environment

Coastal resources are essential for their ability to provide ecosystem services valued by society including food, shoreline protection, flood control, recreation, and water purification (Costanza et al. 1997). This research project seeks to utilize mathematical and statistical techniques to predict the distribution of essential marine habitat and aid in its conservation. The research team is attempting to represent living biomass and associated ecosystems via quantitative descriptions of the physical and geological variables perceived to shape their habitat space.

Bacterial biofilms are microbial depositions on immersed surfaces and are ubiquitous in natural and engineered environments. For example, they play a significant role in medical applications where they can grow on artificial implants and cause infections; they form dental plaques and contribute to tooth decay; they can be utilized to assist in clean-up of contaminated soils or groundwater aquifers; they accelerate corrosion of metal surfaces; and they are a main culprit behind contamination of drinking water systems and food processing equipment.

The building sector is one of the most important energy consumers and CO2 producers. Recent statistics collected in the EU have shown that the building sector accounts for approximately 40% of the energy consumed and 40% of the total CO2 produced. These trends are reflected in both North America and Asia. International organizations such as ISO have developed new measures of building system energy performance.

Anthropogenic (or human caused) climate change is one of the main environmental threats facing the Earth today. The ability to make accurate estimates of future climate conditions is a necessity for governments, ecosystem planners and large businesses. The main way to make estimates of future climate conditions is to integrate complex mathematical models of the global climate system forwards in time. Thus, this research team aims to evaluate and improve the representation of regional climate processes using a newly-developed regional climate model called CRCM5.

This project responds to the need for more precise tools to help oil and gas companies better understand where undiscovered energy reserves lie deep within the earth, and to manage and utilize existing reserves. Bringing together mathematicians and geophysicists, this team develops new algorithms to improve upon existing seismic imaging techniques that create accurate images of the earth beneath our feet.