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UM Bay ResearchUniversity of Maryland faculty and scientists around the state study the Bay's watershed and its complex ecosystem. They explore a wide variety of Bay-related issues, including the Bay's oxygen dynamics, oysters, fish, environmental threats, and the lives of people who make their living from the Chesapeake. Featured here are some current University of Maryland research projects. A Research SamplerFuture Gazing for the Eastern Shore
Every day thousands of people cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to reach the Delmarva Peninsula — now one of the fastest growing regions in the Chesapeake watershed. Without proper planning, development threatens to damage one of the Peninsula's most important assets, its waterways. What will future development mean for the health of the area's streams, creeks, and rivers? A team of researchers, funded by Maryland Sea Grant, is working to help managers predict what different patterns of development might bring. Their goal is to create a free, web-based program that will allow local governments to forecast how future growth could impact water on the Delmarva Peninsula. Glenn Moglen, a surface water hydrologist and geographic information system (GIS) expert, leads the effort. Moglen, who holds a joint appointment with the University of Maryland's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, says that the tool will not only give managers a look into the future, but also help them to shape it. Ultimately, he notes, this program will allow planners to decide among various land-use options, helping them make choices that reduce adverse impacts on streams and rivers flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. More at http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/news/landuse/ The Role of Marshes in Lowering Greenhouse Gasses
A University of Maryland soil science professor is looking at how some mucky marsh soils in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, could hold a key to lowering greenhouse gases, be a winner in the game of carbon credits, and help rescue the Refuge itself, which is losing 400 acres of marsh grass a year to rising sea level and erosion. Brian Needelman says marsh soils and fast-growing marsh grasses may be better than trees and grasslands at storing carbon dioxide. And, because the soils that capture that greenhouse gas are underwater, where things decompose slowly, carbon is trapped, or sequestered, for a long time, keeping it out of the atmosphere. Enter a pollution credit trading system that Maryland and nine other Eastern states will institute in 2009, to allow companies to exceed government standards for carbon emission by paying for pollution control projects, such as restoring marshes. And so Needelman is slogging through the marshes, taking soil samples, to come up with some hard numbers on the amount of greenhouse gas that is trapped there. His findings could make a difference in Blackwater's fate. If the results show that there is enough trapped carbon to make it a valuable commodity for carbon credits, the very expensive undertaking of restoring the Refuge— 8000 acres of marsh land have already been lost —might actually be a good economic and environmental investment. Media may accompany Needelman on sampling trips, with prior arrangement. Contact Ellen Ternes, 301-404-4627 More at http://www.sawgal.umd.edu/Blackwater/blackwater.html Maryland Students Help Understand and Conserve the Terrapin
The diamondback terrapin —Maryland's state reptile and the mascot of so many winning Maryland teams —is now the subject of a new collaboration between elementary school students and researchers at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI). The project's launch is helped by a new children's book, Turtles in My Sandbox, by Anne Arundel County native Jennifer Keats Curtis. Through UMBI's SciTech program, students will raise baby terrapins from eggs collected by scientists and record the terrapin's growth and other measurements in an online database for researchers and other students to access. Terrapins receiving 'head-start' rearing in the classroom will eventually be tagged and released into the wild to help maintain the important ecological niche filled by terrapins in the Chesapeake Bay. "Students have raised pet reptiles in classroom aquariums for years," says UMBI SciTech Coordinator Jeff Morgen. "But in this case, students will help collect real data to be used by researchers and help to conserve an important part of our state's natural heritage." Turtles in My Sandbox, tells the story of a girl who raises nine baby terrapins she finds in her sandbox. The book is available on Amazon.com and from local retailers, and a portion of its sales will benefit terrapin research. Contact: Jeff Morgen, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, morgen@umbi.umd.edu. For more information on the research project and the book, visit http://www.terrapinbook.com/. Grass Holds Promise to Save Fuel, Environment
At the University of Maryland's Wye Research and Education Center in Queenstown, Md., a boiler fueled entirely by grass heats the center's maintenance buildings and a greenhouse. This past winter, heat from the grass-fired boiler reduced fuel oil use by about 700 gallons. But the grass, called switchgrass, is more than just a biofuel that could help farmers rely less on increasingly expensive fossil fuels. Switchgrass also has potential environmental benefits for the Chesapeake Bay and beyond — from the time it's planted until it's burned for heat. Ken Staver, a research associate in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, has been investigating how switchgrass fits into Eastern Shore agricultural systems, from its production and role in riparian nutrient cycles to its eventual use as a home-grown fuel to supply farm heating needs. "For a long time switchgrass has been considered to have potential for use in buffer areas to scavenge nutrients lost from cropland before they reach the Bay," Staver says "But there also is growing interest in its potential to help on the atmospheric carbon dioxide problem. Higher fossil fuel costs also make switchgrass more economically viable as an on-farm fuel than when I started working with it back in the early 1990s." More . . . Dr. Staver is available for interviews: 410 827-8056 ext.111, kstaver@umd.edu; or call Ellen Ternes 301-405-4627, eternes@umd.edu.
Read more about Ken Staver's research: Reading Marshlands for Clues to Pollution
Changes in Maryland's Chesapeake wetlands and marshes may signal large-scale pollution and global climate change. High nitrogen levels, for example, can signal nutrient pollution from agricultural runoff and other sources. Higher than normal salinity, which increases in marsh areas as sea level rises, could be a sign of global warming. In their hunt for these telltale clues, Maryland professors Andy Baldwin and Dave Tilley, along with their students, take their research boat to marshy areas around the Bay. They use a specially rigged radiometer to measure vegetation for nitrogen. Their research will lead to the ability to interpret data collected by aircraft or satellites to assess tidal freshwater wetlands throughout the Bay. They hope their findings will result in a model that will allow for prediction of nutrient pollution on a large scale. The team also hopes their technique can be used to measure the encroachment of salty water into freshwater marshes, which could help monitor global change. Tilley and Baldwin are willing to take reporters along on a scheduled research day, with prior arrangement. For more information on media possibilities, contact Ellen Ternes, 301-405-4627, eternes@umd.edu.
Read more about their research: Funded in part by Maryland Sea Grant. Where Have All the Blue Crabs Gone?
Researcher Elizabeth North is on the trail of baby blue crabs. Every year the birth of a crab nation unfolds as female blue crabs make their way to the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay to spawn. Riding out-bound currents, microscopic crab larvae wash into the Atlantic, where they drift until they morph into baby crabs. Then they drop lower in the water column and make their way back into the Bay. But how many of them will actually return to the Chesapeake? How many will perish, or seek other parts of the shoreline, such as Delaware Bay? Researcher Elizabeth North and her colleagues are trying to answer these questions by tracking early life stages of the crab out on the continental shelf. Working with other scientists as part of a Mid-Atlantic cooperative effort funded by Sea Grant, North will gather early-stage crabs with fine nets and then compare her findings to data on currents and weather to see what forces determine where the crabs go. Learn more about Elizabeth North's research: northweb.hpl.umces.edu/research/research.htm. Learn more about Sea Grant-funded research: www.mdsg.umd.edu/Research/R_EH-1b.html. Read more about North's work on the potential introduction of an exotic oyster to the Chesapeake, in Maryland Sea Grant's magazine, Chesapeake Quarterly. Boat-Plane Would Ferry Passengers Across Bay
Maryland's Eastern Shore may soon be a quick trip from Baltimore, thanks to a speedy, futuristic Bay ferry being developed by Maritime Applied Physics Corporation and researchers in the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering. The plane-like boat, which could be in service year-round as early as summer 2007, will "fly" passengers 18 miles over the water from Rock Hall to Baltimore or back for potential shopping trips, coastal touring, evening dinners, Orioles games, cultural events, and commuting to work. "Since the steamship days the Eastern Shore has held a certain allure for Baltimoreans," said P.A.M. Schaller, Director of Economic Development for Kent County. "Rock Hall has the flavor of a waterman's town. Nearby Chestertown has loads of 18th century architecture. Both have fabulous restaurants. It's like stepping back in time." The trip by car is 80 miles, requiring a drive either north into Delaware, or south to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Read more - http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=1195 For More InformationFor more information about Chesapeake Bay research and experts at the University of Maryland, visit these Websites.
University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP)
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES)
University of Maryland Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB)
University of Maryland Sea Grant College
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Hosted by the Maryland Sea Grant College
http://www.chesapeake.umd.edu/research/index.html • March 06, 2008 |
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