You are here:
When Green Goes Bad: An interdisciplinary approach to better understand cyanobacteria, nutrients, and lakes
Citation:
Hollister, Jeff, B. Kreakie, AND Bryan Milstead. When Green Goes Bad: An interdisciplinary approach to better understand cyanobacteria, nutrients, and lakes. Presented at Safe and Sustainable Water Resources (SSWR) Monthly Webinar, NA, June 18, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
Traditional scientific venues of communicating are research are effective, but target specific audiences. This webinar is a part of a larger effort by the SSWR communications staff to reach a broader audience. In addition to the webinar, SSWR 2.3C staff, along with others in ORD engaged in harmful algal bloom (HAB) research, will take part in a coordinated series of EPA blog posts, a Twitter chat, and possibly an event highlighting the importance of HABs. The impact of this will be to better disseminate the results of the work of AED and ORD.
Description:
The current connotation within the environmental protection arena is that "Green is Good." While that is very often true, in the case of lakes and ponds when they suddenly go green, it is most likely the result of an algae bloom. These blooms increasingly contain many harmful species. The impacts of harmful algal blooms are wide and profound. From acute adverse human health impacts (e.g. respiratory and gastrointestinal problems) to known deaths of animals (e.g., elk herds and family pets), blooms like these are becoming a more frequent occurrence and are having larger and larger impacts. To better understand how these blooms impact human health, identify the toxicity of cyanotoxins, predict the probability of bloom occurrence and share this information broadly, researchers within the USEPA's Office of Research and Development have been working on a research project focused on cyanobacteria since 2012. In today's webinar we will provide an overview of the full breadth of this research, and also go into details on the ecological modelling of cyanobacterial blooms in US Lakes and explain how this project has embraced the concept of Open Science to improve the dissemination of research results, methods, and data.