Credit: Ericka Cero Wood
Ericka Cero Wood based her piece “Lake Atitlán, then and now” on research by Jessica
Corman, an ASU School of Life Sciences doctoral student. Corman, who is also a summit organizer, studies green algae blooms in Guatemala´s
Lake Atitlan, a source of fresh water for more than 400,000 people.
Wood´s work explores the link of algal blooms to phosphorus in agricultural run-off and untreated
human waste. Wood notes that Atitlan, imaged by NASA satellites, “shows the entire
lake covered in pea-green algae that kills fish and creates a stench of rotting plant material.”