Introduction | Panel 1 | Panel 2 Looking Ahead to Maryland 2050: Living in
Our Environment The greatest impact upon the natural environment comes from the people who live in it and, in turn, the state of our environment impacts our quality of life. In Maryland, pressures upon the environment arise from our changing population, our life style and values, and the way in which we use the land. If we are to secure Maryland’s environment and our associated quality of life for the future, it is imperative that we understand where we are presently positioned with regard to human-environmental concerns and start to address how these will change over the coming years. This is the focus of this exploratory workshop in which we will focus upon the issues central to protecting Maryland’s environmental future while at the same time enhancing the quality of life for its citizens. There are three immediate goals for this workshop: First, to think creatively about potential environmental challenges, and new opportunities, for the State, that may emerge over the lifetime of the next generation. Second, to stimulate dialog about the role of the University in shaping life in Maryland. Third, to convene researchers from across campus and to provide a venue for their collaboration on matters relevant to the health and welfare of the citizens of Maryland. On the basis of this workshop, we will subsequently initiate focused discussions with leaders in the State – from the public, private and non-profit sectors. The purpose of these discussions is to explore the contributions that the University can make to problem solving, and to identify contributions they can make in support of research that helps maintain and improve the quality of life in Maryland and to better manage the State’s resources. Dr. Matthias Ruth holds the Roy F. Weston Chair in Natural Economics at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland and is the Founding Director of the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the Division of Research, University of Maryland. He teaches - nationally and internationally - courses and seminars on microeconomics and policy analysis, ecological economics, industrial ecology and dynamic modeling at the undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. levels, and has also conducted short courses for decision makers in industry and policy. Mr. Ken Gertz comes from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute where he served 12 years as Director of
Government Relations, and the past sixyears as Assistant Vice
President of Research. While at RPI, Ken played
a key role in the development of a number of significant multidisciplinary
initiatives, including the Center for Computational Nanotechnology Innovations
and two Rensselaer Centers for Advanced Technology. Ken's outstanding skills
in building relationships with federal agencies and laboratories, industry,
and other universities The Associate Vice President for Research Development is a new
position created to facilitate the development of large, multidisciplinary
research proposals and activities, particularly those working
across the university, and across university campuses, government
agencies and the Dr. John Townshend's broad interests are in how and why the vegetative land cover of the earth is changing and how this impacts key biogeochemical cycles especially the carbon cycle. The tools that are used in his research are primarily remote sensing earth observation sensors. He is also interested in the development of new earth science information systems to ensure the improved use and distribution of key products and data sets. In particular, the research has focused on improving our abilities to depict and monitor changes in land cover at regional and global scales. This work is carried out in the context of the importance of such changes on climate variability, especially through the global carbon cycle, biodiversity and sustainability. This is done with the philosophy that monitoring the rates and character of change is important in its own right, separate from model and theory testing, because some observations are so fundamental that consistent long-term monitoring must be ensured. Associated with his research is his chairman ship of the GOFC/GOLD (Global Observations of Forest Cover/Global Observations of Land Cover) Panel of the Global Terrestrial Observing System.
Assessing future challenges and opportunities for Maryland as we move toward the year 2050 requires developing a theoretical framework for anticipating change. The future will not be a simple extrapolation of the past. The social sciences are currently poorly equipped to develop such a framework, partially because it is an interdisciplinary undertaking. Three sets of factors can be identified that will strongly influence Maryland’s future: demographic shifts, environmental change, and technological innovation. Taken together, these factors will raise future challenges and create new opportunities. Maryland in 2050 also is likely to be much more deeply integrated into an emerging global system and be increasingly impacted by changes taking place in other parts of the world. Dr. Dennis Pirages is Harrison Professor of International Environmental Policy at the University of Maryland. He graduated with honors from the University of Iowa and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is author or editor of fourteen books including Global Ecopolitics, Global Technopolitics, Ecological Security, and most recently From Resource Scarcity to Ecological Security. While on leave from the University of Maryland he has served as Senior Staff on the Presidential Commission on an Agenda for the 1980s, and also as coordinator of a mid-level professional training program for the U.S. State Department. He also served for five years on the Executive Board of the World Future Society. His research interests focus on future global issues, with particular emphasis on globalization and the spread of infectious disease, as well as the international politics of technology and energy resources. Panel I: Global Drivers and their Local Influences Demography The Demography of Maryland is changing and is expected to continue to change through 2050. I