Climate Change, Urbanization, and Water Resources

Heejun Chang is a Professor of Geography at the Portland State University. As a broadly trained geographer and hydrologist, he has conducted transdisciplinary freshwater research using a coupled human and natural systems lens. In collaboration with diverse scholars and interdisciplinary water researchers, he has investigated the combined impacts of climate change and urbanization on runoff, water quality, water demand, and water-related ecosystem services across scales. Chang uses diverse data and methods to understand human and water interactions using process-based models, surveys, interviews, document analysis, and geospatial analysis. Chang's high-impact societally relevant geographic research makes him a worthy recipient of the American Association of Geographer's E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award in 2022.

Alexander Reid Ross is a Senior Instructor at the Portland State University where he teaches courses on water, climate change, and sustainability. His research and reporting explores the multi-scalar dynamics of conflict and consensus using transdisciplinary approaches involving historical, information, and political geographies, as well as social ecology. In the area of complex, coupled human-water systems, his work covers collaborative governance and adaptation to climate change-induced hazards in exurban places using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods, and his analysis of the dual theoretical frameworks, socio-hydrology and hydrosocial theory won the International Association of Hydrological Scientists' Tison Award in 2022.