Natural springs occur throughout Minnesota and provide critical services for the state, such as creating trout streams and cool water fisheries, sustaining base flows in streams, creating unique ecological habitats, and maintaining the integrity of aquatic ecosystems against invasive species. In order to protect springs and the groundwater-dependent resources that depend on them, though, it is important to understand spring locations and status – information that is currently lacking in many areas of the state.
Minnesota’s extensive state park and trail system, the second oldest in the country, is currently comprised of a total of 76 state parks and recreation areas and 13 state trails scattered throughout the state. Some of Minnesota’s state parks and trails have privately owned lands within the designated park boundaries or trail corridors. Purchase of these lands from willing landowners for addition to the state park and trail system makes them permanently available for public recreation and enjoyment and facilitates more efficient management.
Privately owned lands exist within the designated boundaries of state parks throughout Minnesota. Purchase of these lands from willing landowners for addition into the state park system makes them permanently available for public recreation and enjoyment and facilitates more efficient management. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is using this appropriation to acquire 87 acres in the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area, located northeast of Brainerd, and 17 acres in Whitewater State Park, located between Rochester and Winona.
Project Overview Minnesota, which was recently named "Best Trails State" in the country, is host to numerous state trails providing a variety of different outdoor recreational opportunities throughout the state. This appropriation is allowing the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to acquire land expanding two of these state trails: the Brown's Creek segment of the Willard Munger Trail in Washington County and the Paul Bunyan Trail along Lake Bemidji.
Minnesota's Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) Program is an effort to preserve and perpetuate the state's ecological diversity and ensure that no single rare feature is lost from any region of the state. This includes unique landforms, fossil remains, plant and animal communities, rare and endangered species, or other unique biotic or geological features. These sites play an important role in scientific study, public education, and outdoor recreation.
Minnesota’s environment is changing in response to a variety of stressors – including population growth, residential development, industry, agriculture, invasive species, and climate change – and the state’s iconic lakes, and the goods and services they provide (e.g., fishing and water recreation), are an important part of what’s being impacted. To manage effectively for these changes it is important to understand how the state’s many lakes respond to these stressors.
Producing new materials from regional plant byproducts for renewable solar energy. This project engages many students in environmental research; this homegrown technology will ultimately provide affordable energy to Minnesota families.
We will develop technologies that utilize indigenous microbes to convert waste plastics into useful chemical compounds and fuels, lowering the likelihood that these materials end up in our environment.
Production agriculture’s dependence on fossil fuel energy carries significant economic and ecological risks. The energy consumed within livestock facilities alone is the equivalent consumption of several large cities, and agriculture currently contributes approximately 14% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the state. As consumers increasingly demand low carbon footprint products, adoption of clean energy systems in crop and livestock production would position Minnesota’s agricultural sector with a competitive advantage.
A class of insecticides known as systemic neonicotinyl insecticides has been identified as a potential factor in recently observed declines in pollinators, including the phenomenon amongst honeybees known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Previous research examining the effects of neonicotinyl insecticides on lab colonies of bumblebees found that exposure to these insecticides at various levels increased queen bee mortality and detrimentally altered bee behavior and production.
A 2017 workshop determined we don’t know enough about brainworm transmission to moose and what mitigation strategies are optimal. We’ve assembled a multidisciplinary team to tackle the highest research priorities.
Pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) are found in surface waters in Minnesota and nationally. CECs can cause adverse ecological and human health impacts, and occur as complex mixtures in the environment. One of the greatest barriers to addressing the problem of CECs is a lack of understanding of where these compounds come from and which sources dominate in different locations and at different times.
The Minnesota Zoo will develop educational displays and engaging, hands-on interactives to summarize scientific findings about moose decline in Minnesota. Information will be integrated online to increase accessibility for all.
Land and water conservation efforts require accurate information about land cover and land use. Minnesota’s land cover and land use data has not been updated since 2000 and so does not reflect changes since that time resulting from growth and development, agricultural production, or landscape cover. Researchers at the University of Minnesota are using this appropriation to conduct a statewide update and enhancement of land cover and land use data and make it freely available online for use by government and non-government organizations involved in land and water conservation.
Over the past 100 years, about half of Minnesota’s original 22 million acres of wetlands have been drained or filled. Some regions of the State have lost more than 90 percent of their original wetlands. The National Wetland Inventory, a program initiated in the 1970s, is an important tool used at all levels of government and by private industry, non-profit organizations, and private landowners for wetland regulation and management, land management and conservation planning, environmental impact assessment, and natural resource inventories.
