Great Plains Population and Environment

The Great Plains Population and Environment Research Program brings together researchers with expertise in History, Ecology, Demography, Anthropology, Geography, Sociology, and Statistics to study the changing nature of agriculture and population in the Great Plains, and to understand the constantly changing interaction of those forces with the environment. The original project (which had support from the National Institutes of Health) ran from 1995 to 2013. Other related research projects at the University of Michigan have studied the Great Plains region in a broader national context, and made use of extraordinarily detailed data from Kansas to study land use change and demographic development with greater resolution. Those projects have been led by Dr. Kenneth M. Sylvester and Dr. Susan Hautaniemi Leonard.

Project data web page:

The data developed as part of this project are available from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan: Great Plains Population and Environment Data Series

Grants supporting this research:

  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Grant R01 HD033554. "Population and Environment in the U.S. Great Plains," 1995-2013. PI Myron Gutmann (1995-2009), Susan Hautaniemi Leonard (2009-2013).
  • National Science Foundation. Grant DEB 0216560. "Agrarian Landscapes in Transition: A Cross-Scale Approach," 2002-2006. PI for University of Michigan subcontract: Myron Gutmann. PI: Charles Redman, Arizona State University.
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Grant R01 HD044889. "Demography and Environment in Grassland Settlement," 2003-2008. PI Kenneth M. Sylvester.
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Grant R21 HD0069701. "Sustaining Populations and Landscapes at Risk: Adaptation in the American Grasslands," 2012-2014. PI Kenneth M. Sylvester.

Recent publications using the main project data:

