Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2010MN276S

Data Management and GIS Analysis for the Ecosystem Technical Work Group

Institute: Minnesota
USGS Grant Number: G10AP00050
Year Established: 2010 Start Date: 2009-09-01 End Date: 2011-09-30
Total Federal Funds: $0 Total Non-Federal Funds: Not available

Principal Investigators: Deborah Swackhamer

Project Summary: This project is a study to assist the International Upper Great Lakes Study Board in an International Joint Commission sponsored study assessing processes affecting lake levels, evaluating options for remediation, and assess whether actions or regulation changes are warranted. This project specifically evaluated the ecological impacts for a variety of alternative water level regulation scenarios. Data and information was collected, and analyzed to identify the relationships between water level changes and environmental impacts. The outcome was an integrated environmental response model that combined large amounts of data with multiple variables and scenarios to forecast potential ecosystem responses to lake level regulation alternatives. This project was responsible for collecting, organizing, and analyzing the various GIS and biological data utilized in the overall study. This was directed funding through the WRC to Dr. Terry Brown at the Natural Resources Research Institute of the University of Minnesota – Duluth.