Earth Sciences

During geologic spans of time, Earth's shifting tectonic plates, atmosphere, freezing water, thawing ice, flowing rivers, and evolving life have shaped Earth's surface features. The resulting hills, mountains, valleys, and plains shelter...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration (LACPR) draft final technical report in March, 2009. In response to federal legislation, the Corps had to analyze hurricane protection, and design and...

There has been renewed interest in soil and soil science in recent years as the recognition that biogeochemical processes that occur at the Earth's surface influence global climate change, land degradation and remediation, the fate and transport...

As the human population grows--tripling in the past century while, simultaneously, quadrupling its demand for water--Earth's finite freshwater supplies are increasingly strained, and also increasingly contaminated by domestic, agricultural, and...

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Flood Insurance Rate Maps portray the height and extent to which flooding is expected to occur, and they form the basis for setting flood insurance premiums and regulating development in the floodplain....

Detailed weather observations on local and regional levels are essential to a range of needs from forecasting tornadoes to making decisions that affect energy security, public health and safety, transportation, agriculture and all of our economic...

On January 8 and 9, 2009, the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council, in response to a request from the Office of Naval Research, hosted the "Oceanography in 2025" workshop. The goal of the workshop was to bring together scientists,...

The St. Johns River is the longest river in Florida, containing extensive freshwater wetlands, numerous large lakes, a wide estuarine channel, and a correspondingly diverse array of native flora and fauna. Water resource management in the river's...

The U.S. academic research fleet is an essential national resource, and it is likely that scientific demands on the fleet will increase. Oceanographers are embracing a host of remote technologies that can facilitate the collection of data, but...

During the 1990s, a government program brought together environmental scientists and members of the intelligence community to consider how classified assets and data could be applied to further the understanding of environmental change. As part of...