| By
David P. Welsh |
One of the most obvious benefits of the information age is the increased ability to manage resources. Individuals and households can use information technology—including budget-tracking software and on-line banking and investment resources—to keep up with what they have and learn how they can best use it.
A WVU laboratory has taken this concept and expanded it by several orders of magnitude. Faculty, staff, and students in the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Consumer Sciences are using computer technology to create a better understanding of the many natural resources in the Appalachian region. Here, too, the goal is to make the best use of these resources.
The
Natural Resource Analysis Center, housed in the Davis College's
Division of Resource Management, incorporates geographic information
systems (GIS) and remote environmental sensing with economic
and policy analysis to achieve important goals in research, teaching,
and service. Computer hardware resources such as scanners, digitizers,
compact-disc writers, plotters, and other devices—valued
at a quarter of a million dollars—are centralized in the
NRAC's main research lab in the Agricultural Sciences Building
on the Evansdale campus. Workstations are spread throughout staff
offices.
Initially the brainchild of Jerry Fletcher, a professor of natural resource economics, and Charlie Yuill, an associate professor of landscape architecture, the NRAC and its staff have grown, with four full-time research associates and many graduate and undergraduate students now participating. The wide range of research and teaching activities at the NRAC includes environmental planning, environmental and natural resource economics, forest and wildlands recreation, wildlife management, forest ecology, and land and water resource reclamation.
"The NRAC allows us to conduct analysis and present information in ways that are useful for a whole range of agricultural, natural resource, economic development, and environmental interests," says Professor Peter Schaeffer, the director of the Division of Resource Management.
Schaeffer notes proudly that of the more than $2 million in funded research conducted with NRAC participation, virtually all of it is multidisciplinary. Scholars from disciplines within the Davis College join forces with researchers from the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business and Economics, and the College of Engineering and Mineral Resources.
Schaeffer also notes the growing service component of the NRAC. Increasing grant funding and collaboration from West Virginia government agencies, he says, "is the sincerest expression of our usefulness and importance to the state."
One of the NRAC's ongoing efforts, the West Virginia Land Use/Land Cover Project, is intended to provide low-cost, current land cover and land use information to state agencies, local and regional organizations, development authorities, planning commissions, and utility boards in West Virginia and the Appalachian region. Using the best existing or new imagery, the project can provide data to specifications and in formats established by the participating organization.
Applications of the project include up-to-date land use mapping for local and regional organizations, conservation planning and land resource protection, and identification of environmental problems such as landslides, eroding areas, unstable streams, and trash and waste disposal problems.
Other NRAC projects have focused on developing customized GIS resources for watershed-based citizen groups, hollow-fill surface mine mapping, and fisheries habitat modeling. NRAC staff have completed a Corridor H/Blackwater River restoration project for the West Virginia Department of Highways and a study of landscape fragmentation and forestry practices for the State Division of Forestry.
"It has been very gratifying to see the NRAC evolve over time," Schaeffer said. "While its mission is still primarily a research mission, it has come to directly support our teaching and service activities, both on campus and off."
For additional information on the NRAC,
visit www.nrac.wvu.edu,
or call (304) 293-4832, extension 4456.