Dozens attend NIU’s first assessment expo Story
High school students use NASA data to research whether rain fell on Mars Story
IEPA director will visit campus to speak on initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases Story
GPS-powered system enables students to track Huskie Buses, reduce wait time Story
NIU scientists, students will bring global warming to Canadian sugar maples Story
Where the bugs are? New ag-weather Web site predicts pest migrations Story
University Libraries happy to be swamped with thousands of historical wetland maps Story
NIU's David Changnon to appear in TV documentary on climate change Story
NIU experts will hold seven public presentations on global climate change Story
NIU graduate student's research hits pay dirt Story
Geography department launches weather Web site Story
Geography alum spots NIU-produced maps on display at Library of Congress in Washington Story
NIU announces 2004 recipients of SPS Presidential Awards for Excellence Story
Geography professor receives NASA grant to study Martian valley networks Story
Campus Web Map wins award Story
Click and you’re virtually there -
New interactive Campus Web Map gives lay of the land — and then some
Story
NIU research scientist lands award from Intergraph Story
NIU Department of Geography Partners with Northern Illinois Food Bank Story
Intergraph Awards Education Grant, Boosts NIU Research Technology Story
NIU Researcher: It's Not The Summer Heat But The Humidity Story
Graduate Student's Research Recognized in International Competition Story
Researchers Track Illinois Storm Damage to Crops Via NASA Satellite Story
NIU Cartography Lab Wins Award for Watershed Map Story
NIU Department of Geography Selected as 1 OF 6 'CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE' Nationwide Story
With so many parties holding universities accountable, from students to parents to employers to taxpayers to lawmakers, the importance of measuring success is paramount.
Few use the same tools or ask the same questions, however. Or, as geography professor David Changnon said, “assessment is something most of us weren’t trying to do.”
On the last day of classes before Spring Break, around three dozen faculty and staff gathered for NIU’s first assessment expo. Designed to highlight successful assessment practices on campus, the event included posters and a panel of speakers from departments across campus who shared their experiences with assessment.
“What really inspired us was to promote a more positive aspect of assessment – for people to be able to see good practices in assessment and to be able to borrow some of those practices for their own assessment,” said Carolinda Douglass, director of Assessment Services at NIU.
“This was a good start to holding more expos that will demonstrate the kinds of good practices people are doing.”
Virginia Cassidy, vice provost for academic development and planning, opened the expo by calling it an opportunity to learn from each other, to reflect on what’s happening on campus and to work collaboratively.
Some of the assessment models lauded at national conferences do not measure up to some of NIU’s work in that area, she said.
Posters outlined assessment tools for:
the bachelor’s of science degrees in business administration, public health and textiles, apparel and merchandising
the bachelor’s of arts degree in French and Spanish
the master’s of science in education degree in educational administration
the master’s of science degree in geography
Panelists included Penny McIntire from the Department of Computer Science, Andrea Evans from the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations, Jinsook Kim from the School of Nursing and Health Studies and Changnon.
The work of assessment is complex and incredibly fluid, panelists said, and requires not only constant analysis and occasional revision of the tools but stability from year to year and in the rubrics used for good comparisons.
“Just because you’re trying to measure something doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful,” Evans said.
Evans addressed an assessment tool in her department that determines a degree candidate’s ability to support student learning and/or impact the learning environment.
Conducted during clinical internships, candidates collect and analyze school and/or district data, communicate the results of the analysis to relevant stakeholders, develop a plan using the data and revise and implement a program, policy or process that affects student learning or the learning environment.
Faculty in computer science appreciate assessment comments from employers, McIntire said, especially comments that demonstrate the learning abilities of the department’s graduates and internship students. “We can’t teach every technique,” she said.
Such external reviews sometimes can provide the department with a better picture of what students are capable of, McIntire added.
“I don’t think (students) know yet how much they know,” she said.
Changnon said he and his colleagues in the Department of Geography have learned a few things traversing the “long and winding road” of assessment. It’s an enhancing and enriching process. It reveals something more than what the final grade indicates. It need not measure everything all the time.
But among the good questions to ask, according to : Was there growth?
Three departments were awarded $500 each to spend on future assessment endeavors: the Department of Geography, the Department of Philosophy and the School of Nursing and Health Studies.
Ten departments, including the three award winners, received certificates acknowledging their outstanding assessment efforts.
The others include Business Administration; the Department of Computer Science; the Department of Economics; the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations; the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures; the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education; and the School of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences.
Another assessment expo is being planned for next spring, Douglass said.
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High school students use NASA datato research whether rain fell on Mars
Did it ever rain on Mars? Scientists have conducted research on the topic and debated the question for decades. Now high school students, using data from NASA, will be launching their own investigations.
Students at nearly a dozen schools, from Rockford to Maple Park to Naperville, will study the planet using an online lesson plan developed by NIU faculty researchers. A determination of whether it rained on Mars would have important implications in the study of whether the planet ever could have supported life.
The lesson is geared for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors. Any teacher can use the demo and/or sign up for an actual section of Mars to study at http://marsproject.niu.edu.
“This is an ideal topic to engage students in the process of conducting scientific research because it is still hotly debated, leaving room for students to make real contributions through their own observation and analysis of data,” said Wei Luo, an NIU professor of geography.
“It’s quite possible that students will make some discoveries that researchers overlooked,” he added. “Mars is a large planet.”
Development of the lesson plan is an extension of Luo’s own NASA-funded research into the origin of valley networks or river-like landforms on Mars, which has implications on climate history of the Red Planet. He and Professor Kathy Kitts, who coordinates certification of science teachers in NIU’s Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, developed the online lesson using Geographic Information Systems.
The NIU faculty members led a workshop this past fall for 16 high school teachers from across the region. The Mars lesson already has received excellent reviews from the students of Matt Leone, who teaches earth science at Libertyville High School and piloted the Mars lesson last spring.
Leone said he’s recommending it to other teachers.
“The kids think it’s great because it’s new and they’re actually doing research, rather than learning about somebody else’s (findings),” he said, noting that the lesson also is aligned with state standards.
“It fits perfectly into my curriculum,” Leone added. “We cover planetary geology and we also cover surface and groundwater processes, so students are applying knowledge that they’ve already learned in class.”
Students receive a section of Mars to study, along with its related topography and satellite imagery. They must determine whether valley networks in their section were formed predominantly by flowing rivers or by the action of groundwater, a process of erosion known as groundwater sapping.
“If surface runoff is the dominant erosion style on Mars, then it most likely points to an early warmer and wetter climate with an Earth-like hydrologic cycle, including rainfall,” Luo said. “On the other hand, if groundwater sapping is the dominant erosion style, the valley networks could have been formed under current climatic conditions, perhaps under a thick ice cover.”
With the teachers acting as facilitators, the students will extract information from the data, interpret their results, post them to a server and debate their findings with students working on the same section and on other sections.
After appropriate review, the students’ work will be saved in a permanent workspace on the server for all in the scientific community to access.
“I think the students are going to love it,” said Liz Losch, who teaches Ecological Biology and Dynamic Earth Systems at Naperville Central High School. She participated in the fall workshop and plans to use the Mars lesson in February.
