A talk this week will focus on a Toledo hot-button issue: water quality.

The University of Toledo’s Esteemed Speaker Series will feature Ohio State University Professor Brent Sohngen Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 4 p.m. in Bowman-Oddy Laboratories Room 1045.

The free, public talk, “Do Agricultural Conservation Programs Reduce Nutrients in Watersheds?” will focus on the efficiency, or lack thereof, of current management practices on reducing phosphorus run-off from agriculture into Lake Erie, said Dr. Scott Heckathorn, UT professor of environmental science.

“High levels of phosphorous in Lake Erie are the main cause of algal blooms, which can affect drinking water quality for cities like Toledo that obtain their water from the lake, and the biggest source of excess phosphorous in Lake Erie derives from agricultural run-off,” he said.

Sohngen is a professor of environmental economics at Ohio State. His research focuses on land use and climate change, carbon trading, and water quality trading. He wrote sections of the 2001 and 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports on the impacts of climate change on forests and agriculture, and on the potential for carbon sequestration in forests.

For more information, contact Heckathorn at scott.heckathorn@utoledo.edu.

Tags: College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics