Within the Department, ecology covers a wide range of topics from nutrient cycling to ecological energetics. Specialties include terrestrial, aquatic, marine, and population ecology; resource conservation; and management of ecosystem resources. Fields of application within ecology include: aquatic ecology; fisheries consulting; forestry and agricultural management; parks and recreation; planning and management; resource conservation; toxic soil and water pollution research.

Ecology is the study of interactions among organisms and their environment. Researchers in the department study biotic and abiotic components of terrestrial ecosystems at levels that range from organismal to community-level, and use a variety of methods including field and greenhouse experiments, laboratory analyses, remote sensing, and ecological modeling.

Geomorphology is the study of how planetary landscapes change through time in response to physical, chemical, and biological processes. Researchers in the department study landscapes over a wide range of scales, from particle-scale sediment transport to the global evolution of planetary surfaces, utilizing a variety of methods including computational modeling, field studies, and experimental work.

Research on coastal systems in the department covers a broad range of disciplines and environments. Studied systems include seagrass meadows, coral reefs, mangrove forests, salt marshes and barrier islands. Our diverse research groups study the ecology, hydrology and geomorphology of these various systems. Current research focuses include plant genetics, carbon storage, sea level rise, flow regimes, aquaculture, primary production and metabolism, invasive species and more.

Biogeoscience is a systems approach to solving complex environmental issues. Researchers can better understand ecosystems by studying interdisciplinary processes such as nutrient cycling, ecological population dynamics, isotope geochemistry, watershed hydrology and many others. Current research topics include terrestrial carbon influence on lake ecosystems, mercury and carbon dynamics in streams, nitrogen fluxes in low-relief watersheds, recovery from acid deposition in mountain streams, nitrogen budgets on permaculture farms, and early warnings indicators of ecosystem regime shifts.

The atmospheric sciences program at U.Va. focuses on relationships between atmospheric processes and the Earth’s biosphere and hydrosphere on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Areas of specialization within the Department include: synoptic and dynamic climatology; boundary layer meteorology; mountain meteorology; air quality and visibility; atmospheric chemistry; modeling of acid depositions and trace gas transport; mesoscale meteorology and climatology; convective storms; and coastal processes.

Humans interact and alter each of the earth systems studied in the department. Researchers in the department collaborate across natural and social science disciplines to better understand the interactions between humans and the environment. Recent work in this area has focused on the environmental impacts of food production, including the development of a nitrogen footprint, possibilities for yield gap closure, and mapping the global virtual water and seafood trade networks.

Within the Department there is a strong focus on the interactions between the Earth’s surface and its atmosphere. These efforts integrate hydrological, ecological, and meteorological principles to understand the exchange of water, heat, and trace gases between the land and the atmosphere. Much of the interest in these mass and energy fluxes centers on the nonlinear feedback effects between the surface and the atmosphere, and the resulting impacts to the biosphere and atmosphere.

The Department of Environmental Sciences has achieved prominence among national and international environmental science programs by integrating various scientific areas to address complex global environmental problems.

The atmospheric sciences program at U.Va. focuses on relationships between atmospheric processes and the Earth’s biosphere and hydrosphere on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Areas of specialization within the Department include: synoptic and dynamic climatology; air quality and visibility; atmospheric chemistry; modeling of acid depositions and trace gas transport; mesoscale meteorology and climatology; convective storms; and coastal processes.