The H.T. Odum Center for Wetlands, the Soil and Water Science Department 
and the Water Institute will be hosting a University-wide seminar this 
Thursday:

Dr. William J. Mitsch of The Ohio State University, 2004 Stockholm Water 
Prize Laureate, Distinguished Professor of Environment and Natural 
Resources, and Director of the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River 
Wetland Research Park (http://swamp.osu.edu/)

Title:  Restoring the Mississippi River Basin: Wetlands, rivers, 
floodplains, and delta

Date: Thursday, March 19^th from 2:00-3:00 PM
Location: Bartram Hall, Room 211 (corner of Museum Road and Newell 
Drive, just south of Dickinson Hall) 

Abstract:
The 20,000 km2 hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico has served to focus 
attention on the fact that the Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri (MOM) River 
Basin is saturated with nutrients, mainly from agricultural activity, 
and that there is need for ecological solutions in addition to agronomic 
ones.  Hurricane Katrina in 2005 focused attention on the fact that 
coastal Louisiana has been losing wetlands for decades and with that 
loss, the protection that is afforded by those wetlands.  A new 
ecologically engineered river landscape is needed in the Delta, the 
Midwest and the entire MOM basin to counteract these problems but also 
address local water pollution and flood problems.   Research at the 
Olentangy River Wetland Research Park and elsewhere are discussed as 
places where these problems are being addressed and estimates are being 
made of the scale of the solution.

Open to the public.

--
Sharlynn Sweeney, PhD candidate
Department of Environmental Engineering, and
Program Assistant
Center for Environmental Policy &
Howard T. Odum Center for Wetlands
University of Florida