  • 2013. Parton, W.J., Gutmann, M.P., Hartman, M.D., Merchant, E.R., Lutz, S.M., DelGrosso, S.J.. Simulated biogeochemical impacts of historical land use changes in the U.S. Great Plains from 1870 to 2003. Land Use and the Carbon Cycle: Science and Applications in Coupled Natural-Human Systems. Cambridge University Press.
  • 2013. Cunfer, Geoff, Krausmann, Fridolin. Sustaining agricultural systems in the old and new worlds: A long-term socio-ecological comparison. Long Term Socio-Ecological Research: Studies in Society-Nature Interactions Across Spatial and Temporal Scales. Netherlands: Springer Netherlands.
  • 2013. Sylvester, Kenneth M., Brown, Daniel G., Deane, Glenn D., Kornak, Rachel N. Land transitions in the American plains: Multilevel modeling of drivers of grassland conversion (1956-2006). Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment. 168, 7-15.
  • 2012. Maxwell, Susan K., Sylvester, Kenneth M. Identification of 'ever-cropped' land (1984-2010.) using Landsat annual maximum NDVI image composites: Southwestern Kansas case study. Remote Sensing of Environment. 121, 186-195.
  • 2012. Hornbeck, Richard. The enduring impact of the American dust bowl: Short- and long-run adjustments to environmental catastrophe. American Economic Review. 102, (4), 1477-1507.
  • 2012. Gutmann, Myron P., Pullum-Pinon, Sara M. Witkowski, Kristine, Deane, Glenn D., Merchant, Emily. Land use and family formation in the settlement of the US Great Plains. Social Science History. 36, (3), 279-310.
  • 2011. Gutmann, Myron P. Deane, Glenn D., Witkowski, Kristine. Finding frontiers in the U.S. Great Plains from the end of the Civil War to the eve of the Great Depression. Navigating Time and Space in Population Studies. New York, NY: Springer.
  • 2011. Leonard, Susan Hautaniemi, Deane, Glenn D., Gutmann, Myron P. Household and farm transitions in environmental context. Population and Environment. 32, (4), 287-317.
  • 2011. Hartman, Melannie D., Merchant, Emily R., Parton, William J., Gutmann, Myron P., Lutz, Susan M., Williams, Stephen A. Impact of historical land-use changes on greenhouse gas exchange in the U.S. Great Plains, 1883-2003. Ecological Applications. 21, (4), 1105-1119.
  • 2010. Gutmann, Myron P., Field, Vincenzo. Katrina in historical context: Environment and migration in the U.S.. Population and Environment. 31, (1/3), 3-19.
  • 2009. Macfadyen, Joshua D. Breaking sod or breaking even? Flax on the northern great plains and prairies, 1889-1930. Agricultural History. 83, (2), 221-246.
  • 2009. Leonard, Susan H., Gutmann, Myron P., Deane, Glenn D., Sylvester, Kenneth M. Drought and the Lifecycle/Landuse Trajectory in Agricultural Households. Proceedings of the IUSSP Seminar. Kashiwa, Japan.
  • 2009. Sylvester, Kenneth M. Ecological frontiers on the grasslands of Kansas: Changes in farm scale and crop diversity. Journal of Economic History. 69, (4), 1041-1062.
  • 2009. Hornbeck, Richard. The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short and Long-Run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe. NBER Working Paper Series. 15605, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
  • 2009. Hornbeck, Richard A. Essays on the Development of the American Economy. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • 2009. Hornbeck, Richard. Barbed Wire: Property Rights and Agricultural Development. Harvard University.
  • 2009. Cunfer, Geoff, Krausmann, Fridolin. Sustaining soil fertility: Agricultural practice in the old and new worlds. Global Environment. 4, 8-47.
  • 2009. Sylvester, Kenneth, Cunfer, Geoff. An unremembered diversity: Mixed husbandry and the American grasslands. Agricultural History. 83, (3), 352-383.
  • 2008. Sylvester, K.M., Gutmann, M.P.. Changing Agrarian Landscapes Across America: A Comparative Perspective. Agrarian Landscapes in Transition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • 2008. Sylvester, Kenneth M., Gutmann, Myron P. Dustbowl Legacies: Long Term Change and Resilience in the Shortgrass Steppe. Arizona State University Working Paper. Arizona State University.
  • 2008. Cunfer, Geoff. Scaling the dust bowl. Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS are Changing Historical Scholarship. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press.
  • 2008. Hornbeck, Richard. Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Evidence on the Effects of Property Rights. Boston University.
  • 2008. Lackett, Jill M., Hobbs, N. Thompson. Land use, fragmentation, and impacts on wildlife in Jackson Valley, Wyoming, USA. Fragmentation in Semi-Arid and Arid Landscapes. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
  • 2008. Rindfuss, Ronald R., Entwisle, Barbara, Walsh, Stephen J., An, Li, Badenoch, Nathan, Brown, Daniel G., Deadman, Peter, Evans, Tom P., Fox, Jefferson, Geoghegan, Jacqueline, Gutmann, Myron, Kelly, Maggi, Linderman, Marc, Liu, Jianguo, Malanson, George P.. Land use change: Complexity and comparisons. Journal of Land Use Science. 3, (1), 1-10.
  • 2007. Parton, William J., Gutmann, Myron P., Ojima, Dennis. Long-term trends in population, farm income, and crop production in the Great Plains. BioScience. 57, (9), 737-747.
