Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Biography 16.1. CHARLES GOLDMAN
Professor Charles Goldman (Fig. 16.7) has dedi-
cated his career to researching factors controlling
production in lakes. Early contributions include
recognition of the potential importance of trace
nutrients (see Chapter 13). Goldman has super-
vised more than 100 graduate students and 30
postdoctoral researchers. He has published four
topics and more than 400 scientific articles, and
he has produced four documentary films. He has
won many prestigious national and international
awards for his scientific contributions, including
the Albert Einstein World Award of Science.
In 1967, “Goldman Glacier” was named in
Antarctica, reflecting his early involvement in
limnological research in polar regions; Goldman
is an adventurer who has traveled to and studied
remote lakes throughout the world. Once, while taking primary production mea-
surements on a very hot day at Lake Victoria, Goldman decided to take a swim and
impressed the African crew with back flips off the bridge. After his sixth flip he no-
ticed that a 21-foot long Nile crocodile had eased up to the opposite side of the boat.
He did not try a seventh flip.
Goldman credits his father (an amateur ichthyologist) with getting him started
in aquatic sciences and for the idea that “reading is the only way to compensate for
the shortness of life.” Goldman started as a geologist but changed his focus after
taking a limnology course from David Chandler and realizing that “limnology is the
queen of the ecological sciences.” He suggests that students study as broad of a base
in sciences as possible and include humanities because being a successful aquatic
ecologist requires a multidisciplinary approach.
Goldman and his students have studied Lake Tahoe since 1958. Research on
Lake Tahoe and Castle Lake in California has convinced him of the value of long-
term data sets; data sets on these lakes contain trends over a few years that are the
opposite of long-term trends in the same data. He has also used his research to sup-
port social action to protect Lake Tahoe. His experience with mixing social action
and research has also led him to become involved in efforts to protect Lake Baikal.
Goldman is an example of an exceptional scientist applying basic scientific knowl-
edge to environmental problems.
FIGURE 16.7
Charles Goldman show-
ing President Clinton and Vice President
Gore a plankton sample from Lake Tahoe
in 1998 (photograph courtesy of the
Sacramento Bee
).
colimitation in at least some streams is not surprising. Likewise, wetlands
are structured by benthos, and it is easy to imagine that spatial variations
in sediments and gradients created by different points of nutrient inflow and
outflow lead to significant spatial heterogeneity in nutrient limitation. The
concept of several nutrients limiting primary production in lakes is more
difficult because they are more homogeneous than streams and wetlands.
Several of the assumptions used to apply Leibig's law may not hold,
even in lakes, because all producers do not have equivalent requirements
(e.g., diatoms need more silicon than other algae), nutrients may not be
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