“This is a great example of inquiry-based science, where the answers are not always black and white,” she adds. “It gets students to think outside of the box and be more complex thinkers. It also helps them construct ideas about how science is used in real life. Students are definitely interested in the possibility of life outside of our planet, allowing them to think critically about similar topics.”
NIU faculty researchers ultimately hope to stimulate the students’ interest in science.
“The whole point of this is that the students can do real research,” said NIU’s Kitts. “We want to get them interested in science and show them that they really can do it.”
Both Luo and Kitts note the Mars project is truly a team effort. Professor Wei-Chen Hung from the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment provided his expertise in assessment, and NIU research scientists Phil Young and Rick Schwantes in the Department of Geography assisted in development of the Web site. A number of graduate students also contributed to the lesson plan development.
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IEPA director will visit campus to speak on initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases
Doug Scott, director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and former mayor of Rockford, will visit campus Wednesday, Nov. 7, to discuss how the state is working to reduce greenhouse gases.
Scott's NIU presentation, titled “Illinois Initiatives to Reduce Greenhouse Gases and Our Impact on Global Warming,” will begin at 7 p.m. in the Montgomery Hall Auditorium. The event is open to the public.
Sponsored by the Department of Geography, the presentation is a continuation of last spring's public symposiums on global climate change. The symposiums featured leading NIU researchers who shared their expertise on climate change in a series of seven well-attended public presentations.
“Last spring's symposiums were very well-received by the public, and as we said during those events, we plan to continue our discussions with a series of speakers this academic year,” said Andrew Krmenec, chair of the Department of Geography.
“There are many dimensions to climate change, including its impact on culture, religion, economics, business, technology, government and, of course, the environment,” he added. “Doug Scott is a statewide authority and will enlighten us on what initiatives are under way in our own back yard.”
Scott served as a state representative for the 67th District from 1995 to 2001, followed by a four-year term as mayor of Rockford. Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed him director of the IEPA, effective July 1, 2005.
Last year the governor announced a new global warming initiative to build on Illinois' role as a national leader in protecting the environment and public health. The announcement marked the beginning of a long-term strategy by the state to combat global climate change. The strategy builds on the steps the state already has taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as enhancing the use of biofuels and wind power.
Scott chairs the Illinois Climate Change Advisory Group, which is considering a full range of policies and strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will make recommendations to the governor. The Advisory Group has broad representation that includes leaders in science, business, labor unions, environmental groups and the energy and agricultural industries.
More information on the advisory panel is available online at www.epa.state.il.us/air/climatechange/ .
Later this semester, Rebecca Stanfield, state director of Environment Illinois, a citizen-based environmental advocacy organization, will visit campus. Stanfield recently co-authored a report titled, “A Blueprint for Action; Policy Options to Reduce Illinois' Contribution to Global Warming.” She will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27, in the Montgomery Hall Auditorium.
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GPS-powered system enables students to track Huskie Buses, reduce wait time
NIU students now can easily track the near-real-time location, speed and direction of Huskie Buses.
Research scientists Phil Young and Rick Schwantes in the Department of Geography's Advanced Geospatial Laboratory, working in collaboration with the Student Association and Huskie Bus Line, recently launched the new Huskie Tracks system. It utilizes a Global Positioning System (GPS) to track the movement of the buses along their routes.
Huskie Tracks can be accessed online at http://huskietracks.niu.edu via a personal computer, the Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch. It also is expected to work on some Web-based cellular phones equipped with a browser and Windows CE operating system.
Students also can keep tabs on bus locations along each of seven routes using any one of three 50-inch monitors located on campus, two in the Holmes Student Center (near the Coffee Corner and Subway) and a third at DuSable Hall.
Young said the hope is to eventually install monitors at other locations on campus, including residence halls, and expand the system to include Late Night Ride services and FreedomMobile, a service for persons with disabilities.
“Our primary intent was to help students reduce their wait time at the bus stops,” Young said. “We think it will be especially useful during cold, rainy or snowy weather, when students don't want to wait longer periods for the bus. This tool will help them arrive right before the bus arrives, or will alert them if they've just missed the bus.”
The Huskie Bus Line provides a free service to all active NIU students with a valid NIU OneCard. It also serves members of the general public, who pay 75 cents per ride.
Bus routes serve the main NIU campus, including classroom buildings, parking lots, offices and residence halls as well as routes heading off campus to local apartments, shopping centers and food establishments. One route serves the Sycamore shopping areas as well.
“We're hoping as this system is used more that some of the bus-monitoring screens will be placed out at shopping destinations, such as Wal-Mart or Target, so students know exactly when the buses are coming,” Young said.
All of the Huskie Buses are equipped with transponders, which emit signals to the tracking system every 30 seconds. The Huskie Tracks Web site is automatically updated every 15 seconds.
The NIU Student Association manages the Huskie Bus Line, owned by Veolia Transportation.
“I'm exceedingly pleased with the results I've seen,” said Brent Keller, director of mass transit for the NIU Student Association. “So far, the system has been used moderately by students, but we're hoping usage will increase as time goes by and more students learn about it.”
The Student Association spent $19,500 on the system, taking advantage of in-house expertise at NIU. Huskie Tracks is an extension of the NIU Virtual Campus Web Map system launched in 2005.
Huskie Bus Line General Manager Al Davis said complaints about late buses have gone down since the Huskie Tracks system launched in late September.
“I can only assume students are using Huskie Tracks because there has been a change in number of calls we get asking where a bus is at,” Davis said. “There also seems to be a lot less congestion on the buses. At certain times, everyone used to try to jam on one bus, which would slow down our drivers. That's not so much of an issue this year. Riders can see when another bus is coming.”
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NIU scientists, students will bring global warming to Canadian sugar maples
For about 2,000 sugar maple seedlings now growing in Canada's Lake Superior Provincial Park, global warming will arrive next spring.
NIU geographers Lesley Rigg and David Goldblum have been awarded a $260,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to simulate global warming on sugar maple seeds and seedlings and study the effects over three years.
Rigg and Goldblum, working with NIU students, will travel in May to Canada, where they will build rain-exclusion, temperature-controlled structures over existing seedlings in a forested area of Lake Superior Provincial Park.
The structures will allow the researchers to simulate temperature increases and dryer conditions predicted to occur over the next century.
The sugar maple is the dominant tree species in the northeast portion of the United States and a keystone species of forests in eastern North America. Prized for its hardwood and known for the maple syrup made from its sap, the sugar maple is considered to be of great ecological and economic importance.
Sugar maples can reach 400 years of age and 120 feet in height. They thrive in cool, moist climates, with seeds germinating at about 1 degree Celsius (34 degrees Fahrenheit).
“Mature trees may be able to handle warming temperatures, but scientists need to determine whether the trees will be able to successfully reproduce and whether the species will be able to migrate northward to cooler climates,” says Rigg, who holds a joint appointment at NIU in geography and biological sciences.
Scientists expect global warming to be most pronounced in higher latitudes. Environmental mitigation will require early identification of potential problems.
“When it comes to climate change, there tends to be a focus on the direct impacts on humans, such as sea-level change, killer heat waves or negative impacts on agriculture,” Goldblum says. “But one of the more vulnerable aspects of global warming is the balance of our ecosystem. Scientists are concerned that animals and plant species won't be able to respond to rapid change.”
The Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) predicts monthly temperature increases of 4.2 degrees Celsius (7.6 degrees Fahrenheit) for the study area over the next 75 years. Some researchers have suggested that sugar maple trees, which now extend south all the way to Georgia, could disappear completely from the United States.
“Under some climate-projection models, you can write off the sugar maple in its southern limits, even though warming there won't be as pronounced,” Goldblum says. “In order to survive, the species has to be able to move north.”
Located on the eastern shore of the world's largest freshwater lake, Lake Superior Provincial Park marks an ideal setting to study the sugar maple's ability to migrate. The site of the experiment is within a transition area from deciduous forest to boreal forest, the latter dominated by coniferous trees.
“We expect that our experimental design of simulating a range of temperature and moisture regimes will capture conditions that the sugar maple will experience in the northern part of its range sometime in the next 100 years,” Rigg says.
Adapting to gradual climate change, the sugar maple has slowly migrated northward over time. But projections of human-induced climate change suggest that warming over the next several hundred years will be faster than anything the sugar maple has experienced within the last 18,000 years, or possibly within the past 2 million years.
“If predictions are correct, the changing climate will force the sugar maple to move faster than it has ever moved in its history – and through a fragmented landscape of streets, parking lots and subdivisions,” Rigg says.
NIU researchers and students recently returned from Canada, where they tagged the seedlings that will be studied, dividing them into about 20 plots, each measuring about 1 by 2 meters.
Meanwhile, work also is being done on the NIU campus.
Graduate student Shannon McCarragher is monitoring sugar maples that have been germinated in growth chambers and treated to different temperatures. The seedlings come from seeds collected in Tennessee, Illinois and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
“It may be that seeds and seedlings from the south, where temperatures have been warmer for thousands of years, will more readily survive in the north under conditions of global warming,” Goldblum says.
The study is expected to be completed in 2010.
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DeKalb, Ill. — Farmers have long known the breeze can carry crop-damaging bugs. Now a new Web site launched by Northern Illinois University tells agricultural producers in the Midwest which way the wind blows and when pests might be hitching a ride.
The agriculture weather site, located at www.agweather.niu.edu , produces a daily Insect Migration Risk Forecast, geared for farmers, agricultural producers and entomologists. It was created and is maintained by NIU's David Changnon, a professor of meteorology, and Mike Sandstrom, an NIU meteorologist and research associate.
“It's a tool for people who need to know where the bugs are today and where they might be tomorrow,” Changnon says. “Farmers and others in the agricultural industry need to know just when insects might be migrating to their fields.”
Changnon says the site initially is focused on tracking the location and migration of corn earworm, a major pest of late-season sweet corn, but might be adapted in the future to track other insect migrations as well. Corn earworms migrate northward during the summer. If left uncontrolled, the pests can cause millions of dollars in damage to Midwestern corn crops in a single season.
The Web site was prompted by research that Changnon and Sandstrom conducted in recent years with entomologist Brian Flood, manager of pest management for vegetables for Del Monte Foods, which provided support for the Web site development.
“Our forecasting can tell the growers not only when and where pesticide treatments are necessary, but also if it is even necessary to spray,” Sandstrom says. “If weather conditions are not favorable for insect migration, there's no sense spending the time and money involved with applying pesticides. Brian wanted something that would answer these questions. That's how this Web site came about.”
Corn earworms migrate as moths, carried by winds. Cold fronts and rain prompt the moths to drop to the fields. “Part of our risk forecast identifies locations experiencing southerly wind and where the pests could drop out from the atmosphere, usually near a cold front or thunderstorm,” Changnon says.
The moths eventually lay eggs, which hatch into caterpillars that feed on the tips of ears of corn. Corn crops are susceptible to earworm during the silking phase.
“An earworm, if you don't get it, will eat about 20 kernels of corn,” Flood says. “The ag-weather Web site provides a good predictive tool. Agriculture can't be managed with historic weather maps alone. Growers have to be ahead of the game.”
NIU's Analytical Center for Climate and Environmental Change at NIU provided funding for development of the agriculture-weather Web site. Research scientists Phil Young and Rick Schwantes in the Department of Geography provided the technical expertise needed to assemble the site.
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University Libraries happy to be swamped with thousands of historical wetland maps
DeKalb, Ill. — Northern Illinois University Libraries now boasts a huge collection of original Illinois and Indiana wetland maps.
Lawrence Handley, a geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wetlands Research Center in Lafayette, La., delivered 111 boxes of maps to the library earlier this month.
In all, there are believed to be as many as 10,000 master productions from the 1980s and early 1990s, with detailed topographic depictions of all wetland areas in the two states.
“The maps are a one-of-a-kind resource,” Handley said.
The USGS National Wetlands Research Center and the National Wetlands Inventory of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were happy to find a home for the originals. The agencies are now keeping a digital inventory.
The clear plastic maps can be superimposed over present-day maps for the purpose of studying changes in wetland areas. Robert Ridinger, head of electronic information resources for University Libraries, has the considerable charge of inventorying the maps, which will be made available to the public.
“An original map is like a rare book,” said Mary Munroe, interim dean of University Libraries. “The wetland maps have both historical and educational significance and will be a great research tool for students and faculty in such fields as geography, geology and public administration.”
Geography Chair Andrew Krmenec said the historical maps provide important records of the landscape, human impacts on the landscape and the landscape's impact on human activity. The maps will be important in the future for wetland mitigation and landscape reconstruction projects, as well as academic research.
”For history and research purposes, it's important to maintain our historical map collections, even though the world is going digital,” Krmenec said. “Any map has a shelf life, for the purpose it was originally produced. Once that shelf life expires, the maps still provide something of real value—a visual archive of the world.”
The map donation adds to University Libraries' already extensive map collection, which includes rare and historical maps from across the globe.
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NIU climatologist David Changnon will be among the experts featured in a new documentary on global warming that will air at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 28, on CBS Channel 2 in Chicago.
CBS 2 Meteorologist Steve Baskerville will host the one-hour special, titled “Truth About Global Warming.” He visited the NIU campus earlier this month to interview Changnon.
Changnon, a professor in the Department of Geography, spent an hour with Baskerville discussing potential impacts of climate change.
“The scientific community has come to an overwhelming consensus that the climate of the planet is changing and that there is a significant probability that those changes are related to enhanced levels of greenhouse gas emissions,” says Changnon, who specializes in the study of climate variability and its economic impacts.
“For me, the big question is this: How do we use the information that scientists are gathering?”
Baskerville was particularly interested in questions surrounding the impacts of climate change on Chicago and the Great Lakes region. Changnon has conducted studies on El Niño winters, demonstrating how warmer winters in the region have affected the economy.
“There's going to be costs and benefits in the region,” he said. “Warmer winters would mean less use of natural gas, for example, and also would improve transportation scenarios. But in the summertime there could be greater opportunity for drought and poor crop yields or even deadly heat waves like the one the Chicago area experienced in 1995.”
Changnon believes scientists need to get together with industry leaders in such areas as fuel, agriculture and transportation to learn more about how global warming would impact those sectors.
“A dialogue between the scientific community and those potentially impacted by climate needs to be developed sooner rather than later,” Changnon says.
