New research led by the University of Delaware evaluates the potential cost and effect of technologies aimed at reducing emissions from marine shipping, especially when targeting the Arctic.

The multi-university effort provides the first technology assessment to directly inform policy decisions on shipping emissions and the sensitive region, which earned the focus of world leaders at the December 2010 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancun.

“Evidence of global warming is in no place more obvious than in the Arctic,” Arctic Council Chair Lene Esperson told UNFCCC attendees. “Shipping activity in the region is on the rise, including tourism and exploration activities.” (full article)

NEWS FROM THE DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL
 
For further information, contact Joanna Wilson, Public Affairs Office, 302-739-9902.
 
Citizens Source Water Protection Committee to meet Jan. 26
 
DOVER (Jan. 5, 2011) – The Source Water Protection Citizens and Technical Advisory Committee (CTAC) of the DNREC Source Water Assessment and Protection Program will meet from 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Jan. 26 in Conference Room 220 A&B of the Kent County Administrative Offices on Bay Road in Dover.
 
The agenda includes the following items:
 
·         Update on the upcoming Delaware River Basin Drinking Water Forum scheduled for March 10, 2011;
 
·         The groundwater section of Delaware’s 305(b) Report: the National Water Quality Report to Congress;
 
·         Presentation on stream restoration projects in Delaware;
 
·         Presentation by Betsy Reyes of the U.S. Geological Survey on the final results of the USGS sampling of public wells in the unconfined aquifer.

NEWS FROM THE DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL

Vol. 39, No. 424

Contact: Melanie Rapp or Carol Riggs, Public Affairs, 302-739-9902.

Delaware’s Chesapeake Plan receives EPA approval

DOVER (Dec. 29, 2010) – Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Collin P. O’Mara and Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Kee responded to today’s announcement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that Delaware’s Chesapeake Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP; Phase I) has received EPA’s approval for reducing pollutants from entering local waterways that lie within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The University of Delaware College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) and the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA) in Brazil are working to organize a program that will facilitate research exchanges between the two universities.

As an educational partnership agreement that began in spring 2010, UD and UFLA hope to increase internal interactions by exchanging professors, undergraduate and graduate students for research purposes.
This fall, four professors from UFLA came to UD to discuss the future of this partnership, including possible collaborations on research topics ranging from environmental sustainability to the business of agriculture. (full article)

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has awarded a 2011 Einstein Professorship to Donald L. Sparks, the S. Hallock du Pont Professor of Soil and Environmental Chemistry and director of the Delaware Environmental Institute at the University of Delaware.

The honor is presented each year to 20 distinguished scientists from around the world representing a variety of disciplines and actively working at the frontiers of science and technology. Of this year's 20 awardees from the U.S. and Europe, 13 are members of either the U.S. National Academy of Sciences or the National Academy of Engineering. (full article)

Oceans Day, held Dec. 4 at the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 16) in Cancun, drew high-level attention to the critical need to protect the central role of the oceans as the Earth's life support system. This was the second Oceans Day to be held at a meeting of the UNFCCC and was co-organized by the Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands, which is housed at the University of Delaware.

Attending the event were more than 90 participants from governments, international organizations, business, academia, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who emphasized the need to address the implications of climate change for oceans and coasts by reducing greenhouse emissions and implementing adaptation measures. (Full article)

Greg Shriver, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, has received a $300,000 collaborative grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct research on salt marsh birds from Maine to Virginia as part of the Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Project (SHARP).
The short-term goal of the SHARP project is to provide the information necessary for all states in the bird conservation region stretching from New England through the Mid-Atlantic coast to protect regionally important habitats for tidal marsh birds, especially the saltmarsh sparrow which is listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and has a limited breeding range from Virginia to Maine. (Full article)

University of Delaware Professor of Marine Policy James Corbett, together with colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has signed a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation to conduct a series of joint research initiatives designed to analyze and reduce the environmental impacts of transportation.

The five-year collaborative agreement with the department's Maritime Administration will include examination of multiple alternative energy technologies and the use of intermodal transit options -- including rail, ship and truck -- to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and American dependence on fossil fuels. It also seeks to better inform American policy makers on the best climate change mitigation strategies. (Full article)