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.

Deserts, Forests & Grasslands
Texas’ diverse ecosystems, from its eastern pineywoods to its western deserts and canyonlands, face ongoing pressures as a result of climate change, human development and land use. Ozone pollution and increasing demand for timber products are placing strains on the health of the state’s pine forests. Grasslands are disappearing beneath the pavement of urban sprawl and, especially in West Texas, undergoing desertification as a result of climate change. In recent years, however, landowners, environmental groups and government have stepped up efforts to conserve native ecosystems and promote sustainable management of them.

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.

James Clark is an expert on forest biodiversity and on the ecology of forests and grasslands.
tel:(919) 613-8036: e: jimclark@duke.edu

Research focus: Ecology of forests and grasslands, especially how they are affected by global climate change. Statistics and population genetics, as they relate to biodiversity.

James Reynolds studies socioeconomic and ecological components of land degradation and desertification in arid and semi-arid regions.
tel: (919) 660-7404: e: jfreynol@duke.edu

Research focus: Modeling of ecosystem response to global change, focusing on links between the ecological and socioeconomic components of land degradation in arid and semi-arid regions of the globe, and the effects of elevated carbon dioxide on plants and ecosystems.

His studies of plant adaptations to desert conditions in the Mojave Desert and of the desertification of former grasslands in southern New Mexico’s Jornada Basin, now part of the Chihuahuan Desert, have shed new light on the threat of regional desertification triggered by global climate change and nonsustainable land use, such as overgrazing.

William Schlesinger is an expert on desert soils and ecosystems, and the desertification of land and degradation of soils as a result of climate change or land use.
tel: (919) 613-8004: e:schlesin@duke.edu

Research focus: Global environmental change, focusing on chemical changes in the environment, especially soils that relate to changes in global climate and desertification.

Schlesinger is an international expert on desertification ? the climate-linked encroachment of desert soils, plants and conditions into grasslands, forests and other ecosystems. He has studied plant adaptations to desert conditions in the Mojave Desert and the desertification of former grasslands in southern New Mexico’s Jornada Basin.