Category: Research

Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences (GMES) adjunct assistant professor Luke Bowman gave a collaborative presentation titled, “Multidisciplinary, International Geological Hazards Research Experiences,” at the Geoscience and Society Summit, March 18 – 21, 2019, in Stockholm, Sweden. The Summit was part of a multi-year effort by organizers to articulate the roles of geoscientists in solving 21st Century challenges and reaching the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Summit was sponsored by the American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America and the Bolin Centre for Climate Research.

Bowman presented the evolution of disaster risk reduction research by GMES students and faculty over the past three decades. The co-authors included professor and chair John Gierke, emeritus professor Bill Rose, associate professors Thomas Oommen and Greg Waite, and research assistant professor Rudiger Escobar-Wolf. The work that Bowman presented outlined a unique history of how GMES has actively broadened its faculty and student research interests to tackle societal issues in conjunction with the geophysical aspects of natural hazards in international settings.

A study by Nathan Manser (GMES/EF) on human pathogen destruction in resource recovery systems is cited in the World Health Organization’s recent Guidelines on Sanitation and Health.

Manser ND, Cunningham JA, Ergas SJ, Mihelcic JR (2016). Modeling inactivation of highly persistent pathogens in household-scale semi-continuous anaerobic digesters. Environ Eng Sci. 33: 851-860.

The purpose of these guidelines is to promote safe sanitation systems and practices in order to promote health. They summarize the evidence on the links between sanitation and health, provide evidence-informed recommendations, and offer guidance for encouraging international, national and local sanitation policies and actions that protect public health. The guidelines also seek to articulate and support the role of health and other actors in sanitation policy and programming to help ensure that health risks are identified and managed effectively. World Health Organization

Aleksey Smirnov (GMES) has been recognized as an Excellent Reviewer for 2018 by the Editorial Board of Earth, Planets, and Space (EPS).

EPS is the flagship journal of the Society of Geomagnetism and Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, the Seismological Society of Japan, the Volcanology Society of Japan, and the Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences. It is an open access journal. All articles are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication.

It is essential for an academic journal to have qualified reviewers to maintain its scientific standard. EPS

Simon Carn (GMES/EPSSI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $65,671 contract from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The title of the project is “Use of Direct Broadcast POESS and GOES for Localized Convective Weather Forecasting.”

This is a one-year project.

By Sponsored Programs.

John Gierke, professor and chair of GMES and Thomas Oommen (GMES) presented collaborative work on “Field Data Collection and Slope Stability Analysis in the Vicinity of the Enguri Dam” and “External Loadings and Landslide Hazards at Enguri,” respectively, at the culminating meeting for the international project funded by NATO’s Science for Peace and Security: “SfP G4934 Security Against Geohazards at the Major Enguri Hydroelectric Scheme in Georgia.”

The meeting was held Sept. 12, 2018, in Tbilisi, Georgia. The Michigan Tech project work that was presented included contributions from MS Geology graduate Maria Diletta Acciaro and BS Geological Engineering graduates Carolyn Lucca, Zack Fleming, Nicole Bird and Erica Anderson.

Kenneth Hinkel (GMES/EPSSI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $75,436 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is titled “Collaborative Research: Causes and Consequences of Catastrophic Thermokarst Lake Drainage in an Evolving Arctic System.” This is a three-year project.

By Sponsored Programs.

Extract

Lakes are abundant features on coastal plains of the Arctic, providing important fish and wildlife habitat and water supply for villages and industry, but also interact with frozen ground (permafrost) and the carbon it stores. Most of these lakes are termed “thermokarst” because they form in ice-rich permafrost and gradually expand over time. The dynamic nature of thermokarst lakes also makes them prone to catastrophic drainage and abrupt conversion to wetlands, called drained thermokarst lake basins (DTLBs). Together, thermokarst lakes and DTLBs cover up to 80% of arctic lowland regions, making understanding their response to ongoing climate change essential for coastal plain environmental assessment.

Read more at the National Science Foundation.

Greg Waite (GMES) was among the “Outstanding Reviewers of 2017” named by Eos, Earth & Space Science News. According to the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the reviewers listed “have all provided in-depth evaluations, often over more than one round of revision, that greatly improved the final published papers. This increase in complexity, in turn, has increased the challenge and the role of reviewing.”

Winning reviewers were selected by the editors of each journal for their work. Editor M. Bayani Cardenas cited Waite for his service to Geophysical Research Letters.

Quality peer review is thus a critical part of the social contract between science and society.Eos

Read more at Eos, by Brooks Hanson and Lisa Tauxe.