  • 2007. Adler, Paul R., Del Grosso, Stephen J., Parton, William J. Life-cycle assessment of net greenhouse-gas flux for bioenergy cropping systems. Ecological Applications. 17, (3), 675-691.
  • 2006. Leonard, Susan Hautaniemi, Gutmann, Myron P. Land use and transfer plans in the U.S. Great Plains. Great Plains Research. 16, (2), 181-193.
  • 2005. Cunfer, Geoff. On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.
  • 2005. Johnson, Kenneth M., Voss, Paul R., Hammer, Roger B., Fuguitt, Glenn V., McNiven, Scott. Temporal and Spatial Variation in Age-Specific Net Migration in the United States. Demography. 42, (4), 791-812.
  • 2005. Gutmann, Myron P., Parton, William J., Cunfer, Geoff, Burke, Ingrid C. Population and environment in the U.S. Great Plains. New Research on Population and Environment. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
  • 2005. Gutmann, Myron P., Deane, Glenn, Lauster, Nathan, Peri, Andres. Two population-environment regimes in the Great Plains of the United States, 1930-
  • 1990. Population and Environment. 27, (2), 191-225.
  • 2005. Leonard, Susan Hautaniemi, Gutmann, Myron P. Isolated elderly in the U.S. Great Plains: The roles of environment and demography in creating a vulnerable population. Annales de Demographie Historique. 110, (2), 81-108.
  • 2005. Parton, William J., Gutmann, Myron P., Williams, Stephen A., Easter, Mark, Ojima, Dennis. Ecological impact of historical land-use patterns in the Great Plains: A methodological assessment. Ecological Applications. 15, (6), 1915-1928.
  • 2004. Gutmann, Myron P., Pullum-Pinon, Sara M., Baker, Susan Gonzalez, Burke, Ingrid C. German-Origin Settlement and Agricultural Land Use in the Twentieth Century Great Plains. German-American Immigration and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective. Madison, WI: Max Kade Institute for German American Studies.
  • 2004. Cunfer, Geoff. Manure Matters on the Great Plains Frontier. Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 34, (4), 539-567.
  • 2004. Polsky, Colin. Putting Space and Time in Ricardian Climate Change Impact Studies: Agriculture in the U.S. Great Plains, 1969-1992. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 94, (3), 549-564.
  • 2004. Hansen, Zeynep K., Libecap, Gary D. Small Farms, Externalities, and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Journal of Political Economy. 112, (3), 665-694.
  • 2003. Parton, William J., Gutmann, Myron P., Travis, William R. Sustainability and historical land-use change in the Great Plains: The case of eastern Colorado. Great Plains Research. 13, (1), 97-125.
  • 2002. Burke, Ingrid C., Lauenroth, William K., Cunfer, Geoff, Berrett, John E., Mosier, Arvin, Lowe, Petra. Nitrogen in the Central Grasslands Region of the United States. BioScience. 52, (9), 813-823.
  • 2002. Cunfer, Geoff. Causes of the Dust Bowl. Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History. Redlands, CA: ESRI.
  • 2002. Gutmann, Myron P., Pullum-Pinon, Sara M., Pullum, Tom W. Three eras of young adult home-leaving in Twentieth-Century America. Journal of Social History. 35, (3), 533-576.
  • 2002. Polsky, Colin D. A Spatio-temporal Analysis of Agricultural Vulnerability to Climate Change: The United States Great Plains, 1969--
  • 1992. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University.
  • 2001. Cunfer, Geoff. New Deal's Land Utilization Program in the Great Plains. Great Plains Quarterly. 21, (3), 193-210.
  • 2001. Polsky, Colin, Easterling, William E., III. Adaptation to climate variability and change in the US Great Plains: A multi-scale analysis of Ricardian climate sensitivities. Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment. 85, (1-3), 133-144.
  • 2000. Gutmann, Myron P. Scaling and Demographic Issues in Global Change Research: The Great Plains, 1880-1990. Climatic Change. 44, (3), 377-391.
  • 2000. Lauenroth, William K., Burke, Ingrid C., Gutmann, Myron P. The structure and function of ecosystems in the central North American grassland region. Great Plains Research. 9, 223-259.
  • 1999. Gutmann, Myron P., Cunfer, Geoff. A New Look at the Causes of the Dust Bowl. Charles L. Wood Agricultural History Lecture Series 99-1. Lubbock, TX: International Center for Arid and Semiarid Land Studies.
  • 1999. Cunfer, Geoffry A. Common Ground: The American Grassland, 1870-1970. Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.
  • 1999. Gutmann, Myron P., Pullum, Sara M. From local to national political cultures: Social capital and civic organization in the Great Plains. Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 24, (4), 725-762.
  • 1998. Lackett, J. New Measures of Conservation in Weld County, Colorado Agriculture. Thesis, Colorado State University.
  • 1998. Gutmann, Myron P. Great Plains Population and Environment Database, Version 1.0: User's Guide. Austin, TX: University of Texas-Austin.
  • 1997. Balkan, J.L.. Does Population Size Matter to Agricultural Land Use? A Focus on the Great Plains. Thesis, University of Texas.

ICPSR maintains a list of publications that have used the main project data, including links to on-line articles: Publications - Great Plains Population and Environment Data Series