Global warming clouds our future. Pollution degrades our air, soil and water. Environmental toxins compromise the health of our children. Misuse threatens the sustainability of our forests, fisheries, wetlands and coasts, and the health of species that live there.

But there is reason for hope.

Through sound science and policy research, we're finding answers to these problems. Airborne lead and acid rain have been dramatically reduced. Industrial water pollution has decreased. Habitats are being preserved.

Faculty members from the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University are part of the effort to help find these answers and establish new environmental practices and policies to safeguard our natural resources for generations to come.

To contact our experts or learn more about what we're doing in states across the nation, click on the state you're interested in.

Earthquakes
No earthquakes in recorded history has caused death or serious injury in Arizona, but minor temblors regularly rumble beneath the state’s surface and 14 moderate quakes have occurred in the last century and a half. In 1910, a series of 52 mild-to-moderate earthquakes shook the Flagstaff area during a period of just 13 days. Two years later, a much stronger tremor caused a 50-mile-long crack in the earth north of the San Francisco Ridge and triggered rockslides from Flagstaff to Williams.