IRES: Environmental Impact of the Panama Canal Expansion Project

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The Panama Canal is one of the most important engineering structures in the world. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is currently investing five billion dollars to expand and modernize the Canal in order to accommodate rising trade volumes. This expansion project focuses on sustainability and has necessitated significant scientific research to measure the environmental impact of both the expansion efforts and the new technologies being deployed in the Canal Zone. This International Research Experience for Students (IRES) award will leverage an existing relationship between Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and ACP to involve undergraduate students in these historic research efforts. Five students and one local high school teacher will be selected as participants each year, using a recruitment process that will ensure the inclusion of a high proportion of under-represented individuals. Diverse pre-departure activities will both prepare the students for their research and serve as a platform by which the larger community can become involved. Programmatic assessment by an experienced evaluator will lead to the continuous improvement of the research program, as well as wide-spread dissemination of the results. Finally, the STEM Education Center at WPI will aid the high school teachers in developing a lesson plans based on their activities that will be widely disseminated.The expansion project will incorporate cutting-edge technological systems in order to improve sustainability and reduce environmental impact with additional locks complementing those originally constructed in 1914. Significant scientific research is being carried out to develop and evaluate these technologies as well as to quantify the ecological effects of the construction activities. The IRES students will investigate topics such as water quality at Gatún Lake; unconventional energy generation methods; optimizing the efficiency of pumping networks; and modeling the long-range transport behavior of pollutants under complex meteorological conditions. The objective of these research efforts is to provide a holistic understanding of the interactions between the Panama Canal, the expansion project, and the local environment, ensuring both economic growth and maintenance of ecological health.