The Daily Bulletin Archive

Please join the Great Lakes Center today for the seminar "Three-Dimensional Modeling: A Powerful Tool for the Improved Scientific Understanding and Management of Lake Erie," presented by Serghei Bocaniov, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan's Graham Sustainability Institute, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Classroom Building B332.

All students, staff, and faculty are welcome.

Seminar Abstract
Lake Erie is the most productive and economically important lake among the Laurentian Great Lakes, with more than 11.5 million people (almost one-third of the total population of the Great Lakes basin) living along its coastlines. It also accounts for fishery and recreational industries worth billions of dollars and is a significant source for municipal and domestic water supplies. As an incredibly valuable resource in need of protection, Lake Erie is a focus of extensive scientific research to understand its responses to the effects of climate change, invasive species, cultural eutrophication, and other human activities.

Various approaches can be used to understand the ecological responses of aquatic ecosystems to climate change, nutrient loads, and invasive species as well as the consequences of possible management options. One approach is to apply process-based modeling, for example, to develop mechanistic models for aquatic ecosystems. Such models, including dynamic three-dimensional (3-D) models, can increase the scientific understanding of the ecosystem functioning and provide valid predictions beyond the range of the calibration data. They are also useful for testing scientific hypotheses or predicting and quantifying the ecosystem responses to climate change, invasive species, and management activities. 

This seminar will present results from two case studies to show how 3-D modeling, particularly the 3-D coupled hydrodynamic and ecological model of Lake Erie, can be used to test scientific hypotheses and support lake management decisions: (1) the nearshore shunt hypothesis and the role of mussels in the decline of spring phytoplankton blooms; and (2) the development of load-response curves to facilitate the revision of the existing phosphorus target loads to Lake Erie needed to achieve the desired reductions in central basin hypoxia.