Research Interest & Current Projects

Dr. Marzen’s specialty is in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems. He is a physical geographer who has spent much of his career investigating the relationships between human activity and the natural environments using Remote Sensing and GIS. He has developed environmental models predicting non-point source pollution in agricultural watersheds, models seeking to explain how and why disturbed landscapes recover, and recently has been working on Remote Sensing methods to forecast drought in order to improve water resource management. Dr. Marzen is also branching out recently in his research and received NASA funding to use satellite imagery to look for Marine Impact craters that were formed when Mars had shallow oceans. 
Dr. Marzen has been active in outreach activities and serves as the Co-Director of AlabamaView: a consortium of Alabama universities and agencies working to promote the advancement of geospatial technologies in the state of Alabama.

Selected Publications

Marzen, L.J., *Z. Szantoi , L.M.B. Harrington, and  J.A. Harrington, 2011, Implications of Management Strategies and Vegetation Change in the Mount St. Helens Blast Zone. Geocarto International, v. 26, n. 5, p. 359-376.

*de Villiers, G., D.T. King, Jr., and L.J. Marzen, 2010, Remote sensing of shallow-marine impact craters on Mars. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, v. 45, n. 6, p. 947-964.

*Styers, D.M., A.H. Chappelka, L.J. Marzen and G.L. Somers, 2010, Developing a land-cover classification to select indicators of forest ecosystem health in a rapidly urbanizing landscape. Landscape and Urban Planning, v. 94, p. 158-165.

*Styers, D.M., A.H. Chappelka, L.J. Marzen and G.L. Somers, 2010. Scale matters: Indicators of ecological health along the urban-rural interface near Columbus, Georgia. Ecological Indicators, v. 10, p. 224-233.   

*M. Shamsudduha, L.J. Marzen, A. Uddin, M.-K. Lee and J.A. Saunders, 2009, Groundwater arsenic-contamination in Bangladesh: Control of surface elevation, slope and groundwater gradient on spatial arsenic distribution. Environmental Geology, v. 57, p. 1521-1535.

*Bhattarai, Gandhi, Puneet Srivastava, Luke Marzen, Diane Hite, and Upton Hatch, 2008, Assessment of economic and water quality impacts of land use change using a simple bioeconomic model. Environmental Management, v. 42, n. 1, p. 122-131.

Marzen, L.J., 2006, A remote sensing assessment of Mississippi coastal change after Hurricane Katrina. Proceedings of the Applied Geography Conferences, v. 29, p. 71-80.

Bhuyan, S.J., J.K. Koelliker, L.J. Marzen , J.A. Harrington, 2003, An integrated approach for water quality assessment of watersheds. Environmental Modeling and Software, v. 18, p.473-484.

Bhuyan, S.J., L.J. Marzen, J.K. Koelliker, J.A. Harrington, Jr. P.L. Barnes, 2002, Assessment of runoff and sediment yield using remote sensing, GIS, and AGNPS.  Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, v. 57, n. 6, 
p. 351-364.