts students, postdocs and faculty as well as biologists from other universities throughout the year.
The Environmental Health Research-to-Action Academy is a community-academic partnership focused on building skills and intergenerational knowledge in environmental health, community science and policy advocacy to address cumulative environmental exposures in the nearby communities.
This summer’s Chesapeake Bay “dead zone” was the smallest it’s been since monitoring began in 1985, according to data released by the Chesapeake Bay Program’s monitoring partners: the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Old Dominion University and Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The model used to make the annual forecasts was developed at U-M.
While Legionella bacteria can be found in natural freshwater environments, outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease are more often associated with large water systems in public buildings, cooling towers, and other places where water is stagnant or flows at a low rate.
Flint residents have learned to question everything in the decade since the city’s drinking water first began showing signs of lead contamination. Even now, after seven straight years with water meeting federal safety guidelines, the lack of trust remains for many. U-M researchers and their partners are addressing this lingering problem on multiple fronts — from continued testing to in-school education and consulting with the city.
Over the course of the semester, U-M students are investigating drinking water-related issues in Michigan — including contamination, accessibility and affordability — to propose novel solutions.
LSA’s Detroit River Story Lab teaches students from elementary school through college about the past and future of the vibrant body of water.
Ann Arbor and other cities across the Midwest and Northeast have been referred to by climate specialists as “climate havens,” natural areas of refuge that are relatively safe from extreme weather events such as intense heat and tropical storms.
Each peer-reviewed factsheet presents data on patterns of use, life cycle impacts, and sustainable solutions. Updated annually by a current SEAS graduate student, the collection is a free resource to inform journalists, policymakers, business professionals, students, teachers and the public.
Nearly $1.23 billion has been spent by the U.S. government since 2004 on the cleanup of toxic pollutants in waterways resulting from manufacturing activities in historic areas around the Great Lakes.
“Water management will be one of the challenges of our generation,” Gilchrist told students. “In order to understand how we can meet that challenge, we need smart, we need bold, we need connected information professionals to be part of the process.”
U-M researchers will lead a new effort to strengthen the climate change resilience of vulnerable communities that span international boundaries and jurisdictions. The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded $5 million to U-M to establish the Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters.
PFAS have contaminated water, food, and people through products such as Teflon pans, waterproof clothing, stain-resistant carpets and fabrics, and food packaging. They are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they are resistant to breaking down and therefore last for decades in the environment.
“Water conservation and access” brings a slew of images to mind: wastewater flowing through main lines to a city treatment plant, a fisherman yanking invasive mussels off the hull of a trawler, the installation of filters in communities that lack access to safely managed drinking water.
A new University of Michigan-led study finds that farmers in India have adapted to warming temperatures by intensifying the withdrawal of groundwater used for irrigation. If the trend continues, the rate of groundwater loss could triple by 2080, further threatening India’s food and water security.
The devastating floods that ripped through the northeast United States are among the most recent in a long string of severe flooding events occurring worldwide, which make it plain that better flood predictions and safety plans are needed. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, flooding causes $8 billion in losses on average annually in the U.S. alone.
Should states and Indigenous nations be able to influence energy projects they view as harmful or contrary to their laws and values? This question lies at the center of a heated debate over Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline, which carries oil and natural gas across Wisconsin and Michigan.
The tools and policies that worked to significantly reduce threats to the Great Lakes over the past century are ill-equipped to handle today’s complex and interrelated challenges. A new set of stewardship principles is needed to work holistically and systematically on long-term social, economic, environmental, and racial-equity and resiliency concerns that have too often been sidelined in a rush for immediate results.
An updated textbook has been released that provides a fundamental introduction to aquatic life and ecosystems and multidisciplinary fish studies, including an understanding of the anatomical, environmental, and ethological topics of fish ecology.
Lake Erie harmful algal blooms consisting of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, are capable of producing microcystin, a known liver toxin that poses a risk to human and wildlife health. Such blooms may force cities and local governments to treat drinking water and to close beaches, and they can harm vital local economies by preventing people from fishing, swimming, boating and visiting the shoreline.
The production of the fertilizer urea is one of the largest carbon dioxide emitters in the chemical industry, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With $1.3 million in funding from the W. M. Keck Foundation, a new, more sustainable approach for producing urea will be tested at U-M.
In 2023, the dead zone is predicted to be 33% smaller than the long-term average taken between 1985 and 2022. If the forecast proves accurate, this summer’s Chesapeake Bay dead zone would be the smallest on record.
Discussions of valuable but threatened ocean ecosystems often focus on coral reefs or coastal mangrove forests. Seagrass meadows get a lot less attention, even though they provide wide-ranging services to society and store lots of climate-warming carbon.
A team of scientists including a U-M aquatic ecologist is forecasting a summer “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico that will cover an estimated 4,155 square miles, which is below the 5,364-square-mile average over the 36-year history of dead zone measurements in the region.
“I just thought it was an interesting story that this red alga looks so much like an animal, namely, a coral. It had been unnoticed as such, and then it turned out to have some distinctive features.”
