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.

Mining and Human Environmental Health
Kentucky’s economy receives nearly $15 billion a year in direct and indirect gains from mining. But the industry takes a toll on the state’s environmental and human health. Mountaintop removal, a form of surface mining, flattens hilltops and buries nearby valleys and streams under tons of rock and dirt. Acidic, metal-laden drainage from abandoned mines degrades nearby waters and soils. Exposure to coal dust and other pollutants contributes to higher-than-normal local incidence rates of respiratory disease and impaired lung function.

Kathi Beratan studies the nature and magnitude of the impact of human activity and land uses on watersheds.
tel: (919) 681-3529 e: kberatan@duke.edu

Research focus: Using remote sensing, GIS technology and fieldwork, Beratan identifies the impacts of human activity and changes in land use on watersheds, particularly on water flow in their headwater regions. She also is working to develop functional indicators for monitoring the impacts of human use on urban forest ecosystems.

Peter Haff is an expert on neogeomorphology, the study of the change of the earth’s surface as a result of human activity, such as mining.
tel: (919) 684-5902 : e: haff@duke.edu

Research focus: Haff is interested in neogeomorphology – the role of human beings as geologic agents. Human activity now represents one of the world’s dominant geologic forces in terms of its impact on water, soil, vegetation, topography and surface cover and composition. He argues that the effects of human activity ought not to be viewed as lying outside a “pristine” geologic world, but as a central and evermore important element whose effects need to be included in our overall description and theory of the earth’s surface, and on the same footing as natural causes and processes.

Kenneth Reckhow is director of the Center for the Analysis and Prediction of River Basin Environmental Systems.
tel:(919) 613-8026: e: reckhow@duke.edu

Research focus: Reckhow is an expert on water quality assessment and management, risk assessment, water quality modeling and decision analysis.

Recent work by Reckhow and his research team has focused on the assessment of nonpoint source pollution on surface water quality and the development of "Total Maximum Daily Loads" (TMDLs). One current project involves the modeling and assessment of allowable nitrogen loads to the Neuse River estuary in North Carolina in order to achieve compliance with the chlorophyll standard. Reckhow was recently chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee assessing the scientific basis of the EPA TMDL program.

David Schwartz focuses on the genetic and biological determinants of environmental and occupational lung disease. He is Walter Kempner Professor of Medicine and Chief, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, at Duke University Medical Center and holds a joint appointment at the Nicholas School.
tel: (919) 668-0380 : e: david.schwartz@duke.edu

Research focus: Genetic and biological determinants of environmental and occupational lung disease. Pathophysiology and biology of asbestos induced lung disease, institial lung disease, environmental airway disease and innate immunity.