News
Purdue team gets $3 million to explore consequences of sustainability policies
Friday, September 20th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A rapidly growing global population in the midst of a changing climate had led to serious sustainability issues and choices surrounding water, food and energy. These stresses and the policy responses will vary by locality, but they will have global repercussions that will ultimately affect the success of those choices. The…
Read More
Purdue economists warn palm oil solutions may have unintended consequences
Wednesday, September 4th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The growth of palm oil, the most-consumed vegetable oil in the world, has been fueled by expansion of palm plantings in Malaysia and Indonesia that have contributed to massive deforestation in those countries. The carbon and biodiversity losses there have spurred the European Union and others to call for measures to…
Read More
Invasive pests kill so many trees each year, it’s equal to 5 million car emissions
Wednesday, August 14th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Invasive insects and pathogens have wreaked havoc on ash, elm, chestnut trees and others, wiping some of them almost completely from American forests. In addition to the ecological impact, a Purdue University study shows that the carbon storage lost to these pests each year is the same as the amount of…
Read More
Cities living with a strong chance of rain
Tuesday, May 28th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Heavy rain can overwhelm municipal infrastructure and lead to flooding that can threaten lives and property. The U.S. alone spends millions – and sometimes billions – of dollars per year on flood recovery, and more is spent around the world. A Purdue University study led by Dev Niyogi, a professor of…
Read More
Nature paper offers global map to understand changing forests
Wednesday, May 15th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – An international collaboration of hundreds of scientists – led in part by the Forest Advanced Computing and Artificial Intelligence (FACAI) Laboratory in Purdue’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources – has developed the world’s first global map of tree symbioses. The map is key to understanding how forests are changing and…
Read More
Persistence pays off as agricultural economics Ph.D. student delves into issues of food insecurity in Niger
Wednesday, May 1st, 2019
EKayenat Kabir, a Ph.D. student in Purdue University’s Agricultural Economics Department, is the first to admit that she did not follow a traditional path in the department while pursuing her doctorate degree. In 2015, Kabir gave up her job in the UN World Food Programme to start her Ph.D. at Purdue. She hails from Bangladesh,…
Read More
Large-scale forest carbon sequestration could cause food prices to skyrocket
Wednesday, May 1st, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Paris Agreement calls for reducing greenhouse gases enough to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels. This could be done by reducing emissions or capturing and storing atmospheric carbon. One of the cheapest and most efficient ways to capture and store carbon is through…
Read More
U.S. forests’ changes are double-edged sword for environment
Monday, April 15th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Climate change, nitrogen deposition and fire suppression are leading to shifts in the types of trees that dominate American forests. These changes will have environmental consequences, potentially positive and negative, according to a Purdue University study. Songlin Fei, a forest ecologist in Purdue’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, with colleagues…
Read More
How to feed the world and preserve the environment
Wednesday, April 10th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Farmers bear much of the burden for growing the food to feed billions of people as the world’s population continually trends upward. But to do so, those farmers have to keep crops healthy and high-yielding. That necessitates using fertilizers and pesticides, which help crops but can have an inadvertent, negative impact…
Read More
Climate scientist Hayhoe to address ‘science in a fact-free world’ at Purdue symposium
Thursday, March 14th, 2019
Purdue’s Ecological Sciences and Engineering program will partner with the Purdue Climate Change Research Center to host Katharine Hayhoe, a world-renowned climate communicator, at ESE’s annual symposium March 26-27. This year’s ESE symposium is titled “In Data We Trust? Perceptions of Science in a Post-truth World.” The main event, featuring Hayhoe’s lecture, “Science in a…
Read More
