Restoring the Great Black Swamp
William J. Mitsch, Ph.D.
Eminent Scholar and Director, Everglades Wetland Research Park, Florida Gulf Coast University, Naples, Florida, USA
Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University
Editor-in-Chief, Ecological Engineering Excess nitrogen and phosphorus are causing global change to aquatic ecosystems far in excess of any change we have seen so far with climate change
Source: World Resource Institute
“More than 750 aquatic ecosystems worldwide currently suffer from degraded ecosystem services due to urban and agricultural inputs that cause water quality impairments such as hypoxic ‘dead zones’ and harmful algal blooms” Jay Martin, OSU proposal, 2014 Wetlands provide valuable ecosystem services: •Water purification •Flood regulation/ storm protection •Biodiversity islands and corridors •Climate regulation (Carbon sequestration) •Locations for human relaxation and nature observation/education Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri River Basin Major nitrate sources in MOM Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri (MOM) General extent of hypoxia in Gulf of Mexico Basin Restoration Mississippi River Basin boundary Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri (MOM) Basin Restoration
Mitsch et al. 2001. BioScience 51: 373-388
Better Fertilizer Management
Created/Restored Restored Wetlands Riparian Bottomlands 2 million ha (5 million acres) of these ecosystems are needed Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park at The Ohio State University Summer 2010 Volume 72, SPECIALNovemberISSUE2014 72 Volume 72, November 2014 ISSN 0925-8574 CONTENTS Ecological Contents list/abstracts published in: Cambridge EcologicalScientific AbstrEngineeringacts; Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology and Environmental Science; Elsevier BIOBASE; GEOBASE; Studies Abstracts, Biological Abstracts and BIOSIS Previews. Also covered in the abstract and citation database SCOPUS®. Full text available on ScienceDirect® The Olentangy River Wetland Research Park: Two Decades of Research on Ecosystem Services Engineering ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERING Guest Editors Vol THE JOURNAL OF 1,2 . William J. Mitsch 72 3 ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION Julie K. Cronk ( 1420 Li Zhang4,5 ) 1 – X 1Eminent Scholar and Director, Everglades Wetland Research Park, Florida Gulf Coast University, X X 4940 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL, 34112, USA
2Founding Director and Professor Emeritus, Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 43202, USA S
3Assistant Professor, Department of Biological and Physical Sciences, Columbus State Community College, 550 E. Spring St., Columbus, OH, 43215, USA p
4Assistant Director, Everglades Wetland Research Park, Florida Gulf Coast University,
4940 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL, 34112, USA ec 5Former Assistant Director, Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 43202, USA ial
Is This publication is partially from presentations at the 4th International EcoSummit “Ecological Sustainability: Restoring the Planet’s Ecosystem Services” held 1–5 October 2012 in Columbus, Ohio, USA. s
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com u ScienceDirect e 05101
Special Issue: The Olentangy River Wetland Research Park: ELSEVIER Two Decades of Research on Ecosystem Services Guest Editors: William J. Mitsch, Julie K. Cronk and Li Zhang Editor-in-chief William J. Mitsch Source: Mitsch et al. In press. Ecol. Eng (Nov 2014) Source: Mitsch et al. In press. Ecol. Eng (Nov 2014) in press (Nov 2014) Ecol. Eng.
Editorial
Unifying a city with its natural riverine environment for the benefit of both: Extending Ohio’s only Wetland of International Importance to a much larger river ecosystem corridor
William J. Mitsch, Ph.D. Chair, U.S. National Ramsar Committee Editor in Chief, Ecological Engineering Eminent Scholar and Director, Everglades Wetland Research Park, Florida Gulf Coast University, Naples, FL, 34112 USA Founding Director and Professor Emeritus, Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43202 USA
Author’s Note: Much of this plan was described in a report written in early 2010 (Mitsch, 2010) and described in a radio interview from May 2010 that remains on the web at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6U_Uv7b_9I&index=4&list =FLHYBBiI_1lknXtWewwNMMlQ The Florida Everglades
Kissimmee River Lake Okeechobee
Big Cypress Swamp The Everglades Gulf of “River of Grass” Mexico
Coastal Mangroves Treatment Wetlands in the Everglades aka Stormwater Treatment Area (STA’s)
Lake Okeechobee
Stormwater Everglades Treatment Agricultural Areas (light Area green)
57,000 acres of these wetlands have been Florida Everglades created! Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs) upstream of Everglades Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs) upstream of Everglades STA 1W Phosphorus (last 5 years) " $ ! " # ! Outlow Inlow ""!
