Gordon Research Conference Report

I am at the Gordon Research Conference on Environmental Sciences - Water in New Hampshire. Today I gave a talk about our research. In some ways this conference marks a 10 year anniversary for me. In 2006 I was here and presented my first poster on agent-based modeling (ABM) of phytoplankton. That was a real milestone, because since then this has been the defining theme of my research. In fact, that poster is still prominently displayed in my office :) 

A main goal of my presentation was to start a discussion about updating the biology in our water quality models. One reason for doing this is to bring models up to the level of modern observations (see figure below). When we first developed water quality models in the 1970s, people were measuring total phosphorus and chlorophyll a, and those were adopted as state variables in our model. Since then, observations have evolved and now observations include DNA, RNA, etc. However, our models have not kept up. This disconnect really limits the utility of our models, and I think it is leading to the extinction of a specialty: water quality modelers. A big problem, because most of our waterbodies are polluted and models are important tools for management and research in this area :(

Here is a link to the program:
https://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=11255