2008 An Environmental Crossroads

site

people

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.

Wildfires
More than 100 years of logging, fire suppression, livestock grazing, road construction, predator control and exotic-species introductions have deteriorated the health of many of Utah’s forests. These forests are now highly susceptible to high-intensity wildfire, especially in drought years. Utah’s forests consist mostly of high elevation, dry, slow growing forest types, such as spruce, fir, aspen, mixed conifer, lodgepole pine, pinyon-juniper and scrub oak.

Norm Christensen is an expert on wildfires, and has conducted extensive studies on the impact of drought, logging practices, land use and management policies on wildfire management.
tel: (919) 613-8052 e: normc@duke.edu

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

Christensen says the Bush administration’s wildfire policy, which removes administrative barriers to cutting timber from fire-prone public lands in hopes of removing excessive wood fuel there, is an incomplete solution to the problem.

"In these situations, restoration of normal fuel loads by thinning undergrowth makes enormous sense," he says. "We must, however, understand that intense fires in some regions are equally a consequence of abnormal drought conditions and not abnormal fuel accumulations. Our fire management policies and protocols should be tailored to the particular conditions in each region, not applied to all regions as if one size fits all.”

Prasad Kasibhatla has found that wildfires may be previously undocumented sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
tel: (919) 613-8075 : e: psk9@duke.edu

Research focus: Atmospheric chemistry. Regional and global modeling. Atmospheric chemical data analysis.

In a recent Science article, Kasibhatla reported that drought-induced wildfires during El Nino climatic cycles may be undocumented sources of greenhouse gas emissions that cannot be traced to smokestacks, vehicular emissions and other known contributors. “This suggests that the variability and intensity of El Nino may be one of the most critical components of climate regulating future carbon,” he says.