Safeguarding the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth. They are especially important to New York State, which has more than 700 miles of shoreline. But this vital ecosystem faces serious threats, including climate change, stormwater runoff, invasive species, harmful algal blooms, and industrial and consumer contaminants, including the particularly harmful group of chemicals known as PFAS.

Now, with a five-year, $5 million grant from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the University at Buffalo is taking on an expanded role in protecting this resource, as the new host of the Great Lakes Research Consortium.

The revamped consortium, now under the purview of the university’s RENEW Institute—a multidisciplinary research institute focused on complex environmental and energy challenges—will be known as GLRC STREAM (Strengthening Research, Education, and Aquatic Ecosystem Management).

The consortium was established in 1986 with the mission to improve the understanding of the Great Lakes ecosystem, including the physical, biological and chemical processes that shape it, as well as the social and political forces that affect the lakes. 

The RENEW Institute will maintain the consortium’s core program components, including research projects borne from New York’s Great Lakes Action Agenda, while creating new opportunities—administering small grants to consortium members, helping them secure additional funding, supporting resume-building graduate student internships, organizing conferences, and disseminating information to the general public and K-12 schools. 

Diana Aga, director of RENEW, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Henry M. Woodburn Professor of Chemistry, serves as GLRC STREAM director and principal investigator. 

Aga is internationally recognized for her work on contaminants of emerging concern, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Often called “forever chemicals,” PFAS are notoriously difficult to break down and have been found in water, air, soil, fish, wildlife and even human blood. 

Aga oversees research aimed at analyzing PFAS more effectively, understanding the unique toxicity of PFAS mixtures, and creating ways—such as combining nanomaterials with microorganisms—to break them down. She’s also involved in the global monitoring of antibiotics in wastewater treatment plants and receiving waters, in an effort to combat antibiotic resistance in the environment. 

“The mission of the GLRC aligns closely with RENEW’s focus on research and education that advances solutions for environmental sustainability, clean water and resilient communities,” says Aga. “Our key institutional strengths will now lift all boats in the GLRC STREAM ecosystem.”