Michigan is blessed with a significant portion of the world’s freshwater supply, but water quality and affordability have been persistent issues affecting households throughout the state. Because of the suburbanization of poverty, there are now more residents struggling to afford and access clean, safe water in suburban communities where there are also fewer social welfare institutions to meet their needs.
Scientific studies have shown that exposure to some PFAS in the environment may be linked to harmful health effects in humans and animals. Because there are thousands of PFAS chemicals found in many different consumer, commercial, and industrial products, it is challenging to study and assess the human health and environmental risks.
Now more than 100 years old, the Biological Station is a 10,000-acre property in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan whose core mission is to advance environmental field research, engage students in scientific discovery, and provide information needed to understand and sustain ecosystems from local to global scales.
Participating in our democracy, particularly locally, and organizing for systems and policy change to promote the collective good is critical to building a clean energy future that is just and works for all. This was the overall sentiment of a panel that brought together three community activists and organizers who have emerged as powerful leaders that work on pushing forward solutions that consider the rights of all people.
By directly measuring greenhouse gas emissions from an airplane flying over the Gulf of Mexico, a U-M team found that the nation’s largest offshore fossil fuel production basin has twice the climate warming impact as official estimates.
“By having access to this information, people can make informed decisions about their behavior if they have a personal concern about the levels of pathogens detected in their community.”
As climate change and population growth make water scarcity increasingly common, a much larger share of the global population will be forced to reckon with the costs of urban water scarcity. A new study sheds light on how households bear the monetary and nonmonetary costs when water supply is intermittent, rather than continuous—with policy implications that could help make urban water safer, more sustainable and more equitable.
State agencies and the U-M Water Center will work to understand and reduce Michigan’s nutrient runoff to Lake Erie, as well as design and implement a diverse, robust and transparent advisory process to inform the state’s adaptive management plan for the lake.
“I wish to use this fellowship to answer these questions in the context of Mexico, documenting through “day in the life”-style illustrations of various people and communities interacting with water. I hope my findings can be transferable to other countries and regions facing similar challenges.”
The Graham Sustainability Institute’s Carbon Neutrality Acceleration Program (CNAP) announced $1,160,000 in funding for six new faculty research projects. They tackle a range of carbon neutrality topics and augment the CNAP portfolio, which addresses six critical technological and social decarbonization opportunities: energy storage; capturing, converting, and storing carbon; changing public opinion and behavior; ensuring an equitable and inclusive transition; material and process innovation; and transportation and alternative fuels.
The U-M Museum of Art’s recent interactive discussion, “Talking Trash,” shared insights and advice on combating the overwhelming effects of single-use plastic. The event was inspired by The Plastic Bag Store, an immersive public art installation created by Robin Frohardt that provides social commentary on our plastic consumption.
New information about an emerging technique that could track microplastics from space has been uncovered by U-M researchers. It turns out that satellites are best at spotting soapy or oily residue, and microplastics appear to tag along with that residue.
The report calls for “urgency” in cleaning up toxic sediment on the bottom of the Detroit River. Remediation is needed on the Detroit side, but not on the Canadian side, according to the report.
Michigan Sea Grant recently received $500,000 in funding to help improve resilience under future climate change scenarios in disadvantaged coastal communities in Michigan and Wisconsin. The project will assess flood risk for disadvantaged communities in Berrien County, Michigan, and Milwaukee, and will provide a framework to extend the analysis throughout the Great Lakes.
A U-M startup that helped accelerate the removal of dangerous lead pipes in Flint and many other communities has joined a White House partnership aimed at replacing all of the nation’s lead service lines in a decade. The public-private initiative aims to expedite the removal of lead in drinking water — a problem that rose to national prominence when lead was discovered in Flint’s drinking water several years ago and spurred a public health crisis.
In the video, tribal leaders and Native community members share the ways that Line 5 harms Native communities and how a future with clean energy is possible and essential.
The Dow Sustainability Fellows Program, administered by the Graham Sustainability Institute, will award over $800,000 in tuition and project funding in 2023. The funds will support more than 40 outstanding graduate students from ten University of Michigan (U-M) schools, colleges, and units, including two large student projects funded by Dow Distinguished Awards.
Mass coral bleaching events are making it harder for some species of reef fish to identify competitors, new research reveals. Scientists studying reefs across five Indo-Pacific regions found that the ability of butterfly fish individuals to identify competitor species and respond appropriately was compromised after widespread loss of coral caused by bleaching.
Dolphins and other sea creatures are affected by human disturbances in their habitat, including climate change, overfishing, noise pollution from shipping, construction, oil exploration and navy sonar activity. These types of disturbances can interrupt important animal behavior like foraging for fish and socializing, but measuring disturbance is difficult because the animals live under water.
A new law that gives the state’s 32 ports tools to expand and grow the maritime economy started out as a community project for a handful of U-M students.
A new analysis of more than 20,000 trees on five continents shows that old-growth trees are more drought tolerant than younger trees in the forest canopy and may be better able to withstand future climate extremes.
