How to Simulate the Future of a Watershed→

University of Wisconsin: Water Sustainability and Climate

“Using a tool similar to a computer game, Melissa Motew is peering into the future. Motew is a modeler. She uses computers and mathematics to simulate ecosystems and make sense of nature.

Her task is to shed light on what the Madison area’s environment could be like by the year 2070 and what this might mean for human well-being—how much food could we grow, how well could the land withstand floods and will we have clean lakes yet?

“We want to track what’s happening through time, so we can understand all of the changes,” says Motew.”

The steps the article outlines are helpful: (1)start with stories, (2)simulate the system, and (3)ask what-if questions.

Sarah Booth: Zoning for Sustainability→

Sustainable City Network:

“In a study of 32 cities of various sizes, University of Wisconsin Professor Anna Haines found that most city zoning ordinances had little support for sustainable development. Large or small, coastal or central, most of the communities studied by Haines and her colleague Edward Jepson didn’t have much in their regulations that was useful for supporting sustainability principles. This isn’t surprising, since most of the ordinances were written long before sustainability became a household word.

“The city that I live in wrote their code in 1979,” Haines said, so it’s not very surprising that it doesn’t address sprawl, peak oil, floodwater control or other contemporary concerns.
“Almost 100 years ago is when the first zoning codes were put in place — New York City was the first,” she said. “And at that time the purpose was to strictly separate uses, to separate industry from housing, which made a lot of sense at the time, but doesn’t so much anymore.”

Haines’ study began by identifying nine principles of sustainability:
1. Encourage higher-density development.
2. Encourage mixed use.
3. Encourage local food production.
4. Protect ecosystems and natural functions.
5. Encourage transportation alternatives.
6. Preserve/create a sense of place.
7. Increase housing diversity and affordability.
8. Reduce the use of fossil fuels/encourage the use of fossil fuel alternatives.
9. Encourage the use of industrial by-products.”

There has been a big lag in revising zoning ordinances for sustainability and walkability.

Reduce Variability At Your Peril→

UW-Madison Center for Limnology:

“We want robust harvests of crops, fish and fuel year after year. As a result, we try to manage the use of our resources in a way that minimizes their variability. We seek a predictable “status quo.”

But a new study says that managing our environment for predictable outcomes is risky. In fact, more often than not, it backfires...

[Dr.] Carpenter and his colleagues ran a series of simple computer models looking at three human endeavors – controlling nutrient pollution in lakes, maintaining cattle production on rangelands invaded by shrubs, and sustaining harvest in a fishery.

In all cases, when they tried to control variance – by tightly controlling fish harvest or shrubs in grasslands, for example – unexpected outcomes occurred. Fish stocks collapsed at lower harvest levels. Grasslands were replaced by shrubs with even light pressure from cattle grazing.

The results are counter-intuitive. How can reduced pressure on a resource end up being bad for business? Part of the explanation, Carpenter says, is that, “the minute humans try to manage the system, they become part of the system.” And our involvement may help explain some of these unintended outcomes.

“Living systems need a certain amount of stress,” Carpenter says, noting that, as they evolved “they continually got calibrated against variability.” Just as our immune systems rely on exposure to bacteria and viruses to sharpen their skills at responding to disease, natural systems also need that kind of stimulation.”

Are there examples in your area? The building of levees for flood control in the article resonates. How about the Mille Lacs walleye population? 

Linda Poon: Putting Citizens at the Center of Urban Design→

CityLab:

“Creating a lively public space isn’t as easy as building it and waiting for the crowds to come. There’s a lot that city planners have to consider: How much space is available? What’s the target demographic? How can a public space be made energy efficient?

A group of researchers at MIT thinks that there’s an important piece of the puzzle that’s too often overlooked: the human experience. Studying how people interact with cars, buildings, and sidewalks within an urban space says a lot about its quality, says Elizabeth Christoforetti, an urban and architectural designer at MIT Media Lab.

With a $35,000 grant from the Knight Prototype Fund, she and her team are working on a project called Placelet, which will track how pedestrians move through a particular space. They’re developing a network of sensors that will track the scale and speed of pedestrians, as well as vehicles, over long periods of time. The sensors, which they are currently testing in downtown Boston, will also track the “sensory experience” by recording the noise level and air quality of that space.”

In the tradition of observations of William Whyte.

NASA: Less Algae, Not Clear Water, Keeps A Lake Blue→

“Lake Tahoe’s iconic blueness is more strongly related to the lake’s algal concentration than to its clarity, according to research in “Tahoe: State of the Lake Report 2015,” released today by the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) of the University of California, Davis. The lower the algal concentration, the bluer the lake.

Data from a research buoy in the lake, owned and operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, enabled Shohei Watanabe, a postdoctoral researcher at TERC, to create a Blueness Index that quantified Lake Tahoe’s color for the first time.

The assumption that lake clarity is tied to blueness has driven advocacy and management efforts in the Lake Tahoe Basin for decades. But Watanabe’s research showed that at times of the year when the lake’s clarity increases, its blueness decreases, and vice versa.

Watanabe combined the blueness measurements with data on clarity. Clarity is measured by observing the depth at which a dinner-plate-sized white disk remains visible when lowered into the water. He was surprised to find that blueness and clarity did not correspond. In fact, they varied in opposite directions.

This is due to seasonal interplay among sediment, algae and nutrients in the lake. Clarity is controlled by sediment. Blueness is controlled by algal concentration, which in turn is controlled by the level of nutrients available to the algae.”

AnnaKay Kruger: A Lake's Woody Habitat→

UW: Center for Limnology:

“Michaela Kromrey clips herself into her bulky waders, fitting the straps over her shoulders and sealing herself into their protective rubber lining. We’ve dropped anchor near the shore of Jute Lake, and waves whip the side of the boat vigorously in the high wind. It’s a beautiful day, utterly devoid of cloud cover, but the wind is sharp and swift over the water, forcing us to don our sweatshirts and windbreakers to stave off the chill. Michaela and I, both UW-Madison undergraduates, wait in the boat while Ellen Albright, a student at Minnesota’s Macalester College, wades along the shoreline, dragging a tape-measure behind her.”

Lisa Palmer: Genetically Modified Mosquitos→

Yale Environment 360:

“When people think of genetically modified organisms, food crops like GM corn and soybeans usually come to mind. But engineering more complex living things is now possible, and the controversy surrounding genetic modification has now spread to the lowly mosquito, which is being genetically engineered to control mosquito-borne illnesses.

A U.K.-based company, Oxitec, has altered two genes in the Aedes aegypti mosquito so that when modified males breed with wild females, the offspring inherit a lethal gene and die in the larval stage. The state agency that controls mosquitos in the Florida Keys is awaiting approval from the federal government of a trial release of Oxitec’s genetically modified mosquitos to prevent a recurrence of a dengue fever outbreak. But some people in the Keys and elsewhere are up in arms, with more than 155,000 signing a petition opposing the trial of genetically engineered mosquitoes in a small area of 400 households next to Key West.”

Tinkering with Nature can have unintended consequences. See Nassim Nicholas Taleb's concerns with GMOs:

The Precautionary Principle with Application to the Genetic Modification of Organisms

EconTalk Episode with Nassim Nicholas Taleb; Hosted by Russ Roberts

Greg Seitz: Unlocking Lake of the Woods→

St. Croix Watershed Research Station Blog:

“Lake of the Woods is the vast body of water that makes up most of the spur on Minnesota’s northern border. Sprawled across the U.S.-Canada border, it is 70 miles north-south and 60 miles east-west, contains more than 14,552 islands, and boasts 65,000 miles of shoreline. It is the size of Rhode Island and a good candidate as the “sixth Great Lake.”

Like Lake Erie and other Great Lakes, Lake of the Woods is also plagued by harmful algal blooms. Even after nutrient pollution was reduced, Lake of the Woods seems to keep getting greener.

Enormous amounts of waste discharged from paper mills on the Rainy River poured into the lake for decades, carrying phosphorus, which fed the algae. City wastewater also went straight into the river. After the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, the waste discharges were significantly lowered and the overall cleanliness of the water entering the lake was improved.”

Jed Kolko: How Suburban Are Big American Cities?→

FiveThirtyEight:

“Our analysis showed that the single best predictor of whether someone said his or her area was urban, suburban or rural was ZIP code density. Residents of ZIP codes with more than 2,213 households per square mile typically described their area as urban. Residents of neighborhoods with 102 to 2,213 households per square mile typically called their area suburban. In ZIP codes with fewer than 102 households per square mile, residents typically said they lived in a rural area.2 The density cutoff we found between urban and suburban — 2,213 households per square mile — is roughly equal to the density of ZIP codes 22046 (Falls Church in Northern Virginia); 91367 (Woodland Hills in California’s San Fernando Valley); and 07666 (Teaneck, New Jersey).

