The University of Michigan Water Center will be working with NOAA to help protect our coastlines.
The center has been awarded a five-year, $20 million contract for the job.
In addition to being director of U-of-M's Graham Sustainability Institute, Donald Scavia is principal investigator for the project, which will find researchers doing work in a number of areas.
"In some cases they'll be mapping wetlands and wetland loss," Scavia says. "In other areas they'll be developing models to assess the amount of phosphorus or nitrogen pollution going into the estuaries, and what can be done about reducing those. They'll be looking at projections of sea level rise and what that means for land management on the land side of the estuaries."
To this point, the University of Michigan Water Center has been focusing on issues in the Upper Midwest. This project will allow the center to expand its reach by helping to oversee the study of a nationwide network of 28 coastal reserves.
