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Wetlands Lecture by Bill Mitsch at OSU-Mansfield

mitsch
May 5, 2016
1:00PM - 2:00PM
Mansfield campus :: 151 Riedl Hall

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Add to Calendar 2016-05-05 13:00:00 2016-05-05 14:00:00 Wetlands Lecture by Bill Mitsch at OSU-Mansfield Bill Mitsch will be speaking on Thursday, May 5, 1:00-2:00 pm, on the Mansfield campus (151 Riedl Hall). Dr. Mitsch was Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science at OSU for 26 years before he retired a few years ago. He is also the Founding Director of the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park.Phosphorus and Nitrogen and Carbon, OH MY!The role of wetlands in mitigating pollutants in our landscape and globeWilliam J. Mitsch, Ph.D. Eminent Scholar and Director,Everglades Wetland Research ParkSproul Chair for Southwest Florida Habitat Restoration and ManagementFlorida Gulf Coast University, Naples Florida, USAEditor-in-Chief, Ecological Engineering The world is faced with unprecedented threats to our aquatic ecosystems from excessive nutrients, caused by agricultural and urban runoff and discharges. Fully 750 aquatic ecosystems suffer from degraded ecosystem services with impairments described as hypoxia, dead zones, and harmful algal blooms, most due to pollution caused by excessive nitrogen and phosphorus. Also, we have increased the atmospheric pool of carbon by 40% since industrial times leading to several impacts related to climate change. In the meantime, it has been estimated that, on a global scale, we have lost half of our original wetlands to our current extent of 8 to 12 million km2, most of that loss in the 20th century. I am proposing here a sizeable increase in our wetland resources around the world, solving the diminishing wetland problem, with the strategic purpose of minimizing the excess phosphorus, nitrogen, and carbon in our rural landscapes in a sustainable fashion. Examples include attempts to minimize phosphorus inflows to the Florida Everglades with wetlands to quite low concentrations and a proposal to restore the Black Swamp in NW Ohio to minimize eutrophication of Lake Erie in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Nitrogen retention by wetlands and riparian forests in Midwestern USA has been proposed for 15 years as a solution to the seasonal hypoxia in the northern portion of the Gulf of Mexico. Finally the case of wetlands being carbon sinks through carbon sequestration will be presented in the context of mitigating human-caused increases of CO2 in the atmosphere, with the full understanding that greenhouse gas CH4 emissions typical of most wetland ecosystems need to be taken into account. Mansfield campus :: 151 Riedl Hall Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology eeob@osu.edu America/New_York public

Bill Mitsch will be speaking on Thursday, May 5, 1:00-2:00 pm, on the Mansfield campus (151 Riedl Hall). Dr. Mitsch was Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science at OSU for 26 years before he retired a few years ago. He is also the Founding Director of the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park.

Phosphorus and Nitrogen and Carbon, OH MY!

The role of wetlands in mitigating pollutants in our landscape and globe

William J. Mitsch, Ph.D. 

Eminent Scholar and Director,

Everglades Wetland Research Park

Sproul Chair for Southwest Florida Habitat Restoration and Management

Florida Gulf Coast University, Naples Florida, USA

Editor-in-Chief, Ecological Engineering

 The world is faced with unprecedented threats to our aquatic ecosystems from excessive nutrients, caused by agricultural and urban runoff and discharges. Fully 750 aquatic ecosystems suffer from degraded ecosystem services with impairments described as hypoxia, dead zones, and harmful algal blooms, most due to pollution caused by excessive nitrogen and phosphorus. Also, we have increased the atmospheric pool of carbon by 40% since industrial times leading to several impacts related to climate change. In the meantime, it has been estimated that, on a global scale, we have lost half of our original wetlands to our current extent of 8 to 12 million km2, most of that loss in the 20th century. I am proposing here a sizeable increase in our wetland resources around the world, solving the diminishing wetland problem, with the strategic purpose of minimizing the excess phosphorus, nitrogen, and carbon in our rural landscapes in a sustainable fashion. Examples include attempts to minimize phosphorus inflows to the Florida Everglades with wetlands to quite low concentrations and a proposal to restore the Black Swamp in NW Ohio to minimize eutrophication of Lake Erie in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Nitrogen retention by wetlands and riparian forests in Midwestern USA has been proposed for 15 years as a solution to the seasonal hypoxia in the northern portion of the Gulf of Mexico. Finally the case of wetlands being carbon sinks through carbon sequestration will be presented in the context of mitigating human-caused increases of CO2 in the atmosphere, with the full understanding that greenhouse gas CH4 emissions typical of most wetland ecosystems need to be taken into account.