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Welcome to Our Air Quality Research and Extension Program

Our goal is to develop an integrated research and extension program to assist Kansas in addressing critical environmental issues that impact the sustainability of local communities.

Kansas is experiencing air quality problems such as smoke from prescribed pasture burning and air emissions from livestock production. Also, as producers face new weather patterns and regulations put in place to limit green house gases emissions, there is a need for producers to mitigate and to adapt to the effects of climate change.

With support from our applied research on these issues, we aim to effectively inform and influence producers and consumers to move agricultural production toward practices that are environmentally sound and economically viable, balancing the needs of public health and the environment with the needs of industry. 

 

 Livestok Emissions                  Climate Change                 Prescribed Burning

                 

Research Interests

  • Air quality monitoring and modeling, fate and transport of air emissions from agricultural sources, cost effective mitigation strategies.
  • Best management practices or plans for agricultural production systems, including waste management, nutrient management, and environmental management, etc.
  • Impact of climate change and our strategies, and other environmental issues impacting sustainability of agricultural production.
  • Data science and data processing techniques
  • Meta-analysis and systematic review
  • Satellite data for air quality applications
  • Life cycle assessment

Recent Research Topics

  • Impact of smoke from prescribed burning on air quality and climate
  • Synergistic use of satellite, drone and ground data for air quality applications
  • Receptor modeling of air pollutants at rural and urban sites in Kansas
  • Ozone and secondary organic aerosols
  • Carbon footprint of livestock production
  • Life cycle assessment on agricultural products
  • Meta-analysis of air emissions from livestock facilities
  • Mitigation of air emissions from livestock production:
    • Photocatalytic technology Using UV/TiO2
    • Vegetative environmental buffers
    • Dietary strategies
    • Biofilters for odor reduction
  • Co-digestion of dairy manure
  • Ammonia emission model
  • Modeling CO2 production of animals

​Dr. Liu ResearchTIPS on Youtube: