Dr. Klaus J Meyer-Arendt

Professional Science Master’s (PSM) degrees have been in existence in the USA for well over a decade. The PSM is a degree equivalent to the MBA for the sciences, and the idea is to integrate studies of natural sciences, math, management, and law to prepare students for professional positions outside academia. There are 128 PSM programs in the USA, mostly in the sciences, especially biosciences, and mostly online. In the environmental sciences, there are PSM programs at CSU/Chico, CSU/San Bernardino, American University, SIU/Edwardsville, Oregon State, North Texas, and Utah. The development of many of these PSM degree programs has been supported by grants over the past decade from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. PSMs have also been included in the stimulus bill also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
In Florida, a Sloan Foundation seed grant was received in 2009 to investigate the feasibility of developing a series of PSM degrees across the state. Five science sectors were selected to pilot the PSM degrees: Biotechnology, Forensics/Homeland Security, Healthcare, Simulation/Aviation, and Environmental Science/Sustainability. The University of West Florida, as one of eleven public Florida universities, was approached about assisting, and several departments—including Environmental Studies—responded.
The creation of a PSM in Northwest Florida is still a work in progress. A meeting of the Northwest Chapter of the Florida Association of Environmental Professionals (NWFAEP) in Pensacola in August 2009 was dedicated to discussion of creating a PSM degree and formulating a curriculum. A draft curriculum was developed in early 2010. A meeting of the Environmental Studies Advisory Board in April 2010 was to further refine the curriculum and perhaps establish a PSM advisory subgroup. Once a finalized curriculum is established, program approval and course development will be required before a Professional Science Master’s in Environmental Management & Sustainability becomes reality.

Hurricane Ivan, a Category-3 hurricane, came ashore near Gulf Shores, Alabama, on September 16, 2004. Santa Rosa Island, Florida, was within the Northeast quadrant of the storm and subject to surge heights in excess of 3 m. As a result the area suffered significant sediment loss (>200 m³ m⁻¹) and widespread overwash and breaching. Morphological changes were quantified by comparing LIDAR images collected before and after landfall. In general, the morphological changes exhibited an alongshore variation at a range of scales (<1 km), consistent with the variation in foredune height prior to the storm. Using multivariate statistics it is found that this variation not only depends on the height of the foredune (relative to the surge elevation) but also on the alongshore extent of the dune and the presence and relative location of the secondary dunes. This alongshore variation will affect the recovery of the dunes, reinforcing the observed patterns.

In order to assess recent development and loss of wetlands in the coastal zone of Mississippi, a study was done of historical changes in land use and land cover on the mainland Mississippi coast. Nineteen U. S. Geological Survey quadrangles having land below the 15-foot contour (the coastal zone study area) were evaluated. The Coward.in classification system of over 200 categories was simplified for use in the study to 7 categories: water, marsh, forest, agriculture, developed, dredge spoil, and beach. Historical data were compiled from U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service classifications of the area done in the 1950s and the 1970s. The 1992 classification was done using 1991-92, 1:24,000 scale, color infrared aerial photography. All data were digitized and comparative analysis was done using ARC/Info.

Interpretation of changes in land use/cover between the three data sets was hampered by inconsistencies in the original interpretations done of the 1950s and 1970s data. The 1992 interpretation is by far the most accurate and most consistent with respect to classification of individual use/cover types. The greatest marsh loss between the 1950s and 1992 occurred on the Waveland quadrangle (698 hectares) due to residential development, and on the Kreole and Grand Bay SW quadrangles (972 ha together) as a result of erosion and marsh deterioration. Over the entire study area, about 3,500 ha of marsh were lost between the 1950s and 1992 due to erosion (25%) and development (40%); the remaining losses resulted from conversion to forest or agriculture and overestimation of the original marsh acreage in the 1950s. This loss represents about 13% of the total coastal marsh area in mainland Mississippi. Developed land in the study area increased from 5,711 ha to 17,345 ha for the study period.