 |
| Rhett Jackson’s
research looks at how human activities, especially forestry
and urban development, affect aquatic habitats and water
quality. A current study assesses the effectiveness of
forestry’s best management guidelines in protecting
waterways from sediment and herbicides. |
Rhett Jackson sits on a table as students file into his class,
FORS 4140—introduction to wetlands. When all the seats
are filled, he stands and says, “Okay, everyone follow
me—quick little field trip.”
The students look at each other quizzically but follow him out
the door. Jackson practically skips down the four flights of
stairs to the courtyard, gaining speed as he descends. He goes
outside to a place where workers with shovels are turning up
large chunks of muddy sod.
“These guys are looking for a leak in the underground
water pipes,” says Jackson. “Can everyone see how
the water running downhill here has formed channels underground?
And even though this is a completely artificial situation, this
is exactly how natural channels are formed too,” he says.
“This scene relates exactly to our lecture today. Did
everyone get a look? Okay then, back to class.”
Jackson, a hydrologist in the Warnell School of Forest Resources,
takes advantage of every opportunity to teach.
Four years ago, Jackson brought together water resources faculty
from across campus to look at UGA’s water resources course
offerings. The result was the establishment in 2002 of an interdisciplinary
undergraduate Water Resources Certificate Program, open to science
students across campus. Administered through the School of Forest
Resources,
|
| FACTS |
| RHETT JACKSON |
Associate professor
of forest resources |
Ph.D., hydrology, University of Washington,
1992
M.S.E., environmental engineering,
Duke University, 1985
B.S.E., environmental engineering,
Duke University, 1983 |
|
the program involves more than 20 faculty members from 10 academic
departments. Its first three graduates completed the certificate
in 2003.
Jackson’s research looks at how human activities, especially
forestry and urban development, affect aquatic habitats and
water quality. A current study, funded by a $475,000 grant from
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, assesses the effectiveness
of forestry’s best management guidelines in protecting
waterways from sediment and herbicides.
“Hydrologists work in an area where federal programs have
been a phenomenal success,” says Jackson. “With
the exception of urban areas, water quality in this country
is tremendously better than it was 30 or 40 years ago, almost
solely because of federal grants that improved wastewater treatment
plants. Plus—agriculture and forestry practices are much
more environmentally friendly today than they were 30 years
ago.”
Jackson began his professional career as an engineer in California
where he worked for the L.A. County Sanitation District.
“I was hired to design a ‘refuse-to-energy facility,’
” he says, “but soon after I was hired, the project
got canned because of politics. So they made me a groundwater
monitoring specialist—and I knew absolutely nothing about
hydrology.”
A few years in hydrology convinced Jackson that he no longer
wanted to be an engineer. He packed up and moved to Seattle
where he enrolled in the Ph.D. program in hydrology at the University
of Washington. After earning his degree, he took a job with
Washington state’s huge King County government, developing
water models.
Jackson says he likes hydrology because “the issues are
important and you always feel needed. Also, it involves a mix
of basic and applied research that often changes how the world
works.” |
