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Arid Lands Studies
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- 2. van Leeuwen joins faculty
- In the southwestern United States, drought, wildfire and monsoon rainfall events can have a devastating impact on the sustainable use of natural resources.
Willem van Leeuwen has accepted a joint appointment with the UA Office of Arid Lands Studies (OALS) and Geography and Regional Development (GRD) as an assistant professor (tenure eligible). Van Leeuwen will split his research and teaching between the two departments. His teaching responsibilities will include undergraduate and graduate courses in biogeography and field methods.
Van Leeuwen's research will focus on understanding ecosystem responses to and the effects of wildfire, water erosion and management activities. In addition to applying remote sensing and GIS techniques to problems of sustainable land use and land degradation, one of his long-term goals is to develop new drought and ecosystem monitoring products based on the integration of climate data and remotely sensed land surface temperature and biophysical data.
"The most exciting research projects I am pursuing are multi-disciplinary in nature," van Leuwwen says. "My main research interests lie in understanding soil and vegetation ecosystem dynamics and how they respond to climate and human interactions." These interests center on the diverse ecosystems of the Western U.S.
Current research projects revolve around Decision Support Systems and the integration of remotely sensed products in Geographic Information Systems in order to monitor natural resources, vegetation dynamics, post-wildfire effects, and land degradation through time and across landscapes. He is also participating in projects that examine how mesquite encroachment and different management treatments affects soil carbon and nutrient dynamics, and has plans to use 3-D LIDAR technology to better understand these carbon dynamics.
Before joining the faculty as an assistant professor, van Leeuwen was an assistant research scientist in Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences at The University of Arizona. He also served as a research scientist at Météo France, in Toulouse, France, before returning to The University of Arizona, Office of Arid Lands Studies, in 2002.
Van Leeuwen received his Ph.D. in soil, water and environmental sciences at the UA in 1995. He holds a master's degree in soil science from the Agricultural University of Wageningen, in the Netherlands, where he also earned a bachelor's degree in soil science.
He is a member of the American Geophysical Union, Association of American Geographers, and the International Association for Landscape Ecology. - Updated: August 26, 2005
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