National Science Foundation (March 21) -- With support from the National Science Foundation, civil and environmental engineer Praveen Kumar at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, co-director Thanos Papanicolaou of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and an interdisciplinary team of researchers from nine universities run the Intensely Managed Landscapes Critical Zone Observatory. The observatory focuses on areas in the upper Midwest where human activities have dramatically transformed the land over time.