drop of rain falls from the sky, seized by a thirsty plant that serves as a nest for a family of baby sparrows. If too much or too little rain falls, the plant will die, the sparrows will be rendered homeless, and the ripple effect will skid up and down the food chain. Such is the interconnectedness of an ecosystem.

Society is not unlike an ecosystem. Scientists, politicians, CEOs, and citizens collectively drive our way of life, much like the water, sunlight, plants, and animals that work in tandem to sustain life on Earth. But there’s a snag in the machinery—a gap in communication and collaboration across disciplines. This can result in poor decision making, and one of the most vulnerable victims in our society is the environment.

Laws regulating human impact on the environment in the United States date back to the country’s infancy, mostly dealing with deforestation and exploitation of natural resources. Following the Baby Boom and a subsequent 20-year growth in development and industry, the 1970s saw a reactive surge in environmental consciousness. The Environmental Protection Agency was born, and many major regulations were passed, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. But as populations grew and more lands were developed, environmental issues became more complex.

At the University of Miami, departments, schools, and colleges are forging new ties on topics related to the environment, developing models that may some day help policymakers make the best, most-informed decisions.

The Science-Policy Gap

ight now the issue of global warming exemplifies a disconnect between science and policy,” says Jacqueline Dixon, associate professor of marine geology and geophysics at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. “There is strong scientific consensus that human activity is altering the Earth’s climate. But the media in this country, as well as the current administration, have tended to focus on the uncertainties.”

The uncertainties are in the details, she says, such as how much the average global temperature will rise, when this will happen, how much drought this will cause, and which species will go extinct. “Given what we know and what we don’t know, the prudent thing to do would be to limit the growth of hydrocarbon burning.”

But passing environmental laws requires consideration of more than just science. “Scientists who advise policymakers have to understand the pressures those policymakers face—from constituents, public interest groups, or other politicians,” says Mary Doyle, professor of law and codirector of the University’s new Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy (CESP). Doyle and Otis Brown, dean of the Rosenstiel School, designed the center to teach current and future generations of scientists and legislators the importance of working together. “From my experience as a public policymaker, I realized that the nexus between science and policy is critical and that it is very impaired,” she says.

Doyle was assistant secretary for water and science in the Department of the Interior during the Clinton administration when Congress authorized the $7.8 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Approved in December 2000, the plan aims to remedy the damage caused by more than 50 years of drainage and development in the region. Solutions include a system that will store rainwater and rehydrate the River of Grass during dry seasons as well as the creation of treatment marshes to keep phosphorous and other agricultural pollutants in check. It is the world’s largest-ever ecosystem restoration project, right in the University’s backyard.

“My solution for the Everglades was to have organic rice instead of sugar cane as a crop, but the politics dictate something else,” says Richard Weisskoff, associate professor of international studies in the College of Arts and Sciences and author of Missing Pieces, the Economics of Everglades Restoration. An international economist who has worked for the United Nations, the Interamerican Development Bank, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Weisskoff explains the bitter-sweet consequence of having the U.S. sugar cane industry grounded in South Florida.

“Sugar cane needs dry soil,” Weisskoff says. “In the middle of a marsh that needs flowing water you’ve got to create an island of dryness, so there’s a lot of runoff that goes downstream and hurts the environment.”

Organic rice in lieu of a water storage and recovery system is an example of how Weisskoff and his team at PRENDE—Program on the Environment and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean—like to solve environmental problems. Three years ago, an offer by the Latin American Studies program to fund cross-disciplinary research linked him with Helena Solo-Gabriele, B.S.C.E. ’87, M.S.C.E. ’88, associate professor of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering, and Daniel Suman, associate professor of marine affairs at the Rosenstiel School. Supported by a $400,000 grant from the V. Kahn Rasmussen Foundation, PRENDE presently operates environmental research projects in Panama, Honduras, and Peru.

