Featured Scholar: Broxton Bird, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Earth Sciences
Department of Earth Sciences, IU Indianapolis School of Science
Research Video: https://youtu.be/hLKjBxgUggQ
Fluvial Erosion Hazard Research and Education in Indiana
Professor Broxton Bird's research addresses a range of environmental questions. He is particularly interested in the intersection between climate change and water resources and the impacts on natural and anthropogenic systems. His current projects are focused on developing new hydroclimate records from Tibet, tropical South America, and the midwestern US in order to reconstruct the spatiotemporal patterns and mechanisms of hydrologic variability.
Professor Bird is also the Director of the Center for Earth and Environmental Science (CEES). For over 11 years, CEES has studied how Indiana rivers move, not only now but in the past, to better understand how erosion hazard may change as the climate continues to change. CEES faculty and staff have participated in over a dozen regional workshops and seminars and gave more than two hundred presentations around Indiana, neighboring states, and at national conferences. CEES has also expanded to include Burke Engineering to deliver a more balanced agency, academic, and private consultant perspective on fluvial erosion hazards CEES has published several documents on how Indiana’s river’s function and how the rivers and streams can be managed to maximize stream health and public safety.
Professor Bird's translation of research into improved water quality for communities all around the world is another excellent example of how IU Indianapolis's faculty members are TRANSLATING their RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE.
Selected Publications in IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks
With several research works contributed to IU Indianapolis's free, open access repository, Professor Bird has made translational research knowledge available to professionals, researchers, students, and communities around the world.
Carlson Mazur, M. L., Smith, B., Bird, B., McMillan, S., Pyron, M., & Hauswald, C. (2022). Hydrologic connectivity and land cover affect floodplain lake water quality, fish abundance, and fish diversity in floodplain lakes of the Wabash-White River basin. River Research and Applications, 38(1), 160–172. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/31898
Commerford, J. L., Gittens, G., Gainforth, S., Wilson, J. J., & Bird, B. W. (2022). Differences in forest composition following two periods of settlement by pre-Columbian Native Americans. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 31(5), 467–480. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/31897
Pompeani, D. P., Bird, B. W., Wilson, J. J., Gilhooly, W. P., Hillman, A. L., Finkenbinder, M. S., & Abbott, M. B. (2021). Severe Little Ice Age drought in the midcontinental United States during the Mississippian abandonment of Cahokia. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 13829. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/29952
Wood, L. R., Neumann, K., Nicholson, K. N., Bird, B. W., Dowling, C. B., & Sharma, S. (2020). Melting Himalayan Glaciers Threaten Domestic Water Resources in the Mount Everest Region, Nepal. Frontiers in Earth Science, 8, 128. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/28305
Freimuth, E. J., Diefendorf, A. F., Lowell, T. V., Bates, B. R., Schartman, A., Bird, B. W., … Stewart, A. K. (2020). Contrasting sensitivity of lake sediment n-alkanoic acids and n-alkanes to basin-scale vegetation and regional-scale precipitation δ2H in the Adirondack Mountains, NY (USA). Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 268, pp. 22-41. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/21431
Gibson, D. K., Bird, B. W., Wattrus, N. J., Escobar, J., Ahmed, M., Fonseca, H., Velasco, F., Fernandez, A., & Polissar, P. J. (2019). Characterizing late Quaternary lake-level variability in Lago de Tota, Colombian Andes, with CHIRP seismic stratigraphy. Journal of Paleolimnology, 62(4), 319–335. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/24822
Bird, B. W., Wilson, J. J., Escobar, J., Kamenov, G. D., Pollard, H. J., & Monaghn, G. W. (2019). Pre-Columbian lead pollution from Native American galena processing and land use in the midcontinental United States. Geology, 47(12), 1193–1197. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/24298
Permana, D. S., Thompson, L. G., Mosley-Thompson, E., Davis, M. E., Lin, P.-N., Nicolas, J. P., Bolzan, J. F., Bird, B. W., Mikhalenko, V. N., Gabrielli, P., Zagorodnov, V., Mountain, K. R., Schotterer, U., Hanggoro, W., Habibie, M. N., Kaize, Y., Gunawan, D., Setyadi, G., Susanto, R. D., … Mark, B. G. (2019). Disappearance of the last tropical glaciers in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (Papua, Indonesia) appears imminent. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(52), 26382–26388. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/24245
Bird, B. W., Barr, R. C., Commerford, J., Gilhooly, W. P., Wilson, J. J., Finney, B., … Monaghan, G. W. (2019). Late-Holocene floodplain development, land-use, and hydroclimate–flood relationships on the lower Ohio River, US. The Holocene, 29(12), https://hdl.handle.net/1805/21356
Bird, B. W., Abbott, M. B., Vuille, M., Rodbell, D. T., Stansell, N. D., & Rosenmeier, M. F. (2011). A 2,300-year-long annually resolved record of the South American summer monsoon from the Peruvian Andes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(21), 8583–8588. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/30198
Bird, B. W., Abbott, M. B., Finney, B. P., & Kutchko, B. (2009). A 2000 year varve-based climate record from the central Brooks Range, Alaska. Journal of Paleolimnology, 41(1), 25–41. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/30200
Find more free articles by Broxton Bird in IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks.