LEMN Workshop 4.12: "Land Use/Nutrient Transport Relationships in Lake Erie Drainage Basin (From Land to Lake)" was a binational workshop that was held at the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario from March 21st to 22nd, 2007.

Workshop Resources

Workshop Overview

Nearshore zones of Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes are experiencing degraded beaches, changes in aquatic community structure, and increased algal blooms, ostensibly because of increases in the quantity or reactivity of landscape-derived nutrients. The effectiveness of landscape-based best management practices and point source controls on phosphorus must be assessed with respect to ecological requirements for maintenance or recovery of healthy aquatic communities in the watershed, the hydrologic cycle and water usage. However, it is important that all sources contributing to the watershed nutrient load and ultimately to the basin, be managed to limit local and regional impacts. Nutrients such as nitrates and carbon also must be included in watershed and basin impact assessments.

Workshop Objectives

In this workshop, we will address the following questions preparatory to developing research and action plans for creating and sustaining desirable Lake Erie ecosystem objectives:

• What land-based nutrient sources or management activity pressures have critical impacts on the LAMP ecosystem objectives?
• What are the nutrient load (P, N, C) discharge contributions to Lake Erie from land-based activities in each of its tributary watersheds?
• How are these nutrient loads distributed in space and through time?