Rob neff - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Rob neff
The Professional Geographer
If human‐environment geography is central to the discipline, then human‐environment courses shoul... more If human‐environment geography is central to the discipline, then human‐environment courses should be a sizable segment of the undergraduate curriculum. Undergraduate educational offerings are inadequate, however, meaning that geography departments are shortchanging their majors, missing opportunities to attract and inform the general student body, and failing to meet the needs of future K–12 educators. Unless geography provides satisfactory human‐environment education, it will likely have much less impact on twenty‐first‐century environmental science.
This paper was written as part of the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program.... more This paper was written as part of the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program. The Program seeks to foster the design and evaluation of strategies with which the next generation of national and international global environmental change programs might more effectively integrate and support its research, assessment and decision support activities. In particular, we intend to catalyze and contribute to four interrelated lines of work: 1) broadening the science-defined agenda for studying global environmental change to engage more explicitly the socially defined agenda for sustainable development; 2) exploring the long-term trends in nature and society that serve as currents which can be used to navigate towards a sustainability transition; 3) deepening a place-based, integrated understanding of social and ecological vulnerability to global change; and 4) exploring the design and management of systems that can better integrate research, assessment and decision support...
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet, 2009
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet, 2009
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet
ABSTRACT The Geographical Bulletin 47(2): 65-72 ©2006 by Gamma Theta Upsilon HERO ANd REU Undergr... more ABSTRACT The Geographical Bulletin 47(2): 65-72 ©2006 by Gamma Theta Upsilon HERO ANd REU Undergraduates are an integral part of many university research programs. We are very pleased to showcase the efforts of some of our undergraduate students in the papers that follow, and to introduce them within the larger context of our research, here in this introduction. The Human-Environment Regional Ob-servatory (HERO) program is a five-year research program, funded by the National Science Foundation (through an infrastruc-ture grant) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (through the Office of Global Programs). Our goal is to develop a research approach to monitor ongo-ing human-environment relationships at the local scale as they interface with the impacts of global climate change. Our work forms from a collaborative effort by geographers at four Universities (Clark University, Kansas State University, Pennsylvania State Univer-sity, and the University of Arizona), builds on previous work in the Global Changes in Local Places project (Kates and Torrie 1998; Wilbanks and Kates 1999; AAG 2003) and hopes to push the frontiers of collaborative learning (Pike et al. 2004; Yarnal and Neff 2004, 2006). The HERO research project takes three questions important in climate change re-search and addresses them at the local level: Who is vulnerable to global change?, How does vulnerability vary across place?, and How might adaptation best be accomplished? We believe that addressing these questions from a long-term monitoring approach is vital to forwarding a goal of local and global sustainability. Ongoing monitoring not only reveals to us dynamics of human-environ-ment systems for a given period of time, but also provides us baseline information which future researchers can build from as they revisit sites and research questions. We approach this effort through design and test-ing of research protocols and data standards that can be used to monitor human-environ-ment interactions in any locale; application and evaluation of these protocols/standards 66 through comparative research based on four study sites; infrastructure development that facilitates long distance collaboration among researchers; and organization of an intergenerational network of scholars (un-dergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, junior and senior researchers) concerned with global change issues. Undergraduate research plays a key role to our efforts to apply protocols and methods in vulnerability studies at designated research sites and in determining which aspects of vul-nerability are comparable across the sites and which are not. Our monitoring takes place in four very diverse sites: the Susquehanna River Basin (the Pennsylvania State Univer-sity site), central and eastern Massachusetts (the Clark University site), the High Plains Ogallala aquifer (the Kansas State site), and the Sonora Desert border region between Ari-zona and Sonora, Mexico (the University of Arizona site). Through the National Science Foundation's Research for Undergraduates (REU) program we have been privileged to integrate undergraduates into our fieldwork seasons each summer and their results have challenged us to think more thoroughly and complexly about the vulnerability of local places to global change. Each year since 2002, 12-16 students (3-4 from each site) have been selected through a competitive ap-plication process to participate in the HERO REU program. They attend a two-week short course on human-environment research at Pennsylvania State University, where they de-velop a familiarity with the HERO project as well as gain relevant theoretical background and practical skills necessary for conducting their research at their home institutions' study sites. The REU students then return to their respective sites to begin a 6-week research period which includes data collec-tion, data analysis, and a final report (for more detail on the HERO REU program, see Yarnal and Neff, 2006). To come to their findings, the students used qualitative research methods loosely associated with grounded theory (e.g., Gla-ser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1998). Their research draws largely from text analysis of in-depth interviews with pertinent stakeholders through saturating transcribed information with codes that can then be ag-gregated into larger themes of understanding. They build an understanding of their data from the "ground up," developing a qualita-tive knowledge about vulnerability specific to their study site but which draws upon shared concepts within the larger human dimen-sions of global change literature. Because all students working in each study site use the same research protocol and methods, they create the initial baseline of information for our ongoing monitoring efforts that is in-ternally consistent and therefore comparable across sites.
