The preferred method of donating during the UK United Way of the Bluegrass Campaign for 2014 is payroll deduction. It is so simple and allows you to designate your funds to a specific agency. All donations that do not have a designation request will go into the general funds category and will be used for the most pressing needs in our community. 

If you need a tutorial on how to complete the payroll deduction, please visit the link here. 

As the official start of the UK United Way Campaign is set to begin on October 1 and run through October 31, I wanted to share with you a brief update on how we are doing so far.

Since the beginning of September, several areas are collecting "Change for Change." I am purposely not counting these funds until the campaign ends with hopes that more contributions will come in via this method of giving to the United Way.

In addition to the "Change for Change" program, we also held our first-ever Chili/Soup Cookoff as a kickoff to our United Way campaign.

Thank you to the following people for their contribution to the Cookoff:

Meaty Chili with Spaghetti -- George White

Bean Soup -- Beverly Clayborne

Vegeterian Chili -- Stephanie Morris

Some form of the diagram below is often used as a pedagogical tool, and to represent a theoretical framework, in fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, and river science. It is called a Lane Diagram, and originated in a publication by E.W. Lane in 1955:

The diagram shows that stream degradation (net erosion and incision) and aggradation (net deposition) responds to changes in the relationship between sediment supply (amount of sediment, Q_s, and typical sediment size, D₅₀) and sediment transport capacity (a function of discharge or flow, Q_w, and slope, S). The diagram is a very helpful metaphor in understanding the sediment supply vs. transport capacity relationship, and its effects on channel aggradation or degradation.

Nicholas Pinter, a Southern Illinois University geomorphologist, gave a nice talk yesterday on rivers and flooding in the 21^st century as part of UK’s Water Week. Pinter’s talk got me to thinking about the concept of “equilibrium” in environmental systems and what it means to both geoscientists and laypersons. Pinter correctly noted that rivers tend toward dynamic equilibrium, and more specifically, dynamic metastable equilibrium. This means three things: First, the system (river) is more or less constantly changing (the dynamic part). Second, equilibrium is of the type envisioned in mathematics and systems theory—that is, a state or condition the system settles into after a change or perturbation, with no further connotation other than that the response to the change has run its course (I’ve called this “relaxation time equilibrium” in my work). Third, “metastable” means that these equilibrium states are not necessarily stable and self-maintaining, and may be sensitive to future disturbances—even relatively small ones. Pinter’s message is that dynamic equilibrium in rivers means that rivers are constantly changing.

As we get ready to kick off the 2014 United Way campaign at UK, I would like to share with you information about upcoming opportunities to participate either by monetary or community service gifts.

First of all, on Tuesday, September 23, from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m., in Conference Room 318 in POT, we will kick off our Brown Bag sessions for the Fall. The first topic will be United Way and we are raising awareness and funds by hosting a Chili/Soup Cook Off. To participate, please plan to donate $2 to get samplings of soups, chili and deserts prepared by your co-workers. If you are interested in participating, please RSVP here and let us know if you will be bringing your special recipes for chili, soup or a desert. It should be a fun and informative session.

At the great suggestion from a mentor, I made an appointment and met with Diane Kohler.  She is Manager of UK Human Resources Career Development.  It really was a fantastic meeting. 

Shane Tedder, the University of Kentucky’s Sustainability Coordinator in the Office of Sustainability, recently spoke to a group of students in Greenhouse’s A&S 100 course, Pathways and Barriers to Environmental Sustainability. Shane talked about what UK is doing to become more sustainable and how each of us, and particularly students, can become more involved in the process of making UK more sustainable. I love the word process. Processes involve steps or actions undertaken to reach a desired goal or endpoint. And as Shane pointed out, sustainability is a process of continuous improvement – an effort to enhance the positives and reduce the negatives.

Listening to Shane’s talk, I noted five key concepts. Here are his take-home messages:

1.Regardless of your major, learning about sustainability is important.

Explaining and understanding Earth surface systems almost always requires some triangulation between three different sets of factors. The first, examples of which are shown on the lower left corner of the triangle below, are general principles and relationships that apply everywhere and always. Second, on the upper point, are environmental factors--characteristics of locations and regions such as climate, geology, etc. On the lower right of the triangle is the third set of factors, related to past events and time available for the system to develop.

This can be generalized as laws, place, and history, as shown below. 

Yesterday I was honored to give the annual Linton Award lecture to the British Society for Geomorphology at the University of Manchester. Many thanks to the BSG for making my attendance possible, and to the U. Manchester geography department for putting on a good meeting. This is the abstract of my talk, entitled Badass Geomorphology: