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.

Conservation & Land Use
At 595,000 acres, the Atchafalaya Basin is America's largest river swamp. Half of all migratory bird species in the North American flyway use the basin each year. So, too, do hunters, boaters, recreational anglers, nature photographers and birdwatchers. Area fishermen depend on the basin’s waters – which produce 23 million pounds of crawfish a year – for their income. Endangered species, including the Louisiana black bear and peregrine falcon, depend on it for critical habitat. Balancing these and other complex and conflicting needs will be critical to the future health of the swamp and its surrounding communities.

Robert Healy is an expert on the management of protected areas and on land use in rapidly growing urban and exurban areas.
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.

Curtis maguire studies wetlands ecology and restoration. He is director of the Duke University Wetland Center.
tel:(919) 613-8006 : e: curtr@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.

Curtis Richardson studies wetlands ecology and restoration. He is director of the Duke University Wetland Center.
tel:(919) 613-8006 : e: curtr@duke.edu

Research focus: Richardson's expertise lies in wetland ecology; phosphorus
Biogeochemistry; restoration of wetland functions; and the effects of environmental stress on plant metabolism and growth response.

His research interests in applied ecology are centered on long-term ecosystem response to large-scale perturbations such as acid rain, toxic materials, trace metals, flooding or nutrient additions.

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.