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2005
In the recent years, global environmental change research has seen increased attention to the con... more In the recent years, global environmental change research has seen increased attention to the concept of vulnerability. There have been a growing number of vulnerability assessments, but relatively little discussion on appropriate and common methods. Here we propose a methodology to guide vulnerability assessments of coupled human-environment systems towards a common objective: informing the decision-making of specific stakeholders about options for adapting to the effects of global change. We suggest five criteria vulnerability assessments must at least possess to achieve this objective. They should have a knowledge base from various disciplines and stakeholder participation, be place based, consider multiple interacting stresses, examine differential adaptive capacity, and be prospective as well as historical. Based on these criteria, we present a general methodological guideline of eight steps. To examine whether these eight steps, if attentively coordinated, do in fact achieve the criteria, and in turn satisfy the objective of the assessment, we discuss two case studies. We expect most readers to identify some of the steps as part of their well-established disciplinary practices. However, they should also identify one or more steps as uncommon to their research traditions. Thus taken together the eight steps constitute a novel methodological framework. We hypothesize that if researchers employ this methodological framework, then the products of the research will (1) achieve the objective of preparing stakeholders for the effects of global change on a site-specific basis, and (2) further the "public good" of additional insights through cross-study comparisons of research projects designed according to common principles.
JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 1999
ABSTRACT: This research examines the sensitivity and vulnerability of community water systems (CW... more ABSTRACT: This research examines the sensitivity and vulnerability of community water systems (CWSs) to weather and climate in the Pennsylvania portion of the Susquehanna River Basin. Three key findings emerge from a survey of 506 CWS managers. First, CWSs are sensitive to extreme weather and climate, but that sensitivity is determined more by type of system than system size. CWSs that rely partly or wholly on surface water face more disruptions than do groundwater systems. Larger systems have more problems with flooding, and size is not a significant determinant of outages from storms or disruptions from droughts. Second, CWS managers are unsure about global warming. Few managers dismiss global warming; most think global warming could be a problem but are unwilling to consider it in their planning activities until greater scientific certainty exists. Third, the nature of the CWS, its sensitivity to weather and climate, and projected risks from weather and climate are insignificant ...
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 2007
ABSTRACT The Human–Environment Research Observatory (HERO) Research Experience for Undergraduates... more ABSTRACT The Human–Environment Research Observatory (HERO) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program aimed to develop the next generation of researchers working on place-based human–environment problems. The program followed a cooperative learning model to foster an integrated approach to geographic research and to build collaborative research skills. The program hosted 12–16 students annually, who first engaged in an intensive short course and then formed three- or four-person teams to conduct research in four biophysically and socioeconomically diverse places. The teams used cyberinfrastructure to collaborate and integrate their research and findings. Most of the REU students have opted to attend graduate school and specialize in human–environment research.
Global Environmental Change, 2007
Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 2005
The Pennsylvania greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory presented in this paper provides detail... more The Pennsylvania greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory presented in this paper provides detailed estimates of emissions and their sources for the six major categories of GHGs. The inventory was compiled using the current U.S. Environment Protection Agency methodology, which applies emissions factors to socioeconomic data, such as fossil energy use, vehicle miles traveled, and industrial production. The paper also contains an assessment of the methodology and suggestions for improving accounting with respect to process, sectoral, and geographic considerations. The study found that Pennsylvania emitted 77.4 million metric tons carbon equivalent of GHGs in 1990 and that this total increased by 3% to 79.8 million metric tons carbon equivalent by 1999. Despite this increase, however, the state's percentage contribution to the United States total declined during the decade. Pennsylvania's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels represented 92.4% of 1990 totals and declined to 90.5% in 1999. Electricity generation was the largest single source of CO2 emissions, being responsible for 38% of fossil fuel CO2 emissions in 1990 and 40% of the total in 1999. Transportation emissions accounted for the largest increases in emissions between 1990 and 1999, whereas industrial emissions accounted for the largest decrease. The overall trend indicates that Pennsylvania has been able to weaken the relationship between GHG emissions and economic growth.
