Dr. Christopher Lant

Biography

Dr. Christopher Lant joined Utah State University's Quinney College of Natural Resources in 2014 after 26 years as a geographer at Southern Illinois University including 12 years as executive director of the Universities Council on Water Resources. He served as head of the Department of Environment and Society until 2021. Dr. Lant's work has focused on water resources, the water-food nexus, and environmental and agricultural conservation policies, publishing over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, mostly in collaboration with a dozen Ph.D. and over two dozen Master's advisees. Oriented toward problems of the agricultural Midwest, his work has focused on policies that can reduce polluted run-off, restore wetlands, promote ecosystem service provision, and add wind energy as a 21st century "crop." He has also published on water footprint analysis and virtual water trade. A recipient of over $10 million in research and program development funding, his recent work on NSF's Coupled Natural and Human Systems program has focused on agent-based modeling and projecting the likely geographic response of the Midwest crop belts (corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton) to climate change.