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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