Areas of Focus
Ohio State’s many campuses, including its teaching and research laboratory on Lake Erie (Stone Lab), are home to hundreds of researchers, technical staff, teachers, administrators, and other support specialists who focus on water-related issues within Ohio. In turn, the university has water-related expertise in aquatic ecology, chemistry, engineering, fisheries science, food production, geology, hydrology, policymaking, toxicology, watershed modeling, climate science, and water quality, among many other areas.
Given this range of expertise, Ohio State has been a leader in conducting fundamental science to help understand water-related natural and engineered phenomena and processes, identifying the environmental and societal factors that control these phenomena and processes, evaluating how alteration of these phenomena and processes might affect the ability of our ecosystems to support biodiversity, society, and the many valued services that our ecosystems provide (e.g., potable water, safe foods, clean water and beaches for recreation), and designing solutions to support long-term sustainability of these services. Additionally, many of us at Ohio State have been eager to use this information to help external partners devise and implement policies that can sustain our natural ecosystems and the valued services that they provide.