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Wastewater Footprint Website

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From 2010-2014, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve conducted a large-scale, multidisciplinary collaborative project funded by the NERRS Science Collaborative on the Mississippi/Alabama coast. The project improved understanding of the legacy effects of human land-use change on water quality, fisheries resources, and human health in the region. At the culminating workshop, more than 40 stakeholders from local, state and federal agencies and members of the public identified three products of greatest value to end users that could be developed from the project team's research data. These products included: informational packets for ecotour operators and municipal authorities to enhance awareness and education; a webpage to provide the public and management authorities with centralized resources and recommendations to improve water quality; and simple predictive models to demonstrate how changes in land use affect water quality. To create these products, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Grand Bay Reserve collaborated on a 2017 Science Transfer project.

This webpage was produced in response to stakeholder requests for up-to-date data on how human wastewater affects water quality on the northern Gulf of Mexico coast and to provide tangible recommendations for how members of the local community can help improve water quality. The site houses a variety of useful resources, including summaries of water quality problems in the Grand Bay system, information about the 2011 project's methods and results, and recommendations for actions to reduce negative water quality impacts.