1st Edition

Memoirs of an Environmental Science Professor

By William Mitsch Copyright 2024
152 Pages 63 Color & 23 B/W Illustrations
by CRC Press

152 Pages 63 Color & 23 B/W Illustrations
by CRC Press

152 Pages 63 Color & 23 B/W Illustrations
by CRC Press

This book shows, through real and current examples from the field of environmental and wetland science, that personal and professional success depends on persistence and a refusal to compromise on "doing the right thing" which for Professor Mitsch meant saving some of the world’s most important ecosystems, as well as educating future researchers and the general public along the way. Case studies... Read more
 1. Supporting Interdisciplinary Environmental Science in a Large University  2. Supporting Recognition of Appalachia’s Forgotten Superhighway, the Ohio River  3. Using Ecological Economics to Settle a Civil War Between Indiana and Illinois on the Kankakee River Marshlands  4. Developing the Principles of Ecological Engineering and Water Management in Collaboration with China  5. Using Wetland Science to Support Federal Protection of Wetlands as “Waters of the United States”  6. Reconnecting Rivers to Their Floodplains  7. Waist-Deep in Ecological Integrity—Battling for a Campus Where Students Can Soak Up Knowledge  8. Restoring the Florida Everglades  9. Heaven to Hell: From My Best Semester Ever to the COVID Pandemic (2019-2022).

Biography

William J. Mitsch has been an environmental science/engineering professor for 47 years in five USA universities. His longest service was 27 years at The Ohio State University, including 20 years as Director of the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park that he founded in 1991. Dr. Mitsch’s awards include four USA Fulbright awards (to Denmark, Botswana, Poland, and Wales), the 2004 Stockholm Water Prize (considered to be the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in Water), an Einstein Professorship from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2010), a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Tartu, Estonia (2010), and the First Odum Award from the American Ecological Engineering Society (2018).  He was most recently the Director of the Everglades Wetland Research Park in the Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University and Juliet C. Sproul Chair for Southwest Florida Habitat Restoration and Management for 2012–2022. Dr. Mitsch has authored or co-authored 770 research papers, abstracts, and other publications, including 23 books, such as the textbook Wetlands (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), now in its fifth edition and also translated to Chinese.