Research

The EcoGRAPH team is in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability at the University of Oklahoma. Our research explores the impacts of changing climate and landscapes on ecosystems and human health, with an emphasis on developing spatial decision support tools to support public health decisions, land use planning, and natural resource management. We address these topics through landscape, regional, and global analyses using satellite remote sensing and other sources of environmental monitoring data. Specific research areas include the effects of environmental change on vector-borne disease outbreaks, the influences of human land use and wildfires on forest landscape dynamics, the impacts of agricultural expansion and intensification on native ecosystems, and the development of computer software for disease outbreak forecasting and landscape change modeling. We conduct our research in locations throughout the world including North America, West Africa, Ethiopia, and India. Visit the EcoGRAPH website to learn more.

The Oklahoma Alliance for Geographic Education (OKAGE), headquartered at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, is a professional organization for geography and social studies educators in Oklahoma. OKAGE provides a year-round schedule of professional development events and academies for in-service and pre-service teachers of all grade levels and subjects. These include summer institutes and field studies that provide curriculum, materials, and experiential learning opportunities. Visit the OKAGE website to learn more.

Established in 2012, the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center provides decision makers with the science, tools, and information they need to address the impacts of climate variability and change on their areas of responsibility. The Center will transform how climate science is conducted and applied in the south-central United States. We support big thinking, including multi-institutional and stakeholder-driven approaches to climate variability, change, impacts, mitigation, and adaptation research. Visit the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center website to learn more.

The Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP) is a South Central United States focused climate hazards and research program whose mission is to assist organizations with making decisions that build resilience by collaboratively producing research, tools, and knowledge that reduce weather and climate risks and impacts across the South Central United States.  SCIPP focuses on climate challenges in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The South Central United States experiences a multitude of hazard types, including storms, hurricanes, flood, drought, winter storms, and wildfires, coupled with climate-related stressors of relative sea-level rise and changes in the frequency and intensity of drought and floods.

By integrating physical and social science knowledge into the hazard planning process, the SCIPP Team focuses on understanding decision processes, advancing knowledge of regional climate-related threats, synthesizing existing knowledge, and collaboratively identifying viable solutions. Through collaboration with regional stakeholders, SCIPP seeks to improve communities’ ability to plan for, absorb, recover from and successfully adapt to adverse effects of extreme weather events and climate change. Visit the SCIPP website to learn more.