Research

Research

The Department of Environmental Science and Technology is a world-class center of discovery and teaching that innovates and educates to deal with increasingly complex environmental conditions. It serves the campus community as a key, foundational unit of its increasingly broader emphasis on the environment. It is unique among campus units because it is comprised of a critical mass of faculty fully involved in environmental science and problem solving. Explore our labs and research centers to learn more about the faculty and graduate student research across a spectrum of environmental fields.

ECOLOGICAL TECHNOLOGY DESIGN & ENGINEERING

Ecological Technology Design & Engineering integrates natural systems with the built environment to solve environmental problems while achieving economic, ecological and social sustainability. The science and applications of using natural systems, processes and organisms to address environmental issues has evolved during the last few decades.

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As people around the globe seek to deal with increasing urbanization, energy constraints, climate worries, unsustainable food supplies, ecosystem loss and economic hardship they are increasingly turning to natural systems for answers and solutions. Scientists and engineers in the Environmental Science and Technology Department are investigating new ways that humanity with its various agricultural, industrial and urban systems can more closely mimic the sustainability and beauty of natural ecosystems.

ENST Ecological Technology Design & Engineering Faculty:

ECOSYSTEM HEALTH & NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Ecosystem Health & Natural Resource Management integrates natural systems with the built environment to solve environmental problems while achieving economic, ecological and social sustainability. The science and applications of using natural systems, processes and organisms to address environmental issues has evolved during the last few decades.

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Environmental health is a broad and increasingly important field with wide ranging applications in the environmental science and public health fields. The field encompasses environmental factors and ecosystem functions that affect human health and the effects of human activities on the ecosystem products and services we depend on.

ENST Environmental & Ecological Health Faculty:

SOIL SCIENCE 

Soil Science processes and the soil resource are critical to all terrestrial ecosystems from prairies to the Alaskan tundra, to wetlands, to our cities, to forests to biofuel farms. Soil Science is at the center of the study of what the National Science Foundation terms the Critical Zone - the confluence of atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere near the surface of the Earth.

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Soils are the most complex and ecologically significant biogeochemical systems on Earth. Soil processes and the soil resource are critical to all terrestrial ecosystems from prairies to the Alaskan tundra, to wetlands, to our cities, to forests to biofuel farms. Soil Science is at the center of the study of what the National Science Foundation terms the Critical Zone - the confluence of atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere near the surface of the Earth.

ENST Soil Science Faculty:

WETLAND SCIENCE & ENGINEERING 

Wetland Science & Engineering addresses the keen awareness among the Environmental community that wetlands represent a critical and understudied component of many larger ecosystems. Hydrophytic vegetation, hydric soils and wetland hydrology all contribute to make wetlands the significant and highly complex ecosystems that they are.

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Hydrophytic vegetation, hydric soils and wetland hydrology all contribute to make wetlands the significant and highly complex ecosystems that they are. In addition to the more obvious recreational and aesthetic contributions of wetlands, they also provide fish and wildlife habitat, protect and enhance water quality through biogeochemical processes, increase flood protection through flood water storage mechanisms, and afford protection against shoreline erosion. Wetlands have rapidly gained public attention over the last two decades as they have been brought into the limelight by state and federal regulations and through the attention given such large scale environmental issues as hurricane Katrina.

ENST Wetland Science & Engineering Faculty: