ESA Lab hosts workshop on Land Use and the Carbon Cycle (10/09)
ESA Lab Director Dan Brown and post-doctoral fellow Derek Robinson helped
organize a workshop on the interactions between land-change process and
the carbon cycle, under the auspices of the US Global Change Research
Program and with funding form the USGS and USDA. The workshop broaght
together about 60 leading scientists and science policy makers to
discuss the role and content of integrated science on carbon processes
and human management and policy activities on landscapes. You can learn
more about the workshop at the website here and its outcomes and recommendations in the workshop report here.
ESA Lab Begins work on Land Use and Climate Variability on the Mongolian Plateau (7/09)
Researchers in the ESA Lab, in partnership with collaborators at
Eastern Michigan University and the Chinese and Mongolian Academies of
Sciences, have received a $900,000 grant from NASA to study human
adaptation to climate change on the Mongolian Plateau.
The project is part of an ongoing set of research activities in the lab
on human-environment interactions in China and other parts of Asia,
including Siberian Russia. Projects have examined the effects of the
break-up of the Soviet Union on the forest dynamics in Siberia; how
land-use changes in the Central Yangtze Basin contribute to changes in
vulnerability to flooding. You can see the full press release here.
ESA Lab Contributes to US-German Conference on Land Use and Climate Change(10/08)
ESA Lab Director Dan Brown and PhD Student Derek Robinson helped organize a bi-national conference on Land Use and Climate Change. The conference, sponsored by the US National Science
Foundation (NSF) and the German equivalent (DFG), was held in Berlin Oct
2 and 3 and focused on the role of land use in the mitigation of and
adaptation to climate changes. The
successful conference aimed to identify research that would further our
understanding of how land constraints affect our ability to mitigate
and adapt to climate change, develop international collaboration on
these topics, and contribute to the development of the next generation
of scientists focused on these topics. Read more at the DFG press release here and the workshop report here.
ESA Lab Begins new
NSF-funded Project (8/08)
This fall ESA Lab faculty and students begin
working on a new project funded with a $1.5 million grant from the National
Science Foundation entitled "Spatial Land-Use Change and Ecological
Effects (SLUCE): Interactions of Exurban Land Management and Carbon
Dynamics." The project is a joint effort of faculty in SNRE (Brown, Nassauer, Currie), the Center for the Study of Complex
Systems (Page, Riolo) and George Mason University
(Parker) aimed at understanding the contribution of land-use changes in exurban
areas to carbon dynamics. See the press release
here.
PhD Alumnus
Accepts Position with the Bureau of Land Management (8/08)
Jason Taylor , a PhD student in
SNRE and in the ESA Lab whose dissertation examined the relationships between
land use, land cover, and avian communities along an urban-rural gradient in
Southeastern Michigan, has accepted a position of Natural Resource Specialist
at the White River Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management in Meeker, CO.
Jason will be combining his many skills in GIS and natural resources management
to develop a large-scale plan for land management in the context of a
significant oil and gas boom. We all wish Jason the best in his new position.
PhD Student
Awarded Competitive Fellowship from NASA (5/08)
Qing Tian, a PhD student
in SNRE and in the ESA Lab, was recently awarded an Earth System Science
Graduate Student Fellowship from NASA. According to NASA, "(t)he purpose of
the Fellowship program is for the Office of Earth Science to train a pool of
highly qualified scientists in support of NASA's central mission to understand
and protect our home planet." Qing's proposal, titled "From
Vulnerability to Sustainability: Vulnerability and Sustainable Development in
the Context of Climatic and Institutional Changes in Rural China," was one of 50
selected out of an applicant pool of 200. Congratulations Qing!
Derek Robinson and Qing
Tian, PhD students in SNRE and in the ESA
Lab, were awarded Graham Environmental Sustainability Fellowships from the
Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute (GESI). Derek was a winner in the
2007 competition and Qing in the 2008 competition. These highly competitive fellowships recognize their high quality and integrative
work on environmental research.
PhD Student
Wins Second Place in AAG Student Honors Competition (4/08)
Derek Robinson, a PhD student in SNRE and in the ESA Lab,
placed second in the student honors competition held by the GIS Specialty Group
of the Association of American Geographers. Derek presented her paper,
titled "Development of a GIS-based agent-based model as a platform to
evaluate ecological land-use development policies," as part of a special
session at the Annual Meeting of the AAG in Boston. Congratulations
Derek!
Former ESA Lab PhD student Tingting Zhao recently began a tenure-track position in the Department of
Geography at Florida State University in Tallahasee
beginning Fall 2007. We wish Tingting the best
in her professional career.
ESA Lab MS Alumnus wins PhD Fellowship (9/07)
Former ESA Lab MS student Neil Carter recently began the PhD program in Fisheries and
Wildlife at Michigan State University beginning Fall 2007. To support his
work or tigers in Nepal, Neil was awarded a competitive distinguished
university-wide PhD fellowship. Good luck, Neil!
PhD Student
Awarded Competitive Fellowship from Canadian Science Agency (4/06)
Derek Robinson, a PhD student in SNRE and in the ESA Lab, was
recently awarded a competitive post-graduate fellowship from the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. The program
from which he received the award was especially competitive because it allows
him use the fellowship for study outside of Canada. The award supports Derek's
dissertation research on the interactions between land-use and ecological
processes (in particular, carbon uptake) at the urban-rural fringe. He
will couple an agent-based model of land-use change with an ecosystem process
model. Congratulations Derek!
PhD Student Wins Second Place in AAG Student Honors
Competition (3/06)
Amy
Powers, a PhD student in SNRE and in the ESA Lab, placed second in the
student honors competition held by the GIS Specialty Group of the Association
of American Geographers. Amy presented her paper, titled "Developing
and Testing a Model to Propagate Error in Post-Classification
Change-Detection," as part of a special session at the Annual Meeting of
the AAG in Chicago. Congratulations Amy!
Current ESA Lab PhD student Amy Powers recently accepted a tenure-track position at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, which starts in Fall 2006. Former ESA
Lab PhD student Geoffrey Duh is
currently in a tenure-track position at Portland State University. Also,
former ESA Lab post-doctoral fellows Elisabeth
Addink and Li
An are well established in tenure-track positions
at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands) and San Diego State University,
respectively. We wish all ESA Lab alumni the best in their professional
careers.
A December 2005
special feature of Ecological Applications, a publication of the Ecological
Society of America, outlines the nationwide trends in rural land use in the US,
focusing on the phenomenon of "rural sprawl," the ecological
consequences of such trends, and several planning and policy options available
to minimize the negative ecological effects. The feature was co-edited by
Andy Hansen (Montana State University) and ESA Lab's own Dan Brown. Read the press release.
ESALab Co-Hosted Successful
Geocomputation 2005 (8/05)
The ESA
Lab was pleased to co-host, with the Institute for Geospatial Research and
Education at Eastern Michigan University, the 8th International GeoComputation
Conference from 1-3 August 2005 in Ann Arbor on the campus of
the University of Michigan. The conference continued a successful series of
meetings held in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.
The ESA Lab's remote
sensing research in Michigan and Siberia was recently featured in the SNRE
Development Newsletter.
The full article can be found here.
The full article can be found here.
PhD Student
Awarded Competitive Fellowship from NASA (8/03)
Amy Burnicki, a PhD student in SNRE and in the ESA Lab, was
recently awarded an Earth System Science Graduate Student Fellowship from
NASA. According to NASA, "(t)he purpose of
the Fellowship program is for the Office of Earth Science to train a pool of
highly qualified scientists in support of NASA's central mission to understand
and protect our home planet." Amy's proposal, titled "Spatial and
Temporal Patterns of Error in Land Cover Change Analyses: Identifying and
Propagating Uncertainty for Ecological Monitoring and Modeling," was one of 55 selected out of an applicant pool of 217. The
fellowship will fund Amy's dissertation work on error and uncertainty in
remote sensing based analyses of land cover change. Congratulations Amy!
ESA
Lab Contributes Research to USDA Forest Service Assessment (8/03)
Output from research at the ESA Lab was incorporated into an assessment of change in the North Central region of the United States that was conducted by the USDA Forest Service, North Central Research Station. We developed a methodology to create information about land cover change from disparate sources of data, i.e., archived land cover maps and satellite imagery. The change information was combined with data from other groups and is now available on the web. A research publication is forthcoming.
Output from research at the ESA Lab was incorporated into an assessment of change in the North Central region of the United States that was conducted by the USDA Forest Service, North Central Research Station. We developed a methodology to create information about land cover change from disparate sources of data, i.e., archived land cover maps and satellite imagery. The change information was combined with data from other groups and is now available on the web. A research publication is forthcoming.
ESA Lab Research Cited in Report to
Congress (4/03)
Research results from work done in the ESA Lab were cited in the Fiscal Year 2003 version of Our Changing Planet, a report on the US Global Change Research Program and the Climate Change Research Program that was submitted to the US Congress as a supplement to the President's Fiscal Year 2003 Budget. The work is cited on pages 76-78. The report refers to work that uses satellite imagery, aerial photography, and archival plat maps to examine the land use processes that have lead to increasing amounts of forest cover in the Upper Midwest over the last 30 years. For more information on this work refer to this page.
Research results from work done in the ESA Lab were cited in the Fiscal Year 2003 version of Our Changing Planet, a report on the US Global Change Research Program and the Climate Change Research Program that was submitted to the US Congress as a supplement to the President's Fiscal Year 2003 Budget. The work is cited on pages 76-78. The report refers to work that uses satellite imagery, aerial photography, and archival plat maps to examine the land use processes that have lead to increasing amounts of forest cover in the Upper Midwest over the last 30 years. For more information on this work refer to this page.
Do you
have GIS, GPS, or remote sensing related work that needs to be done but not the
staff hours or skills to get it done? Do you need training or consultation in
the use of GIS, GPS, or remote sensing? The ESALab
currently offers an hourly service and support option to clients both within
the University of Michigan and outside the university. For more information,
please contact the ESA Lab Manager (Shannon Brines, email: sjbrines@umich.edu, phone: (734)763-3573).
Spatial
analysis and geographic information science (SA/GIS) at The University of
Michigan is a collaborative effort between various schools, colleges,
departments, and libraries. The goal of these activities is to integrate
knowledge and facilities between units to aid in the dissemination and use of
geographic information and analysis.
Would
you like to learn more? Visit the UofM CSCAR (Center
for Statistical Consultation and Research) SA/GIS site.
