Update Jun 30, 2007
Poster Presentation - Julie Padowski
Julie Padowski presented a poster on her master’s research at the American Geophysical Union’s Spring Conference in Acapulco, Mexico on May 22, 2007. The poster is titled “An Investigation of the Effects of PSFM Body Design on Measurement Accuracy and Optimal Deployment Duration” and highlighted the results from a laboratory study of the role Passive Surface Water Flux Meter (PSFM) shape plays in predicting solute loads and water velocities under steady-state flow conditions.
Talk - Julie Padowski
Julie Padowski was asked to present a lecture to the IGERT-led class, South Florida Ecosystems, on Tuesday, May 15th at the Holland Law Center at the University of Florida. The title of her talk was “Adaptive Management- Learning by Doing.” Her lecture gave a general overview to the class, providing them with a unique perspective on adaptive management from a IGERT student’s point of view.
Poster Presentation - Bill Kanapaux
Bill Kanapaux presented a poster on his pre-dissertation research at the University of Florida's Graduate Student Council Research Forum on April 4, 2007. The poster is titled “Economic impact of protected areas and tourism on local communities along the Chobe and Kwando Rivers.”
Bill also presented at the Association of American Geographers annual meeting in San Francisco on April 18. He took part in an interactive paper session (roundtable format) on Agriculture and Land Use. His part of the presentation was titled “Economic and ecological impact of protected areas on local communities along the Chobe and Kwando Rivers.” The session offered an opportunity to meet researchers from other universities who are also doing work in southern Africa.
Both presentations highlight pre-dissertation research that Bill will be conducting from May to July 2007 in northern Botswana and the Caprivi region of Namibia. This research will examine the impact of protected areas, tourism, and safari hunting on economic development and resource use at the village level. This research is part of a larger interdisciplinary project involving a number of UF faculty and graduate students, including two other members of the IGERT cohort.
Field Research - Noorie Rajvanshi
One of the AMW3 IGERT Associates, Noorie Rajvanshi, will be traveling to her home country, India for three months starting May 2007. She will be doing preliminary data collection and analysis for her doctoral dissertation proposal. Her research interests include reviewing the environmental impacts of liquid bio-fuel productions, and will focus on the study of the ethanol production process from sweet sorghum using Life Cycle Assessment methods. She is also interested in using this opportunity to do an energy analysis of the ethanol production process. She will be working closely with Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute ( http://nariphaltan.virtualave .net ) a rural based Institute in India which has been doing pioneering work in sweet sorghum.
Talk - O.T. Thakadu
O.T. Thakadu, IGERT Associate and a PhD student in the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, will speak on Friday, April 13, at 4:00p.m. in Room 215 Dauer Hall. He was invited, by the Florida Anthropology Student Association, to draw upon his professional and academic experience with CBNRM in Botswana . The title of his talk is, "Culture, Communication, and Community-Based Natural Resource Management."
His scholarly articles such as "Success factors in community based natural resources management in northern Botswana: Lessons from practice" and "The Economic contribution of Safari Hunting to Rural Livelihoods in the Okavango: The Case of Sankuyo Village" demonstrate the experiences and lessons he learned during over a decade of practical work in CBNRM. His latest research includes "The impact of HIV/AIDS on CBNRM in Botswana - the case of Ngamiland" and Environmental Communication Strategies among the Delta Communities"
Paper Presentation - Andrea Gaughan
Andrea Gaughan will also be presenting at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) meeting. She will be presenting a paper entitled, Spatio-temporal patterns of land-use/land-cover change: analysis of landscape dynamics in Siem Reap, Cambodia in the “Global Land Change Detection Using Remote Sensing, Session I.” Her presentation will focus on multiple remote sensing techniques that may be used to differentiate patterns of land-cover change for different topographic regions of Cambodian watershed.
Andrea Gaughan leaves this summer (mid-May) for southern Africa to begin her first field season for her dissertation research. Andrea will be part of the larger group of University of Florida professors, UF graduate students, and African students who plan to collaborate with local communities, government officials, and NGO personnel to do applied research. The research will address questions that focus on land-use change, economic and governance structures, and land tenure issues. The study region this summer will be mainly in northeastern Botswana and the Caprivi Region of Namibia but includes the larger Kavango-Zambezi region of southern Africa. Andrea's specific interests are on the effects of land-use change in the Caprivi Region and taking a landscape ecological perspective on important resources in the region, such as water and wildlife.
Paper Presentation - Narcisa Pricope
Narcisa Pricope, one of the IGERT Associates and an International student from Romania , is presenting part of her Master's thesis research at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) meeting held in San Francisco during the period April 17-21 st 2007. She will be giving a paper called Assessing Spatial Patterns of Sediment Transport in the Pitman Creek Basin, KY in the “Landscape Level Hydrological Projects” session of the meeting. Her presentation will focus on the use of a physically-based, spatially-distributed soil erosion and deposition model for identification of potential sources of sediment delivery to streams in the context of increasing river siltation.
Field Trip - Narcisa Pricope
One of the AMW3 IGERT Associates, Narcisa Pricope, will embark on a three-month preliminary research field season experience at the beginning of June 2007. She will be traveling with a group of University of Florida professors, UF graduate students, and students from Botswana , Namibia , and Zambia . She will be part of a long-term interdisciplinary research and collaboration project established between UF and various stakeholders in the Kavango-Zambezi region of Southern Africa . Her interest lies in developing indicators of regional sustainability in the area based on an economic-ecological analysis of two major tourism attractions in the region: Chobe National Park in Botswana and Kafue National Park in Zambia .
Adaptive Management: Wise Use of Water, Wetlands & Watersheds
is an NSF-funded IGERT program at the University of Florida