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Ecological Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Ecological Engineering
j o u r nal homep age: w w w . e l s e vie r . c o m / l o c a t e/e col e n g
Protecting the Florida Everglades wetlands with wetlands: Can stormwater phosphorus be reduced to oligotrophic conditions?
William J. Mitsch a ,b ,*, Li Zhang a , Darryl Marois a ,b , Keunyea Song b ,c a Everglades Wetland Research Park, Florida Gulf Coast University, 4940 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL 34112, USA b Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA c School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska, 3310 Holdrege Street, Lincoln, NE 68583-0974, USA
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Article history: The Florida Everglades is being threatened by high-nutrient stormwater coming from agricultural runoff. Received 23 June 2014 The main nutrient problem is phosphorus, which causes the highly oligotrophic sawgrass (Cladium Received in revised form 23 September 2014 jamaicense) communities in the northern Everglades to become eutrophic Typha latifolia/T. domingensis Accepted 3 October 2014 communities. Current government directives require that the total phosphorus concentration of storm Available online xxx water drainage into the Everglades be limited to approximately 10 ppb (mg-P/L). Over 23,00 0 ha treatment wetlands, referred to locally as stormwater treatment areas (STAs), have been created from Keywords: farmland to treat the stormwater. They are generally effective in removing 6 0–80% of the total Phosphorus Florida Everglades phosphorus; however, the 10 ppb goal has rarely been achieved. A three-year experiment, involving Treatment wetlands mesocosms planted with Everglades-native wetland plants was conducted in the Florida Everglades from Stormwater treatment March 2010 to March 2013. Eighteen flow-through mesocosms (6 m x 1 m x 1 m with 40-cm water Cladium jamaicense depth) received about 2.6 cm/day inflow. The eighteen mesocosms were randomly assigned with six Nymphaea odorata different plant communities with three replicates of each treatment, consisting of sawgrass (C. Typha domingensis jamaicense); waterlily (Nymphaea odorata); cattail (Typha domingensis); submerged aquatic vegetation Najas guadalupensis (SAV) including Najas guadalupensis, and Chara sp. and a Nymphaea–Eleocharis sp. mixed community; and soil without vegetation as a control. Total phosphorus (TP) in the inflow water was 25 ± 1 mg-P/L (n = 55) over the 3 years. Through 2012 the average outflow of all of the treatments was 34 ± 1 mg-P/L, a 51% decrease from the average outflow of 69 ± 6 mg-P/L for 2011. Outflows began to be routinely lower than the inflow in the 3rd year of the study. The average total phosphorus concentration decreased overall to 19 ± 1 (n = 5) at the end of the study in 2 013 suggesting that the suspected phosphorus reflux from the Lake Erie Algal Blooms
“Nutrient impairment continues to plague Lake Erie, impacting an $11.5 billion tourism industry” Ohio Lake Erie Phosphorus Task Force (Nov 2013)
Satellite Image from Sept 3, 2011 of Western Lake Erie (Michalak et al. 2013) PNAS SANDUSKY, Ohio – “A green slime is blooming once again around Lake Erie and anglers, boaters and tourism officials are hoping it won't toss a toxic monkey wrench into everyone's fun on the water.” D'Arcy Egan, The Plain Dealer, August 24, 2013
Lake Erie Thursday, August 21, 2014 Mayor says water crisis is similar to 9/11 Both were wake-up calls, led to second-guessing BY TOM TROY, BLADE POLITICS WRITER
Mayor D. Michael Collins said on Monday that the water emergency that crippled Toledo’s water supply Aug. 2 was like the terrorist attack suffered by the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 — a wake-up call to community action.
And Toledo City Council’s utilities committee on Monday delved into the Aug. 2-4 crisis that made Toledo a national byword for the health threat posed by blooming algae.
