The new effort, a two-year, $1.5 million project for Scripps, is part of Italy's broad commitment to safeguard Venice and its lagoon, the coastal wetland that surrounds the city and links directly with the Adriatic Sea through inlets.
A team of scientists with SIOSED (Scripps Institution of Oceanography SEDiment research group) will dissect and analyze key elements of Venice Lagoon's sediment through a program integrating geochemical, physical, microbial, toxicological and ecological science. This multidisciplinary approach, the project's leaders say, will provide valuable data about the lagoon and the dynamics involved in sediment movement.
The SIOSED team will be part of a Scripps-Venice working group that will include scientists from Scripps, Thetis, the National Research Council Institute of Marine Science of Venice and the Marine Biology Laboratory of Trieste and promises to integrate Scripps' scientific expertise with knowledge of the lagoon provided by the Italian partners.
Although Venice has been studied extensively by scientists, SIOSED researchers will provide decision makers with further information for assessing geochemical and microbial processes involved in sediment movement--whether natural or manmade--and their effects in such a sensitive ecosystem.
"SIOSED is an exciting and important new project that clearly emphasizes the value of interdisciplinary science in an international partnership," said UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox. "This collaboration is an excellent example of how UCSD and Scripps are increasingly applying leading scientific
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Contact: Mario Aguilera or Cindy Clark
scrippsnews@ucsd.edu
858-534-3624
University of California - San Diego
19-Jul-2005