Statement of Interest
Modeling the Drivers to, and Impacts of, Land Use Change
My interests are 1) in modeling the drivers to land use change and 2) integrating land use change to ecological and economic models. I am the principal developer of the Land Transformation Model, which is a GIS-based land use change model. The model was first developed, under a cooperative agreement between the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), with an application to Michigan’s Saginaw Bay Watershed located in Michigan. The Saginaw Bay Watershed pilot model currently contains 13 driving variables (most contain subdrivers) that are policy, socioeconomic and environmentally based.
I received my PhD from Michigan State University in 1991 in the area of ecological modeling. I conducted filed research on birds and mammals and developed ecological models based on game theory. I have also worked in Integrated Pest Management where I have participated in a National pilot program that attempts to slow the spread of the gypsy moth using the latest integrated pest management techniques. Several MSU colleagues and I have also received funding from NASA to participate in a National Earth Systems Science Education (ESSE) program for undergraduate and graduate students studying the human dimensions of global change using NASA MTPE data resources, systems science and computer technologies such as GIS.
Most of my research in the next few years will concentrate on furthering the development of the Land Transformation Model. Dan Brown (MSU), Mike Vasievich (US Forest Service) and I received funding from the NASA Land Cover Land Use Change (LCLUC) program to analyze and model socioeconomic drivers of decadal scale land cover changes in the upper midwest. We will incorporate new scale-depended socioeconomic economics drivers into the LTM as well as some land cover dynamic measures. Sheridan Haack (USGS), David Long (MSU), David Hyndman (MSU) and I will attempt to link the current Land Transformation Model to hydrogeologic and geochemical models. An historical analysis of land use change and water chemistry and hydrology within Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay Watershed's streams along with rigorous sampling will be conducted. I am also collaborating with two other groups who will apply the principles of the Land Transformation Model to land use change in non-Michigan environs. One is along the north coast of Alaska where the LTM will be linked to cumulative impacts of human activities and the other is in Zimbabwe where the LTM will be integrated with forest succession and forest hydrology models.
I would be interested in participating in discussions on: