scholarly journals Visualizing The Big Three: Geospatial Interpolation Of Heavy Metal Sediment Contamination In Lake Erie

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle E. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metal ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Pollution Control ◽  
Lake Erie ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Sediment Contamination ◽  
Great Lakes Basin ◽  
Lake Ecosystems ◽  
Essential Heavy Metal

A wealth of resources for economic prosperity have driven development along the shorelines of the Great Lakes for over 150 years. The rapid growth of industrial, agricultural, and residential land use has degraded many natural components of lake ecosystems, including sediments and water quality. In this dissertation, spatiotemporal patterns of non-essential heavy metal sediment contamination in Lake Erie will be examined from historic and contemporary sediment surveys. Three inter-related studies explore innovative methods for improving the validity and overall usefulness of sediment contamination maps that could be used by a variety of stakeholders in pollution control efforts throughout the Lake Erie basin. First, sediment survey designs are analyzed for their utility in creating valid interpolated surfaces from which spatiotemporal comparisons of mercury sediment contamination can be compared over time. The next study explores how ancillary sediment variables and contamination categorization methods can support interpolated maps of cadmium sediment contamination from low-density sediment surveys. The final study introduces a novel method of three-dimensional geovisualization to enhance the geographic representation of lead sediment contamination patterns throughout the Lake Erie basin. Innovative research methodologies designed for this dissertation may be applied to sediment contamination studies in other Great Lakes. The visualization techniques employed in mapping sediment contamination patterns provide strong scientific evidence for spatiotemporal change in non-essential heavy metal pollution throughout Lake Erie. Combined, the research findings and maps produced throughout this dissertation can contribute to the growing body of knowledge used in environmental decision making for pollution control in the Great Lakes basin

scholarly journals Visualizing The Big Three: Geospatial Interpolation Of Heavy Metal Sediment Contamination In Lake Erie

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle E. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metal ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Pollution Control ◽  
Lake Erie ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Sediment Contamination ◽  
Great Lakes Basin ◽  
Lake Ecosystems ◽  
Essential Heavy Metal

A wealth of resources for economic prosperity have driven development along the shorelines of the Great Lakes for over 150 years. The rapid growth of industrial, agricultural, and residential land use has degraded many natural components of lake ecosystems, including sediments and water quality. In this dissertation, spatiotemporal patterns of non-essential heavy metal sediment contamination in Lake Erie will be examined from historic and contemporary sediment surveys. Three inter-related studies explore innovative methods for improving the validity and overall usefulness of sediment contamination maps that could be used by a variety of stakeholders in pollution control efforts throughout the Lake Erie basin. First, sediment survey designs are analyzed for their utility in creating valid interpolated surfaces from which spatiotemporal comparisons of mercury sediment contamination can be compared over time. The next study explores how ancillary sediment variables and contamination categorization methods can support interpolated maps of cadmium sediment contamination from low-density sediment surveys. The final study introduces a novel method of three-dimensional geovisualization to enhance the geographic representation of lead sediment contamination patterns throughout the Lake Erie basin. Innovative research methodologies designed for this dissertation may be applied to sediment contamination studies in other Great Lakes. The visualization techniques employed in mapping sediment contamination patterns provide strong scientific evidence for spatiotemporal change in non-essential heavy metal pollution throughout Lake Erie. Combined, the research findings and maps produced throughout this dissertation can contribute to the growing body of knowledge used in environmental decision making for pollution control in the Great Lakes basin

scholarly journals Incorporating terrain specific beaching within a lagrangian transport plastics model for Lake Erie

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliette Daily ◽  
Victor Onink ◽  
Cleo E. Jongedijk ◽  
Charlotte Laufkötter ◽  
Matthew J. Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Hydrodynamic Model ◽  
Turbulent Mixing ◽  
Lake Erie ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Absolute Amount ◽  
Plastic Pollution ◽  
Surface Samples ◽  
Mixing Density ◽  
Bodies Of Water

AbstractMass estimates of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes based on surface samples differ by orders of magnitude from what is predicted by production and input rates. It has been theorized that a potential location of this missing plastic is on beaches and in nearshore water. We incorporate a terrain dependent beaching model to an existing hydrodynamic model for Lake Erie which includes three dimensional advection, turbulent mixing, density driven sinking, and deposition into the sediment. When examining parameter choices, in all simulations the majority of plastic in the lake is beached, potentially identifying a reservoir holding a large percentage of the lake’s plastic which in previous studies has not been taken into account. The absolute amount of beached plastic is dependent on the parameter choices. We also find beached plastic does not accumulate homogeneously through the lake, with eastern regions of the lake, especially those downstream of population centers, most likely to be impacted. This effort constitutes a step towards identifying sinks of missing plastic in large bodies of water.

scholarly journals Subspecific identification of the Great Lakes' first Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) using DNA

