Nature-Society Keynote on Friday | Peirce Lewis event | Workshop for geospatial women

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Please join us for a special Coffee Hour in Memory of Peirce Lewis on October 5

Colleagues, friends, family, and students of the late Geographer Peirce Lewis are invited to join us as the Department of Geography pays tribute to the man and his contributions to geography. Richard Schein (’83g), Peirce Lewis’s advisee and now professor of geography at the University of Kentucky, will give the Coffee Hour lecture. For more information about the program or to RSVP by September 28 visit: https://www.geog.psu.edu/event/coffee-hour-richard-schein

GOOD NEWS

Penn State students, faculty and staff, as well as local community members (ages 18 and older) are encouraged to attend a free bike safety workshop on Tuesday, Sept. 25 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at 117 Weston Community Center at Penn State’s White Course Apartments. For more information or to RSVP for the event, please visit www.biking.psu.edu.

The 2018 Department of Geography Newsletter is in the mail. If you are not currently subscribed would like to be added to the mailing list, please send your postal address to geography@psu.edu.

NATURE-SOCIETY KEYNOTE

 Trevor Birkenholtz
The Political Ecology of Drip Irrigation Infrastructure: Efficiency and Gendered Labor Dynamics in India

In this paper, I draw on a case from northern India to examine the material politics of drip irrigation infrastructure. Drip irrigation delivers water directly to plant stems or roots and has been shown to double water-use efficiency, while raising productivity, compared to conventional irrigation. It is being promoted globally by scientists, state planners and development donor agencies as a way to reduce agricultural demand for groundwater. However, while drip irrigation may enhance irrigation efficiency, it may not lead to water savings. Relying on ethnographic research conducted in India from 2015-2018, I argue that the complex interaction of subsidy policies, farmer motivations for adopting drip irrigation, and gendered labor dynamics determine whether efficiency gains in drip irrigation result in water savings. Further, I posit that feminine labor provides a subsidy to drip irrigation that underwrites both water-use efficiency and productivity, while maintaining drip irrigations’ heterogeneous material and institutional infrastructure. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for water conservation in agriculture and for gendering drip irrigation policy.

  • 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.: Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.; the lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4:00 p.m.
  • Coffee Hour To Go Webcast

NEWS

Women in Geospatial Sciences, Building Leaders for Tomorrow workshop

Penn State and Syracuse University will host two day-and-a-half workshops to identify challenges women currently face in U.S. universities, and provide recommendations to retain women leaders in the geospatial sciences. The workshops are open to women who work in the geospatial sciences at all career stages, including mid- and early-career faculty, staff, post-docs and graduate students.

Program combines mobile devices and the outdoors in an unlikely pairing

Alex Klippel is a project adviser
In the age of digital technology, mobile devices are good for more than just text messaging and playing games. According to Penn State College of Education researchers, the combination of technology and the outdoors is getting children and their families outside to learn more about science and their communities.

Transforming Outdoor Places into Learning Spaces is a College of Education research and development project that takes place at the Arboretum at Penn State and at Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center, Penn State’s outdoor education field lab and nature center in Petersburg, Huntingdon County. It is an opportunity for people of all ages to develop understandings of deeper learning while engaging in activities on mobile devices.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Surface mapping of the Milh Kharwah salt diapir to better understand the subsurface petroleum system in the Sab’atayn Basin, onshore Yemen

Tari, G., L. Jessen, P. Kennelly, A. Salman, T. Rainer and P. Hagedorn
Arabian Journal of Geosciences
https://rdcu.be/61sP
In the Sab’atayn Basin of Yemen, hydrocarbons were generated from pre-salt Upper Jurassic source rocks during the Cenozoic and the salt provides the ultimate super seal for the pre-salt and intra-salt traps. Therefore, the proper understanding of salt tectonics is critical for ongoing hydrocarbon exploration efforts targeting the fractured basement play in the Sab’atayn Basin. Based on numerous well penetrations, the presence of non-evaporitic lithologic units such as black shales, marls, carbonates, and sandstones within the Tithonian Sab’atayn Formation is quite common and quite important for the prolific Alif oil play. The internal lithologic and structural complexity of the Tithonian evaporites was addressed by analyzing a few outcropping salt diapirs east of the Habban Field area in the central part of the Sab’atayn Basin.

Witch’s Broom Disease of Lime (Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia): identifying high-risk areas by climatic mapping

Donkersely, P., Blanford, J., Queiroz, R.B., Silva, F.W.S., Carvalho, C.M., Al-Sadi, A.M. Elliot, S.
Journal of Economic Entomology
https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toy248
Biological invasions of vectorborne diseases can be devastating. Bioclimatic modeling provides an opportunity to assess and predict areas at risk from complex multitrophic interactions of pathogens, highlighting areas in need of increased monitoring effort. Here, we model the distribution of an economically critical vectorborne plant pathogen ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia’, the etiological agent of Witches’ Broom Disease of Lime. This disease is a significant limiting factor on acid lime production (Citrus aurantifolia, Swingle) in the Middle East and threatens its production globally. We found that temperature, humidity, and the vector populations significantly determine disease distribution. Following this, we used bioclimatic modeling to predict potential novel sites of infections. The model outputs identified potential novel sites of infection in the citrus producing regions of Brazil and China. We also used our model to explore sites in Oman where the pathogen may not be infectious, and suggest nurseries be established there. Recent major turbulence in the citrus agricultural economy has highlighted the importance of this work and the need for appropriate and targeted monitoring programs to safeguard lime production.

 

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