will discuss three aspects of Maryland's demography that places challenges on providing the services needed to meet the States needs – the structure of Maryland's population, the increased presence of immigrants and their geographic distribution in the State and the typical commuting times for Maryland residence. I will present estimates from the most recent Census as well as estimates from 10 years earlier to give some sense of the speed with which the Demography of Maryland is changing. Dr. Seth Sanders received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1993 and joined the Maryland faculty in 1999. Prior to coming to Maryland he was an Associate Professor at the Heinz School of Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His main area of interest is labor economics with a particular emphasis on economic demography. The wide variety of topics he has studied include the cost and consequences of teenage childbearing to mothers and government, the use of welfare programs, the economic progress of Asian Americans in the U.S. economy, and the economic demography of gays and lesbians in America. His publications include "Why Do Eligible Households Not Use Food Stamps? Evidence from an Experiment (with B. Daponte and L. Taylor) Journal of Human Resources, 1999; "Bounding the Effects of Teenage Childbearing using Contaminated Instruments" (with V.J. Hotz and C. Mullin), Review of Economic Studies, 1998; "A New Look at Human Capital Investment: A Study of Asian Immigrants and Their Family Ties." (with H.O. Duleep and M. Regets), Upjohn Institute Monograph, forthcoming; "A Simulation Estimator for Sequential Models of Discrete Choice" (with V.J. Hotz, R. Miller, and J. Smith), Review of Economic Studies, 1994. Economic Growth The pressures and issues facing local and state governments in Maryland have become increasingly complex. In the past, local governments focused almost exclusively on providing the services and resources necessary for maintaining quality of life in their communities. For years the focus was on issues such as ensuring public safety, educating children, and providing adequate public services. Though providing these community services is still primarily a local responsibility, a number of complex social, environmental, and fiscal pressures are now impacting communities across the state. As a result, the needs of local governments have changed, and the corresponding need for University-based research and outreach programs and services has also changed. Dan Nees has been with the Environmental Finance Center for six years, and assumed the role of Director in January 2005. Dan has assisted communities throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed and Mid-Atlantic region in their efforts to implement and finance environmental and sustainable development initiatives. His work has focused on developing and building coalitions of diverse interests groups and directing them towards common financing and implementation goals. Additional experience includes serving as Project Manager of Corporate Programs at The Nature Conservancy and Manager of Alternative Marketing at U.S. News and World Report. Mr. Nees holds a B.A. in Economics, a Master of Environmental Policy, and a Master of Business Administration, all from the University of Maryland, College Park. Energy and Environment A new Maryland Energy Research Center (MERC) was recently established within the A. James Clark School of Engineering with the mission of advancing the frontiers of science and technology in the broad area of energy. The Center has established diverse participation throughout the University, including the Colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Behavioral and Social Sciences, Chemical and Life Sciences, Computer, Math and Physical Sciences, and Public Policy. The current status and future directions of MERC will be discussed. Dr. Herbert Rabin is Associate Dean for Research in the A. James Clark School of Engineering, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Director of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute. He also currently chairs the MERC Steering Committee. Prior to joining the UM, Dr. Rabin served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Applied and Space Technology), and before that he was employed in a number of positions at the Naval Research Laboratory. His degrees, BS, MS and PhD are in physics. Dr. Rabin is a fellow of several professional societies (American Physical Society, Optical Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics). Climate Change: an Issue for Maryland in the 21st Century Dr. Anthony C. Janetos was named Director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute in October, 2006. Dr. Janetos previously served as vice president of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington, D.C., where he directed the center's Global Change Program. He has written and spoken widely to policy, business, and scientific audiences on the need for scientific input and scientific assessment in the policymaking process and about the need to understand the scientific, environmental, economic, and policy linkages among the major global environmental issues. Climate Variability Understanding climate and whether it is changing, and why, is one of the most crucial questions facing humankind in the twenty-first century. This question is the subject of much scientific research and, of course, policy debate, since the economic and environmental implications are large. There is wide scientific consensus that climate is indeed changing. Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Our confidence in this conclusion is higher today than it was ten, or even five years ago. Yet, uncertainty remains because there is a level of natural variability inherent in the climate system on time scales of decades to centuries that can be difficult to interpret with precision because we gather this evidence from sparse observations, numerical models, and proxy records such as ice cores and tree rings. Despite the uncertainties, however, there is widespread agreement that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past twenty years. This presentation will discuss the state of the science, with emphasis on the outstanding research questions that need to be addressed in making the transition from global climate change, to modulation of climate variability, down to regional manifestations of changes in temperature, precipitation, and extreme climatic events of critical importance to several sectors of society. Dr. Antonio J. Busalacchi received his Ph.D. degree in oceanography from Florida State University in 1982. He has studied tropical ocean circulation and its role in the coupled climate system. His research in these areas has supported a range of international and national research programs dealing with global change and climate, particularly as affected by the oceans. In 1999 he was appointed Co-Chairman of the Scientific Steering Group for the World Climate Research Programme on Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR). Presently, he serves as Chairman of the Climate Research Committee for the National Academy of Science/National Research Council. In 1982 he began his professional career at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1991, he was appointed as Chief of the NASA/Goddard Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes, and was responsible for research in the oceanic, cryospheric, and hydrologic sciences. In year 2000, he was selected as the founding director of the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) at the University of Maryland and appointed to the faculty as Professor in the Department of Meteorology. The goal of ESSIC is to enhance understanding of how the atmosphere-ocean-land-biosphere components of the Earth interact as a coupled system. Professor Busalacchi has received numerous awards and honors. Among these, in 1991, he was the recipient of the prestigious Arthur S. Flemming Award, as one of five outstanding young scientists in the entire Federal Government. In 1995 he was selected as Alumnus of the Year at Florida State University, in 1997 he was the H. Burr Steinbach Visiting Scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in 1999 he was awarded the NASA/Goddard Excellence in Outreach Award and that same year chosen by President Clinton to receive the Presidential Rank Meritorious Executive Award. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and in 2006 was selected by the AMS to be the Walter Orr Roberts Interdisciplinary Science Lecturer. Panel II: Maryland in a Changing World Coming to Grips with Significant Water Challenges Climate change, unparalleled growth out of the cities and into the countryside creating demands for new water sources, emerging contaminants that will tax existing treatments systems, a need to restore damaged ecosystems, and a much abused and now struggling water infrastructure portend challenges for Maryland communities and the State as a whole over the next decades. Failure to deal with environmental disruptions, flood threats, water shortages, water pollution, and an infrastructure in need of maintenance and upgrade will severely limit the potential of the State. Dealing with these issues will require significant expenditures and political will to deal with vested interests and fiscal shortfalls. Dr. Gerry Galloway is a Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering and Affiliate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a Visiting scholar at the US Engineer Army Institute for Water Resources. A civil engineer, public administrator and geographer, he has served as a water resources consultant to a variety of national and international government and business organizations. He was a Presidential appointee to the Mississippi River Commission and the American Heritage Rivers Advisory Committee and served as Secretary of the US-Canada International Joint Commission. In 1993-1994, he led a White House study of the causes of the 1993 Mississippi River Flood. During a 38-year career in the military he served in various command and staff assignments in the US and overseas, retiring in 1995 as a brigadier general and dean of academics at the US Military Academy. He is president-elect of the American Water Resources Association, an Honorary Diplomate of the American Academy of Water Resources Engineering and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is a graduate of the Military Academy and holds Masters Degrees from Princeton and Pennsylvania State Universities and the US Army Command and General Staff College and a doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Changing Role of Agriculture Agriculture in Maryland will undergo changes in response to the imminent transition to the post-petroleum era, to limitations on the quantities and quality of freshwater resources, and in response to concerns about land-water interactions related to water quality of the Chesapeake Bay. Coupled to these transitions will likely be a major shift from a principal product base on the Eastern Shore related to poultry to more diverse agricultural products for regional and local markets, such as biofuels and organically-grown produce. Questions surrounding the balance of land uses among forest lands, human habitation, and agriculture will need to be addressed by the University, by State legislators, and by the public at large. Maryland presently comprises approximately 40% each of agricultural and forest land, and 20% urbanized regions. How we change this distribution of land uses and the interfaces between them will influence the role of agriculture in Maryland during the next century. Dr. Bruce James specializes in research related to the oxidation-reduction processes of natural waters and of wild, domesticated, and engineered soils. His research has been published in the Journal of Environmental Quality, the Soil Science Society of America Journal, Environmental Science and Technology, and the Journal of Soil Contamination. He has also written several invited book chapters; and contributed to work performed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the US Geological Service. He teaches both graduate students and undergraduates regularly, and has won numerous awards for his scholarship, teaching, and professional contributions, including the Lilly-CTE Teaching Fellow Award (1993-1994), the College of Agriculture's Teaching