Weisskoff beams when talking about Peru, a true success story of how experts in many disciplines developed a grassroots solution for deadly, recurring mudslides flooding the city of Ica. Peru’s national government prescribed a $60 million project to construct concrete walls and deep canals. “But it’s so expensive that it won’t happen in our lifetime,” Weisskoff explains. PRENDE investigated why the mud was sliding and discovered that goat herding and wood cutting had destroyed all the trees. The PRENDE solution is to build a national park, which also could generate income for the region via new jobs and the sale of fruit produced from the planted trees. A small, nongovernmental group of scientists and sociologists in the region is partnering with PRENDE to implement the concept. “That’s the low-cost fix to prevent a city from flooding that’s doable. The idea is to use science, technology, and social analysis to prevent ecological disasters.”

A Natural Step for Academia

rossing disciplines in research leads to better policy decisions, but the concept is just gaining a foothold in academia. The process of tenure and evaluating faculty based on productivity in their own field has traditionally prohibited them from branching out into new areas. “For me it would be a lot easier to just teach and do research in hydrology,” says Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, a hydrologist and assistant professor of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering at the College of Engineering.

Miralles-Wilhelm is spearheading the Iraq AWARE project, a joint effort between CESP, the Center for Wetlands at the University of Florida, and the University of Basrah in southern Iraq to restore the Tigris-Euphrates watershed, which was drained by Saddam Hussein, driving the Marsh Arabs out of their homeland. Lessons learned from this restoration would benefit threatened wetlands worldwide. “So now I’m learning biology,” Miralles-Wilhelm says, “which is cool.” By requiring a collaborative component to grants, agencies like the National Science Foundation are prompting shifts in the academic modus operandi. “So if you don’t want to be interdisciplinary,” Miralles-Wilhelm says, “you’re going to have a harder time getting funding.”

To stimulate ideas for collaborative projects, faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences conducted a series of faculty brainstorming sessions to explore new topics, themes, and initiatives that no one department could develop on its own. Out of the sessions came the Institute for Theoretical and Mathematical Ecology and the Tropical Research Center. The first is a melding of mathematicians, computer scientists, and ecologists focused on issues like loss of habitat and global warming; the latter is a network of biologists, geologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and marine scientists who study ecosystem function in the tropics.

Within the Tropical Research Center is the Punta Cana Association on Sustainability and Biodiversity, founded by Eloy Rodriguez, professor of chemistry and senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He oversees faculty, students, and scientists who conduct research on Caribbean ecosystems from a ten-acre field station in the Dominican Republic.

The University of Miami is a logical epicenter for innovative environmental research. We are a neighbor to the Everglades, and our proximity to tropical South America and the Caribbean opens doors for ecological efforts of global impact, especially in regions mired by governmental or economic problems. But there’s another factor. “It’s the natural beauty of our setting,” Doyle says. “The aesthetics of the environment are felt here all the time.”

Living in a lush coastal city whose emerald-blue waters satiate large appetites for both recreation and cuisine, it’s easy to assume that the bounties of the seas are limitless. But research at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science has increasingly been proving otherwise. “Forty or 50 years ago we viewed the oceans’ resources as infinite,” says Dean Brown. “It’s really important for the public and for us to understand that we do have to manage them. The question is, is there an ear out there that wants to listen?”

Ellen Pikitch, an internationally recognized expert in ocean conservation and executive director of the new Pew Institute for Ocean Science at the Rosenstiel School, says that more effective communication in recent years has made people aware of the fragility of the oceans. “The alarm has sounded, and it’s being heard,” she says.

Listening to and learning about the outcry of the oceans is the mission of the Pew Institute, a partnership between the Rosenstiel School and the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts, which provided a $2.9 million per year renewable grant for the endeavor. The institute will sponsor marine research, consult on fishery management issues, promote conservation solutions to governments and the public, and administer the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation. Pew Fellows are a select group of researchers, five per year internationally who receive $150,000 to develop innovative solutions for serious problems affecting the seas. Pikitch is among 133 Pew Fellows chosen since the 1990 inception of the award.

