Professor Emeritus
mbinford@ufl.edu
(352) 294-7500
Focus Areas
- Focus Area 1: Earth System Science
- Focus Area 5: Catastrophes, Conservation, and Conflict
- Focus Area 6: Sustainability & Global Environmental Change
Areas of Specialization
- Macrosystems Biogeography
- Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing Applications in Environmental Systems
- Land-Water Interactions
- Landscape Dynamics, especially Land-Cover/Land-Use Change
- Paleoecology, Paleolimnology and Paleoclimatology
Educational Background
- PhD in Zoology and Geology, Indiana University, 1980
- M.S. in Fisheries Biology, Louisiana State University, 1975
- B.S. in Biology, Kansas State University, 1973
Recent Courses
- GEO 4037/5134C Remote Sensing
- GEO 4300/5305 Environmental Biogeography
- GEO 2200 Physical Geography
- GEO 4120 Aerial Photo Interpretation
- GEO 5159 G.I.S. Applications in Environmental systems
Recent Graduate Students
In My Own Words
I am a physical geographer, biogeographer, and landscape ecologist specializing in the study of environmental systems, or human-environment interactions. I have published papers on the effects of climate variability on cultural rise and collapse, agroecosystem bases for sustainable agriculture, environmental systems as a basis for landscape planning and ecological restoration, and technical aspects of measuring lake sedimentation rates. The research requires geospatial science approaches, and uses Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing techniques extensively. The work also involves collaboration with anthropologists, archaeologists, ecosystem modelers, geologists, economists, and planners. Recent NSF and NASA-funded research examines how people live around protected areas in East and Southern Africa, and how land ownership influences carbon uptake and storage in the southeastern U.S. coastal plain.
Recent Publications
Karimi, H., Binford, M., Kleindl, W., Starr, G., Murphy, B. A., Desai, A. R., … & Staudhammer, C. (2025). Drivers of forest productivity in two regions of the United States: Relative impacts of management and environmental variables. Journal of Environmental Management, 374, 124040.
Amanambu, A. C., Mossa, J., Serafin, K. A., & Binford, M. (2024). Hydrological drought and floodplain disconnectivity: quantifying flow thresholds in a large coastal plain river. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 69(16), 2436-2454.
Yang, D., Fu, C. S., Herrero, H. V., Southworth, J., & Binford, M. (2023). Linking forest management to surrounding lands: a citizen-based approach towards the regional understanding of land-use transitions. Frontiers in Remote Sensing, 4, 1197523.
Shaikh, S., Kolata, A. L., Johnson, J., & Binford, M. W. (2023). Home and Away: Drivers and Perceptions of Migration Among Urban Migrants and Their Rural Families in the Lower Mekong River Basin of Cambodia. Migration and Development, 12(1), 13-48.