Bourgeau-Chavez, Laura: Michigan Technological University (Project Lead)
Project Funding:
2017 - 2020
NRA: 2016 NASA: Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
In a time of increasing demands on water supply, coastal property, and crop production, the Great Lakes region represents a future hotspot for expansion of agriculture, population growth, and water demands. As the largest surface freshwater system on Earth, the Great Lakes contain 84% of North America's surface fresh water, with 17,549 km of coastline and 21% of the Earth's freshwater supply (EPA). In recent decades, three critical changes in the landscapes of this region have already strongly influenced ecosystems of the land/water interface: increases in urbanization and suburban sprawl; changes in agricultural practices; and widespread invasion of exotic wetland plant species. There are also influential changes in surrounding landscapes that drain to the coasts including transition of land from forests and farmland into large expanses of residential land with impervious surfaces and human-altered vegetation including fertilized turfgrass. Changes in farming practices include increased use of manure spreading, larger animal operations, adoption of no-till farming, and efforts to increase stream buffers and other soil conservation measures. The proposed work will use remote sensing and modeling to understand how these change drivers coupled with climate have already affected and will further affect ecosystem structure and function at land/water interfaces. This research project will build from a previous NASA-IDS project that linked models of hydrology (LHM), and wetland plant ecology (Mondrian) to understand the influence of land use and climate change on problematic invasive plant species and ecosystem services in coastal Great Lakes wetlands of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. In this proposal we expand the study area from the Lower Peninsula of Michigan to the entire Great Lakes Basin and we will couple the models and integrate a crop growth model (SALUS) to directly assess the effects of agricultural runoff and nutrient loading on plant communities and ecosystem function at the land/water interface.The overarching goal is to quantify the impacts of global change (i.e., changes in land use, population, economic development, and climate) on ecosystems at land/water interfaces within the Great Lakes Basin mediated through alterations in deliveries of water and nutrients from the landscape. The specific objectives are to:
1) Use coupled process-based models to quantify the influence and legacies of human activities on fluxes of water and nutrients to land/water interfaces, and their influence on ecological processes, including wetland plant invasions.
2) Develop and simulate scenarios of projected future changes in land use, agricultural management, and climate and their impact on wetland plant invasion and ecosystem function across the Great Lakes Basin.
3) Translate project results into stakeholder tools that will quantify the effects of potential land management changes on coastal ecosystems
The proposed research project addresses Subelement 2: Ecology at Land/Water Interfaces Human and Environmental Pressures of the 2016 NASA Roses Interdisciplinary Science Program. The research proposed is specifically focused on understanding and quantifying the impacts and feedbacks of human and environmental influences on land/water interfaces of the Great Lakes. The proposed research follows directly from our previous NASA-funded project, greatly expanding and building on our prior models, remote-sensing approaches, and results developed in our previous project. The project objectives progress from developing a mechanistic understanding of the influence of human activities on historical ecosystem functions (Obj. 1), to developing regional scenarios for future changes in human activities and their consequences (Obj. 2), to engaging land managers in developing informational products to aid in decision making and translating outcomes of simulations to provide a basis for improved real-world outcomes (Obj. 3).
Publications:
Weinstein, C. B., Bourgeau-Chavez, L. L., Martin, S. L., Currie, W. S., Grantham, K., Hamlin, Q. F., Hyndman, D. W., Kowalski, K. P., Martina, J. P., Pearsall, D. 2021. Enhancing Great Lakes coastal ecosystems research by initiating engagement between scientists and decision-makers. Journal of Great Lakes Research. DOI: 10.1016/j.jglr.2021.04.018
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):