2015 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Jeffrey H. Skevington ◽  
James Pawlicki ◽  
Scott Kelso ◽  
Kevin C.R. Kerr ◽  
Marcie Jacklin
Keyword(s):  
Mitochondrial Dna ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Control Region ◽  
Adult Female ◽  
Genomic Dna ◽  
Lake Erie ◽  
Great Lakes Basin ◽  
Niagara River ◽  
Sula Leucogaster ◽  
First Time

The first Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) recorded in the Great Lakes basin was discovered on Lake Erie near the source of the Niagara River on 7 October 2013 by J. P. Morphologic evidence suggested that this bird was an adult female of the nominate Atlantic subspecies. We obtained genomic DNA from feces left by the bird. Mitochondrial DNA from the control region (CR2) was sequenced and compared with extensive CR2 data for Brown Booby available in GenBank; this corroborated the morphologic hypothesis. This is the first time that a vagrant bird in Canada has been identified using DNA extracted from feces.

The Corporation and the Environment

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Westra
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Exotic Species ◽  
Rain Forest ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Joint Commission ◽  
Great Lakes Basin ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Wild Life

The Inuit in Alaska speak eloquently of their “rights” to be granted larger quotas for whale hunting, so that they might compete more fairly with Japanese business interests. The Jari Corporation in the Amazonia in Brazil, struggles to cut trees in the rain forest and provide employment, in a sustainable way, without importing exotic species and without exploiting all the land they own. Yet they still use chlorine in their manufacturing operation, and still need to cope with the problems the previous management left for them. In the Great Lakes Basin, the U.S./Canada Joint Commission demands a chlorine ban for the Basin, citing abundant scientific evidence about habitat and wild-life devastation in the area, as well as mounting evidence of a link between chlorine in water and breast cancer. The meeting is attended by thousands of citizens supporting the ban, but the industry’s representatives protest the “emotionalism” of the presentations, and counter it with the so-called “hard facts”: veiled threats of unemployment and higher prices, due to a “premature ban.”

Prevention of Pollution from Spills: The Human-Machine Interface Factor

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1875-1886
Author(s):  
L. Weaver ◽  
W. A. Lyon ◽  
H. E. Price
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Human Error ◽  
Human Machine Interface ◽  
The Body ◽  
Great Lakes Basin ◽  
Lake Ecosystems ◽  
International Joint Commission ◽  
Machine Interface ◽  
Complex Relationships

Environmental incidents resulting from a spill or release of hazardous materials are often attributed to human error such as carelessness, faulty attitude and inattention. Manufacturing and related urban growth processes in the Great Lakes Basin have resulted in an estimated 3000 significant spills of toxic contaminants annually. The International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes of Canada and the U.S. (IJC) is concerned that these spills contribute significantly to the toxic burden in the Great Lakes Basin and that a catastrophic accident might permanently damage Lake ecosystems. Spills are often caused by a breakdown in the complex relationships between humans and machines. The IJC sponsored workshops to assess concerns at the human-machine interface and develop findings and recommendations on data reporting and analysis, research, communication, training, education and institutional needs. Experts in a diversity of related fields participated. This paper introduces the human-machine aspects of spill prevention and relates findings and recommendations of the IJC workshops which are designed to develop and encourage application of a systemic approach to the prevention of spills. This approach includes human design factors considered in the earliest stages of facilities planning and design based on application of the body of knowledge already in place and in continuing development in nuclear power and aviation industries and associated governmental programs.

Modelling grass carp egg transport using a 3-D hydrodynamic river model: the role of egg retention in dead zones on spawning success

2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (8) ◽  
pp. 1379-1392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tej Heer ◽  
Mathew G. Wells ◽  
P. Ryan Jackson ◽  
Nicholas E. Mandrak
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Grass Carp ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Ctenopharyngodon Idella ◽  
Invasive Grass ◽  
Great Lakes Basin ◽  
Low Velocity ◽  
Egg Retention ◽  
Sandusky River

Invasive grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) are known to spawn in the Sandusky River, Ohio, USA, within the Great Lakes Basin, and are threatening to expand throughout the Great Lakes. Successful spawning is thought to require that eggs remain in suspension until hatching, which depends on river hydrodynamics and temperature-dependent egg development. Previous modelling efforts used one-dimensional hydrodynamic models that simplify egg movement by not simulating low-velocity zones within the river. To examine the effect of low-velocity zones on egg transit times and hatching rates, we developed a novel coupling of a biophysical Lagrangian particle tracker and three-dimensional hydrodynamic model on the Sandusky River during a high-flow event. The model successfully predicted egg-capture data for a range of developmental stages and revealed a mechanism that resuspends eggs trapped in low-velocity zones. The resuspension mechanism increases the residence time of grass carp eggs in spawning tributaries and can lead to successful hatching occurring in shorter distances than previously estimated. Grass carp potentially spawning in shorter tributary lengths has widespread implications for efforts preventing establishment in the Great Lakes Basin.

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