Research Good News -- On the Web at http://www.ra.utk.edu/ora/rag/goodnews A look at research and creative activity at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Compiled by Zoe Hoyle, UTK Office of Research. December 3, 1996 - Volume 2, Number 18. ____________________ TIEM Receives EPA Funding The Institute for Environmental Modeling (TIEM) has received a new multi-year grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the "Use of Biophysical Models for Ecological Assessments: Applications in the Southeastern United States." The funding for the three-year period of the grant is over $1.5 million and is the largest single grant the Institute has received so far. The lead principal investigator for the project is Dr. Michael Huston, UTK/ORNL Collaborating Scientist, with co-principal investigators Dr. Louis Gross and Dr. Thomas Hallam of the UTK departments of ecology and evolutionary biology and mathematics. Collaborating units at UTK are the departments of Geography, Forestry, Fisheries and Wildlife, as well as the College of Veterinary Medicine. Other collaborating agencies are the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the National Biological Service, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program. The EPA project involves modeling the interactions of climate and landscape on three different scales. The ORNL Reservation will serve as the prototype for the first scale of 150 square kilometers (150 km2). The prototype for the second scale will be the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at 2000 km2, and the third prototype will be the Appalachian Region at 150,000 km2. The objective of the project is to map the variations in climate and water conditions that influence the ecosystems of each area. The resulting templates will be used to look at the impacts of natural and man-made events on these ecosystems. The researchers will utilize integrated biophysical models to study ecosystem indicators such as variations in primary productivity over time and space, variations in soil carbon and water storage capacity over an area, and the population size and dynamics of selected plant and animal species. TIEM's purpose is to do basic research on significant environmental problems that impact the State of Tennessee and have national and international implications. The focus of the Institute is on the development of theoretical and computational tools for modeling the environment, the mathematical and statistical analyses of the models formed, as well as the development of hardware and software (such as parallel computing and visualization graphics) to implement and analyze the models.