Planning Proposal for the Lake Erie Center

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This award provides support for a strategic planning effort by the The University of Toledo's Lake Erie Center (LEC). The LEC is an interdisciplinary research and education facility dedicated to solving environmental problems at the land-water interface and bay-lake exchanges in the Great Lakes, the world's largest freshwater ecosystem. Its location on the shore of western Lake Erie provides lake access and proximity to agricultural and wetland habitats at the gateway to the upper and lower Great Lakes. Research at the LEC focuses on linkages among land use, aquatic resources, and ecosystem function and services using the Maumee River/Bay watershed and western Lake Erie Basin land-lake continuum as a model of Laurentian Great Lakes ecosystems. The LEC assembles programs and expertise in aquatic conservation, bioremediation and restoration, coastal zone processes, environmental chemistry and hydrology, ecology and ecosystem management, fishery genetics, geography and land use planning, bioeconomics, limnology, remote sensing, and environmental monitoring. The LEC is undergoing a renaissance of activity and productivity, and will need to expand its research laboratory and office space to accommodate expected growth. The award will support the development of a master 5 and 10-year plan that encompasses coordinated environmental research, education, and outreach programs, and conduct of a formal needs assessment. The award also provides partial support for development of preliminary architectural plans for expansion.