Mr. Collins said in an interview with The Blade’s editorial board and a Blade reporter that just as 9/11 created a change in Americans’ attitude toward terrorism preparedness, so the great algae bloom of 2014 should not be ignored. Sources of Phosphorus Metric to Lake Erie, 2003-2011 tons P/yr Non-point source inputs 6,183 Point-source inputs 1,884 Atmospheric inputs 525 Inputs from upstream 336 Lake Huron TOTAL 8,929 Source: Dolan and Chapra (2012) J. Great Lakes Res, 38, 730-740 The western basin received approximately 60% of the 2003-2011 average TP loads
Most of that load comes from the Maumee River Basin Source: Scavia et al (2012) J. Great Lakes Res Wetlands in Lake Erie Watershed in Ohio, Wetlands in Lake Erie Watershed in Ohio, The Great Black Swamp was once a combination of marshland and forested swamps that covered an estimated 400,000 hectares or 1 million acres (Mitsch and Gosselink 2007) COULD WE SOLVE THE LAKE ERIE ALGAL BLOOMS BY RESTORING THE GREAT BLACK SWAMP? Mid-term grades for the six large-scale wetland restorations* A = excellent; B = good; C = average; D = poor; F=failure; I = incomplete *Mitsch, W.J. 2014. When will ecologists learn engineering and engineers learn ecology? Eco. Eng. 65: 9-14. Restoration Type of Ecosystem Scale of Ecosystem Mid-Term Case Study restoration being restoration, services Grade restored km2 sought Indian Ocean Coastal Mangrove 15,000 Coastal C Mangroves swamps protection (Post-Tsunami) Louisiana Coastal Mostly salt 36,000 Coastal D- (Mississippi marshes protection; River) Delta regional ecology enhancement Delaware Bay Coastal Salt marshes 670 Fisheries and A- Salt Marshes aquatic food chain enhancement Mississippi- Watershed Freshwater 20,000 Water quality I Ohio-Missouri wetlands and improvement (MOM) River riparian forests Basin Mesopotamian Watershed Phragmites 20,000 Return of lost A Marshlands marshes culture and landscape Florida Watershed Freshwater 46,000 Water quality D+ Everglades streams and and hydrologic marshes improvement Restoring the Black Swamp to Save Lake Erie
By William J. Mitsch Sept. 4, 2014 Water Environment Federation
The harmful algal blooms in western Lake Erie for the past few years and the toxic algae that caused Toledo Ohio to shut down the municipal water supply in August 2014 are symptomatic that there is something very wrong with the way we are managing our landscapes. Nutrients, especially phosphorus are pouring into this shallowest (18 m average) portion of the shallowest Great Lake, mostly as runoff from agricultural fields, are causing seasonal bursts in algal production with their accompanying problems of slimy aesthetics, dissolved oxygen depletion in bottom waters, fish kills, and toxicity. www.wef.org Everglades Foundation announces The Grand Challenge – A $10 Million Science Prize
September 22, 2014 Everglades Foundation attends Chicago Summit on Drinking Water Protection, Announces: The Grand Challenge A $10 Million Science Prize
On September 24th, the Everglades Foundation joined Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence Cities Initiative to discuss The Grand Challenge – a $10 million science prize to be awarded to anyone who can successfully develop and execute a process to remove excessive phosphorus from our waterways. US National Ramsar Committee 1220 L Street NW, STE 100-134 Washington, DC 20005-4033 http://usnrc.net [email protected] +1 614 946 6715
November 13, 2014
PRELIMINARY AGENDA AND PHONE/LOCATION INFORMATION
Mid-Year Meeting, U.S. National Ramsar Committee Everglades Wetland Research Park Naples Florida
Date of Meeting: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 Time: 10 am to noon, EDST Location: Florida Gulf Coast University’s Kapnick Center at the Naples Botanical Garden, 4940 Bayshore Drive, Naples, Florida 34112
Phone Connections: International direct: +1 720 389 1212 US Toll free: 1 888 670 3525 Participant passcode: 8727731547 then # JANUARY15,2015 7PM LOSING MONEY WITH THE MUD?- HOW SEA LEVEL RISE WILL AFFECT CARBON ACCUMULATION IN SALT MARSH AND MANGROVE WETLANDS
JANUARY29,2015 7PM COASTAL AREAS OF THE WORLD AND GLOBAL CHANGE
FEBRUARY 12, 2015 7 PM WILL THE NEXT MIDDLE EAST TENSION BE ABOUT WATER? THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES
T h e B e r n a r d a n d S u s a n M a s t e r 2015
FEBRUARY 26, 2015 7 PM RESTORING THE WORLD’S RIVERS AND Moonlight WATERSHEDS WITH ECOHYDROLOGY
O N T H E LECTURMaE rSERIshE S MARCH 12, 2015 7 PM PREVENTING COASTAL DEAD ZONES FROM A DISTANCE
Note: This lecture is also annual “Hesburgh Lecture” for Coming March 2015 Thanks!
fgcu.edu/swamp