Current Research

Assessment and Management of Urban Environments

Faculty at MSU are involved in research related to the assessment and management of environmental problems related to urbanization and development (Sarkar, Singh, Taylor, Sternberg). Interests within this group include assessment of environmental quality changes as a result of urban sprawl (Sarkar), remediation of urban pollution, e.g., lead, arsenic, petroleum hydrocarbons (Sarkar), the use of environmental data in urban planning (Taylor); economic impact of transportation and resource development related to urbanization (Sternberg); the environmental impact of population growth and loss of agricultural production (Singh); and coastal and inland aquatic biodiversity (Prezant). Additional research initiatives include coastal and estuarine environments (H. Feng, Prezant, Kruge); contaminant transport in groundwater systems (Ophori); uptake of PAHs in shell of invasive bivalves (Prezant, Kruge); and biologic effect of heavy metal contamination (Lee).

Spatial Environmental Data Analysis

Within the last five years, faculty members have been hired with applied geographic information systems experience (Yu, Chopping). These new faculty, aided by state-of-the-art global positioning systems equipment, work-station-based geographic information systems software/hardware and PC-based GIS and remote sensing software/hardware, complement an already active, interdisciplinary group of faculty involved in the field collection, analysis, and application of environmental data in northern and central New Jersey and the New York metropolitan region. Doctoral program faculty are also involved in decision-making and planning applications for urban areas (Taylor), analysis of contaminant distributions in sediment, air and water in estuarine and agricultural areas for local government agencies and industry (Feng, Kruge); spatial analysis of bird populations related to development and land use in northern New Jersey (Smallwood); spatial analysis of weathering rates related to air pollutant distribution (Pope); and spatial distribution of infiltration characteristics (Ophori). Recent grant proposals have been funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (Feng, Ophori), National Science Foundation (Brachfeld, Pope, Robila); and recent applications have been made to EPA (Ophori), NSF (Ophori, Gorring), NJDEP (Gorring, Ophori, Pope), NYDEC (Feng,) and USDA (Pope, Ophori, Gorring).

Drivers and Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Northern New Jersey

The landscape of Northern New Jersey continues to undergo tremendous change. Urban sprawl is a major public policy question in New Jersey and across the nation. Throughout this century urban and suburban development has changed the region, forcing dramatic changes in many of the natural systems. These impacts include loss of water quality, destruction of critical habitats and open space, increased flood hazard, and decline of air quality with associated transportation. The Department maintains an on-going study examining the socio-economic forces driving the process of land use/land cover, the physical impacts of the alterations, as well as the policy regimes that have developed to manage the associated environmental problems. Basic data that are available in-house to students include land use/land cover data for the region, water and air quality data, and set of relevant private and public sector reports and documents. The Department has established contacts in the following agencies and organizations as sources of additional information: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, U.S. Geological Survey, the Regional Plan Association, and N.J. Home Builders Association.

Water Resource Management in Northern NJ and Long Island Drainage Basins

The New York / New Jersey Metropolitan area is one of the most densely populated regions of the United States. The growing population and expanding economy have led to degradation of water quality from very high inputs of point and non-point sources of contaminants. About 80% of groundwater withdrawals from the region are from Quaternary aquifers that are not only recharged by polluted surface water, but have also developed severe water-level declines due to heavy pumping. Both surface and groundwater sources possess quantity and quality problems that require efficient and prudent management. The solutions to these problems require an integrated watershed approach involving an interdisciplinary team of geologists, hydrogeologists, geochemists and ecologists. The modeling and assessment of both water resource and quality involves manipulation of large sets of data that may take advantage of Geographic Information Systems and other spatial models. Faculty and students at the University currently study the Passaic River and Long Island drainage basins, focusing on identification of contaminant sources, factors controlling the fate of contaminants, and the vulnerability of groundwater to contamination (Ophori). The Faculty works in collaboration with Passaic County Department of Environmental Health, Nassau County Department of Health, Suffolk County Department of Health, NJ DEP, US EPA, and the NJ Geological Survey.