This year’s Chesapeake Bay “dead zone” was the 10th-smallest observed since 1985, according to findings released today by the Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners, including U-M. The annual Chesapeake Bay dead zone is an area of low oxygen that forms in deep waters when excess nutrients, including both nitrogen and phosphorus, enter the water through polluted runoff and feed naturally occurring algae.
When an emergency causes a disruption in access to clean water, it seems reasonable to respond by providing the public with bottled water. In the short term, this can provide a safe supply of water while the problems get sorted out. But what if the emergency has lasted eight years, and counting, as it has in Flint, Michigan?
Fish excretions. Yes, that’s fish pee. Could it improve food security in the Caribbean? Allgeier thinks so, and it might even help slow global warming.
Did you know that the average North American household uses roughly 240 gallons of water daily? Or that the Department of Energy estimates that 75% of U.S. energy will come from fossil fuels in 2050, which is widely inconsistent with IPCC carbon reduction goals? Did you know that just 16¢ of every dollar spent on food in 2020 went back to the farm, whereas, in 1975, it was 40¢?
We usually think of climate change in terms of summer heat waves, warming oceans and extreme weather events. But what is happening in winter, when the ground should be frozen or covered in snow? Statistics show that winter is actually the season that is warming fastest in the U.S., and this is having some serious and unforeseen consequences.
How can we boost the resilience of the world’s coral reefs, which are imperiled by multiple stresses including mass bleaching events linked to climate warming? One strategy advocated by some researchers, resource managers and conservationists is to restore populations of algae-eating reef fish, such as parrotfish. But a new study that analyzed long-term data from 57 coral reefs around the French Polynesian island of Mo’orea challenges this canon of coral reef ecology.
Michigan Sea Grant and the state of Michigan have launched a project to support Michigan small harbors’ efforts to become economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, and to equip coastal community leaders with the tools to assess and strengthen their waterfront assets.
Many small and mid-sized communities like Goshen, IN simply don’t have the resources to tackle a global crisis like climate change on their own. So in 2018, Goshen was one of 12 cities that partnered with Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA), an organization led by U-M that’s working to help small and mid-sized cities plan for a future that will be shaped by a changing climate.
"Water levels are getting lower and lower because of two big problems. First, the long agreed-upon annual allocation of water to about 40 million users in seven states (e.g., California) and Mexico exceeds the supply of water flowing in the river. Second, and ignored by many, the water flowing in the river is also dropping relentlessly, as a warmer, drier climate reduces the amount from snow and rain that reaches the river."
As a board member of the nonprofit Cass Community Social Services organization in Detroit, SEAS master’s student Isabella Shehab has seen firsthand the challenges the city and its residents face: vacant buildings, aging infrastructure, flooding. Now, Shehab is using a scholarship awarded through the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) to research the impacts these challenges have on Detroit residents’ mental health and well-being—all with an eye on solutions.
Katrina Munsterman, PhD student at U-M, recently became the recipient of a joint Sea Grant-NOAA Fisheries fellowship to pursue her work in ecosystem dynamics. Katrina applied via Michigan Sea Grant to receive this annual national award, the 2022 National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)-Sea Grant Joint Fellowship.
U-M will work with Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and regional and state stakeholders to craft policies that will ensure safe drinking water at low cost. Labeled the Michigan Center for Freshwater Innovation (MFIC), the partnership will work with the state’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to fulfill the promise of directives issued late last year by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on safe drinking water.
From the Great Lakes to its inland rivers and streams, hiking trails to golf courses, and lakeside cottages to campgrounds, the State of Michigan has long offered a near-endless number of natural resources to enjoy each summer—and a thriving tourism industry to prove it. But like with the rest of the country, and planet, the effects of climate change not only loom in the distance, but are here and causing real challenges to our ecosystem, and the outdoor recreation it provides, right now.
U-M researchers and their partners are forecasting that western Lake Erie will experience a smaller than average harmful algal bloom this summer, which would make it less severe than 2021 and more akin to what was seen in the lake in 2020.
This summer’s Chesapeake Bay “dead zone” is expected to be smaller than the long-term average, according to a forecast released today by researchers from U-M, Chesapeake Bay Program, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and U.S. Geological Survey.
U-M has been awarded a five-year, $53 million renewal agreement from the federal government to continue and expand the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, with the goal of helping to conserve and manage the region’s natural resources.
The Detroit River Story Lab’s Skiff and Schooner Program is setting sail for its second summer, this time accommodating even more students in its quest to foster connection between the river and its communities. Students from 15 Detroit high schools, two colleges and six youth-serving organizations will board the schooner throughout the summer to learn about various topics focused on the environmental and cultural history of the Detroit River, ranging from marine biology and wildlife restoration to the Underground Railroad.
Middle-aged women with higher blood concentrations of a common group of synthetic chemicals known as PFAS are at greater risk of developing high blood pressure, compared to their peers who have lower levels of these substances. Called "forever chemicals," PFAS are used in everyday household items such as shampoo, dental floss, cosmetics, nonstick cookware, food packaging, stain-resistant coatings for carpeting, upholstery and clothing.
Michigan Groundwater Table members agreed that Michigan’s groundwater is a “critical and often overlooked resource,” vital to the state’s public health, agriculture and other businesses, coldwater fisheries, stream ecology, and wetlands, and accounts for at least 25% of the total water inflow to the Great Lakes via groundwater inflow into tributaries. They also found that Michigan has underinvested in monitoring, mapping, and reporting groundwater quantity and quality.
The leading cause of death worldwide is water-borne disease. Some 3.4 million people die each year from drinking unclean water. The primary source of contamination is raw sewage intrusion into drinking-water sources due to the lack of waste-water-treatment infrastructure.
A team of scientists including a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist is forecasting a summer “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico of 5,364 square miles, about average for the 35-year history of the measurements. The forecast is lower than last year’s measured size and slightly lower than the five-year average measured size of 5,380 square miles. The 2022 Gulf of Mexico hypoxia forecast was released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which funds the work.
Reducing levels of the nutrient phosphorus to control harmful algal blooms in places like Lake Erie is actually advantageous to toxic cyanobacteria strains, which can lead to an increase in toxins in the water, according to a new modeling study.
Researchers have identified many factors that influence the timing and distribution of Lake Erie’s harmful algal blooms. Intensity and timing of spring rainstorms is part of the puzzle, as is the amount of algae-feeding nitrogen and phosphorus traveling into the lake from nearby rivers.
Math achievement for school-age children in Flint decreased and the proportion of children with special needs increased as a result of the Michigan city’s water crisis during 2014-16, according to a new U-M study.
A new U-M study that used fossil oyster shells as paleothermometers found the shallow sea that covered much of western North America 95 million years ago was as warm as today’s tropics. The findings also hint at what may be in store for future generations unless emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are reined in.
PFAS, a group of so-called “forever chemicals,” are ubiquitous in our environment—in our rivers, in our clothes, seeping through the cooking utensils in our kitchens. And, according to a new U-M study, high concentrations of these chemicals are associated with increased risk to diabetes in midlife women—similar to the risks posed by cigarette smoking and being overweight.
Interdisciplinary teams of Sustainability Scholars—senior undergraduate students—recently presented the results of their engaged research projects. Projects pertained to farmland preservation, sustainable energy data, STEM kits and gardens, and water quality, respectively.
The Great Lakes Impact Investment Platform announced the environmental performance of its participating projects across eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Collectively, the projects are reducing 3 million tons of carbon, protecting more than 30,000 acres of forest and farmland, saving 110 million kilowatts of energy, and saving 5.4 million gallons of water.
The Arctic is rapidly losing sea ice, and less ice means more open water, and more open water means more gas and aerosol emissions from the ocean into the air, warming the atmosphere and making it cloudier. So when U-M researchers collected aerosols from the Arctic atmosphere during summer 2015, Rachel Kirpes, then a doctoral student, discovered a curious thing: aerosolized ammonium sulfate particles didn’t look like typical liquid aerosols.
The Dow Innovation Teacher Fellowship was created for K-12 teachers of all disciplines interested in teaching sustainability issues. It trains and supports educators who teach primarily in Michigan’s Arenac, Bay, Gratiot, Isabella, Midland and Saginaw counties.
More than 30 types of laboratory analyses will be performed on water and ice as part of a larger effort—dubbed the Winter Grab—to better understand winter on the Great Lakes, a season long dismissed by many scientists as a time of dormancy when little of importance happens.
Maps of the American West have featured ever darker shades of red over the past two decades. The colors illustrate the unprecedented drought blighting the region. In some areas, conditions have blown past severe and extreme drought into exceptional drought. But rather than add more superlatives to our descriptions, one group of scientists believes it’s time to reconsider the very definition of drought.
For the environmental movement to be effective, it must be something that everyone participates in, marine biologist and climate policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson said.
Marine biologist and climate policy expert Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson will deliver the Wege Lecture on Sustainability on February 23. Johnson is the co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for coastal cities, and co-creator (and former co-host) of the Spotify/Gimlet podcast “How to Save a Planet,” which discusses climate solutions.
Five newly awarded catalyst grants from the Graham Sustainability Institute will fund projects designed to advance potential infrastructure solutions across energy, transportation, and the built environment. The projects will facilitate climate change adaptation, test products aimed to reduce carbon emissions, and foreground equity and justice in sustainability interventions.
The Great Lakes support more than 3,500 species of plants and animals, including more than 170 species of fish, and a population of 34 million people in the United States and Canada who rely on these waters for recreation, employment, drinking water supply, and more.
Teams will drill through ice to collect water samples, measure light levels at various depths and net tiny zooplankton as part of a broader effort to better understand the changing face of winter on the Great Lakes, where climate warming is increasing winter air temperatures, decreasing ice-cover extent and changing precipitation patterns.
In recent years, lakeside communities have struggled to cope with the effect of rising water levels and erosion on the beaches that have made them such attractive places for vacationers and residents alike. As a professor of urban and regional planning, Richard Norton’s work explores how humans can safely adapt to these environmental changes, while also protecting the unique ecosystems that make the Great Lakes region special.
Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-12) toured the U-M Matthaei Botanical Gardens to showcase the success of the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funds over the years and how the additional $1 billion included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the GLRI will help projects across the Great Lakes Basin for the long-term economic and environmental health of the region.
Jacob Allgeier, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, studies how nutrients and energy cycle through tropical ecosystems in order to better manage fisheries. The artificial reefs he’s building are an inexpensive, effective way to sustainably improve fisheries’ productivity.
For Frank Turchan, executive chef at M Dining, using local produce is a way to support sustainability, but it’s also just good food. Turchan works with a number of farmers and producers both locally and from across the state. These include more than 20 companies that sell food products, such as Zingerman’s; Prairie Farms, a Midwest dairy cooperative; and Detroit’s Better Made Chips, McClure Pickle, Quality Meats & Culinary Specialties and LaGrasso Brothers, which grows lettuce and sources produce from other local farmers.
Millions of workers in coastal Africa—most of them women—spend their days preserving fish by smoking them in rudimentary, wood-fired mud ovens. U-M researchers and their colleagues looked at the air pollutant exposures and health symptoms experienced by fish smokers in two coastal cities in the West African nation of Ghana.
Headlines decrying tiny particles in our drinking water and swirling masses like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch have centered plastic waste as the modern scourge of marine ecosystems. But Michiganders may be surprised to learn that this threat hits particularly close to home: recent studies show that at times, the Great Lakes contain the highest concentration of plastics anywhere on the planet.
Sail outings, arranged as part of a new Skiff and Schooner program piloted by U-M’s Detroit River Story Lab, include learning stations devoted to the physics of ship construction and buoyancy, river ecology, the carbon cycle and the river’s role in the history of the Underground Railroad. The lab partnered with several community groups including Communities First in Flint and Healthy Kidz in Detroit for the trips.
Before sea lamprey control methods were instituted, it was estimated that sea lampreys killed more than 100 million pounds of Great Lakes fishes annually, five times the commercially harvested amount in the upper Great Lakes.
Water and sewer service affordability, at both the household and community levels, is a widespread and growing problem across Michigan. Left unchecked, it is likely to increase in the future, according to a new statewide assessment.
The Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners, including U-M, released information today on the state of the 2021 Chesapeake Bay “dead zone.” While last year’s dead zone was the second smallest observed since 1985, this year’s assessment paints a more complex picture of the bay’s health.
Freshwater mussels are a paradoxical group: How can so many species persist side by side while feeding on the same foods—sediments, plankton and other particles in the water column? Elsewhere in nature, a few species would typically gain an advantage over the others and would eventually outcompete them.
The School for Environment and Sustainability has launched the SEAS Sustainability Clinic, which aims to help the city of Detroit and nonprofits serving it address the impacts of climate change on the natural and built environment, human health and city finances, while working to enhance sustainability policy and action.
The challenges facing oceans — from piracy and pollution to overfishing and shipping management — don’t exist in a vacuum.
Without a sustainable water supply, life in the desert is all but impossible. Flows of the Colorado are steadily shrinking because it’s snowing and raining less in the headwaters. Even bigger reductions in river flow have occurred due to the impact of relentless global warming.
Nearly 38,000 households in Detroit—which equates to more than 1 in 7 occupied homes—have faced major issues with exposed wires or electrical problems, broken furnace or heating problems, or lack of hot or running water in their homes in the past year.
Heavy metals like lead, industrial pollution from steel mills, coal-fired power plants or oil refineries, "forever chemicals" called PFAS that don't break down in the environment—how much are Michigan residents exposed to these environmental contaminants and what does this mean for their risk of developing cancer?
In order to motivate people to address climate change, you need to speak about it in “human terms,” said Gina McCarthy, the country’s first National Climate Advisor, during the Oct. 14 Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability.
In a key step toward improving the feasibility of reusing wastewater as drinking water, the EPA has granted U-M researchers $1.2 million to study how well current treatment methods remove viruses from wastewater.
Municipal takeover policies are often presented by supporters as rational, apolitical and technocratic responses to municipal financial distress. But a U-M researcher and colleagues found that a city’s level of financial distress is an unreliable predictor of the likelihood of state takeover, while the race and economic status of residents, as well as a city’s level of reliance on state revenue sharing, were better predictors.
Carter, an assistant professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, received a grant from the NASA Biodiversity and Ecological Forecasting program to research how changes in vegetation canopy and water stress in the western U.S. affect large mammal species.
Twelve projects involving 15 reserve sites across the nation and totaling more than $4 million over three years have been recommended for support by NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) Science Collaborative, managed by the U-M Water Center. The projects will tackle a range of practical, pressing coastal issues, including understanding coastal ecosystem services, flood resilience planning, biofeedback monitoring, and enhancing science literacy.
New research used direct satellite observations of floods to reveal that the proportion of the world’s population exposed to floods has grown by 24% since the turn of the century—10 times higher than scientists previously thought—due to both increased flooding and population migration.
