Our lab works broadly on biogeochemistry and ecosystem science, applied to a wide variety of both theoretical and practical questions. We enjoy trying to understand some of nature's complexity, and we believe strongly in applying objective science to sustaining the biosphere and human society. Our research encompasses a wide range of spatial scales, from microbial to ecosystem, regional, and global. Our research includes a broad range of inter-connected topical areas, illustrated below. Note that much of our research and many of our papers fall into two or more of these categories. Click on a topic to further explore research in the Howarth-Marino lab.
Recent News
2019
Carbon footprint of academic travel
An opinion piece was recently published on the website Inside Higher Ed, with ideas on reducing the carbon footprint of academic travel. It was written by Caroline Levine, Chair of the Cornell English Department, and other faculty from multiple disciplines and institutions across the US and Canada. Click here to view the article.
2019
Methane talk in BESS Seminar Series
On March 1st, Bob gave a talk in the BESS seminar series titled "The Role of Shale Gas Development in the Global Methane Cycle: New Insights from 13C and 14C Data". You can view the slides and watch archived video at this link.
2018
Webinar for Beyond Gas Coalition
Bob presented a webinar titled "Methane and Global Warming in the 21st Century" to the Beyond Gas Coalition on March 21st. They have made the webinar available on YouTube at this link.
2018
Publication wins John H. Martin Award
The John H. Martin Award is presented by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) to a paper that led to fundamental shifts in research focus and interpretation of a large body of previous observations. The 1996 paper, titled "Regional Nitrogen Budgets and Riverine N & P Fluxes for the Drainages to the North Atlantic Ocean: Natural and Human Influences", published in the journal Biogeochemistry, estimated Net Anthropogenic Nitrogen Inputs to the Gulf of Mexico and was published in a special issue based on a Scope workshop in 1993: Nitrogen Cycling in the North Atlantic Ocean and Its Watersheds.
You can read more about the article and award on the ASLO website and can view the full citation and download the article at this link.
Recent Publications
Zhang et al, 2017b. Anthropogenic phosphorus inputs to a river basin and their impacts on phosphorus fluxes along its upstream-downstream continuum. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
Zhang et al, 2017a. Influence of rapid rural-urban population migration on riverine nitrogen pollution: perspective from ammonia-nitrogen. Environmental Science and Pollution Research
Hong et al, 2017. Advances in NANI and NAPI accounting for the Baltic drainage basin: spatial and temporal trends and relationships to watershed TN and TP fluxes. Biogeochemistry
Goyette et al, 2016. Changes in anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the St. Lawrence sub-basin over 110 years and impacts on riverine export. Global Biogeochemical Cycles
Hong and Howarth, 2016. Greenhouse gas emissions from domestic hot water: heat pumps compared to most commonly used systems. Energy Science & Engineering
Gao et al, 2016. A system dynamics model for managing regional N inputs from human activities. Ecological Modelling
Howarth, 2015. Methane emissions and climatic warming risk from hydraulic fracturing and shale gas development: implications for policy. Energy and Emission Control Technologies