Research Good News -- On the Web at http://www.ra.utk.edu/ora/rag/goodnews

A look at research and creative activity at The University of Tennessee, 
Knoxville.
Compiled by Zoe Hoyle, UTK Office of Research.

December 3, 1996  -  Volume  2, Number 18.
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TIEM Receives EPA Funding

The Institute for Environmental Modeling (TIEM) has received a new 
multi-year grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the 
"Use of Biophysical Models for Ecological  Assessments: Applications in 
the Southeastern United States." The funding for the three-year period of 
the grant is over $1.5 million and is the largest single grant the 
Institute has received so far. 

The lead principal investigator for the project is Dr. Michael Huston, 
UTK/ORNL Collaborating Scientist, with co-principal investigators Dr. 
Louis Gross and Dr. Thomas Hallam of the UTK departments of ecology and 
evolutionary biology and mathematics. Collaborating units at UTK are the 
departments of Geography, Forestry, Fisheries and Wildlife, as well as 
the College of Veterinary Medicine. Other collaborating agencies are the 
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Tennessee Valley Authority 
(TVA), the National Biological Service, Great Smoky Mountains National 
Park, and the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program.

The EPA project involves modeling the interactions of climate and 
landscape on three different scales. The ORNL Reservation will serve as 
the prototype for the first scale of 150 square kilometers (150 km2). The 
prototype for the second scale will be the Great Smoky Mountains National 
Park at 2000 km2, and the third prototype will be the Appalachian Region 
at 150,000 km2. 

The objective of the project is to map the variations in climate and 
water conditions that influence the ecosystems of each area. The 
resulting templates will be used to look at the impacts of natural and 
man-made events on these ecosystems. The researchers will utilize 
integrated biophysical models to study ecosystem indicators such as 
variations in primary productivity  over time and space, variations in 
soil carbon and water storage capacity over an area, and the population 
size and dynamics of selected plant and animal species.

TIEM's purpose is to do basic research on significant environmental 
problems that impact the State of Tennessee and have national and 
international implications. The focus of the Institute is on the 
development of theoretical and computational tools for modeling the 
environment, the mathematical and statistical analyses of the models 
formed, as well as the development of hardware and software (such as 
parallel computing and visualization graphics) to implement and analyze 
the models.