University of Toledo

When the U.S. Department of Energy launched the $20 million COMPASS project to explore how coastlines respond to changing water levels in 2021, it tapped UToledo to lead operations along the freshwater shores of Lake Erie.

Professor Michael Weintraub, a soil ecologist, leads the team of faculty, post-doctoral researchers and graduate and undergraduate students that has already published research related to vegetation, soil and hydrology in collaboration with scientists across the country — some of it challenging conventional wisdom when it comes to phenomena like methane emissions and subsurface water movement along a coastline.

Now, to further advance our understanding of these dynamic ecosystems, the team is shifting its focus from observational to experimental. After more than three years of monitoring three sites in northwest Ohio through COMPASS-FME, they’re preparing for a large-scale field experiment to intentionally flood a research site less than 30 miles from UToledo’s Main Campus.