Content - Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences



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The Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences (EVS) is a cross-college endeavor at Arkansas State University (ASU). Faculty from many departments in the colleges of Science & Mathematics, Agriculture, Business, Humanities & Social Science, Engineering, and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute participate in the Program. The EVS office is located in the ABI on the 2nd floor on the main campus of the University.

Program Goals

Environmental problems of the future whether agricultural, engineering, ecological, political or economical are guaranteed to be those that are interconnected and interdependent on human interactions with Earth Systems. Environmental issues, such as natural resource degradation and depletion, are all too often the ultimate cause of economic and political policies. Given this it is critical that the link between human activity and earth system services - Environmental Science - be understood. Only through cross-disciplinary investigations of the linkages between Earth Systems, policy, and economics can we sustainabley manage, protect, and use Earth resources. The critical understanding will come through research on the problems themselves and on the basic science underlying today's and tomorrow's environmental issues.

Leveraging the geographic location of the University where we are positioned in the Mississippi Embayment, a region of fertile farmland and heavy agricultural resource use researchers in the Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences explore fundamental environmental issues which will continue to be the focus of environmental protection, management and use. Some of these issues include acid mine drainage, global climate change, water quality impairment of lakes and rivers, forest, grassland and wetland loss, toxic substances in our food chain, loss of biodiversity, nonrenewable resource depletion, introduction and impact of non-indigenous species, and general deterioration of Earth System Services.

After gaining a solid disciplinary education in the sciences at the undergraduate level our cross-disciplinary program trains the scientists and professionals needed to solve tomorrow's problems today. The disciplinary boundaries which once prevented learning about and solving environmental problems have fallen. Arkansas State University's EVS program cuts across traditional academic disciplines and colleges to provide sound and effective graduate education and research on these important environmental issues.

EVS's goal is the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge in the cross-disciplinary field of environmental science. This field includes studies in analytical chemistry, forensic ecology, materials science, ecotoxicology, environmental impact, population and community ecology, geochemistry, civil engineering, soil chemistry, biogeochemistry, water, soil and air pollution, resource depletion, toxic and hazardous wastes, fate and effects (on humans and other organisms) of environmental pollutants, agri-ecosystem structure and function, ecological engineering, environmental economics, and aquatic, terrestrial and wetland systems. The program emphasizes basic research on environmental processes and effects, and applied research and teaching that will contribute to solving the world's pressing environmental problems.

Research Areas

Agri-ecology
Ecological Engineering
Stream Restoration
Environmental Chemistry
Chemical Hydrogeology
Analytical Geochemistry
Global Change Economics
Environmental Policy and Law
Physiological Ecology
Waste Management
Ecotoxicology
Water & Wetland Resources