Other factors played minor roles in predicting how respondents described where they live. Residents of very small cities and towns rarely said they lived in an urban area, even if their neighborhood was quite dense. Residents of lower-income neighborhoods with older housing stock often said they lived in an urban area, even if it was lower-density. Residents of lower-density ZIP codes with lots of businesses sometimes called their neighborhoods urban; so did residents of lower-density, higher-income ZIP codes that are next to higher-density ZIP codes. But, in general, ZIP code density alone gets us most of the way to predicting whether people say they live in an urban, suburban or rural area.”

Density makes a place vibrant. Density makes a city work. Density is the word and our answer to make better communities. Holly Whyte said "we are going to have to work with a much tighter pattern of spaces and development, and that our environment may be the better for it." 

We need to confront the need for density. I've denied and deluded myself that density was not the main issue. I've used words like 'compact', 'vibrant', and 'urban'. What is meant is more people per unit area, as well as mixed use and class. 

Higher density is better for a city. Again, Holly Whyte:

“Density also has an important bearing on the look and feel of a neighborhood. If it is urban it ought to be urban. Most of our redevelopment projects are too loose in fabric. They would look better, as well as being more economical, if the scale were tighten up... concentration is the genius of the city, its reason for being. What it needs is not less people, but more, and if this means more density we have no need to feel guilty about it. The ultimate justification for building to higher densities is not that it is more efficient in land costs, but that is can make a better city.”

— Holly Whyte - The Last Landscape

Julianne Couch: Rethinking Invasive Species →

Sustainable City Network:

“Toby Query has worked as a natural resources ecologist for the city of Portland, Ore., Watershed Revegetation Program since 1999, and manages several hundred acres of forests and wetlands in the city. Under his watch, more than 3 million native seedlings and many tons of native grass and wildflower seeds have been planted. He also is the founder of Portland Ecologists Unite!, a monthly discussion group working to improve land management practices and increase the resiliency of the community of ecologists.

Through the years, Query said, he has slowly shifted his thinking from one that “combats evil invasives” to a more nuanced approach.”

Many are doing great work on preventing non-native species movement to our wild places. In Lakeshore Living, Kristof and I advocated continuing this important work, and we spoke to the need to rethink some of our other efforts relating to non-native species. We fear that the system has become too Black & White. Why do we think this? Some invasive species management should be considered wrecks. Let me explain this and my concerns.

First, environmental harm, ecosystem harm, or ecological harm is purely a human concept. Every ecological study of a non-native species finds that the non-native created “environmental harm” or had a consequence to the environment (consistent with the Ecological Principle - that Many things are connected to other things). Second, if a species causes economic harm (or human harm) natural management agencies will manage the species, whether native or not (e.g., wolf, cormorant, or sea lamprey). Thus most invasive species thought today can be simplified to:
Non-native = BAD

Non-native species management is really a question of values – Human Values. Aldo Leopold recoiled on the anti-weed talk in his time. We are recoiling on the same phenomena today. War on Non-natives… War on Terror… War on…. Our language is anti-nature. We recoil at the Black & White, and we recognize the nuances and complexity of this issue.

One example of our invasive species management wreck is curly-leaf pondweed management in many lakes. Why do I say this is a wreck? First, we are allowing the destruction of fish habitat. Second, since we are taking an action, the burden is on us to demonstrate in the range of lakes that are now treated that there is little or no negative impact to native plant communities. This has yet to be done. Therefore, these treatments seem imprudent. The science has not changed substantially, but attitudes have.

Some history. Minnetonka Lake, an important Minnesota lake, had curly-leaf pondweed near the turn of the last century. In 1937 Dr. John Moyle recommended planting curly-leaf pondweed. Some of you might wonder why Dr. Moyle advocated planting of curly-leaf pondweed. Moyle was always ahead of his time — he was the only genius that the MN DNR has employed. On this issue, he is still ahead of his time. I suspect that once we get past the current Black & White view of non-native species, that management agencies will be recommending the use of curly-leaf pondweed in limited conditions. It may be the best aquatic plant for fish habitat in some of our altered lakes.

