UK part of major NSF award to study increased methane in coastal wetlands

Kevin M. Yeager, Ph.D., a professor in the University of Kentucky’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES), has received a major transdisciplinary award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research on coastal wetland methane dynamics. Yeager is part of a multi-institutional team, led by Annette Engel, Ph.D., at the University of Tennessee (UT) Knoxville, who received the $2.9 million award to study methane emissions in coastal wetlands, which play an increasingly important role in ongoing and rapid climate change.

The team will focus on marshes in southern Louisiana and study methane emissions from coastal soils as sea-level rises and test natural microbial, landscape and hydraulic controls on emissions. The goal is to provide an inventory of methane “hotspots” in the landscape.

“Right here in our Commonwealth, people are increasingly feeling the significant and broad ranging impacts of rapid climate change,” Yeager said. “This is everyone’s challenge, and we are glad to be a direct part of understanding one important part of this puzzle — namely identifying the mechanisms by which large coastal deltas like the Mississippi River Delta are producing increasingly large amounts of methane, which is among the most potent of greenhouse gases.”