June 2, 2011
Geographer published in prestigious environmental research journal
Marcellus Caldas, assistant professor of geography, and colleagues from the University of Texas at Austin and Michigan State University were published in the recent issue of Environmental Research Letters, an environmental science journal. The publication is titled "Statistical confirmation of indirect land use change in the Brazilian Amazon." The research is significant as Caldas is among the U.S. researchers that for the first time has quantified the indirect effect that changing pasture land to soy or biofuel production can have on deforestation. Caldas and his colleagues estimated the indirect land-use change and also implemented a new statistical methodology capable of linking frontier deforestation to distant events, such as the expansion of soy production in a settled agricultural area. The publication can be read here.