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Overview of the Dredged Materials Management Tool (DMDT)
Citation:
Williams, K., S. Paczuski, R. Clarke, K. Auker, AND J. Hoffman. Overview of the Dredged Materials Management Tool (DMDT). Great Lakes Sediment Regulation Workshop, Duluth, MN, March 03, 2022. https://doi.org/10.23645/epacomptox.19380068
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation to the Great Lakes Sediment Regulation Workshop March 2022. The impact of this research is the revision of Dredged Materials Decision Tool (DMDT) created by Region 5 through collaborative translational research methodologies. Users employing the tool can explore how dredged material can be beneficially used to restore habitats, provide economic benefits, and increase ecosystem services.
Description:
Shipping of goods and commodities is one of the dominant uses of the Great Lakes. Navigation channels in rivers and harbors must be routinely dredged to mandated depths to facilitate this shipping. In practice, there has been a long-term use of open lake disposal or placement in confined disposal facilities. This option is no longer available in some places, requiring new solutions for dredge material placement such as beneficially using the dredge material in habitat restoration or brownfields remediation. To that end, USEPA Region 5 developed a multi-criteria decision-support tool to help communities characterize and quantify the economic and social dimensions of beneficially using dredge material so these dimensions can be more easily weighed alongside economic considerations. Region 5 and USEPA Office of Research Development collaboratively refined the tool to enhance usability through conducting a series of workshops with different groups of stakeholders involved in dredging decisions. Based on the results of the workshops and related research efforts, a user-friendly interface was created for the tool and an instruction manual that describes how to use the tool was developed. Furthermore, the tool was refined to better characterize specific types of habitat restoration, decision criteria, and social benefits. This tool will facilitate collective decisions that demonstrate how dredge can be beneficially used to restore habitats, provide economic benefits, and increase ecosystem services.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Overview of the Dredged Materials Management Tool (DMDT)
BENEFICIALUSEOFDREDGE TOOL_03022022_GLSEDWKSHP.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 1346.907 KB, about PDF)