Growing Strong Industries
Developing New Ideas
Nurturing Natural Resources
Developing New Ideas
Nurturing Natural Resources
University of Minnesota Duluth
UMD’s Large Lakes Observatory goes deep to complement NRRI water research.
As a university in the "land of 10,000 lakes" and given its proximity to one of the world’s great freshwater resources, it’s no surprise that UMD has developed extensive expertise to understand the complexity of diverse water ecosystems.
While water research takes place in other disciplines, two programs in particular — NRRI’s Center for Water and the Environment and the Large Lakes Observatory — focus their research in complementary, but uniquely different ways.
NRRI was formed in 1983 with a very specific mission of providing research to improve Minnesota’s natural resource-based economy. It’s Center for Water and the Environment focuses on how to manage these resources sustainably — fresh water in rivers, wetlands and lakes of all sizes — given the pressures of human impact.
The Large Lakes Observatory, on the other hand, was established in 1994 to bring oceanographic research techniques to the deep waters of the world’s large lakes. LLO has the tools and the expertise to go deep, literally and academically, to gather fundamental information about how these freshwater resources work.
Millions of dead and dying trees in the United States must be properly used or disposed of as a result of the devastating effects of invasive insects. A new publication released by the University of Minnesota Duluth and the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) provides urban forestry professionals guidance for managing this monumental task.
"We want to live near aquatic resources without overly harming them. That’s sustainability," said NRRI Aquatic Scientist Valerie Brady. "And if we want to know how well we’re taking care of these resources, one way is to ask the critters how they are doing."
As the owner of Loll Designs and Epicurean I am often asked why we strive to be a sustainable company and what does that mean to me. We take a very holistic approach to this. Environmental health, a healthy exterior and interior work space, energy efficiency, manufacturing process efficiencies to reduce waste in all forms, especially pollution, are all considered. The core principals of sustainability are...
"How long does it take to breed a superior plant?"
Ancient civilizations domesticated plants, but it has been since about the 1930’s that widespread and specific plant breeding has taken place. The result is that most of the food and flower plants we’re familiar with have been bred for improvement.
