NAME CHANGE FOR
THE DEPARTMENT OF
GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY
The Auburn University Board of Trustees voted
to change the name of the Department of
Geology and Geography to the “Department of
Geosciences.” The change is due to the everwidening areas of expertise of the department’s
faculty and the resulting increase in both
interdepartmental and interdisciplinary instruction
and research.
“Geology and Geography
are diverse fields, and the
expertise of our faculty spans
a broad range of both the
natural and social sciences,
bridging them perhaps as well
as any other unit at Auburn
University, which makes us
well suited for interdisciplinary
research and instruction,”
said Mark Steltenpohl,
chairman of the Department
of Geosciences.
“Faculty expertise and research activities contribute
to a variety of Auburn’s strategic research areas,
particularly in health, the environment, and energy,
and we collaborate with faculty in many units
across campus, including those in the colleges
of Sciences and Mathematics, Agriculture,
Engineering, Human Sciences, Liberal Arts and
Education, and the schools of Nursing and Forestry
and Wildlife Sciences.”
One such collaboration includes faculty experts
in geology, geography, and psychology who are
exploring the dynamics involved in interactions
between humans and water resources in
Bangladesh, in particular, the cause and effect
between arsenic contamination in the ground water
and the population. The primary investigators on
the project are Geology professors Ming-Kuo
Lee and Ashraf Uddin, Assistant Professor of
Geography Yingru Li, and Alumni Professor in the
Department of Psychology Chris Newland.
As one of the fastest growing countries in the world
in terms of economic development and population,
Bangladesh has experienced tremendous and rapid
industrialization, urbanization, and globalization, as
well as environmental degradation.
GEO
SCIENCES
“Our research examines the socioeconomic
development as both a driving factor and a
consequence of the interaction between natural and
human systems,” said Li. “On one hand, human
activities have significant impacts on water quality
and water supply. The potential socioeconomic
driving factors mainly include land-use and landcover change, transportation, industrial emissions,
municipal sewage, and the extensive use of
pesticide and fertilizers for farming. On the other
hand, water quality and supply greatly influence
socioeconomic development and population health.
For example, in Bangladesh, millions of people
are exposed to arsenic-contaminated groundwater,
which has caused various health effects on local
residents, such as increased risk of diabetes,
hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and cancers.”
associated socioeconomic issues via
surveying and modeling,” said Uddin.
“An improved understanding of the links
between seasonal drought and monsoonal
flooding from the large rivers, arsenic release
into the groundwater, water clogging in
densely populated areas, human health, and
population migration will benefit the people
of Bangladesh but also holds potential
for application to similar drainage basins
worldwide.”
An increase in interdisciplinary research efforts
among faculty also has positive benefit for
Auburn University students.
“The work will include research and
educational activities for undergraduate and
graduate students from the U.S., Bangladesh,
and India. The research will expose students
to field, laboratory, and modeling research
on a major human crisis in the global arena,”
said Lee. “The results will be of great interest
to the broad fields of geology, geochemistry,
hydrology, environmental health, human
behavior, climate change, sustainability, and
geospatial and geostatistical analysis. The
links between arsenic contamination, water
salinization, human behavior and health, and
human adaptation to reduce arsenic exposure,
are potentially transformative to many
watersheds impacted by similar environmental
processes and human systems.”
In an effort to address the longstanding concerns in
Bangladesh about water resources, land loss, human
migration, and human health, faculty and students
in the Department of Geosciences have a history of
researching the groundwater in the country, with a
particular focus on arsenic contamination.
“Our current initiative is indicative of the types
of work our department is consistently producing
and utilizes the power of interdisciplinary
research to address scientific problems and
College of Sciences and Mathematics
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