GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES AT BROWN UNIVERSITY
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Departmental research in Environmental Science includes environmental remote sensing, hydrology, environmental geophysics, estuarine processes, and global climate change.

Professor Marc Parmentier admires a poster created
by a GIS class.

Quantitative modeling of remote sensing data is being used to study environmental change and the impacts of anthropogenic stress. Watershed hydrology involves the integration of computer models with ground truth field studies of watersheds, and includes studies of the active role that groundwater plays in short term and long term stream flow generation. Environmental geophysics projects investigate groundwater, geoengineering and various environmental problems through the application of non-invasive field techniques such as ground penetrating radar, seismic, gravity, electromagnetic, resistivity and magnetic methods. Environmental Geochemistry projects include analysis of sources and rate of contaminants. Faculty are pursuing links between circulation and flushing of estuaries, history of saltwater flooding, sea level rise, and development of salt marshes as an environmental record of the progression of storm impacts, land use and nutrient changes. Global climate initiatives include testing the ability of global climate models to reconstruct past marine and terrestrial environments, and estimating and evaluating tropical sea surface temperature variability.

For more information about Brown University's Environmental Sciences Center, please click to this site: http://envstudies.brown.edu