APPLETON, WIS. — Kevin Fermanich, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, presents “The Lower Fox River Watershed Monitoring Project” in the third installment of Lawrence University’s four-part environmental studies lecture series “The Fox River Through Time.” The address, on Thursday, Nov. 2 at 4:45 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102, is free and open to the public.
Initiated in the summer of 2003, the project is a monitoring and assessment program of the Lower Fox River that involves high school students and teachers, university students and researchers and scientists from several federal and local agencies. The goal of the program is to establish a long-term monitoring program that engages students and other watershed stakeholders in the collection of high quality data that can be used to educate the community about watersheds, make resource management decisions and predict impacts on the ecosystem. The monitoring program is scheduled to conclude next summer.
Fermanich will detail the work conducted by area students involved in the project, outline recent findings regarding sediment and phosphorus runoff and export from five lower Fox watersheds and examine the sources of phosphorus in the Apple Creek watershed near Appleton as well as the urbanization impacts on Baird Creek near Green Bay.
A member of the UW-Green Bay faculty since 1998, Fermanich’s research interests include soil processes and management practices that influence the fate of chemicals, impact water quality and influence soil quality as well as landscape and site factors that impact surface and groundwater quality and flow.
Fermanich, who has served as the director of the lower Fox watershed monitoring project since its inception, earned a bachelor’s degree in soil science and resource management from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and his Ph.D. in soil science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The “Fox River Through Time” environmental lecture series is sponsored by the Spoerl Lectureship in Science in Society. Established in 1999 by Milwaukee-Downer College graduate Barbara Gray Spoerl and her husband, Edward, the lectureship promotes interest and discussion on the role of science and technology in societies worldwide.