In urban settings, healthy stream ecosystems provide important services, including drinking water, recreation, and natural beauty. Robert Goodspeed, an associate professor of urban and regional planning, and his research team aim to create a first-of-its-kind multidisciplinary framework to approach urban water quality management.
The recent flooding in the Detroit area has raised many issues for residents. Homes that were already in need of repairs were damaged even further. Detroiters don't want to move, but restricted government funds for home repairs are making that option look better each day.
U-M researchers and their partners are forecasting that western Lake Erie will experience a smaller-than-average harmful algal bloom this summer. A relatively dry spring is expected to lead to a repeat of last year’s mild bloom, marking the first time in more than a dozen years that mild Lake Erie blooms have occurred in consecutive summers.
U-M researchers surveying wastewater systems for SARS-COV-2 will be able to increase testing sites and continue monitoring until 2023 after receiving more than $5 million from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
Researchers are forecasting a smaller than average Chesapeake Bay “dead zone” due to reduced river flows and less nutrient and sediment pollution. The bay’s hypoxic and anoxic regions, which are areas of low and no oxygen, respectively, are caused by excess nutrient pollution.
Ensuring water access and affordability for Detroit residents is critical. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of universal access to safe and affordable water for public health, as well as the barriers and challenges to this goal created by conditions of high poverty and aging infrastructure.
The world’s largest ice sheets may be in less danger of sudden collapse than previously predicted, according to new findings led by U-M. Researchers modeled the collapse of various heights of ice cliffs—near-vertical formations that occur where glaciers and ice shelves meet the ocean. They found that instability doesn’t always lead to rapid disintegration.
An estimated 8 million tons of plastic trash enters the ocean each year, and most of it is battered by sun and waves into microplastics—tiny flecks that can ride currents hundreds or thousands of miles from their point of entry. The debris can harm sea life and marine ecosystems, and it’s extremely difficult to track and clean up.
A team of scientists including a U-M aquatic ecologist is forecasting this summer’s Gulf of Mexico hypoxic area or “dead zone,” an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and other marine life, to be approximately 4,880 square miles, a bit smaller than the state of Connecticut. The 2021 forecasted area is smaller than, but close to, the five-year-average measured size of 5,400 square miles.
As the deadline approaches for Canadian oil company Enbridge to shut down a 4.5-mile section of the Line 5 pipeline that runs beneath Lake Michigan, U-M engineering researchers offered insights into how the company might go about doing that, and also how they might construct a tunnel under the lakebed for a replacement section of the line.
A lot of attention has been paid in recent years to the carbon footprint of the foods we eat, with much of the focus on the outsize contribution of meat production and especially beef. But much less is known about the implications of individual U.S. dietary choices on other environmental concerns, such as water scarcity.
How will fluctuating water levels across the Great Lakes impact the growth of cities, people moving to the region, changes in water supply and the overall economy? Professor Drew Gronewold is working with researchers across U-M to answer those critical questions.
U-M researchers will enlist the help of citizen scientists in a new project to digitize thousands of historical records—some dating back more than a century—about Michigan inland lake conditions and fish abundances. Scientists will feed the digitized data into computer models to study the impacts of climate change and other factors on the fish in Michigan’s inland lakes.
Climate change is causing significant impacts on the Great Lakes and the surrounding region. Because of their unique response to environmental conditions, Earth’s large lakes are considered by scientists as key sentinels of climate change.
The country that produces 10% of the world’s crops is now the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, and aquifers are rapidly becoming depleted across much of India.
Robotic laboratories on the bottom of Lake Erie have revealed that the muddy sediments there release nearly as much of the nutrient phosphorus into the surrounding waters as enters the lake’s central basin each year from rivers and their tributaries.
Wastewater treatment systems that combine conventional set-ups with a relatively new technology could reap a host of benefits: smaller plant sizes, lower energy costs and more nitrogen pollution removed. Researchers at U-M have demonstrated how utilizing a “membrane aerated biofilm reactor” (MABR) in a hybrid configuration with traditional technologies can supercharge treatment.
Most scientific discovery is incremental: Breakthroughs happen after years and years of tiny steps. But a recent U-M discovery was a happy accident. It started with a disposal container and led to a $2 million Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation grant from the National Science Foundation to explore using adhesives to capture microplastics from wastewater.
Diverting urine away from municipal wastewater treatment plants and recycling the nutrient-rich liquid to make crop fertilizer would result in multiple environmental benefits when used at city scale, according to a new UM-led study. Researchers found that urine diversion and recycling led to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, freshwater consumption and the potential to fuel algal blooms in lakes and other water bodies.
Stakeholders in western Lake Erie rely on U-M’s Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) staff to provide critical information on harmful algal blooms (HABs), helping them to deliver high-quality drinking water to surrounding communities.
“Year to year changes in the dead zone are driven mostly by changes in weather. While that is likely the most important control on this year’s relatively small size, nutrient-reduction efforts are contributing to the slower downward trend,” said U-M aquatic ecologist Don Scavia, professor emeritus at the School for Environment and Sustainability and a member of the Chesapeake Bay forecast team.