“I believe that the next set of climate models need to examine issues at the regional and seasonal, if not weekly, scales,” he adds. “These are the space and time scales where we can develop strategies for the future. We can move in this direction if the scientific community and weather-sensitive decision makers sit down and develop a greater understanding of how, when and where weather impacts certain sectors.
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Top NIU researchers on climate change will share their expertise in a series of seven public presentations revolving around the recent report on global warming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The series will kick off at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 22, in the Montgomery Hall Auditorium with an overview of the IPCC report and a discussion on the science that goes into global-climate models. Each presentation will include question-and-answer sessions and discussion.
“This entire series aims to provide the general public with a sense of the science behind the IPCC report, information on the causes and consequences of global warming and possible solutions,” said NIU Presidential Science Adviser Gerald Blazey, who along with Geography Professors David Goldblum and Jie Song will present the first public presentation.
“What we're really tying to do is put the evidence out there so people can learn about the issues and make their own judgments,” Blazey said.
The report by the United Nation's IPCC warns that global warming is very likely caused by human behavior and will require international action to stem potentially devastating effects across the globe.
“The topic of global warming has had a history of being politically sensitive. We intend to examine the issues objectively and leave politics outside the door,” said Andrew Krmenec, chair of the Department of Geography.
“The extent of climate change that our planet has seen could have a component that is natural, but we also know without question that humans are having an impact,” he said. “We've known that for a long time. The key questions are: How much are we contributing to global warming and what can we do to counteract those impacts?”
Krmenec, whose department organized the series on climate change, said the presentations will be geared for high school students, college students and adults. “These presentations are intended for a non-science audience, so you won't need a degree in physics, chemistry, geology or geography to understand the information,” he said.
The presentations will be held on consecutive Thursdays, all from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Montgomery Hall Auditorium. In addition to the March 22 kickoff event, the schedule of presentations is as follows.
Krmenec added that the geography department intends to hold another series on global climate change sometime during the next academic year.
“There are many dimensions to this issue, including environmental ethics, economics and alternative energies,” he said. “As a public service, we want to continue with these presentations in the foreseeable future.”
For more information on the series, contact presentation organizer David Goldblum at dgoldblum@niu.edu or (815) 753-6839.
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DeKalb, Ill. — Heidi Kelly, a graduate student studying geography at Northern Illinois University, is working to advance her career from the ground up—quite literally.
Kelly's research on soil recently took top honors in a nationwide competition, earning for her a $500 travel scholarship to a major conference in Indianapolis, where she presented her findings to an international audience of scholars and professionals.
The 25-year-old Sycamore native beat out 30 other applicants in winning the scholarship from the Association of Women's Soil Scientists.
“This was no small feat,” said NIU Geology Professor Melissa Lenczewski, Kelly's co-adviser. “Heidi was competing against students from a number of major universities with large soil programs.”
More than 3,500 people from 50 countries attended the Nov. 12-16 conference, which brought together members of the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America and the Soil Science Society of America.
“I think her award says something about the quality of research that our students are doing,” said Geography Professor Michael Konen, who leads the soil science program at NIU and also is Kelly's co-adviser.
“Heidi is doing a lot of unique things with her research. She's been going to Argonne National Laboratory to work with scientists there and learn about new procedures they're using to examine microbes and pesticides,” Konen said.
Microbes are microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, which are commonly found in soil. Kelly's research examined the effects of agriculture on soil microbes. More specifically, she studied the ability of agricultural soil to break down Atrazine, a commonly used herbicide in corn crops that can migrate to groundwater.
“I looked at the ability of microbes to break down contaminants in different types of soil,” Kelly said. “Human activity is greatly altering the microbial communities, and we don't really know what the impact is. It hasn't been studied much.”
Kelly earned her bachelor's degree in biology at NIU and is on course to graduate in May with a master's degree in geography, with an emphasis in soil science. She hopes to land a job with an environmental firm or laboratory where she can continue her research on microbial communities.
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Just in time for the approaching winter, NIU's Department of Geography has launched a new weather-related Web site that features reams of local historical weather data as well as real-time conditions at locations on campus and in the DeKalb area.
The NIU Cooperative Weather Station Web site can be found at http://climate.niu.edu/ .
“We expect that this site will be interesting and useful to numerous audiences, including commuters, campus visitors, farmers, business owners and schools officials who have a need for current weather conditions or historical trends,” said Andrew Krmenec, geography chair.
NIU operates another weather Web site, www.weather.niu.edu , which provides current radar, weather bulletins, forecasts and more. Between the two sites, NIU faculty, staff and students who work to gather and produce the information have the weather virtually blanketed.
The new site features four weather stations that provide up-to-the-second information on temperature, humidity, wind chill, wind gusts and precipitation, along with sunset, sunrise, moonset and moonrise data. The stations are located at Stadium Drive and Annie Glidden Road, near First and Taylor streets, at the DeKalb Airport and at Peace Road and Route 23 in Sycamore.
“Since the Stadium Drive station is close to Huskie Stadium, we think it will be a valuable resource for sports fans trying to decide what to wear on game day,” Krmenec said.
The Web site was created to speed up the dissemination of climate and weather information that already was being collected by university meteorologists and students.
The National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Site permanently moved from Sycamore to NIU in 1966. Since 1993, students have compiled daily weather data and monthly climate information for the National Weather Service and nearly 100 other users in the community.
“Now users and other interested parties can simply log on to the Web site at their convenience to obtain historical records and current weather information,” said NIU Geography Professor Walker Ashley, who is manager of the Web site. “Since we have four weather stations, you can see how weather varies across the DeKalb region. Sometimes it can be quite substantial.”
Nine NIU meteorology students currently volunteer to gather the raw data.
“It's not only a service for the community but also a learning experience for the students,” Ashley added. “It's critical for them as meteorology students to learn where weather observations come from and how these raw data are collected.”
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Geography alum spots NIU-produced maps on display at Library of Congress in Washington
NIU alumnus Matthew Van Eck ('02) recently was reminded of the widespread influence of his alma mater during a visit to the Library of Congress in Washington , D.C.
Van Eck, who holds a degree in geography, naturally stopped by the new “Maps of our Lives” exhibition, where he spotted two maps produced by the NIU Cartography Lab. One satellite-image map depicts landscapes of northern Illinois, while the other map shows the Rockford mass transit system.
Van Eck said NIU is the only university to have two of its cartographic products featured in the exhibit, which will run through Jan. 7, 2007.
The cartographic section of “Maps in Our Lives” highlights more than 40 items
selected from the annual map design competition of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM). The exhibits demonstrate notable advances in cartographic interpretations, design and production during the last 22 years.
Van Eck is a certified Geographic Information Systems professional who works for Texas-based BDS Technologies. While at NIU, he won the ACSM's annual map design competition for students. That map, related to WWII bombing missions, is part of the Library of Congress collection.
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NIU announces 2004 recipients of SPS Presidential
Awards for Excellence
Four members of the Supportive Professional Staff (SPS) have
been chosen to receive the university’s Presidential Awards for Excellence.
The recipients are Shevawn Eaton, director of ACCESS; Len Lennergard, video production manager in Media Services; Judith Pokorny, assistant to the undergraduate director in the Department of English, and Phillip Young, research associate in the Department of Geography.
