New Research Project to Study Forest Response to Compounded Threats

Anna Harper, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, will soon begin leading a new research project titled, “Compound impacts on forest carbon uptake and storage from wind, heat, and drought.” The new project, funded by DOE, is set to reveal process-level understanding of how forests respond to compounded threats from heat stress, drought, and wind damage from hurricanes, tropical storms, and other severe storms. This information will be crucial to build better models of the land carbon cycle.

The project is called ‘SWAE’ (pronounced ‘sway’) which stands for “Synergistic impacts of Wind And other Extreme events on forest carbon” and is expected to run for two years. Other UGA Geography professors, Thomas Mote and Gabriel Kooperman, will also contribute to the project alongside collaborators at Columbia University, Pacific Northwest National Lab, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and the UK Met Office/Hadley Centre.

Dr. Harper is currently recruiting a post-doc for this project -- if you or someone you know may be a good candidate for this role, please reach out to Dr. Harper at a.harper@uga.edu. To learn more about Dr. Harper’s research, click here!