Workshop: Global Solutions to Regional Problems: Collecting Global Expertise to the Problem of Harmful Algal Blooms
The objective of the Workshop is to identify the major knowledge gaps toward understanding bloom formation, detection and mitigation, along with discussion of case studies that highlight current bloom remediation efforts. Since bloom events are an increasingly global phenomena, bringing together cyanobacteria, harmful algal bloom researchers from China, Europe and Australia will provide a broad perspective on current research and mitigation strategies employed around the world. The outcome of the Workshop will be a manuscript submitted to a peer-reviewed journal that summarizes future research goals and challenges, along with current best practices for CHAB control. Overall, the Workshop will set priorities for both future research and implementation of remediation protocols. This project will not fund any international participants.
The site of the Workshop is located in the watershed in which a cyanobacteria, harmful algal bloom event shut down the municipal water supply to 500,000 residents in August 2014. This phenomenon was widely reported in the popular press, thereby informing the general public to HAB threats. The Workshop is ideally positioned to educate the public through news media on the causes, prevention and event response to CHABs so that residents in affected areas are adequately informed. Published findings of the Workshop will be broadly disseminated to the scientific community through the peer-reviewed literature, and drafts of the Workshop manuscript will be made available to NOAA staff to help inform their strategic actions through the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act. Lastly, undergraduate students at BGSU will participate in a seminar in which Workshop findings drive the formation of a list of recommendations for regional and national cyanobacteria, harmful algal bloom control.