“There’s a need for good scientists to also be good citizens,” notes Diane Thompson, a representative from the Pew Charitable Trusts. “It’s the whole concept of encouraging the scientific community to engage in the process of public policy debate. That is what we at the Pew Charitable Trusts see as one of the enormous promises in our partnership with the University of Miami.”

Communication Aids Collaboration

rompting discussion about environmental issues among scientists, policymakers, and the public at large also inspired Sanjeev Chatterjee’s latest endeavor, The Water Project. Chatterjee, associate professor of broadcasting and broadcast journalism in the School of Communication, spent four months last year in rural villages of South Africa, India, the Canary Islands of Spain, Peru, and the United States to capture images from regions where clean, safe water is scarce. Chatterjee and colleagues produced a 20-minute, nonverbal high-definition film infused with a moving score composed by Thomas Sleeper, director of orchestral activities at the Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music. The film, One Water, was screened recently at UN headquarters in New York City.

The Water Project is part of the Modern Media Collaborative, which generates media projects that increase awareness of social and environmental issues. The Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences shows the film to students who are writing on environmental topics, and the best student efforts will appear on the Water Project Web site. Chatterjee also hopes the film will bolster improvements in the areas that need it most. Communication vehicles such as films are a necessary first step toward change, he says, because problems are not always widely known. “People are very surprised to see that some people are willingly bathing in very dirty water and drinking it at the same time.”

The media is playing an ever-larger role in helping researchers communicate their discoveries. Just one or two decades ago, the popular press rarely provided major coverage on new research findings. Today daily newspapers and network television programs—not the scientific journals—are the primary media for breaking news on scientific discoveries.

Although the popular press can sometimes sensationalize and distort true science, the overall benefit is that scientific discussion is no longer confined to the labs. The information gets to the people who ultimately support science—the taxpayers.

Some of the greatest environmental success stories were propelled by media exposure. Jacqueline Dixon cites depletion of the ozone layer from use of chemicals in aerosol sprays and refrigerants. “The companies responsible for producing these chemicals were reluctant at first to admit the connection, but within a decade the science was so compelling that they decided to act in advance of government regulation. That’s a nutshell history of the 1992 Montreal Protocol. It’s a great example of policy from the ground up … and it pretty much solved the ‘big hair’ problem.”

It’s also an example of how society is learning from Mother Nature’s design—that no one component in an ecosystem can operate independently from the group. “I can’t suddenly become a scientist,” Chatterjee says. “That’s what they are doing. What we are doing is getting good information, putting it together, and communicating it the best way we can.”

New Center Links Academic Branches

hen she first came here, she said to me, ‘Take the experience you’ve got and make something out of it. Don’t do anything that won’t be transformational for the University.’” Mary Doyle, professor of law and former assistant secretary for water and science during the Clinton administration, recounts the words President Donna E. Shalala said to her that gave life to the Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy (CESP). Doyle shares leadership of the center, a $14 million priority in the University’s billion-dollar Momentum fundraising campaign, with Otis Brown, dean of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

A planning board comprising faculty from virtually every school and college at the University assists with creative programming for the center and with overseeing the Ecosystem Science and Policy undergraduate major. Students in this new College of Arts and Sciences double-major, which replaces the Environmental Science major this fall, earn a B.S. degree in one of the sciences or an A.B. in political science and policy, as well as a second degree in another area of focus they choose. Courses are problem-based and team-taught by both scientists and policy experts.

“Our program is like the canopy of a rainforest,” explains Jacqueline Dixon, associate professor of marine geology and geophysics at the Rosenstiel School and director of the Ecosystem Science and Policy undergraduate curriculum.

“The canopy is composed of interconnected branches from multiple trees, just as environmental science and policy require the interconnection of a broad range of academic disciplines.”