Alongside Head-author, Assistant Professor at Northern Ohio University, and UIUC Graduate program alum Laura Logan, a group of experts including CEOS' co-director Amy Ando recently co-authored new research that attempts to quantify tradeoffs between electricity generation and fish populations via population habitat duration curves (PHDCs). The paper analyzes the threat posed by thermal pollution via electricity generation to aquatic ecosystems using data from The Shawnee Fossil Plant on the Ohio River. PHDCs were generated from this data, providing a valuable quantitative model that decision makers can use in economic analyses. The ecosystem gains through fish population growth and electricity generation losses are presented in a scenario in which the river temperature changes by 1.1 degrees Celsius. The PHDCs demonstrate how water temperature can be quantified as a resource, as well as the tradeoffs between operating thermoelectric power plants, and promoting sustainability in aquatic ecosystems.
One of CEOS' biggest goals is to encourage interdisciplinary sustainability research, and this paper is a great example. The different academic lenses applied serve to enhance the scope and relevance of its findings. Logan, Gupta, and Stillwell work within the Civil and Environmental Engineering departments at Northern Ohio University, Cornell University, and the University of Illinois respectively, Suski in the Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences department at Illinois, and Amy Andos in the Agricultural and Consumer Economics department, also at Illinois.