The Professional Geographer
If human‐environment geography is central to the discipline, then human‐environment courses shoul... more If human‐environment geography is central to the discipline, then human‐environment courses should be a sizable segment of the undergraduate curriculum. Undergraduate educational offerings are inadequate, however, meaning that geography departments are shortchanging their majors, missing opportunities to attract and inform the general student body, and failing to meet the needs of future K–12 educators. Unless geography provides satisfactory human‐environment education, it will likely have much less impact on twenty‐first‐century environmental science.
This paper was written as part of the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program.... more This paper was written as part of the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program. The Program seeks to foster the design and evaluation of strategies with which the next generation of national and international global environmental change programs might more effectively integrate and support its research, assessment and decision support activities. In particular, we intend to catalyze and contribute to four interrelated lines of work: 1) broadening the science-defined agenda for studying global environmental change to engage more explicitly the socially defined agenda for sustainable development; 2) exploring the long-term trends in nature and society that serve as currents which can be used to navigate towards a sustainability transition; 3) deepening a place-based, integrated understanding of social and ecological vulnerability to global change; and 4) exploring the design and management of systems that can better integrate research, assessment and decision support...
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet, 2009
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet, 2009
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet
ABSTRACT The Geographical Bulletin 47(2): 65-72 ©2006 by Gamma Theta Upsilon HERO ANd REU Undergr... more ABSTRACT The Geographical Bulletin 47(2): 65-72 ©2006 by Gamma Theta Upsilon HERO ANd REU Undergraduates are an integral part of many university research programs. We are very pleased to showcase the efforts of some of our undergraduate students in the papers that follow, and to introduce them within the larger context of our research, here in this introduction. The Human-Environment Regional Ob-servatory (HERO) program is a five-year research program, funded by the National Science Foundation (through an infrastruc-ture grant) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (through the Office of Global Programs). Our goal is to develop a research approach to monitor ongo-ing human-environment relationships at the local scale as they interface with the impacts of global climate change. Our work forms from a collaborative effort by geographers at four Universities (Clark University, Kansas State University, Pennsylvania State Univer-sity, and the University of Arizona), builds on previous work in the Global Changes in Local Places project (Kates and Torrie 1998; Wilbanks and Kates 1999; AAG 2003) and hopes to push the frontiers of collaborative learning (Pike et al. 2004; Yarnal and Neff 2004, 2006). The HERO research project takes three questions important in climate change re-search and addresses them at the local level: Who is vulnerable to global change?, How does vulnerability vary across place?, and How might adaptation best be accomplished? We believe that addressing these questions from a long-term monitoring approach is vital to forwarding a goal of local and global sustainability. Ongoing monitoring not only reveals to us dynamics of human-environ-ment systems for a given period of time, but also provides us baseline information which future researchers can build from as they revisit sites and research questions. We approach this effort through design and test-ing of research protocols and data standards that can be used to monitor human-environ-ment interactions in any locale; application and evaluation of these protocols/standards 66 through comparative research based on four study sites; infrastructure development that facilitates long distance collaboration among researchers; and organization of an intergenerational network of scholars (un-dergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, junior and senior researchers) concerned with global change issues. Undergraduate research plays a key role to our efforts to apply protocols and methods in vulnerability studies at designated research sites and in determining which aspects of vul-nerability are comparable across the sites and which are not. Our monitoring takes place in four very diverse sites: the Susquehanna River Basin (the Pennsylvania State Univer-sity site), central and eastern Massachusetts (the Clark University site), the High Plains Ogallala aquifer (the Kansas State site), and the Sonora Desert border region between Ari-zona and Sonora, Mexico (the University of Arizona site). Through the National Science Foundation's Research for Undergraduates (REU) program we have been privileged to integrate undergraduates into our fieldwork seasons each summer and their results have challenged us to think more thoroughly and complexly about the vulnerability of local places to global change. Each year since 2002, 12-16 students (3-4 from each site) have been selected through a competitive ap-plication process to participate in the HERO REU program. They attend a two-week short course on human-environment research at Pennsylvania State University, where they de-velop a familiarity with the HERO project as well as gain relevant theoretical background and practical skills necessary for conducting their research at their home institutions' study sites. The REU students then return to their respective sites to begin a 6-week research period which includes data collec-tion, data analysis, and a final report (for more detail on the HERO REU program, see Yarnal and Neff, 2006). To come to their findings, the students used qualitative research methods loosely associated with grounded theory (e.g., Gla-ser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1998). Their research draws largely from text analysis of in-depth interviews with pertinent stakeholders through saturating transcribed information with codes that can then be ag-gregated into larger themes of understanding. They build an understanding of their data from the "ground up," developing a qualita-tive knowledge about vulnerability specific to their study site but which draws upon shared concepts within the larger human dimen-sions of global change literature. Because all students working in each study site use the same research protocol and methods, they create the initial baseline of information for our ongoing monitoring efforts that is in-ternally consistent and therefore comparable across sites.
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2005
In the recent years, global environmental change research has seen increased attention to the con... more In the recent years, global environmental change research has seen increased attention to the concept of vulnerability. There have been a growing number of vulnerability assessments, but relatively little discussion on appropriate and common methods. Here we propose a methodology to guide vulnerability assessments of coupled human-environment systems towards a common objective: informing the decision-making of specific stakeholders about options for adapting to the effects of global change. We suggest five criteria vulnerability assessments must at least possess to achieve this objective. They should have a knowledge base from various disciplines and stakeholder participation, be place based, consider multiple interacting stresses, examine differential adaptive capacity, and be prospective as well as historical. Based on these criteria, we present a general methodological guideline of eight steps. To examine whether these eight steps, if attentively coordinated, do in fact achieve the criteria, and in turn satisfy the objective of the assessment, we discuss two case studies. We expect most readers to identify some of the steps as part of their well-established disciplinary practices. However, they should also identify one or more steps as uncommon to their research traditions. Thus taken together the eight steps constitute a novel methodological framework. We hypothesize that if researchers employ this methodological framework, then the products of the research will (1) achieve the objective of preparing stakeholders for the effects of global change on a site-specific basis, and (2) further the "public good" of additional insights through cross-study comparisons of research projects designed according to common principles.
JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 1999
ABSTRACT: This research examines the sensitivity and vulnerability of community water systems (CW... more ABSTRACT: This research examines the sensitivity and vulnerability of community water systems (CWSs) to weather and climate in the Pennsylvania portion of the Susquehanna River Basin. Three key findings emerge from a survey of 506 CWS managers. First, CWSs are sensitive to extreme weather and climate, but that sensitivity is determined more by type of system than system size. CWSs that rely partly or wholly on surface water face more disruptions than do groundwater systems. Larger systems have more problems with flooding, and size is not a significant determinant of outages from storms or disruptions from droughts. Second, CWS managers are unsure about global warming. Few managers dismiss global warming; most think global warming could be a problem but are unwilling to consider it in their planning activities until greater scientific certainty exists. Third, the nature of the CWS, its sensitivity to weather and climate, and projected risks from weather and climate are insignificant ...
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 2007
ABSTRACT The Human–Environment Research Observatory (HERO) Research Experience for Undergraduates... more ABSTRACT The Human–Environment Research Observatory (HERO) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program aimed to develop the next generation of researchers working on place-based human–environment problems. The program followed a cooperative learning model to foster an integrated approach to geographic research and to build collaborative research skills. The program hosted 12–16 students annually, who first engaged in an intensive short course and then formed three- or four-person teams to conduct research in four biophysically and socioeconomically diverse places. The teams used cyberinfrastructure to collaborate and integrate their research and findings. Most of the REU students have opted to attend graduate school and specialize in human–environment research.
Global Environmental Change, 2007
Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 2005
The Pennsylvania greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory presented in this paper provides detail... more The Pennsylvania greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory presented in this paper provides detailed estimates of emissions and their sources for the six major categories of GHGs. The inventory was compiled using the current U.S. Environment Protection Agency methodology, which applies emissions factors to socioeconomic data, such as fossil energy use, vehicle miles traveled, and industrial production. The paper also contains an assessment of the methodology and suggestions for improving accounting with respect to process, sectoral, and geographic considerations. The study found that Pennsylvania emitted 77.4 million metric tons carbon equivalent of GHGs in 1990 and that this total increased by 3% to 79.8 million metric tons carbon equivalent by 1999. Despite this increase, however, the state's percentage contribution to the United States total declined during the decade. Pennsylvania's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels represented 92.4% of 1990 totals and declined to 90.5% in 1999. Electricity generation was the largest single source of CO2 emissions, being responsible for 38% of fossil fuel CO2 emissions in 1990 and 40% of the total in 1999. Transportation emissions accounted for the largest increases in emissions between 1990 and 1999, whereas industrial emissions accounted for the largest decrease. The overall trend indicates that Pennsylvania has been able to weaken the relationship between GHG emissions and economic growth.