Group To Represent WKU At
Karst Conference In Vietnam
April 12, 2004
Bowling Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University’s growing international reputation in karst and water-resource research will be on display this fall at a United Nations-sponsored conference in Vietnam.
A graduate student and several faculty members from the Hoffman Environmental Research Institute in the Department of Geography and Geology have had research abstracts accepted for presentation at the "International Transdisciplinary Conference on Development and Conservation of Karst Regions."
The September conference in Hanoi will bring together an international collection of karst scientists and resource managers to better understand ways that political, social, cultural, environmental and economic considerations can be met when developing policies and practices of sustainable development in the world’s karst regions, where communities are often poor and where difficult water-resource challenges are common.
"Despite the magnificent scenery and cultural and natural diversity of karst regions, their development is often defined primarily in economic terms, generally to the detriment of the karst environment," according to conference organizer Dr. Tran Tan Van of Vietnam’s Research Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources.
Chris Groves, director of the Hoffman Institute within WKU’s Applied Research and Technology Program, serves on the meeting’s International Scientific Committee and will give a keynote address on “Recent United Nations’ Efforts for the Global Study and Protection of Karst Resources,” co-authored by Professor Yuan Daoxian of Guilin, China.
Groves also will present “The Role of Cave Exploration and Survey in the Protection of the World’s Longest Cave System: Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, USA,” co-authored with Hoffman Institute graduate student Pat Kambesis of Chicago and Bob Osborne of the Cave Research Foundation.
Kambesis has had two papers accepted: “Use of Subterranean Field Studies as a Baseline for Karst Research and Resource Management: Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico” and “A Systems Approach and Partnership in the Study of Contaminant Sources and Transport in a Karst Groundwater Basin.”
Faculty members Debbie Kreitzer and David Keeling also will attend the conference and present "Land-Use Planning in a Karst Biosphere Reserve Environment," based on their research into how the designation of Mammoth Cave National Park as both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve has impacted land-use planning in southcentral Kentucky.
Dr. Keeling, head of WKU's Department of Geography and Geology, said the conference, along with field excursions to Cuc Phong National Park and the Ha Long Bay World Heritage Site, will "focus on the planet’s most pressing problem in the early 21st century – managing water resources and their associated physical environments for the health and well being of all societies."
"What we have learned in southcentral Kentucky about karst and water resources can be applied to problems in Vietnam and China, just as the research we conduct in those countries can be applied to understanding karst problems right here in Western's service area," he said.
According to Keeling, the faculty, staff and students in the Hoffman Institute have “a commitment to international research and education that embraces the holistic nature of the problems faced by peoples across the planet. Western students benefit from these global research relationships by becoming more aware, through coursework and related research projects, of the challenges faced by our global environment.”
For more information about the conference, karst and water-related research, contact the Hoffman Environmental Research Institute at (270) 745-4169 or the Department of Geography and Geology at (270) 745-4555.
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