2008 An Environmental Crossroads

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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.

Land Use & Urban Sprawl
Urban sprawl is a leading cause of imperilment for 66 percent of all species in California listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. It threatens to speed the further loss of biological communities already pushed to the brink by past urban and agricultural conversion. These threatened communities include native grassland and vernal pools in the Central Valley, coastal scrub in Southern California, wetlands along the rim of the San Francisco Bay and Delta, and aquatic and riparian habitat throughout the state.

Norm Christensen is an expert on forest ecology and sustainable forest management.
tel: (919) 613-8052 e: normc@duke.edu

Research focus: Community ecology. Disturbance and succession. Sustainable forest ecosystem management. Forest fires.

Christensen's research focuses on the effects of disturbance on structure and function of forest populations, communities and ecosystems. Ongoing studies include an analysis of patterns of forest development following cropland abandonment as these are affected by environment, stand history and plant demographic patterns.

Robert Healy is an expert on the management of protected areas and on
land use in rapidly growing urban and exurban areas. He is the author of
the book, “The Lands Nobody Wanted: Policy for National Forests in the
Eastern United States.”
tel: (919) 613-8025: e: healy@duke.edu

Research focus: Management of protected areas in developed and developing countries, especially as related to human populations. Land use in the United States, particularly in rapidly growing urban and exurban areas.

Randall Kramer is an environmental economist who has developed survey research methodology to determine an economic value for species and habitat conservation. The statistical models developed by Kramer also can help governments identify ways to encourage more consumers and producers to take part in conservation efforts.
tel: (919) 613-8072 e: kramer@duke.edu

Research focus: Kramer's expertise lies in the role of economics in environmental policy and management, focusing on improving our understanding of how human and business behavior is shaped by policies intended to protect the environment, especially in the areas of water quality, wetlands, biodiversity.

Lynn Maguire is an expert on collaborative decision-making on environmental issues made complex by uncertainty, multiple objectives and disputing parties.
tel: (919) 613-8034: e: lmaguire@duke.edu

Research focus: Collaborative decision processes. Facilitation of environmental disputes. Decision analysis for environmental problems that are difficult because of uncertainty, multiple or conflicting objectives, and disputing parties.

Recent applications include the northern spotted owl and other endangered species; invasive species; water quality; wildfire risk; and seafood rating systems.

Maguire’s research evaluates both the substance of environmental decisions - how well the resulting management actions reflect public values and available science - and the process of environmental decision making - how well the mechanisms used to involve the public achieve social justice goals.

Dean Urban uses GIS and other geospatial technologies to study natural and manmade agents of landscape change, and the patterns of change over time.
tel:(919) 613-8076 : e: deanu@duke.edu

Research focus: Landscape ecology and forest community ecology. Conservation biology. Spatial and multivariate analysis. Simulation modeling.

As co-director of the Triangle Landscape Change Project, Urban uses geospatial technologies to analyze landscape patterns and land use change, with a special emphasis on the causes and consequences of development. Land use pattern, in turn, provides a context for studies of forest dynamics as influenced by prior land use (especially agriculture) and fragmentation. Forest pattern provides a context for studies of songbird communities in fragmented forest habitats in a nonforest matrix.

More recently, he has begun to study the implications of land use change on hydrology and watershed integrity.