Our Black & White system now targets genotypes of a native species, common reed (Phragmites). This requires genetic testing. How impure does a population have to be to be called invasive? The control of common reed in our lakes seems irresponsible, given that humanity has substantially reduced the common reed in many lakes. It should be noted that that it has not been demonstrated that the genetic code or the different haplotypes of common reed were introduced by humans. Phragmites has a cosmopolitan distribution, and common reed stands are protected in Europe and North America because of their important ecological functions. Phragmites has considerable genetic variation, with geographical varieties.

Is there a problem with our NON-Native Species Fundamentalism? We think so! It decreases the value of species like Phragmites and may reduce our commitment to protecting similar species. I worry that our risk assessment is not inclusive of the ecological values of Phragmites regardless of the varietal designation, and the various actions related to promoting the perceived ‘evil' nature of this plant has decreased the perceived ecological value of this important plant. I have seen this with my own eyes — government staff denigrating this native plant because of the application of an 'invasive' label. I’m saddened by this fact.

Since non-native species management is really just a question of values. Scientists are beginning to probe those values. For example, Fischer et al. 2014 [PLoS One] investigated Professional vs. Public Attitudes on Non-Native Species in a limited context. They stated: “Professionals tended to have more extreme views than the public, especially in relation to nativeness and abundance of a species.” Also from this study was the finding that professionals perceived non-natives to be less beautiful, more abundant, and detrimental than the public. Less beautiful?

Instead of the simple equation where non-native = bad. We encourage you to think about some of the complexity, to address values directly, and to have more goals than a simple statement on reducing invasive species.

We advocate for the reduction of human-assisted migration of unwanted species. In our book we suggest three additional goals. First, if a species isn’t threatening something we value, then we shouldn’t manage it at the expense of other species. The first principle we should have regarding non native species is the ‘First Do No Harm’ principle – Recently arrived non-native organisms may be managed provided that little or no harm occurs to others. For curly-leaf pondweed, we may be harming native plant communities in many of the lakes allowed to be treated. The management science related to curly-leaf pondweed is still young; therefore, we shouldn’t be allowing the current level of habitat destruction.

Second, natural-resource management agencies should prioritize places where they wish to re-create and maintain the native co-evolved diversity. Where exactly does the management agency wish do this? Can it say or list? Why or why not?

Third, recognize that a big all-out war on non-native species cannot be won. It seems old-fashioned to manage for yesterday’s conservation goal of native biodiversity — managing for wildness rather than nativeness seems more important today. We can admire the beauty of all organisms regardless of when they arrived. I’m working for nature and conservation of natural features. I’m not at war with other species. We should prudently increase species diversity in our domestic places, and conserve diversity in our wild places. And we could communicate these thoughts to the public.

Shouldn’t we have the courage to challenge the current fad or fashion, such as latest war on non-native species living with us today? And finally, we, as biologists, should have the wisdom to see the beauty of nature, no matter when it arrived or how it got here.

Steven Elbow: Lake Conservation Can't Keep Up with Pollution Increases→

Cap Times:

“A new report says that a 14-year effort to clean up Lake Mendota couldn’t keep up with increasing amounts of phosphorous streaming from the watershed.

The study from the Water Sustainability and Climate Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says a 14-year effort to clean up Lake Mendota failed because of changes in farming, land development and climate change.

“There’s been a lot of tremendous work and effort to at least stay on the treadmill,” said co-author Eric Booth, a Climate Project researcher. “The problem is the treadmill keeps getting faster and faster with these other unaccounted for drivers of change.”

The result is that increasing efforts have slowed but not improved the decline of the lakes.

The report is specific to Lake Mendota, but could have implications worldwide as communities elsewhere try to tackle similar problems.”

1. More information here and here!

2. In a world with increasing human population and exploitation demands, conservation will at best be a Red Queen Race. We know this to be true, but we don't dare say it because it is too unpleasant for most.

NASA: US Government Develops Tool to Detect Toxic Algal Blooms

Accuweather:

“Four government organizations are combining resources to tackle a threat to U.S. freshwater: toxic algal blooms. These harmful algal blooms cost the U.S. $64 million annually to combat.

NASA is working alongside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to transform satellite data used to monitor ocean biology into valuable information to monitor detrimental freshwater algal blooms.