If you build it, Phil Young will map it.
Young, an NIU employee since 1993, designed and developed NIU’s new Campus Web Map, using software donated by Intergraph Corp.
He and his assistant, Rick Schwantes, spent scores of hours, including personal time, to develop databases, verify names and locations of campus features, conducting GPS surveying of recent campus construction and locating everything from doorways and emergency call boxes to bus stops and bike racks.
“The new Campus Web Map puts NIU at the forefront of providing accessibility and security information,” said Andrew J. Krmenec, chair of the Department of Geography.
“Phil’s vision for the institution and ability to see a unique application of modern technology to improve the university have resulted in a significant contribution to NIU,” Vice Provost Earl “Gip” Seaver said. “Clearly, our students, campus visitors and others will view NIU as an innovator and a friendlier place to navigate.”
Young maintains his department’s computers and manages the teaching labs. He has initiated and managed more than $1.5 million in contracts and grants, engaging more than 30 students for paid internships through these projects.
He also has provided pro bono services to the Northern Illinois Regional
Food Bank by developing poverty concentration maps and Food Bank location
maps.
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Geography professor receives NASA grant to study Martian valley networks
Wei Luo, an NIU professor of geography, is leading a new study that aims to shed light on whether cold, desolate Mars has a wet, warm history that might have been more hospitable to life.
Luo’s team is examining the Red Planet’s extensive dry river valley networks to determine whether they were shaped predominantly by flowing rivers or by the action of groundwater, a process of erosion known as groundwater sapping. The valley networks are located throughout the southern highlands of Mars.
“The topography of Mars holds secrets to the planet’s climate history dating back billions of years,” Luo said. “Determining how the valleys formed on the Martian surface will begin to unlock those secrets and have important implications in the study of whether the planet ever could have supported life.
“If surface runoff is the dominant erosion style on Mars, then it must point to an early warmer and wetter climate with an Earth-like hydrologic cycle, including rainfall,” Luo added. “On the other hand, if groundwater sapping is the dominant erosion style, the valley networks could have been formed under current climatic conditions, perhaps under a thick ice cover.”
NASA is funding Luo’s three-year, $187,000 research project, which begins this spring.
In a preliminary report two years ago, Luo concluded that the Martian topography in an area called Margaritifer Sinus displays features of groundwater sapping and to a lesser extent surface-water runoff.
“The different processes generally leave different shapes on the landscape,” Luo said. “The key question I want to answer this time is the relative importance of each process in forming the valley networks. My gut feeling is that Mars at one time had a climate that was Earth-like. If you look at images of Mars and the patterns of the valley networks, they look just like the dendritic drainage systems found on Earth.”
Luo, of DeKalb, earned his Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis nine years ago. His dissertation on landforms in Egypt ultimately led to his current project. “Many aspects of landforms on Mars are remarkably similar to the landforms found in Egypt’s western desert,” Luo said. “That’s how I got interested in Mars.”
Raymond Arvidson, Luo’s adviser at Washington University, also encouraged Luo’s study of the Red Planet. Arvidson has had a role in nearly every NASA Mars mission since the 1970s, and is deputy principal investigator for the current Mars rover mission.
He and Alan Howard of the University of Virginia are collaborating with Luo in the study of Mars’ valley networks.
Under current atmospheric and climatic conditions, liquid water is unstable on the Martian surface, meaning that it either would freeze or evaporate almost immediately. NASA discovered ice at the planet’s south pole in 2002. This year, the rover mission has confirmed that water existed in a liquid form at one time on the Martian surface.
Luo’s research project will use Geographic Information Systems (GIS), high-resolution satellite imagery and computer simulations to examine valley network basins located in a wide range of latitudes and elevations. The relative importance of surface water, groundwater and impact cratering (from large meteoroids, asteroids or comets) in forming each basin will be determined. The study also will attempt to measure the secondary effects of wind, gravity and volcanic lava flow in modifying the valley network forms.
“My preliminary study didn’t consider impact cratering, which is another important process on Mars,” Luo said. “This time around, we’re using information from the topography of the moon to get the landform signature resulting from that specific process. The lunar landscape is pure craters. Our planet also was impacted by cratering, but because of rapid recycling of the crust through plate tectonics, most of Earth’s craters have been destroyed.”
By quantifying the surface characteristics, coupled with the computer simulation and image analyses, the researchers can infer past processes and thus past climatic conditions. Their study also could be useful to NASA for the selection of future landing sites, because the results will suggest where deposits generated by surface water or groundwater will most likely be found.
If the scientists conclude that surface water was plentiful on the Red Planet,
then that does not necessarily mean that life existed there. “The presence
of water is one necessary condition, but it’s not sufficient to say
there was life,” Luo said. “That’s one of the motivations
for sending astronauts to Mars.”
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Campus Web Map wins award-
The leader of NIU’s Campus Web Map initiative has taken home a prize for his work.
Phil Young, a research scientist in geography, won second place in the International GeoMedia Best Practices Competition, a contest that draws entries from university educators worldwide displaying their best uses of geographic information systems (GIS) software. The prize was based on Young’s work on the interactive Campus Map, which debuted in January.
Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions, an industry-leading geospatial
solutions provider, sponsored the competition. Young will pick up his award
and make a presentation on his contest entry during the GeoSpatial World 2004
convention to be held next month in Miami.
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Click and you’re virtually there -
New interactive Campus Web Map gives lay of the land — and then some
NIU is unveiling its interactive Campus Web Map, a sophisticated tool that allows users to create custom maps and quickly locate campus features, from buildings to bicycle racks.
Produced by the Department of Geography’s Advanced Geospatial Laboratory (see related story) as a service to the NIU community, the Campus Web Map can be accessed from the NIU Home Page or directly at www.webmap.niu.edu.
“This is one of the most advanced Web-based campus maps in the country,” said Phil Young, a research scientist in the Department of Geography. Young spent 11 months leading the mapping initiative. His project team included research associate Rick Schwantes and NIU students Martin Arnold and Catherine Schwantes.
“Map users virtually have the campus at their fingertips,” Young said. “We think the map will be an incredibly useful resource for faculty, students and visitors to campus.”
The map enables users to quickly identify buildings, bus stops, bus routes, construction zones, parking lots by permit type, handicapped-accessible parking areas and even points of interest. Click on a building and its picture pops up.
A tool bar across the top of the Web site provides a variety of other useful functions.
A map user can highlight, zoom to and print out a custom map of a specific area on campus. It’s also easy to pan across campus, find latitude-longitude coordinates for a given point, or measure distances between two locations and estimate walking time. A query option enables searches for specific offices, departments, buildings, colleges or laboratories equipped with information technology services.
“The Campus Web Map brings a dynamic and interactive element to the maps of the NIU campus,” said Andrew Krmenec, geography chair. “It incorporates a wealth of information that makes our big campus a more livable place.”
The map is a work in progress, so new features will be added over time. By the spring, the Campus Web Map will be linked to course registration so that students can print out maps highlighting the locations of their classes.
“New students often come to campus on the first day of a semester not knowing exactly where their classrooms are located,” said Don Larson, university registrar and executive director of Enrollment Services. “We’ve wanted to provide them with a map such as this for a long time.”