Excellence Award (1996), and the university's Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award (2004-2005). Dr. James' courses include Introduction to Environmental Science; the Capstone in Environmental Science and Policy; Soil Chemistry; Crops, Soils, and Civilization; and Advanced Soil Chemistry. He is also an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Geology; and Director of the College Park Scholars - Environmental Studies Program. Dr. James earned his B.S. in Chemistry & Environmental Studies from Williams College; and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Soil Chemistry from the University of Vermont. He has been at the University of Maryland since completing post-doctoral studies at Cornell University in 1986. His love of the environment grew out of his hobbies while in college and his work with the Appalachian Mountain Club in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, biking, camping and kayaking with his wife and three sons. Land Use Counties, State and regional governmental agencies are now charged with the responsibility of administration, planning, management, and development policy at unprecedented scales and complexity. Homeland security, environmental impacts, clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay, control of sprawl, are all examples. Meanwhile dramatic increases in the level of detail and the resolution of land cover, land use and land surface processes that can be observed using remote sensing techniques are taking place. These advances are occurring not only in satellite remote sensing, but also in geographical information Science (GIS) and numerical spatial analysis. Taken together, these developments constitute a “geospatial revolution”. Many of the elements needed for application of geospatial solutions are already present at the University of Maryland; what is missing is a coordinated approach to research and applications. Activities in the Geography Department that are relevant to Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic region will be reviewed, including: Mid Atlantic highlands regional population, and settlement simulation; Power sharing in the National Forest; Effects of regional land cover on national parks; Modeling urban sprawl in the Mid-Atlantic region; Monitoring Maryland's forest reserves; Forest structure, carbon, hydrology using LiDAR; Assessing eastern North America forest disturbance and regrowth; Coastal marsh loss and sea level rise; Measurement of aquatic suspended material in the Chesapeake Bay; Net ecosystem production and carbon sequestration; Cropland mapping and yield measurement, health effects of agricultural pesticides; Mid-Atlantic land cover, impervious surfaces, tree cover, crop type, wetlands, watershed classification, nutrient, sediment and runoff modeling, growth modeling and land use policy, urbanization; Internet ecosystem simulation modeling; Historical land use in the Shenandoah Valley; LiDAR detection and mapping of Chesapeake archaeological sites. Dr. Stephen D. Prince is a Professor of Geography at the University of Maryland-College Park. He received a BSc from Bristol University, UK, and a PhD from the University of Lancaster, UK, both in Plant Science. He has worked in Central Africa, at the University of London, and at NASA GSFC before joining the UMD faculty in 1989. Prince’s work emphasizes biological and physical processes that operate across large areas of the Earth’s surface, often using remote sensing as a measurement tool. The Regional Earth Sciences Application Center (RESAC), directed by Prince, was founded with a NASA grant to explore the applications of Earth Science to regional environmental issues. Research in Maryland involves the effects of urbanization on land surface processes, studied throughout the mid-Atlantic region of the USA, especially in the 166,000km2 Chesapeake Bay watershed. Prince currently leads EPA-sponsored research on watershed classification with the Woods Hole Research Center and Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (of which he is an associate researcher). A more recent activity has been the use of Internet geographical information systems (GIS) to allow advanced hydrological and ecosystem simulations to be run remotely. Land-Ocean Interface The restoration of the Chesapeake Bay is surely Maryland’s principal environmental claim to fame on the global stage. Moreover, because of its geographic, cultural and economic importance protection and restoration of the Bay has been and will remain a key driver for environmental policy in the state, extending beyond water pollution and fisheries management to include land use, agricultural practices, and air quality. The state of play in restoration of the Chesapeake and the Maryland Coastal Bays is briefly reviewed and the future policy developments—and the science needed to support them—discussed. Dr. Donald Boesch is President of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) since 1990, longest serving president among the 13 University System of Maryland (USM) institutions. UMCES is the principal research institution for advanced environmental research and graduate studies within the USM. Through laboratories in Frostburg, Solomons Island and Cambridge and the Maryland Sea Grant College UMCES works to improve our scientific understanding of Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay region and the world and the quality of environmental decision making. He has served concurrently as Interim-Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for the University System of Maryland from June 2002 to October 2003, assisting Chancellor Brit Kirwan on academic policy. He is also a member of the Maryland Governor’s Bay Cabinet during the administrations of Governors Schaefer, Glendening and Ehrlich, working closely and effectively with numerous secretaries of Natural Resources, Environment, Planning, Agriculture, and Transportation. Scientific Advisor to both the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and Pew Oceans Commission. Currently a member of advisory boards concerning restoration of the Everglades, coastal Louisiana and the Baltic Sea. He led a working group of scientists and engineers which developed a strategy for environmental management of the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. He has been engaged in scientific research on the Chesapeake
