Great Lakes Center for Environmental and
Molecular Sciences (GLEAMS) Portal Uniqueness
(conceptual
diagram)
The Michigan based Great Lakes Center for Environmental and
Molecular Sciences (GLEAMS) was established in FY02. The Center is a collaborative venture between Western Michigan
University’s Environmental Institute (EI) and the Altarum Institute. The Center was approved and funded by the
Environmental Protection Agency in fiscal year 2002.
The Center addresses the effects of urban, industrial, agriculture
and other non-point pollution on the Great Lakes through investigations
conducted on multiple spatial and temporal scales. A primary goal of this Center is to develop watershed-scale
methods to assess and protect human and ecological health by restoring and
maintaining stable, diverse, and self-sustaining populations of fish and other
aquatic organisms, wildlife, and plants.
To this end, ongoing work by the Center uses advanced analytical and
environmental chemistry coupled with dynamic Geographic Information System
(GIS) electronic mapping to describe spatial patterns of reported and
previously unreported contaminants in Great Lakes watersheds and their
movements through the system.
In conjunction with new dynamic GIS based contaminant mapping,
analysis tools and decision support system, the Center has the unique status of
being the primary developer of new genomics based tools for assessing exposure
and health impacts in Great Lakes ecosystem organisms.
A unique interdisciplinary (environmental chemistry, molecular
biology, remote sensing, and geospatial information technology) web-based
portal has been created to address the Kalamazoo watershed. The Kalamazoo watershed is a designated EPA
superfund site due to large amounts of PCBs resident in the sediment as well as
suspended in the water column. The
portal, based on IBM QuickPlace technology, is dynamic (automated updates) and
includes all baseline data sets (bathymetry, river discharge rates, bottom
type, contaminant levels, and flora and fauna species) and appropriate models
(river hydrodynamics, fate and transport, food web relationships, chemical
contaminant to gene expression and appropriate health advisories) available for
the river. A user need only click a
location in the watershed and the environmental quality and any appropriate
health advisory of that particular piece of the river is summarized in a color coded
easy to understand format. Contaminant
and water quality parameters are used as inputs into food web and human health
consequences models to generate the advisories. This watershed Dynamic Decision Support System (DDSS), whose
purpose is to generate easy to understand environmental advisories using a
variety of input parameters contained in the GLEAMS portal, has a modular
design that allows for environmental assessment and advisories to be obtained
from a variety of input sources. For
example, if in situ chemical contaminant measurements exist at a given
location along the river, the DDSS utilizes those observations as direct input
into the food web model and health advisories.
If no current in situ observation exists, the DDSS when fully
implemented will utilize the baseline data combined with the full suite of
models (i.e. hydro, fate and transport, and food web) to estimate the
environmental quality and human health consequence.
The modular nature of the GLEAMS DDSS will also allow as input to the
environmental assessments and advisory, genetic analysis of tissue samples of
plants and animals that represent the watershed ecosystem. These species can serve as our “canary in
the birdcage,” and have the potential to circumvent expensive and time-consuming
chemical contaminant field sampling. As
part of the environmental health assessment of a given piece of the Kalamazoo
River, the GLEAMS DDSS also utilizes Automated Langrangian Water-Quality
Assessment System (ALWAS) data. ALWAS
was developed at Altarum as an inexpensive, automated, free floating, water
quality measuring and watershed evaluation system. The system utilizes GPS, microprocessor and recording technology
to measure, as a function of location (2-meter accuracy) and time (one-minute interval),
water velocity, depth, temperature, conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen,
turbidity, nitrate, and chlorophyll values.
After deployment, the data from ALWAS is downloaded into the Kalamazoo
GIS and a calculation on relative water quality as a function of location is
made using the measured water parameters.
Future development steps for the DDSS portal element include:
1)
Implementing suggestions from users (i.e. rollout participants);
2)
Completing the end-to-end DDSS from contaminant to human health;
3)
Generating error estimates for the DDSS predictions; and
4)
Through focus groups of EPA designated experts, evaluate the
present suite of models and relationships (i.e. BSAF values) used in the
presently configured DDSS.
The term “portal” refers to the GLEAMS website that organizes and
brings together relevant, timely environmental information on a general or
specific topic, i.e. “one-stop shopping.”
The intent of this portal is to allow users, in this case Kalamazoo watershed
concerned citizens, Kalamazoo watershed organizations, EPA region 5 resource
managers, state and local resource managers, superfund assessment and
remediation engineers, researchers, and educators, quick access to data
regarding environmental quality of the river.
These clients save time and aggravation by going to the portal, which
serves as a central clearinghouse of environmental information. The 75-mile long Kalamazoo superfund site,
the longest superfund site in the country, is an environmental concern that
will be addressed for a long time into the future. Having a website with all historical and baseline data as well as
a place to put new data and model results insure the full suite of superfund
observations and record of decision are preserved. The methodology, types of information content, and models
formatted for the Kalamazoo River are applicable to other watersheds within the
Great Lakes.
The GLEAMS portal also addresses a need for people who
are geographically distant to interact on watershed issues. The GLEAMS portal is interactive in a number
of ways. The portal is linked to other
websites that address Great Lakes issues.
The portal also has an interactive “chat room” where Great Lakes environmental
issues can be discussed among the various stakeholders. The QuickPlace portal also allows rooms to
be password protected, a useful capability to facilitate the sharing of field
data and model results before public release.
The Internet map server (IMS) enabled geographic information system
(GIS), embedded within the GLEAMS portal, enables distant users to have ready
access to the complete Kalamazoo River data set. Users with little or no GIS experience can download their
required information remotely and efficiently.
A final unique
attribute of the GLEAMS portal is the science section. The GLEAMS team has assembled a unique group
of expertise that includes environmental chemistry, biology that specializes in
genomes and ecosystems, and remote sensing of freshwater and geospatial information
technology. Some pioneering discoveries
have been generated as a part of this program, for example:
·
Use
of gene expression to assess ecosystem and human health risk as a function of
exposure to environmental contaminants;
·
Definition
of fate and transport of PCBs due to anthropogenic recreational boat traffic;
·
Creation
of a new satellite algorithm to estimate productivity (chl, doc, and sm) for
the Great Lakes; and
·
Development
of a new geospatial end-to-end model that provides human health consequence as
a function of contamination.
These important scientific results
need to be communicated in a timely fashion while they await the lengthy
refereed publication process.
In summary, the portal, which is a work in progress, has a diverse
set of “customers” and purposes. The
portal design supports this diverse customer set in an effective manner. The portal is presently centered on the
Kalamazoo watershed and is a useful platform to insure capture of superfund
data, model results and issues. It can
serve as a communication tool to keep the watershed residents aware of
remediation plans. The methodology
employed for this portal, along with the suggested and implemented modeling
architecture, is applicable to other watersheds within the Great Lakes, for
example the Fox River Watershed.
Content