Larson said he also hopes to use the Campus Web Map to help students identify distance conflicts. “This is a little more complicated, but we want to be able to automatically alert students during registration to situations where the estimated walking time between two classes exceeds 10 minutes,” he said.
Vice Provost Earl Seaver said faculty and students should familiarize themselves with the capabilities of the Campus Web Map.
“This is all about making campus more student-friendly, more faculty-friendly
and more visitor-friendly,” Seaver said. “We anticipate that the
map will be exceedingly popular. There’s a lot we'd like to do with
it in the future, and we’re open to suggestions.”
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NIU Research Scientist Lands Award from Intergraph
NIU research scientist Phil Young of DeKalb has won third place in the International GeoMedia Best Practices Competition, a contest that drew entries from university educators worldwide displaying their best uses of geographic information systems (GIS) software.
Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions, an industry-leading geospatial solutions provider, sponsored the competition. Young will pick up his award and make a presentation on his contest entry during the GeoSpatial World 2003 convention in New Orleans from May 19 to 21.
Educators were invited to submit entries illustrating practical training and application of GIS-related programs in the classroom. Young submitted an educational primer he developed for introducing students to the field of GIS.
Earlier this year, Intergraph awarded NIU a GeoMedia Education Grant for software and designated the university as a "Team GeoMedia Registered Research Laboratory."
Intergraph's grant award, which also included technical support and accompanying
licensing agreements, is valued at more than $900,000. The Huntsville, Ala.-based
company has collaborated with NIU since 1995.
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NIU Department of Geography Partners with Northern Illinois Food Bank
DeKalb, Ill.-In order to erase hunger from the map, the Northern Illinois Food Bank first needed, well, a map.
So when the food bank set out recently to identify population pockets of greatest hunger need, it turned to Northern Illinois University mapping experts for help. Cartographer Lenny Walther and research scientist Phil Young, both faculty in NIU's Department of Geography, volunteered to create a map illustrating varying hunger needs by township in the northern Illinois region.
The completed map allows food bank planners to quickly identify the proximity of pantries and distribution sites to needy areas.
"We sometimes fail to recognize the value of resources that are so close to us and willing to help," said H. Dennis Smith, Northern Illinois Food Bank executive director. "I'm glad we asked for help and NIU responded because together we will make a difference in helping the hungry."
Northern Illinois Food Bank, based in St. Charles, serves a 12-county region. Smith said the food bank wanted to be able to quickly visualize the location and concentration of populations living at or near the poverty level. The U.S. Census Bureau makes that data available.
The government puts the poverty level for a family of four at $18,200, Smith said. But given cost of living expenses in the region, the food bank considers those at risk of being hungry to be at or below 150 percent of the poverty level, or $27,300 for a family of four.
The map illustrates that even wealthy areas such as DuPage County can have significant at-risk populations. DuPage has more than 16,000 families at or near the poverty level, Smith said. That compares to 1,000 families in DeKalb County.
"The mapping ultimately will help us create a better-rounded network of assistance to hungry people," Smith said. "It will help us determine where we need more distribution centers or food pantries. Our goal is to have food within an easy reach of anyone who might be in need."
The university first aided Northern Illinois Food Bank more than a year ago when the geography department created a map identifying the location of Food Pantries served by the Food Bank. The partnership expanded when Food Bank VISTA Volunteer Kathy Taylor of Sycamore sought help in illustrating the Census Poverty Data on a map of the region.
"Our primary job is educating students, but the university also is quite committed to outreach," said NIU's Walther, adding that an upper-level geography student is beginning a new project for the food bank.
"Sometimes we can incorporate work for non-profit organizations into student research," Walther said. For example, geography students and faculty created detailed maps using geographic information systems for the Carroll County tax assessor. Students also have created maps or prototypes for events in the region.
"Working with the food bank presents a great opportunity for students,"
Walther added. "It provides them with real-world experiences."
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February 3, 2003
Intergraph Awards Education Grant, Boosts
NIU Research Technology
DeKalb, Ill.-Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions-a worldwide industry-leading
geospatial solutions provider -is making cutting-edge mapping and geographic
information systems (GIS) software available to the NIU Department of Geography.
Intergraph recently awarded the university a GeoMedia Education Grant for the software and designated NIU as a "Team GeoMedia Registered Research Laboratory." The Huntsville, Alabama-based company has collaborated with NIU since 1995.
The Intergraph Team GeoMedia Registered Research Laboratory program provides students, educators and researchers with the leading-edge technology and development support needed for applied research activities. In return, the geography department's Advanced Geospatial Laboratory is required to conduct two research projects a year using Intergraph technology.
Intergraph's award of GIS software, technical support and accompanying licensing agreements is valued at more than $900,000, according to Phil Young, an NIU research scientist in geography and Intergraph GIS project director. The software donation includes multiple licenses of GeoMedia, GeoMedia WebMap Professional, GeoMedia Grid, SMMS for GeoMedia, GeoMedia Terrain, and IntelliWhere OnDemand, plus a license for IntelliWhere LocationServer and unlimited licenses of GeoMedia Professional.
The licenses are university-wide, Young said. That means any faculty or students can use the software for research. (For more information, contact the geography department at 753-0633.)
Northern's geography program is uniquely equipped and staffed to provide students with expertise in creating detailed electronic maps with GIS technology. The maps can provide hundreds of details at the click of a mouse-from property tax records to locations of utility easements to information on topography and soil conditions. NIU geography faculty and students created such a map for the tax assessor in Carroll County, located in northwestern Illinois.
Young said the geography department's Advanced Geospatial Laboratory is now working on a detailed "automated campus map." The computerized mapping project should be completed by late next fall.
"We're really excited about this project," Young said. "We'll have an overhead shot of the university showing buildings, greenways, sidewalks, street names and other features. Map users will be able to click on any building to get information about what's inside. The map will also have a query bar that will allow users to ask questions. For example, you could ask to identify all the places on campus that have food, or to identify all computer labs. It's going to be a great asset."
About 170 graduate and undergraduate students at NIU major in geography, but students in other academic areas also stand to benefit from the partnership with Intergraph. NIU's Department of Geography offers a certificate in GIS studies that attracts students from all disciplines.
About Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions
Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions is a leading geospatial solutions
provider for the following markets: local, state, and federal government;
transportation; utilities; communications; location-based services; photogrammetry;
remote sensing; cartography; and military and intelligence. For more information,
visit www.intergraph.com
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August 14,2002
NIU Researcher: It's Not The Summer Heat
But The Humidity
DeKalb, Ill.- A study by Northern Illinois University climatologist David Changnon indicates the Chicago region is more apt now than in decades past to experience heat waves accompanied by extreme and dangerous spikes in humidity. And a familiar crop with a propensity to sweat day and night could be at the root of the problem.
"Our research findings at NIU suggest that a new, more dangerous breed of heat wave has become established in northeastern Illinois," said David Changnon, a climatologist and NIU professor of meteorology.
"Heat waves today are different than they were a half century ago because they are more frequently accompanied by extreme spikes in humidity," Changnon said. "I strongly suspect that changes in agricultural methods - particularly in the area of corn production - are playing a major role in this by adding more water vapor to the lower atmosphere of the Upper Midwest."