The new project, using ocean color satellite data, will formulate an “early warning indicator” for toxic algal blooms in freshwater systems and aid public health advisories, NASA reported.
”Observations from space-based instruments are an ideal way to tackle this type of public health hazard because of their global coverage and ability to provide detailed information on material in the water, including algal blooms” said Paula Bontempi of the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C..”

Tim Crosby: Researchers Tracking Mudpuppies→

Southern Illinois University:

“Alicia Beattie, a graduate student zoology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, holds a mudpuppy caught in a frozen lake in northern Illinois this past winter. The full aquatic salamanders are the subject of an ongoing research project funded the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to learn more about the threatened species, which lives in freshwater lakes and streams throughout the eastern half the country.

“One of the angles of this project is to find out more about how they live in lakes,” said Matt Whiles, professor of zoology and interim director of the Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, and director of the Center for Ecology at SIU. “There’s been a fair amount of research on populations that live in streams and rivers. We’re looking at populations that live in lakes in the Great Lakes area. Much less is known about those. The species does appear to be declining, but at one time it was fairly abundant throughout their range. Nobody really knows why.”
Whiles, along with Robin Warne, assistant professor of zoology, is supervising the work of SIU zoology graduate student Alicia Beattie, who is spending many hours drilling holes on frozen Wolf Lake in northern Illinois and trapping, studying and releasing the foot-long “fish with legs.” Beattie, the daughter of Jean and Joe Beattie of Hastings, Minnesota, said her favorite aspect of the research so far has been meeting and working with people from different walks of life and organizations. She also has enjoyed the many and varied challenges associated with trapping and studying mudpuppies.”

Scott K. Johnson: Lake Science Using Remote Sensors→

Ars Technica:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

“The largest streams that flow into Lake George are now being monitored year-round by sampling stations. Water is pulled into a heated enclosure (ice isn’t helpful) where it is analyzed by a data-logging device with probes for things like temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, dissolved organic matter, and algae content. Other instruments measure the water level and flow velocity of the stream. The data is periodically uploaded over a cellular Internet connection and entered into the project database. And at the same time, a carousel of sample bottles is automatically filled and periodically retrieved for additional tests in the analytical chemistry labs back at the field station.

That same kind of data-logger is also going to be active out in the lake itself, operating from a set of anchored, floating platforms. The floats raise and lower the data-loggers, allowing them to sample a vertical profile of the lake. That’s enormously useful, because the lake stratifies into a warmer surface layer and a cooler deep portion (as most lakes do). The first two floats hit the lake last summer, but five will go out this spring after the ice melts.

A number of current profilers will be placed at the bottom of the lake as well. These devices bounce acoustic waves off particles drifting by, using the slight Doppler shift of the returning waves to calculate velocities at various heights above the device. For now, they will simply store data to be downloaded when they are retrieved, but they may run cables in the future to allow near real-time access.”

Very cool. Data and models will provide useful information for lake management. 

Scott K. Johnson: How Land Use is Reducing Species Richness→

Ars Technica:

“When we think about good wildlife habitat, we generally picture lands undisturbed by human construction or agriculture. Given that humans use roughly half the planet’s land area for such purposes, Earth’s “good habitat” ain’t what it used to be.

But what effect, exactly, has the loss of habitat had on all the species not named Homo sapiens? That’s a big, and therefore difficult, question to answer precisely. Plenty of effort has gone into estimating the number of species we’ve driven to extinction—we’ll eventually become the Sixth Mass Extinction event if we keep up at our current clip—but that can obscure the local details that tell us how the ecosystems around us are functioning.

A huge group of researchers led by Tim Newbold of the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and Lawrence Hudson of London’s Natural History Museum have now focused in on those local details. The researchers compiled the results of 378 published ecology studies of over 11,000 sites around the world, including observations of almost 27,000 species—vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants. The goal? To find ecological communities living on lands with varying human impact and see how they’re doing.

Unsurprisingly, croplands, pasture, and urban lands were associated with fewer species, fewer organisms, and smaller organisms than undisturbed areas. Agricultural lands, for example, hosted 20 to 40 percent fewer species, on average. On the positive side, they also found that areas allowed to recover after human disturbance—like reforested lands—scored about as well as areas that hadn’t been touched.

On average, the researchers found that human land use has reduced local biodiversity by nearly 14 percent and reduced the abundance of organisms by almost 11 percent. That varies quite a bit from place to place, though, as can be seen in the map below, which shows estimates based on applying local study results to global land use patterns.”

Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity

by Tim Newbold et al.

Abstract

Human activities, especially conversion and degradation of habitats, are causing global biodiversity declines. How local ecological assemblages are responding is less clear—a concern given their importance for many ecosystem functions and services. We analysed a terrestrial assemblage database of unprecedented geographic and taxonomic coverage to quantify local biodiversity responses to land use and related changes. Here we show that in the worst-affected habitats, these pressures reduce within-sample species richness by an average of 76.5%, total abundance by 39.5% and rarefaction-based richness by 40.3%. We estimate that, globally, these pressures have already slightly reduced average within-sample richness (by 13.6%), total abundance (10.7%) and rarefaction-based richness (8.1%), with changes showing marked spatial variation. Rapid further losses are predicted under a business-as-usual land-use scenario; within-sample richness is projected to fall by a further 3.4% globally by 2100, with losses concentrated in biodiverse but economically poor countries. Strong mitigation can deliver much more positive biodiversity changes (up to a 1.9% average increase) that are less strongly related to countries' socioeconomic status.

James J. Krupa: Teaching Evolution→

James J. Krupa, writing for Slate:

melfoody, Flickr

“We live in a nation where public acceptance of evolution is the second lowest of 34 developed countries, just ahead of Turkey. Roughly half of Americans reject some aspect of evolution, believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, and that humans coexisted with dinosaurs. Where I live, many believe evolution to be synonymous with atheism, and there are those who strongly feel I am teaching heresy to thousands of students. A local pastor, whom I’ve never met, wrote an article in the University Christian complaining that, not only was I teaching evolution and ignoring creationism, I was teaching it as a non-Christian, alternative religion.

There are students who enroll in my courses and already accept evolution. Although not yet particularly knowledgeable on the subject, they are eager to learn more. Then there are the students whose minds are already sealed shut to the possibility that evolution exists, but need to take my class to fulfill a college requirement. And then there are the students who have no opinion one way or the other but are open-minded. These are the students I most hope to reach by presenting them with convincing and overwhelming evidence without offending or alienating them.”

"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so." ― Charles F. Kettering

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” ― Daniel J. Boorstin

"The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, it’s that they know so many things that just aren't so." ― Mark Twain (?)

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." ― Daniel J. Boorstin 

Dunning–Kruger effect and We are All Confident Idiots

Joe Fellegy: A Look at Lakeshore and Fish Issues with Biologist-Author Paul Radomski

Joe Fellegy

Joe Fellegy, reporting for Outdoor News:

“After three decades with the Minnesota DNR, Paul Radomski can boast a longtime deep immersion into Minnesota’s diverse lake scenes, from fish and fisheries management to related aquatic and shoreland habitats.”

Read more

MN DNR: Governor's Buffer Initative

Minnesota DNR:

ScootterFllix, Filckr

“Governor Mark Dayton has proposed an initiative aimed at protecting Minnesota’s waters from erosion and runoff pollution.

Known as the Buffer Initiative, the legislation requires at least 50 feet of perennial vegetation around Minnesota’s waters. Buffers help filter out phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment by slowing runoff, trapping sediment with these pollutants and allowing vegetation to absorb them.”

Good summary of riparian conditions across Minnesota, a collection of shoreline buffer reports, a review of the Governor's proposal, and links to the buffer bills currently being debated.

Can We Restore Everything?→

Bob Lalasz, for the Science Blog of the Nature Conservancy:

“Beth Tellman: Seeking to return to “the historical trajectory of ecosystems before human activity” (if we actually knew what that was) would require the dislocation or livelihood transformation of hundreds of millions of people in places like Bangladesh, Haiti or Latin America. If we care about people as much as other species, this line in Murcia et al — “all ecosystems should be considered candidates for restoration, regardless of the requisite resources” — should instead be about restoring socio-ecological systems for their ecosystem services. Novel ecosystems like urban wetlands and rain gardens will be critical to restoring such services as watershed infiltration capacity (Tellman et al). ”

Spiny Water Fleas and Green Water→

UW-Madison Center for Limnology

“The spiny water flea could be making Lake Mendota greener through eating algae-grazing Daphnia, compounding a problem that stems from manure and fertilizer run-off into the lake. It’s really difficult to understand when and where the spiny water flea will be abundant and have negative effects on ecosystems.”