{"id":94934,"date":"2020-09-17T09:28:26","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T13:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=94934"},"modified":"2020-09-17T09:28:27","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T13:28:27","slug":"water-power-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2020\/09\/17\/water-power-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Water power"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Silvia Newell is an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and president of the Lake Erie and Aquatic Research Network. (Photo by Nate Christopher, Fondriest Environmental)<\/p><\/div>\n

A Wright State University researcher is playing a major role in a new state partnership designed to gauge the effectiveness of wetlands in reducing water pollution.<\/p>\n

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine\u2019s H2Ohio Initiative, a comprehensive, data-driven approach to improving Ohio\u2019s water quality, has enlisted the Lake Erie and Aquatic Research Network (LEARN) to partner with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) on the initiative\u2019s wetland monitoring plan. The group will assess the effectiveness and future role of implemented and planned wetland restoration projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cODNR is charged with managing statewide projects focused on creating, restoring and enhancing wetlands to improve water quality,\u201d said Mary Mertz, ODNR director. \u201cWe are working collaboratively with LEARN to draw on the expertise from Ohio\u2019s strong academic institutions to help us document the success of these long-term investments in water quality.”<\/p>\n

LEARN President Silvia Newell, an associate professor in Wright State\u2019s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences<\/a>, said LEARN is excited to partner with ODNR on the wetland monitoring project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have researchers from six Ohio universities partnering with managers from ODNR, EPA and Ohio Sea Grant, as well as local watershed groups, to ensure we develop a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan that can be used as a blueprint for future work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

LEARN is a group of field stations, scientific laboratories and diverse researchers in Ohio that promotes collaborative research, education and networking to address the challenges and opportunities facing Ohio\u2019s freshwater resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main challenges we have in water quality right now come mostly from human nutrient pollution, and many studies have shown that wetlands are good at reducing nutrient pollution to our water resources,\u201d said Newell. \u201cThe Ohio Department of Natural Resources is trying to get an assessment of how well the wetlands they have invested in are at doing that job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newell said the biggest challenge is that many of the wetlands don\u2019t have a single entry and exit point, which makes assessing the nutrient-reducing efficiency extremely complicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fortunate to have such a diverse array of expertise \u2014 from geophysicists to remote-sensing specialists to geochemists \u2014 to help devise monitoring and assessment plans,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The group will study different types of wetlands to determine which are the most cost-effective for mitigating nutrient runoff to Ohio waters. The effort will also inform future wetland construction and maintenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe information gained from this unique restoration monitoring program will support management decisions and actions that will not only benefit Ohio and Lake Erie but also ecosystems across the Midwest and Great Lakes,\u201d said Janice Kerns, wetland monitoring program lead for ODNR.<\/p>\n

The program\u2019s monitoring plan will enable LEARN researchers from Wright State, Toledo Ohio State, Bowling Green State, Heidelberg and Kent State to sample multiple wetland types either being constructed or planned for the near future. ODNR and state scientists recognize that each wetland type will require different sampling approaches and will likely vary in its capacity to reduce nutrient runoff. This comprehensive monitoring plan is designed to identify and capture these differences.<\/p>\n

The effort will use existing monitoring infrastructure such as weather stations and gauges, university resources like Heidelberg\u2019s National Center for Water Quality Research, and existing collaborations with agencies, nonprofit organizations and industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cDirect engagement between scientists at Ohio\u2019s universities and agencies will strengthen the state\u2019s ability to monitor and assess how H2Ohio constructed wetlands mitigate nutrient runoff to Ohio\u2019s freshwater systems,\u201d said Kristen Fussell, assistant director of administration and research at Ohio State\u2019s Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory.<\/p>\n

Newell, who earned her Ph.D. in geosciences from Princeton University and held a postdoc position at Boston University, joined the faculty in the Wright State College of Science and Mathematics<\/a> in 2014. She has worked on biogeochemical cycling of nitrogen in aquatic environments from the Gulf of Mexico and the Arabian Sea to Lake Erie and Lake Taihu in China.<\/p>\n

Her work at Wright State focuses on nitrogen as a driver of harmful algal blooms in eutrophic Lake Erie, Lake Okeechobee, Lake Taihu and Estonian lakes, as well as local research on the Great Miami River and Ohio wetlands. She is the president of the Lake Erie Area Research network and the co-chair of the Great Lakes HABs Collaborative.<\/p>\n

Newell is interested in the interactions between global climate change, gross human perturbation of the nitrogen cycle and subsequent changes in ecosystem function. Her research combines molecular biology and biogeochemical techniques.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lake Erie and Aquatic Research Network will assess the effectiveness and future role of implemented and planned wetland restoration projects. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":94958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2066,725,715,18,746],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-earth-environmental-sciences","category-home-news-sidebar","category-news","category-research","category-science-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94934"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94970,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94934\/revisions\/94970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}