Kansas State University

Geography faculty and students present at national conference

Submitted by Chuck Martin

Faculty members and graduate and undergraduate students from the geography department participated in the annual American Association of Geographers meeting, April 5-9, in Boston, Massachusetts. The meetings are the largest annual gathering of professional geographers in North America.

The following faculty members and students made presentations at the meetings: 

• Karl F. Bauer, graduate student, and Max Lu, professor, presented "Recent Trends in Rural Population Change in the Great Plains." 

• Mitchell Braget, graduate student; Douglas Goodin, professor; and Jida Wang, assistant professor, presented "A Novel Approach to Mapping Flooding Extent in the Chobe River Basin from 2014 to 2016 Using a Spectral Library of Values." 

• Matthew Brooks, graduate student, presented "Countering Depopulation in Kansas: Understanding Perceptions of Rural Life and the Effectiveness of the Rural Opportunity Zone Program." 

• Subarna Chatterjee, graduate student, presented "Lightning Related Casualties in Bangladesh in 2016." 

• Ming Ding, graduate student; Wang; Takuto Urano, and Colin Bailey, both undergraduate students; Blake Walter, graduate student; and colleagues C. Song, Y. Sheng, and P. Satori presented "Considering Water Quality in Global Lake Inventory: Freshwater or Saline?" 

• Goodin also presented "Vegetation Index Dynamics and Human Disturbance in Tallgrass Prairie: Analysis Using Permutation Entropy." 

• Gabriel Granco, graduate student; Marcellus Caldas, associate professor; and colleague P. De Marco Jr. presented "Climate Change and Land Use Politics: The Brazilian Sugarcane Zoning Policy." 

• John A. Harrington Jr., professor, presented "The Climate Specialty Group:  A Look Back." 

• J.M. Shawn Hutchinson, associate professor, and Austin R. Braget, graduate student, presented "Time Series Analysis of Phenometrics and Long-Term Vegetation Trends for the Flint Hills Ecoregion using Moderate Resolution Satellite Imagery." 

• Audrey Joslin, assistant professor, presented "From the City to the Countryside: Transitioning  Water Fund PES in Ecuador's Andes." 

• Lu also presented "The Scaling Relationship between Urban Population and Area in China." 

• Charles W. Martin, professor, presented "Trace Metal Concentrations along Tributary Streams Draining Historically Mined Areas, Lahn and Dill River Basins, Central Germany." 

• Kendra K. McLauchlan, associate professor, and colleagues L. Gerhart, J. Battles, J. Craine, A. Elmore, P. Higuera, M. Mack, B. McNeil, D. Nelson, N. Pederson, and S. Perakis presented "Centennial-Scale Reductions in Nitrogen Availability in Temperate Forests of the United States." 

• Kathy Sulianling Mulcahy, graduate student; Hutchinson, and colleague N. Bloedow presented "Improving Climate Visualizations to Motivate Consideration of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies by Kansas Agricultural Producers." 

• Bimal K. Paul, professor; Kabita Ghimire, graduate student; and colleague B. Acharya presented "Effectiveness of Earthquakes Relief Efforts in Nepal: Opinions of the Survivors." 

• Avantika Ramekar, graduate student, presented "Social Impacts of Oil and Natural Gas Industry in Rural Kansas: A Preliminary Field Assessment."

• Arnaud J. Temme, associate professor, presented "Reconciling the Robustness of Mathematical Models with the Complexity of Real, Historical Landscapes." 

• Walter also presented "Enhanced Spatial Inventory of Artificial Water Impoundments in North America." 

• Wang; Fangfang Yao, graduate student; Walter; Urano; Meng Ding, graduate student; Bailey; and colleagues C. Song and Y. Sheng presented "Global Surface Water Storage in the New Millennium: Dynamics, Implications, and Challenges." 

Yao; Wang; Urano; and colleague C. Song presented "Recent Dynamics of Global Lake Water Storage Revealed by Remote Sensing and Gauging Observations."

The following faculty members and graduate students in the geography department served as discussants, chairs, or organizers for panels or sessions at the conference: 

• Harrington Jr., organizer for "Climate Specialty Group John Russell Mathew Paper of the Year Presentation," organizer and chair for "Place and Region in Geography Education," and discussant for "From Appalachia to Ogallala: Honoring Stephen (Steve) E. White."

• Lisa M.B. Harrington, professor, discussant for "From Appalachia to Ogallala: Honoring Stephen (Steve) E. White."

• Hutchinson, chair and organizer for "Advances in Remote Sensing and Statistical Techniques for Detecting Anthropogenic Impacts in Grassland Ecosystems."

• Thomas Larsen, graduate student, organizer and panelist for "Place and Region in Geography Education" and panelist for "Transformative Research in Geography Education."

• Lu, chair and organizer for "Chinese Urban Growth: New Characteristics and Trends" and organizer for "From Appalachia to Ogallala: Honoring Stephen (Steve) E. White."

• Richard A. Marston, professor emeritus, chair for "AAG Physical Geography Symposium Session 5: Climate Histories and Paleoecologies," panelist for "Publications and Peer Review in Physical Geography" and "Mainstreaming Human Rights in Geomorphology and Water Resources," discussant for "From Appalachia to Ogallala: Honoring Stephen (Steve) E. White."

• Martin, chair for "From Appalachia to Ogallala: Honoring Stephen (Steve) E. White."

• Mulcahy, chair for "Agriculture, Climate, and the Environment."

• Paul, organizer for "Hazards, Disasters, and Human Dimensions in the Context of South Asia" and "Human-Environment Interactions and Adaptations to Climate Change in the Context of Bangladesh."

• Wang, chair and organizer for "Integrative Approaches to Monitoring and Understanding Large-Scale Hydrological Systems."