Sustainability
Water flowing into an individual's hands

Leading the Way in Sustainability

Working toward a more sustainable future in water, air, energy, soil, climate change, biodiversity and community resilience.

Building a Sustainable Future for Generations to Come

As a next-generation land-grant university, Kansas State University is focused on the future. And this means we are committed to finding ways that preserve and protect natural resources and our environment, both for humananity and for the wide range of biodiversity that calls our planet home. Our researchers are working on critical issues like water and resource management, the conservation and restoration of our planet's biodiversity and ecology and more. With a sharp focus on our natural environment, we are poised to protect it for generations to come.

USAID selects K-State for multimillion-dollar project on climate resilience and sustainable intensification of agriculture

A multimillion-dollar award from the U.S. Agency for International Development will support work by researchers on multiple continents to make agriculture more resilient to varying management practices, climates and extreme weather events.

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K-State scientists tackle Kansas water challenges to preserve a liquid lifeline

In the history of humankind, no resource has been as significant as water — the namesake and lifeblood of the Blue Planet. It holds the memories of our past and the hope for our future.

Researchers at Kansas State University — in individual projects and in collaboration with the Kansas Water Institute — are working to ensure water quality, recommend climate-smart practices and prevent water loss so it remains a reliable resource.

It’s research with profound implications for families, food and the future, and interdisciplinary teams of K-State experts are leading the way.

We can’t live without water. But what happens when the water we drink to survive gets contaminated, and the resource threatens our health?

K-State geologists Matthew Kirk and Karin Goldberg, both in the College of Arts and Sciences, are testing domestic well water in Kansas for nitrate levels that could lead to health complications if left untreated.

Kirk said high nitrate levels in drinking water can cause infant mortality, birth defects and cancer. His team has sampled 90 wells in south-central Kansas since 2020. Half of them have had nitrate above the standard for clean water as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.

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Experts in Focus
Matthew KirkMatthew Kirk, associate professor of geology at Kansas State University, leads the NSF-funded Kansas Groundwater Geopaths program (2023-2025), which provides undergraduate students at K-State and Barton and Dodge City Community Colleges with funded geoscience research experiences through groundwater quality monitoring in Kansas rural domestic water wells. Learn more and apply on the Kansas Groundwater Geopaths website.

Kirk's research group carries out hydrogeology and geomicrobiology research primarily focused on groundwater. Recent projects consider water quality in the Great Bend Prairie aquifer, groundwater-surface water interactions across the Kansas precipitation gradient, the fate of carbon dioxide generated in soils at Konza Prairie, and geochemical controls on interactions between anaerobic microorganisms.


Karin GoldbergKarin Goldberg, K-State associate professor in geology, teaches historical geology, sedimentology and stratigraphy, principles of paleontology, geologic record of climate change and petroleum geology. In her research, she integrates different analytical methods to address a variety of geological issues in sedimentary geology, and her main interests are on basin analysis, energy and medical geology.

 

Kansas Water Institute

Elevating water to a university-level priority represents the opportunity and imperative to bring our resources and expertise together in a way that tackles our water resource challenges in more impactful ways.

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Where the bison roam: K-State biologists are protecting and preserving the American buffalo and its prairie home

BisonThis used to be their home.

Before European colonization and before the Kansas State Agricultural College was founded as the nation’s first operational land-grant institution, bison were both the most widespread and the most abundant large animal in North America. But they were nearly driven to extinction.

By the time the Kansas Legislature renamed the college Kansas State University in 1959, bison hadn’t lived in the area for almost a century.

Then they returned.

The Konza Prairie Biological Station, an 8,600-acre native tallgrass prairie, has been a site for long-term ecological research, education and prairie conservation since 1971. In 1987, bison were reintroduced to the Konza Prairie, and have been part of the station’s ecological research program ever since.

K-State researchers are working to understand how the large, widespread animal affected the prairie ecosystem — when they were common, after they were nearly eradicated and now that the bison are returning, albeit in smaller numbers.

They’re working to preserve a prairie home for the bison to forever roam.

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Experts in Focus

Zak Ratajczak Zak Ratajczak, assistant professor of biology
Community Ecology; Fire, Grasslands & Savannas; Resilience Theory
Allison Louthan Allison Louthan, assistant professor of biology
Population biology; Community ecology
Eva Horne Eva Horne, teaching professor of biology and assistant director of the Konza Prairie Biological Station
Behavioral Ecology
Alice Boyle Alice Boyle, professor of biology
Behavioral, evolutionary, and physiological ecology; Basic and applied ornithology; Migration, dispersal, and life history
Walter Dodds Walter Dodds, university distinguished professor of biology
Water quality; Nutrient cycling; Nutrient criteria; Value of water; Nitrogen cycling

 

Konza Prairie Biological Station

Konza Prairie Biological Station (KPBS) is a 3,487 hectare native tallgrass prairie preserve jointly owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University. Put another way, the Konza is the state's only 8,000-acre laboratory.

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K-State has a new spot to power up electric cars, and engineering students led the charge

A new solar-powered EV charging station at K-State was designed and engineered by construction science and architectural engineering students in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering.

As part of an undergraduate research project, several K-State students from the past few graduating classes of the GE Johnson Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science have been working on a design for a cost-efficient, scalable and replicable campus EV charging station.

It’s hands-on, applied learning at its best — with students having worked through the iterative design, construction and collaboration process.

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Expert in Focus


Shannon CasebeerShannon Casebeer serves as an associate professor in K-State's GE Johnson Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science.

Casebeer’s research areas have involved exploration into the use of common recyclable household consumer waste plastics to create new construction materials.

His latest research efforts have involved using undergraduate student teams to engage in creative inquiry projects for public and private industry clients that provided students the opportunity to experience the practical application of preconstruction services and employ value engineering strategies.