Contact: Phil Hearn
Photo by: Russ Houston
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State is playing the lead role in establishing a cooperative research institute on the Gulf Coast that could yield "hundreds of millions of dollars" in scientific and economic benefits for the state and region.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday [Nov. 9] it is providing a first-year grant of $6.3 million to a consortium of universities and institutions in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to create the Northern Gulf Institute.
The NOAA funding will ratchet up to just under $10 million a year over the remaining five years of the contract period--and possibly beyond--with escalating economic benefits anticipated for the entire area. Storm-forecasting will be a major function of the institute.
MSU will serve as lead institution for the institute based at the Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, where Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., NOAA administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr. and MSU research vice president Colin Scanes were among those participating in the announcement ceremony.
The other institutional players include the University of Southern Mississippi, Florida State and Louisiana State universities, and Alabama's Dauphin Island Sea Laboratory.
MSU's GeoResources Institute, directed by David Shaw, will apply its cutting-edge spatial and modeling technologies to improve storm forecasting. It also will address a wide range of other critical environmental issues in the northern Gulf of Mexico region, which stretches from the Sabine River on the west to the Suwannee River on the east.
In particular, MSU's expertise in high-performance computing, geospatial technologies, and watershed and atmospheric modeling will be strongly complemented by the strengths of participating institutions.
"We need to do a better job of managing our inland resources to preserve the Gulf Coast ecosystem," said Shaw, who led a feasibility study for the proposed project last year. "We also need to look at how we can do a better job of predicting storm activity, particularly hurricanes in the Gulf."
Researchers say a key goal of the institute will be to help decision-makers and management agencies understand the linkages between ecosystems and human societies, in an effort to reduce the vulnerability and enhance resiliency of these linked systems.
"Increased human presence along the coast also requires improved predictive capabilities relative to severe storms and changes in sea level," Shaw said.
Lautenbacher, a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral, said NOAA scientists and university researchers will collaborate to study regional issues associated with coastal hazards, climate change, water quality, ecosystem management, coastal wetlands and pollution.
"This will benefit the residents of the region and also support NOAA's participation in the president's U.S. Ocean Action Plan," predicted Lautenbacher, who also serves as under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmospheres.
Although NOAA operates a number of cooperative institutes nationwide with varying missions, the only one in the Southeast is located in Florida. Shaw said the timing for a northern Gulf program appears right.
"There is a strong need for good science to address these critical questions," added Shaw, who will serve as director of the new institute from his base in Starkville. "NOAA recognized that and has provided the funds to develop answers."
Shaw said the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy "endorsed the concept of establishing the Gulf of Mexico as a priority" for scientific research two years ago.
Responding to that 2004 report, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour urged NOAA and the Navy to "establish a prototype joint ocean and coastal information management system at Stennis to build on the successful programs already extant there"--including NOAA's National Coastal Data Development Center and National Data Buoy Center.
"The economic impact probably will start in the hundreds of millions of dollars and get bigger than that," predicted GRI deputy director Charles Hill. "You have positive economic benefits if you save money or if you make money--and this could do both."
He said the NGI will build bridges to private industry to help develop and commercialize the evolving scientific technology. The MSU Extension Service also will play a "pivotal role" in making the academic research operational, he added.
Through the extension service, geospatial applications derived from research activities and technology training are brought into local communities through various outreach programs.
"The educational side will be extremely important," said Shaw. "There is a great need and hunger for training on new technologies for those people out in the field."
MSU programs currently operating at Stennis include the GRI's Science and Technology Research Center and the Department of Defense-funded Center for Programming Environment and Training.
The Gulf of Mexico ecosystem encompasses 1.8 million square miles and is the receiving body for 66 percent of the rivers within the continental United States--including the Mississippi River, the largest river system in North America. Specific issues of concern in the Gulf region include nutrients, habitat, public health, environmental monitoring, modeling, storm forecasting, and other research.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Dr. Shaw at 662-325-9575 or dshaw@gri.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.