All plants transpire, that is, release water vapor into the atmosphere through their leaves. Corn is unique in that it belongs to a family of plants that transpire, or sweat, both day and night. "Stand in any cornfield and you can feel the increased humidity," Changnon said.
He points out that average corn yields in Illinois have increased from about 50 bushels per acre in 1950 to more than 130 bushels per acre in 2000. Planting densities climbed dramatically as well, from about 18,000 seeds per acre to nearly 30,000 seeds per acre during the 1970s, when farmers started planting crop rows closer together.
"Overall, the amount of water transpired to the atmosphere in our region is greater today than it was a half century ago just based on changes in agricultural practices and corn production," Changnon said. "More plants and greater yields per acre imply an increased need for and use of water by corn.
"I'm not knocking the agricultural industry-corn and other crops are absolutely vital to our region, our nation and the world," Changnon added. "These higher dew points represent a product of a complex agricultural process. We don't want to go backward in terms of production techniques, but we need to investigate and deal with the impacts related to what appears to be a significant factor in the regional climate of the Midwest."
Changnon increasingly began to suspect a link between agricultural production and humidity after he and two graduate student researchers - Jesse Sparks of downstate Newton and Jason Starke of suburban Buffalo Grove - studied historical trends in northeast Illinois dew-point values. The results of that study are published in the August edition of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Applied Meteorology. The American Meteorological Society (www.ametsoc.org) is the nation's leading professional society for scientists in the atmospheric and related sciences.
The dew point is the temperature at which condensation begins, and dew-point measurements provide an indication of how much water vapor is in the air.
Initially, the study was undertaken in response to concerns of NIU's physical plant supervisor, who saw a relationship between dew points and the efficiency of the campus cooling system. But while extreme hot and humid weather can take its toll on air-conditioning systems and increase electrical demand, it also can be deadly.
The northern Illinois heat waves of 1995 and 1999 claimed hundreds of lives. Previous studies have noted that both high air temperatures and high dew points characterized those hot spells. "The higher the dew-point value the more difficult it is for the body to cool itself through evaporation from the skin," Changnon said.
Changnon and his students analyzed hourly dew-point readings recorded from 1959 to 2000 at Chicago's O'Hare Airport and Rockford Airport. The top four high dew-point frequency years were 1983, 1987, 1995 and 1999.
Analysis of the 10 most extreme heat waves in the region further showed that the number of high dew-point hours was much greater after 1980. Additionally, the researchers discovered that over the 42-year period they studied, three different dew-point indices at both airports showed general increases over time. Those indices include:
Hours per summer with high dew points reaching or exceeding 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
Summer days with at least one hour of high dew point.
Summer days with 12 or more hours of high dew points.
"Dew points that exceed 75 degrees Fahrenheit are considered rare in most regions of the United States, the exception being the Gulf Coast," Changnon noted.
The Gulf of Mexico does play a large role in humidity levels in northeast Illinois. Normally during the summer, tropical air masses originating in the Gulf of Mexico move into and remain in the Midwest for days or weeks at a time. Since that source of water vapor hasn't changed over time, Changnon ruled out the Gulf as being the source for the growing frequency in high humidity levels. He also noted that during the 1995 and 1999 heat waves, the dew-point levels were greater in the Upper Midwest than in those areas between the Midwest and the Gulf Coast.
Changnon also ruled out urban heat island effect as
a primary cause of humidity spikes because similar trends were identified
at both the suburban O'Hare weather station and the rural Rockford site.
For transpiration to occur at levels that cause such high dew points, crops
such as corn and soybeans must have access to sufficient soil moisture. Over
the past 100 years, precipitation in the Midwest has increased, Changnon said.
He said the link between adequate soil moisture, increased transpiration and a greater number of high dew points was evident in the 1995 and 1999 heat events, which were preceded by average to above average precipitation across northern Illinois.
"In contrast, the heat wave of 1988 was accompanied
by a drought," Changnon said. "Corn
yields dropped by nearly 50 percent. And although it was an extremely hot
summer, with Chicago experiencing temperatures of 90 degrees or greater on
more than 40 days, very few high dew points occurred."
Contact: Tom Parisi, Office of Public Affairs (815) 753-3635
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Graduate Student's Research Recognized in International
Competition
DeKalb, Ill.- Northern Illinois University graduate
student Russ Bigley has won second place in an international competition for
creative use of geographic information systems (GIS) software.
Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions, a Fortune 1,000 company based in Huntsville,
Ala., sponsored the worldwide poster contest, open to students in universities,
technical schools and distance learning programs.
Bigley, a Nebraska native who now lives in De Kalb,
was the only U.S. student recognized in the university-level division of the
competition. Other winners in his category were from Germany and Malaysia.
The competition recognized outstanding innovation and technology excellence
in the classroom. Students were invited to display their creative use of GIS
software by submitting a poster. Projects used Intergraph technology.
Bigley will present his poster at Intergraph's "Geospatial World 2002," an international training and management conference to be held June 10-12 in Atlanta. Bigley's poster project reflects NIU research he did for Del Monte Foods Company. He uses meteorological data and GIS to predict the spread of soybean aphids in commercial crops. Soybean aphids can spread disease and devastate crops.
"This award is a great accomplishment for Russ," said Andrew Krmenec, chair of the NIU Department of Geography. "The competition is rigorous, and the judges look for creative and cutting-edge approaches in the geographic sciences.
"At NIU, we believe it's important for our students to make a connection between their research and the real world," Krmenec added. "And Russ's work demonstrates how our student researchers are able to make contributions to solving real-world problems."
Bigley's second-place award includes complimentary registration to the Geospatial World conference, recognition on stage and a cash prize of $350. Bigley earned his bachelor's degree in meteorology from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and worked in the private sector before deciding to pursue a graduate degree in geography at NIU. Bigley said he chose NIU to work with Professor David Changnon, a noted expert in applied climatology.
"Applied climatology is an exciting, expanding
field," Bigley said. "New technologies allow us to apply our climate
and weather knowledge in ways that can benefit our economy, industry and society."
NIU's geography and meteorology programs are uniquely equipped and staffed
to provide students with expertise in creating detailed electronic maps with
GIS technology. The maps can provide hundreds of geographic details, from
topography to soil conditions, at the click of a mouse.
Intergraph is the world's leading producer of GIS software.
The company has designated NIU as an "Intergraph Mapping/GIS Center of
Excellence." The honor is extended to only a handful of geography programs
nationwide.
Contact: Tom Parisi, Office of Public Affairs (815) 753-3635
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Researchers Track Illinois Storm Damage to Crops Via NASA Satellite
Researchers say they used data produced by a NASA satellite orbiting more than 400 miles above the earth to estimate the cost of crop damage from hail and wind storms that swept through west-central Illinois, the heart of America's farmlands.
"This could become the preferred method for assessing crop destruction from any natural or man-made disaster," said Mace Bentley, lead author of a study on the satellite assessment technique.
The study is published on the cover of the March Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Bentley is a meteorology professor in the Department of Geography at Northern Illinois University.
Bentley said imagery produced from the satellite data found significant damage that went undetected by traditional means of assessment. Bentley and University of Georgia researchers Thomas Mote and Paporn Thebpanya used data produced by the U.S. satellite known as Landsat 7, which acquires high-resolution images of the earth's land surface.
Each year more than 20,000 thunderstorms erupt in the United States, causing between $1 billion to $3 billion in property and agricultural losses. Many of the most damaging thunderstorms with extensive winds and hail are concentrated in the country's central plains and Corn Belt regions and occur during the late spring and summer months, the primary growing season.
"You're definitely going to see Landsat data used more and more often to assess damage not only from thunderstorms but also from tornadoes, brush fires and any other disaster that destroys vegetation," Bentley said.
"Spatial mapping of agricultural damage could be used by farmers, insurance companies and even meteorologists examining storm formation and downburst potential," he added. "Combining this technology with radar would help meteorologists identify and be able to recognize storm features that produce the greatest amounts of damage. As advances in satellite remote sensing continue, there is also evidence that these techniques could prove useful for damage assessment in urban and suburban areas as well. Additionally, storm damage assessment using satellite data gives us global coverage."
Bentley said the satellite-produced imagery has distinct advantages over standard methods of storm-damage assessment, which typically consist of drive-by observations or occasional aerial photography. Those methods are particularly inadequate when trying to estimate the number of acres damaged, Bentley said. "Using data from the Landsat 7 represents a superior method of identifying actual acres that sustain damage," he said.
Landsat 7 data can be used to measure differences in ground reflectance among different land-surface types.The satellite can detect chlorophyll absorption in vegetation and will identify changes in ground reflectance once crops have been destroyed-or within a week to 10 days after a storm, Bentley said. With the launch of Landsat 7 in 1999, the cost of acquiring data has dropped significantly, he added.
The researchers specifically examined two wind and hail storms that rolled through a total of 14 counties in the corn- and soybean-rich region of west-central Illinois on Aug. 12 and Aug. 18 of 1999. The researchers compared data from July 12 (before the storms) and Aug. 28 (after the storms) to determine damage extent.
The major storm on Aug. 12, destroyed thousands of acres of corn across the area, causing more than $53 million in crop damage in eight counties, according to estimates published in Storm Data, a monthly publication produced by the National Climatic Data Center. A second series of storms six days later caused an additional $4 million in hail damage to corn and soybeans.
In comparison, Landsat 7 data detected more than $100 million in damage from the two storms. However, due to prevailing soft-soil conditions and the ability of farmers to modify harvesting equipment to salvage blown-down crops, actual losses were only a fraction of that.
"Conditions were just right to make the crops
salvageable, something we couldn't determine from the satellite imagery alone,"
Bentley said, adding that the case study points to one limitation of using
the satellite data.
"It's much easier to determine hail damage than wind damage," he
said. "That's not real surprising because large hail pulverizes crops.
Wind, on the other hand, may simply blow the crops over. Sometimes portions
remain rooted and still survive, though less productive and more difficult
to harvest.
"Satellite images sometimes show a different picture than the actual storm reports," Bentley added. "By combining the old-fashioned methods of storm-damage assessment with the high-tech imagery, we can get more accurate readings of crop damage. And when we're talking about millions of dollars in potential losses, that's good news for farmers and insurance companies."
Illinois counties studied in the analysis were Adams, Brown, Cass, Fulton, Hancock, Logan, Mason, McDonough, Menard, Morgan, Pike, Sangamon, Schuyler and Scott.
The American Meteorological Society (http://www.ametsoc.org/ams)
is the nation's leading professional society for scientists in the atmospheric
and related sciences.
Contact: Tom Parisi, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-3635
Stephanie Kenitzer, AMS press office
(425) 432-2192
A joint announcement from the American Meteorological Society
and Northern Illinois University
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NIU Cartography Lab Wins Award for Watershed Map
Northern Illinois University's Laboratory for Cartography and Spatial Analysis (Department of Geography) produced a Des Plaines River watershed map that received the annual Public Information Award for education on wetlands and flooding.
Awarded this month by the Illinois Association for Floodplain and Stormwater Management, the map was presented to the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission as one component of a wetlands public education program.
"The map is a unique product as the entire watershed,
from headwaters to its lowest reaches, has been mapped," NIU Production
Cartographer Len Walther said.
The map was part of the Wetlands College Project, and received the award based
on the whole watershed focus.
Walther, of Aurora, Ill., said, "Usually the award is given to a journalist who writes about wetlands education and flooding. This is the first time they have gone outside of journalism."
The map was distributed to local communities and also
to schools in the Lake Country area.
Contact: Lesli Groth, Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-0234
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NIU Department of Geography Selected as 1 OF 6 'CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE' Nationwide
DE KALB, Ill.-Northern Illinois University is once
again on the map for excellence.
Intergraph-a Huntsville, Alabama-based Fortune 1000 company and worldwide
industry leader in computerized mapping and geographic information systems
(GIS)-has renewed its designation of NIU as an "Intergraph Mapping/GIS
Center of Excellence."
To date, the company has extended the honor to only six university geography programs from among its more than 1,800 partner schools.
Intergraph, which also has offices in Arlington Heights, is the world's leading producer of geographic information systems (GIS) software. Under a three-year agreement that accompanies the Center of Excellence designation, Intergraph will provide NIU with the most sophisticated GIS software on the market and unlimited technical support. The value of this most recent gift is expected to exceed $100,000, making Intergraph one of NIU's most recognized partners.
"The continuation of the Intergraph Mapping/GIS Center of Excellence designation for Northern Illinois University is in recognition of the tremendous accomplishments by the faculty and staff in providing their students with an outstanding program," said Susan Nolen, Executive Manager of the Intergraph Program for Schools. "NIU continues to deliver to the market quality graduates that go on to become highly sought after decision-makers and technology experts."
Among geography programs in the country, Northern is uniquely equipped and staffed to provide students with expertise in creating detailed electronic maps with GIS technology. The maps can provide hundreds of details at the click of a mouse-from property tax records to locations of utility easements to information on topography and soil conditions.
Intergraph has had a long and productive relationship with NIU's Department of Geography, said Andrew Krmenec, geography chair.
"Having Intergraph here on campus is very important to the success of our programs and to the successes of our students in the workforce," he said. "We are impressed not just by their products or commitment to Centers of Excellence, but by their overall commitment to geography and geographic literacy in all educational curricula-from kindergarten to college.
"Everyone wins in this collaboration," added Phil Young, an NIU research scientist in geography who spearheaded efforts toward renewal of the Intergraph partnership. "Most of all, the partnership benefits our students. When they go out into the workforce, they will have the most current and up-to-date software expertise as a tool for their employment."
Nearly 300 graduate and undergraduate students at NIU major in geography, but students in other academic areas also benefit from the partnership with Intergraph. NIU offers a certificate in GIS studies that attracts students from all disciplines.
NIU faculty members also use GIS technology in their research, with projects ranging from mapping for local governments to analyses of plots of farmland for development suitability.
"The partnership with Intergraph helps strengthen Northern's contribution to the region," said Frederick Kitterle, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "We're benefiting people in the region, because the work that we're doing influences their quality of life."
Contact: Tom Parisi, NIU Public Affairs
(815) 753-3635
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