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The Human-Environment Regional Observatory-Central Massachusetts (HERO-CM) research program provides opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to analyze the causes and consequences of global environmental changes at local scales in faculty-led research projects. This program permits students to conduct research in interdisciplinary and inter-institutional projects. Current HERO research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Thoreau Foundation, and the O’Connor ‘78 Fund.
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Central Massachusetts
January 2009: New
research grant awarded to HERO
Professor Colin Polsky was
recently awarded a three-year, $360,000 "REU Site" grant from the US National Science
Foundation, with Professors John Rogan and R. Gil Pontius, Jr. as co-principal
investigators. This award will take the Clark HERO program to the
national level. To read the brochure select one of the following:
high resolution pdf (1443KB),
medium resolution pdf (1070KB),
low resolution pdf (205KB).
Click
here to see the how-to guide for producing <1m lawn maps by the HERO
Object-oriented Lawn Mapping for Exploring Suburbia (HOLMES) team.
This follows a
$1.4 million
research grant awarded to HERO in September 2007 that was intended to
catalyze research by HERO Professors Polsky and Pontius.
HERO-CM has three main areas of research: large-area forest change monitoring, vulnerability analysis, and prediction of land use and land cover change.
| Forest Change Monitoring |
Vulnerability Analysis |
Land Change Prediction |
Research questions:
What are the patterns and processes associated with timber harvest and forest growth in Massachusetts?
How can remote sensing help us accurately and consistently monitor these regional-scale changes? |
Research questions:
How have public water systems in Massachusetts adapted to the effects of climatic hazards such as droughts and floods?
How well suited is this coping capacity for the sprawling population growth pattern currently unfolding in the region? |
Research questions:
How can information about historic human behavior help anticipate and guide future human behavior concerning the way humans change the land cover?
How can we use geographic information science (GIS) computer technology appropriately to address these questions? |
For additional information contact
Professor Colin Polsky at
cpolsky@clarku.edu.
Sponsors
The map below shows the locations of the approximately 200 inquiries HERO received during its 2009 application season.
View Larger Map
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Additional Resources
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You may also be interested in:
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Read an interview with Colin Polsky
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2006 MaFoMP HEROs Ryan Frazier, Steve McCauley, Joe Fortier, Dominic Pascarelli, Alina Taus, and Paula Kiviranta begin their field training in Wells State Park
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