Bay for 28 years. Since 1990, a member of the Scientific
and Technical Advisory Committee of the Chesapeake Bay Program
and the driving force and co-author of Chesapeake Futures: Choices
for the for the 21st Century. He is a member of the Board
of Directors of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Alliance
for the Chesapeake Bay. Chairman of the Board of the Chesapeake
Research Consortium (University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University,
Smithsonian Institution, College of William and Mary, Old Dominion
University, and Pennsylvania State University). Infrastructure Infrastructure systems are often lumpy, their development and maintenance are costly, and once put in place, they are hard to change. This holds for the grey structures, such as roads, water and sewer systems, or energy generation and supply infrastructure. Additional complexities for development and maintenance arise from the interdependence of these systems, such as those between energy and water. For example, electricity generation often requires adequate fresh water supply for cooling purposes. During periods of low stream flow, electricity generation may be impaired. Those may also be the periods in which demand for power is largest – for example, for cooling and air conditioning, or for water pumping and aeration in water treatment plants. Other interdependencies are with “green infrastructures”, for example when urban forestry helps reduce summer time energy demand but increases likelihood of power interruption during ice and snow events. The “soft infrastructures” – the institutions that govern the other systems as if they were largely separable – are equally interdependent and often hard to change. This presentation addresses current and likely future challenges to, and opportunities for infrastructure development, with special focus on the interdependencies of grey, green and soft infrastructure. Since changing infrastructures is likely to be slow and expensive, anticipation of future technological, demographic, economic, and environmental conditions becomes key to effective infrastructure planning and management. The case is made that, since these future conditions are highly uncertain and often full of surprise, a new mind set is necessary for planning and management, that distinguishes itself from the mechanistic, cause-effect approaches that characterize infrastructure management today. Dr. Matthias Ruth holds the Roy F. Weston Chair in Natural Economics at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland and is the Founding Director of the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the Division of Research, University of Maryland. He teaches - nationally and internationally - courses and seminars on microeconomics and policy analysis, ecological economics, industrial ecology and dynamic modeling at the undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. levels, and has also conducted short courses for decision makers in industry and policy. Defining the Total Environment: Completing the
Continuum for Environmental Health Maryland has some of the dirtiest air in the U.S., with some of the highest estimated risks for both cancer and respiratory diseases as a result of exposure to air pollutants. Similarly, our surface and ground water have polluted areas. On the environmental side, the Chesapeake Bay is steadily declining in biota and economic productivity, to the point where its very future is in question. When most people think of “The Environment”, they are usually referring to the chemicals in the air, water, soil, and food. These are certainly important, and are the subject of most federal and state environmental regulations. But “The Environment” is really much more encompassing than these: it is the totality of all the risk factors we encounter in the course of living. A complete definition of “The Total Environment” would need to include information on our economic, family, psychological, social, demographic, urban, rural, typological, and esthetic environment, etc., for all of these factors interact to determine the state of health for an individual and for a population. There is a critical need in environmental health to find a way to quantify all of these disparate kinds of information, to relate them to each other, and to translate this research into action. Through strategic partnerships, this is what we will do in the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health. We will create an Information Technology infrastructure on the web, with built-in tools for analysis, reporting, and visualization of spatial and temporal data for many of these factors. This will provide a means for filling in the gaps between the environment and health outcomes, as well as a means of determining the relative contribution of each of these factors to the health of humans and the environment. In so doing, we will be developing tools for policy makers, businesses, government agencies, scientists, and the general public to understand where the greatest problems are, what contributes to them, and where to allocate limited resources to provide the greatest benefit. In the final analysis, these should be the ultimate goals of environmental health. Dr. Betty Dabney is Research Associate Professor at the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health. She has over thirty years of post-doctoral experience in environmental health, informatics and project management. Prior to her position at the University of Maryland, she was Senior Environmental Health Researcher for the Maryland Department of the Environment. She earned her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. Maryland 2050 is hosted by the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the University of Maryland in collaboration with a campus-wide planning committee. We wish to thank the Department of Geography at the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences for sponsoring this workshop and helping to launch the Maryland 2050 initiative. |
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