By using a biological system to capture phosphorus from agricultural runoff, U-M researchers have created a process that would allow treatment plants to remove it from wastewater in a concentrated form that can then be reused as fertilizer.
The Great Lakes support more than 1.3 million jobs that generate $82 billion in wages annually, according to a new analysis of 2018 economic data by Michigan Sea Grant. The coastal counties of the eight Great Lakes states produce 21% of the gross domestic product in the region and 5.8% of the U.S. GDP, according to the report.
U-M researchers are developing a scalable technique for destroying perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS) in water using cold plasma, or charged gas. A growing concern around the U.S., PFAS are considered a dangerous legacy from the nation’s industrial past.
Concurrent failures of federal drinking water standards and Michigan’s emergency manager law reinforced and magnified each other, leading to the Flint water crisis, according to Sara Hughes, an assistant professor at U-M's School for Environment and Sustainability.
U-M researchers and their partners are forecasting that western Lake Erie will experience a moderate harmful algal bloom this summer. This year’s bloom is expected to measure 4.5 on the severity index—among the smaller blooms since 2011.
Asian carp and the trillions of quagga mussels that carpet the bottom of Lake Michigan would compete for the same food—algae and other types of plankton. Some Great Lakes researchers have suggested that the fingernail-size mollusks could help prevent the invasive fish from gaining a foothold.
Researchers are forecasting a slightly smaller-than-average Chesapeake Bay “dead zone” this year, due to reduced rainfall and less nutrient-rich runoff flowing into the bay from the watershed this spring.
U-M scientists and their colleagues are forecasting this summer’s Gulf of Mexico hypoxic area or “dead zone”—an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and other marine life—to be approximately 6,700 square miles, roughly the size of Connecticut and Delaware combined.
Discussions of drought often center on the lack of precipitation. But among climate scientists, the focus is shifting to include the growing role that warming temperatures are playing as potent drivers of greater aridity and drought intensification.
Water treatment is one of the most expensive and energy-intensive aspects of running a modern city. With today’s hotter, dryer world and a population that’s expected to continue to increase, humans are going to need to do water differently. In response, one U-M Engineering is assessing how we can reuse water and how we can use less water.
U-M researchers have raised serious concerns with the performance of arsenic test kits commonly used in Bangladesh to monitor water contamination, finding that several commercially-available, widely-used test kits performed poorly.
A new U-M-led study of individually radio-tracked tropical fish in a Bahamian mangrove estuary highlights the importance of highly active individuals in maintaining ecosystem health. It found that the individual gray and cubera snappers that spent the most time swimming and foraging for food also spread the highest levels of the essential nutrient nitrogen throughout the estuary in their urine.
U-M researchers found that one manual washing technique—the two-basin method, in which dishes are soaked and scrubbed in hot water and then rinsed in cold water—is associated with fewer greenhouse gas emissions than machine dishwashing.
U-M researchers found that urine can be used as a fertiliser without fear it will fuel the spread of antibiotic resistance – although they urge caution against using fresh bodily waste to water crops.
U-M student Jackson Riegler and a group of local residents collected 78 pounds of waste, a third of it plastic, from Pere Marquette Beach in Muskegon. Riegler turned the collected plastic into sustainable clothing, launching Oshki, which uses 100 percent U.S. plastic to produce clothes.
U-M marine ecologist Jacob Allgeier uses artificial reefs, mathematical modeling and community-based conservation programs to understand how an unlikely but renewable source of fertilizer—fish excretion—can be used to stimulate fish production and improve food security in tropical ecosystems.
Many hazardous chemicals that cause health issues continue to be used in industrial, commercial and private settings, despite documented harms. As the federal government implements the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, experts say some of the same problems that plagued the earlier Toxic Substances Control Act are hampering progress, despite new legal requirements that promise better protection.
Drew Gronewold discusses the impact that climate change is having on lake levels in the Great Lakes, and how his research can contribute to predictive models that can inform future policy decisions.
Asian carp are capable of surviving and growing in much larger portions of Lake Michigan than scientists previously believed and present a high risk of becoming established.
A group of U-M researchers has been awarded a five-year, $20 million cooperative agreement to support NOAA in overseeing research at a nationwide network of 29 estuaries—which are among the most biologically productive natural habitats on Earth.
Drew Gronewold and Richard Rood explain how a series of historically damaging floods “serve as warnings that we must better prepare and plan for the future ahead.”
U-M researchers collect and analyze samples from a Lake Erie cyanobacteria bloom to discover and characterize previously unknown toxins that may threaten human health, as well as compounds that could serve as sources of new medicines.
The Flint Water Crisis prompted the state of Michigan to adopt a new Lead and Copper Rule (LCR)—the guidelines that water utilities must follow to ensure the public’s health is protected. The most proactive LCR in the country, the University of Michigan Water Center formed a project team, funded by the CS Mott Foundation, to help guide the implementation process.
In the wake of the Flint water crisis, the state of Michigan implemented the country’s most stringent lead and copper rule in 2018. To facilitate public understanding of the new regulations, the Water Center at the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute has established a multidisciplinary team of experts.
