Estuaries are under siege by humans globally – but many people don’t even know what they are. These aquatic ecosystems lie at the boundary between land and sea and include important coastal habitats such as wetlands and mangroves. Estuaries supply many important services to people including filtering pollutants, providing nursery areas for important organisms such as fish, and trapping sediments that provide protection during floods and storms. These ecosystems are also important players in the global carbon cycle because they are highly productive and regulate the flow of materials between land and the ocean. I use systems such as the Chesapeake Bay, San Francisco Bay and the Gulf of Mexico to understand how humans have modified estuarine ecosystems and to predict how they will respond to future changes due to development, water management, and climate change. My research goals are to identify key biogeochemical processes that influence carbon cycling in estuaries and provide solutions that will improve estuarine health. An exciting new area of research involves using algae to clean-up nutrient pollution and create biofuels.
