Managing Pollution of Urban Waters: Sources and Solutions

Dr. Sarah Hobbie

Regents Professor and Distinguished McKnight University Professor, University of Minnesota

Abstract

Managing excess nutrients remains a major obstacle to improving ecosystem service benefits of urban waters. In this talk, I will describe research we are doing to understand the sources of nutrient pollution to urban lakes and streams in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area in Minnesota. I will place the work in the context of a relatively new urban Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program. I will further describe our work with regulators to target one source of nutrient pollution, tree litterfall into streets. Our work shows that advancing ecosystem-level understanding of urban watersheds can generate insights that promote novel solutions to solving urban water quality challenges. However, implementing these solutions requires close partnerships with local regulators and resource managers.