How could climate change and our response to it affect the Great Lakes’ water quality? That’s the primary question a team of 27 researchers from across U-M and collaborators at other institutions will answer with a new $5-million grant from the National Science Foundation.
The researchers will focus on extreme weather events caused by climate change.
The Great Lakes hold 84 percent of North America’s surface fresh water, and their basin is home to 10 percent of the U.S. population.
“The suspicion is that climate change will have negative impacts on water quality,” says Anna Michalak, principal investigator. “Climate change is expected to bring about more extreme precipitation events, which will cause pulses of water and whatever it’s bringing with it, including nutrients, pesticides and sediment. It’s these episodic events that can have a significant impact on the water quality.”
Michalak is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences (AOSS). Researchers from these departments as well as the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) and the School of Education are also involved. The educational component of the grant involves work with Ypsilanti New Tech High School, as well as collaborations with Michigan Sea Grant and the Investigate the State program, along with other K-12 outreach.
Water quality in the Great Lakes affects every aspect of life in the region, Michalak says.
“The lakes serve as a source of drinking water and water for agricultural irrigation. They are used for recreation such as boating, swimming and fishing. They are also a key component of the regional economy,” she said.
In this project, the researchers will first examine current climate, land use, precipitation and water governance patterns. They will combine this data with future climate change models to forecast how warming will affect rain and snowfall frequency and quantity, human migration, land use and agricultural crop changes, phosphorous pollution in the Great Lakes and water quality.
They will also explore what strategies watershed councils and other government entities could employ to reduce water quality impacts.
Allison Steiner, an assistant professor in AOSS, leads a group that will explore how climate and land cover changes can influence the regional precipitation cycle. The climate group will look, for example, at how ice cover in the Great Lakes can influence wind and precipitation patterns, and how agricultural changes could influence summer rain, which is affected by soil moisture levels.
Michael Moore, a professor in SNRE, directs a team that will chart population and agricultural crops by county for the entire United States. For the Great Lakes region, they will gather even finer detail. Then they will project how a warming climate could change these patterns.