Marine Geochemistry of the Newark Bay and New York Harbor

The study of marine sediment contamination is critical to the environmental management of the greater Hudson River estuary. It is important to study the source, transport and fate of contaminants in estuarine and coastal systems. Currently, Professor H. Feng is involved in a project titled "New York/New Jersey Harbor Contaminated Sediment Processing and Decontamination Technologies” under the federal Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) directed by US EPA Region 2. The goal of the project is to establish treatment facilities for production of beneficial use products from contaminated dredged material taken from the NY/NJ Harbor. Radionuclides are used as tracers to develop geochemical models for transport and loading of contaminants in riverine and estuarine systems. Additional work involves the study of speciation of chemical compounds and structural characterization of geological materials including sediments using synchrotron x-ray microbeam in collaboration with scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he has a guest scientist appointment. Dr. Kruge is working on the problem of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contamination in sediments from the Passaic River, Gowanus Canal and Long Island Sound. Recent work has brought in interdisciplinary team together to start to focus on correlates of PAH and other contamination and benthic biodiversity in the Gowanus Canal sediments (Stern, Kruge, Prezant). Funding for these projects has come from numerous state and federal agencies.

Environmental Issues Pertaining to the Passaic River

The Passaic River basin, encompassing about 10% of New Jersey, shows remarkable diversity, containing some of the most pristine, environmentally important lands in the state (that is, the drinking water watersheds and reservoirs of the Highlands), several large exurban/suburban wetland complexes in south and eastern Morris County, as well as some of the most densely populated land in the nation, with severe environmental contamination along the lower reaches of the river. The mission of the Passaic River Institute (PRI) at Montclair State University is to further environmental research and education and to help find solutions for environmental problems within the Passaic River basin, including tributaries and surrounding watershed lands. Ongoing research and educational activities of PRI involve several doctoral faculty members including Drs. Barrett, Galster, Feng, Sarkar, Yu.

Canopy Structure Mapping with NASA Earth Observing System Satellite Data

The amount and distribution of terrestrial carbon in forests is poorly known but trends in stocks and patterns of forest disturbance are known to be driven by climate. Annual wall-to-wall maps of carbon stocks are required to estimate C stocks in forest but cannot be constructed with traditional remote sensing methods such as spectral indices because these are not able to provide information on canopy 3-D structure that is essential for estimating woody biomass. The goal of this research is to apply innovative multi-angle remote sensing methods with NASA Earth Observing System data to map woody plant crown cover, mean canopy height, aboveground woody biomass, over large areas. This research effort is therefore focussed on retrievals of woody plant canopy parameters via geometric-optical canopy reflectance model inversion against data from the MISR and MODIS instruments on two EOS satelliies, by accessing the structural signal encapsulated in these multiangle data. The initiative also includes working with various forms of lidar data and hyperspatial (high resolution) to obtain adequate calibration and reference data.

Other Environmental Research and Management Activities

Other faculty research initiatives add depth to the program’s strength. For example, Professors H. Feng and D. Ophori have developed a co-operative set of research projects with faculty of the Department of Geography at East China Normal University in Shanghai, China. The individual projects are part of a larger scale comparative study of environmental problems and management issues in the New York metropolitan region (primarily northern New Jersey) and the city of Shanghai. The Montclair State Center for Global Education serves a campus-level coordinating institution. Other research initiatives include: the atmospheric impacts on architectural and sculptural stone by Professor G. Pope. The research combines knowledge of rock types, weathering processes, air pollution, and stone conservation issues. Dr. Pope has initiated a long-term acid deposition-monitoring project with specially cut stone samples. He undertook a study of acid rain distribution in the New Jersey metropolitan area, followed closely by an assessment of stone monument damage, and has recently completed three years of summer field work in Portugal to examine the weathering and erosion on pre-historic rock sculptures. Professor M. Gorring’s research focused on the geochemistry, geochronology, and regional tectonics of Neogene basaltic volcanic rocks from the Patagonian Andes of the southern Argentina and Chile. The research offers a unique perspective of subduction zones processes and a rare glimpse of mantle chemistry beneath an active continental margin. Much of the research is collaborative with scientists from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, University of Wisconsin, and Cornell University.