New Prospects and Trends in Applied Geoscience
Rasoul Sorkhabi, Ph.D., CPG-11981
From education, public perception to employment, research and funding, geoscience is facing serious challenges and is competing with many lucrative fields, such as bioscience, nanoscience, artificial intelligence, business man- agement, and others. In order to grow geoscience and publicize its value, it is imperative to showcase the means and manners by which geoscientists serve the wellbeing of society. This article reports on the results of a survey on how several areas of applied geoscience will be critical in the coming years, and how geoscientists can seize on these opportunities to strengthen their sci- ence, profession, and community.
Geoscience Education and Workforce
Most people including children are fascinated by minerals, fossils, and rocks, and are interested to know about the life of the dinosaurs, how mountains
Figure 1 - Growth (in percentage) of geoscientist jobs from 2019 to 2029 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2020, AGI, 2020a).
uplift, and other geological lore. Indeed, news about discover- ies in earth science are popular (Sorkhabi, 2019). Ironically, however, Earth science is relatively underrated in our schools and K-12 education. A 2015 US survey found that only 22 states accepted an Earth and Space Science course for graduation, and only two states required a year-long Earth/Environmental Science course whereas the number of states for required Life Science and Physical Science courses for graduation were 50 and 30, respectively (Benbow and Hoover, 2015). Crisis in geoscience education is not limited to high schools. In recent years, college enrollments in geoscience programs in the US, UK, India, Japan, and probably many other countries have declined. According to Christopher Keane of the American Geosciences Institute (AG), geoscience majors in US univer- sities decreased 21% from 31,744 in 2016 to 25,015 in 2019, and for the pandemic year of 2020 a drop of more than 10% was estimated (Saucier, 2020). Against this background, demand for geoscience jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, will increase by 5% from 460,242 in 2019 to 482,726 in 2029; most of these jobs will be in the environment, energy, and mineral resource sectors (Figure 1). Considering that 27% of the existing geoscientists will be retiring by 2029 and that new graduates entering workforce are projected to be 26,000, there will be about 130,000 deficits in geoscience jobs in 2029 (AGI, 2020a). Another estimate by Bartlett (2018) states that the US will need 14,000 new geoscientists in 2026 (compared to 2016).
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It is thus important to communicate the value of geoscience to the public, school boards, mass media, and policy makers. This is a crucial challenge for the geoscience community; it is also a task that geoscientists can best perform. We also need to portray a new image of the geologist beyond one who digs for fossil fuels and loves earthquake incidences.
With this background, in 2019-2020, I conducted a survey of the most important questions and issues in geoscience. The survey was emailed to hundreds of geoscientists and circulated via community posts on the websites and email newsletters of Geological Society of America (GSA), American Geophysical Union (AGU), and American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG). A total of 136 scientists (75% from the USA) responded. Even though 75% of the survey respondents were from the academia, they still emphasized that several areas of applied geoscience (see Box 1 on page 57) will play significant roles in bringing direct benefits to society. The following topics were suggested by seven or more respondents as critical areas of research and development (Table 1).
Global Warming
Nearly 30% of the respondents suggested global warming as the most critical issue of our time. The complex issue involves many areas of research including in-depth understanding of climate change and carbon budget and cycle (sources and drivers as well as sinks and feedbacks), better forecasts and modeling of the impact of global warming on the environment
www.aipg.org
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