LA Bourgeois
Whether you’re interested in reading obscure scientific articles or hiking the debris flow pathway that leads to a landslide it is possible. Karin RogersShe dedicates her time to understanding complex scientific data in order to make it understandable for the average person. As interim director of the National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center at University of North Carolina Asheville, she can fill that communication gap by assisting those who make decisions that affect our communities.
Rogers received a Masters of Science in Geology from the University of Georgia in 2003. Fluvial geomorphology is the study of river landscapes and processes. This is what Rogers specialized in. She said that she loves the idea that you can spend time outdoors and learn about our deep history through rocks.
Rogers managed a project on water quality monitoring for UGA’s Department of Crop & Soil Sciences. It required a lot of fieldwork, and she joked that she made friends with many snakes. NEMAC hired her to manage a cooperative agreement between the agency and the U.S. Forest Service Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center.
Rogers also loves Western North Carolina for the many benefits of her work. She says that Asheville is a great place to live because of the natural areas, the community, its size, the restaurants and the quirkiness. Even as we’re growing and facing a lot of change, it still feels like a close-knit community and I enjoy being a part of it.
Xpress spoke with Rogers about NEMACs work, how data can be used to address climate change and the most fascinating hike she’s ever done.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited to improve clarity.
Can you describe what NEMAC does
NEMAC is focused on helping people make data-informed decisions regarding environmental change and resilience. We’re an Applied Research Center at UNC Asheville, and we specialize in trying to help decision-makers make decisions about climate change and landscape change. It is our goal to act as a translator between scientists producers and science users.
These decision-makers may be local municipalities like the City Of Asheville who are interested in understanding and interpreting trends in climate data and their expected impacts. Forest managers who want information about how large landscapes are changing due to various threats like disease and insects, as well as planners and the general public who are concerned about the risk of landslides in Western North Carolina. This work is illustrated by the following: Asheville’s climate resilience assessmentAnd Landslide Map viewerWe launched the N.C. Geological Survey.
Why are science communication interests you?
The everyday person isn’t out there reading scientific articles, and doesn’t necessarily spend time trying to understand complex trends and data that we’re seeing out there. I’ve always been drawn to try to fill that gap of communication and so much of it is geared towards decision making, especially related to climate. There’s a lot of important decision making going on about how we adapt and mitigate everything related to the change we’re experiencing.
What is environmental modelling and why is this important?
Modeling can take many different forms depending on the subject that you’re looking at. NEMAC works closely with scientists who are interested in climate projections or studying how landscape and forest changes through satellite imagery. And we work with those who do the modeling, taking complex data and processing it, and basically finding better ways to understand the trends that they’re seeing. And now you’ve got this interesting, novel way of communicating your data how can we get decision makers to be informed with that?
The partners that we work with are trying to better understand the trends they’re seeing and use that information to understand any change that’s happening. We are there to assist them in this. So modeling, analysis, data, visualization there’s all sorts of fields that are related to each other. It comes down to getting a better understanding of the trends we’re seeing in our environment.
What is a cool, recent project you worked on?
I’ve really enjoyed partnering with [the Oceanic and Atmospherics]Climate Program Office, since 2014. U.S. U.S. Climate Resilience ToolkitNEMAC helped co-develop this toolkit. The toolkit contains a resilience assessment process that is being used throughout the United States to help communities adapt to climate change. I’ve been proud of this collaboration and the work has been really rewarding.
What’s a recent trend you’ve seen, regarding the environment or climate change, that you think more people should know about?
It is important for people to understand that we are experiencing different changes and impacts depending upon where they live in the U.S. WNC expects an increase in precipitation events, which will impact flooding events and landslides. As we experience increased drought, wildfires are a concern in our region. All of these are compounded by the development pressures we’re seeing, which makes for a complicated future.
How does NEMAC collaborate with the Asheville community, and the surrounding areas?
We’re here to work with various partners to help, especially in the field of climate resilience as a translator. We are here for the City of Asheville, Land of Sky Regional Council, and other community and neighbor groups to make data-driven decisions.
Being a part of the university is a privilege. [important by]Undergraduates have the opportunity to work alongside us, hopefully providing them with exposure and training to continue science translation after graduation. There’s a real need for that skill set, especially with all the environmental climate change that we’re going through. There’s a real need for a workforce that can understand the data and climate trends that we’re seeing. So that’s a big part of why we’re here at the university and how we work with the university.
What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
I love being outdoors with my son and my spouse. Hiking is one of our favorite things.
What was the most geologically fascinating hike you made in this area, and why?
Huge flooding and landslide incidents were common in the area during Hurricanes Frances and Ivan back in 2004. There was also a Peeks Creek is a large landslide. [in Macon County]. [My most interesting hike]A tour up the debris flow path. It was a stunning, spectacular exposure of rock. Recently, the North Carolina Geologic SurveyTaken [the NEMAC team]We went on another tour to see a lot of landslides in Polk County. We explored the area and found interesting evidence of large, historic landslides. They’re occurring more often now with the increased precipitation and increased frequency of precipitation events.