News » Land Use

Finding the sweet spot

Competitors arriving at the 1st hole of the U.S. Senior Open are greeted by Juday Creek. Flowing through Warren Golf Course, the stream is home to an important ecosystem, and is a valuable resource for Notre Dame researchers today.

Alex Perkins Named Early Career Fellow by the Ecological Society of America

Alex Perkins Named Early Career Fellow by the Ecological Society of America
The University of Notre Dame’s Alex Perkins, Eck Family Assistant Professor, and member of the Department of Biological Sciences, the Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics, the Eck Institute for Global Health, and the Environmental Change Initiative, was named a 2017 Early Career Fellow by the Ecological Society...

Shogren wins EPA graduate fellowship

Shogren wins EPA graduate fellowship
Biological sciences doctoral candidate, Arial Shogren, has been awarded the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Fellowship from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Shogren received the $132,000 grant for her project, “Modeling the Transport of Environmental DNA (eDNA)” in the EPA’s Emerging Environmental Approaches and Challenges Innovation program.

Using Lake Michigan turtles to measure wetland pollution

Using Lake Michigan turtles to measure wetland pollution
Decades of unregulated industrial waste dumping in areas of the Great Lakes have created a host of environmental and wildlife problems. Now it appears that Lake Michigan painted and snapping turtles could be a useful source for measuring the resulting pollution.

Study Links Best Management Practices to Cleaner Watershed

Study Links Best Management Practices to Cleaner Watershed
A long-running experiment to improve water quality in and around Livingston County has yielded encouraging results.  As farmers within the Indian Creek Watershed adopted more efficient methods of managing their nutrients, analyses of water samples collected between 2010 and 2015 are showing a positive…

Notre Dame Environmental Change Initiative names new Managing Director

Tom Springer has been named the new Managing Director of the University of Notre Dame’s Environmental Change Initiative (ECI), starting June 1, 2016. Springer brings significant management and communication expertise to Notre Dame, including strategic planning, grant development, program design and evaluation, group facilitation, and program promotion.

Cooling down Chicago: How green and cool roofs could impact urban climate

More than 50 percent of today’s population lives in cities. According to the United Nations Development Programme, that number is predicted to rise to 70 percent by 2050. Growing urbanization increases the overall temperature of a city as buildings, roads, parking lots and other infrastructure absorb heat, creating an urban...

Heavy Metals In Lake Michigan Turtles

Fish probably get the most attention when it comes to gauging the effects that heavy metals have on Lake Michigan’s inhabitants. But overlooked in this realm of research are turtles. Being that they are a part of the ecosystem too, there is still plenty that scientists can learn by studying…

Metal heads and body burdens: Lake Michigan turtles can’t get the lead out

You likely won’t find any painted and snapping turtles headbanging to Metallica in Lake Michigan wetlands. But heavy metal runs in their veins. These turtles accumulate heavy metals in their tissues, according to a recent study completed at University of Notre Dame and published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. Some of those...

Jennifer Tank receives 2016 Ganey Award for community-based research

Jennifer Tank has received the 2016 Rodney F. Ganey, Ph.D., Community-Based Research Award for working together with Kosciusko County farmers and local conservation staff to reduce nutrient runoff in the Shatto Ditch watershed. The award is a $5,000 prize presented annually to a regular faculty member at the University of...

Fertilizer’s legacy: Taking a toll on land and water

The world’s total human population has jumped to more than 7.4 billion just this year. Feeding the human species takes a tremendous toll on our natural resources including water, soil and phosphorus — a chemical element in fertilizer essential for food production. In modern agriculture, fertilizer…

How Fire Scars are Changing the Alaskan Tundra

Nearly ten years ago, the largest recorded tundra fire in the Arctic, known as the Anaktuvuk River fire, was sparked by a lightning strike, burning its way across more than 400 square miles of the North Scope of Alaska. The fire released nearly as much carbon – a greenhouse gas...

Researchers: Mother Nature Knows Best

A new program aimed at improving water quality in the nation’s heartland by using watershed-scale conservation to reduce nutrient runoff from farms has been recognized by the Obama Administration during the United Nations World Water Day Summit.

Indiana Conservation Program Highlighted at White House Summit

A new program aimed at improving water quality in the nation’s heartland by using watershed-scale conservation to reduce nutrient runoff from farms was highlighted Tuesday at a White House Water Summit. The Water Summit was the backdrop for the Obama administration’s announcement of a national strategy…

Indiana Watershed Initiative highlighted at White House Water Summit

A new program aimed at improving water quality in the nation’s heartland by using watershed-scale conservation to reduce nutrient runoff from farms was highlighted Tuesday (March 22) at a White House Water Summit. The program is spearheaded through a collaboration between the University of Notre Dame Environmental Change Initiative and...

Cheer, cheer for clean water

The University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish: gold helmets crackling under a roar of the Victory March, embraced under Jesus’ outstretched arms.  Try again.