Projects

Goal: Identify commercially viable uses for harvested sargassum and opportunities to develop a sustainable, sargassum-based industry. Massive blooms of sargassum seaweed have expanded across the tropical Atlantic, washing ashore throughout the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and West Africa. While sargassum provides valuable habitat in the open ocean, excessive coastal accumulations damage ecosystems, disrupt tourism and fisheries, and create public health concerns as the seaweed

Goal: Support a community-driven economic development initiative that integrates environmental restoration with local entrepreneurship in Cleveland’s Upper East Side neighborhoods. For decades, Cleveland’s Upper East Side neighborhoods experienced chronic underinvestment despite being home to nearly 100,000 residents. Compared with the broader region, these communities faced significantly higher poverty and unemployment rates and substantially lower per capita incomes, limiti

Goal: Support the commercialization strategy for a low-cost solar-powered desalination technology developed to convert seawater and brackish water into potable water. Although desalination technologies are widely used—more than 22,000 plants operate in 177 countries and collectively supply about 1% of global drinking water—high capital and operating costs have historically limited broader adoption. Cost-reducing innovations are therefore critical to expanding access to freshw

Goal: Determine whether jellyfish predation was limiting the recovery of fish populations in Prince William Sound following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, several fish, bird, and marine mammal populations in Prince William Sound recovered more slowly than expected. TerrAqua participated in a study to determine whether abundant jellyfish were competing with forage fish, such as Pacific herring, by consuming large quantities of zooplankto

Goal: Advance understanding of how pollution, habitat degradation, and other environmental stressors affect fisheries and aquatic ecosystems, and improve their integration into fisheries management. Beginning in 1995, TerrAqua developed and organized a national conference series that brought together fisheries biologists, ecologists, toxicologists, habitat specialists, and resource managers to examine the combined effects of pollution, habitat degradation, and other environme

Goal: Help develop a framework for evaluating the environmental and economic impacts of alternative land-use patterns in Northeast Ohio. As Northeast Ohio sought new strategies for economic revitalization, the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI) at Case Western Reserve University led a regional effort to better understand the long-term consequences of urban sprawl and alternative development patterns. TerrAqua participated in public and technical stakeholder meetings to

Goal: To influence the implementation of Pennsylvania’s 1996 law for restructuring the state’s electric utility industry to protect consumers and the environment. The Heinz Endowments invested in a partnership aimed at giving environmental advocates an effective voice in the debate about electric utility restructuring in Pennsylvania. In 1996, the state legislature passed the Electricity Generation Customer Choice and Competition Act which fundamentally altered an industry th

Goal: Plan a shared green office building for Cleveland nonprofit organizations by evaluating best practices, tenant needs, and development options. TerrAqua evaluated successful green office buildings across the United States—particularly those serving nonprofit organizations—to identify best practices in design, construction, financing, management, and tenant services. Through literature reviews, site visits, and interviews with building owners, developers, architects, tena