My research has focused on understanding the organization of human and natural systems and developing methods for evaluating the relationships between them. From wetlands and landscapes to national economies and global resource systems, the common foundation has been systems ecology: understanding processes in the context of the larger systems of which they are a part.
Much of this work developed along two closely connected paths. One concerned wetlands, ecological engineering, and landscape-scale effects of human activity. The other concerned energy and emergy as methods for understanding environmental contributions to ecological and economic systems. Over time, the two increasingly converged.
Wetlands, Ecological Engineering, and Landscapes
Beginning in the early 1980s, research on the restoration of phosphate-mined lands in Florida developed into a broader program in wetland restoration, ecological engineering, and ecosystem assessment. The work included constructed wetlands, stormwater treatment, wetland mitigation, and the effects of development on wetland function and ecological condition.
Recognition that wetland condition was strongly influenced by the surrounding landscape led to development of the Landscape Development Intensity (LDI) Index. Using emergy to express different land uses on a common scale, the LDI provided a quantitative means of relating human activity in the landscape to independently measured ecological condition.
Emergy and Environmental Accounting
The second major path concerned the development and application of emergy to regional, national, and global environmental-economic systems. The work addressed resource use, sustainability, trade, natural capital, and the methodological foundations of emergy analysis.
Several projects produced methods and databases intended for broader use. Research for the United Nations Environment Programme led to the National Environmental Accounting Database (NEAD), providing comparable emergy accounts for national economies. Later research for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency produced the Unit Emergy Value (UEV) Library, a compilation of unit emergy values for many of the primary resources used in modern economies. Other work addressed natural capital, the global emergy baseline, and, most recently, food-energy-water relationships in global seafood supply chains through the NSF-funded INFEWS project.
Across both paths, the objective has remained much the same: to understand human and natural systems as interconnected wholes and to develop methods for measuring relationships that are difficult to see when their components are considered separately.
A more complete record of my research and publications is available on my University of Florida faculty page.