Drew Gronewold and Richard Rood say the rapid transitions between extreme high and low water levels in the Great Lakes represent the “new normal.”
Although shrinking cities exist across the U.S., they are concentrated in the American Rust Belt and the Northeast. Urban shrinkage can be bad for drinking water in two ways: through aging infrastructure and reduced water demand.
Storm water management involves controlling stream and river bank erosion, improving water quality, and controlling flooding. U-M meets these objectives by building a coordinated network of structural and non-structural storm water control measures that work together to reduce, convey, and treat storm water runoff.
Research led by the U-M Water Center explores nutrient loading sources and promising best management practices that can improve water quality in the St. Clair-Detroit River System, and ultimately Lake Erie.
Highly localized and accurate Great Lakes ice cover forecasts have been demonstrated by researchers at U-M, and their predictive modeling tool can be adapted for any geographic region. Such localized forecasts would be useful more broadly as climate change brings a roller coaster of weather variability to many parts of the world, including those who live along, play in and make their living from the world’s largest surface source of freshwater.
Smart stormwater controls using water quantity and quality data from agricultural or urban runoff, coupled to weather forecasts, can manage drainage and discharge in receiving waters, thus reducing the need for expensive grey infrastructure systems.
The toxins produced in cyanobacteria blooms, which plague western Lake Erie each summer, may have protective effects on sand-grain-sized lake animals that ingest them, much as the toxins in milkweed plants protect monarch butterflies from parasites.
Lake Erie’s “dead zone” impacts the lake’s ecosystem and poses challenges for managers of drinking water treatment facilities. Researchers at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory and the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research developed a forecasting system to predict the location and movement of hypoxic water in Lake Erie, a source of drinking water for millions of people in northwest Ohio.
PFAS refers to a family of chemicals used to make common household products and waterproof clothing. Found in an increasing number of drinking water sources, U-M researchers are working together to determine the health effects of PFAS and what treatments exist.
Plastic has been documented in the Great Lakes at the highest concentrations seen anywhere on the planet. Too little is known about the fate of this plastic, so U-M researchers are exploring its role in ecosystem dynamics to predict the inevitable impacts on 20 percent of the world’s freshwater, and one of our most valuable national security assets.
Great Lakes water levels are continuously monitored by U.S. and Canadian federal agencies in the region through a binational partnership. NOAA-GLERL relies on this water level data to conduct research on components of the regional water budget and to improve predictive models.
U-M researchers are harnessing quantum science and engineering to advance water purification and artificial photosynthesis for clean energy. Their work could improve the efficiency of ultraviolet LEDs for water purification by a factor of 10 to 100, aiding the 2.5 billion people in the world who do not have regular access to clean drinking water.
The microbiomes in our bodies, lakes and rivers, and urban water systems work together to influence their environments, sometimes in dangerous ways. As our infrastructure ages, the human population rises and extreme weather taxes urban systems, scientists need to understand those microbiome interactions to harness their benefits and prevent harm.
Researchers at U-M, Michigan Technological University and the nonprofit Land Information Access Association are integrating science and best management practices to identify and analyze hazard areas across the Great Lakes. Together, they also are working with community groups to plan for better coastline management.
Michigan is home to more than 80 public marinas and harbors, which play an important role in a boating culture that annually draws $2.4 billion in economic activity to the state. Funded partly by Michigan Sea Grant, the Sustainable Small Harbors project aims to identify barriers preventing small harbors from becoming economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, and to equip coastal community leaders with the tools to assess and strengthen their own waterfront assets.
Copper or lead? U-M students and faculty, working with the City of Flint, helped answer that question with data science that predicts which homes have lead pipes.
Nels Carlson uses lessons from his U-M student research days to add to and enhance the work he does as the fifth-generation owner of Carlson’s Fishery, a popular tourist draw in historic Fishtown on the Leland River.
U-M researchers are part of a program that trains local officials in coastal management and helps them better understand the threats posed by climate change and building in floodplains.
After more than a decade of decline, water levels in Lakes Michigan and Huron reached historic lows in 2013, impacting the economy and ecology of the region. Then, during 2013 and 2014, the lakes nearly set another record as they experienced one of the largest two-year gains in water levels in recorded history, underscoring the dynamic nature of the Great Lakes system.
Autonomous “smart” technologies for aging stormwater systems are being developed at U-M to lessen the impacts of flooding — potentially saving lives and billions of dollars in property damage.
Urine could be the sustainable fertilizer of the future. That’s according to U-M researchers who opened two unique restroom facilities that are helping them test and refine the idea in the nation’s largest study of its kind.
On the former sites of vacant Detroit homes, U-M researchers and their partners have built innovative gardens that help manage stormwater, while removing neighborhood blight. The four new “bioretention gardens” are designed to capture and hold stormwater in a subsurface layer of gravel, while beautifying the Cody Rouge area on Detroit’s west side.
One U-M engineering alumna describes her work at Toolik Field Station, a world-renowned Arctic research outpost deep in Alaska’s interior.