Picture of Geoff Cunfer

Geoff Cunfer Ph.D. (University of Texas)

Professor

Faculty Member in History

Office
Arts 711

Research Area(s)

  • Environmental History
  • Great Plains History
  • Historical Agro-Ecology
  • Historical GIS
  • Socio-Ecological Metabolism
  • Digital Humanities
  • History

About me

BOOKS

Geoff Cunfer and Bill Waiser, eds., Bison and People on the North American Great Plains:  A Deep Environmental History (College Station:  Texas A&M University Press, 2016).

Geoff Cunfer, ed., As a Farm Woman Thinks: Life and Land on the Texas High Plains, 1890-1960 (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2010).

Geoff Cunfer, On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005).

ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

E. Galan, R. Padro, I. Marco, E. Tello, G. Cunfer, G.I. Guzman, M. Gonzalez de Molina, F. Krausmann, S. Gingrich, V. Sacristan, D. Moreno-Delgado, “Widening the Analysis of Energy Return on Investment (EROI) in Agro-Ecosystems:  Socio-Ecological Transitions to Industrialized Farm Systems (the Valles County, Catalonia, c.1860 and 1999),” Ecological Modelling 336 (2016): 13-25.

E. Tello, E. Galan, V. Sacristan, G. Cunfer, G.I. Guzman, M. Gonzalez de Molina, F. Krausmann, S. Gingrich, R. Padro, I. Marco, and D. Moreno-Delgado, “Openning the Black Box of Energy Throughputs in Farm Systems:  A Decomposition Analysis Between the Energy Returns to External Inputs, Internal Biomass Reuses and Total Inputs Consumed (the Valles County, Catalonia, c.1860 and 1999),” Ecological Economics 121 (2016):  160-174.

Geoff Cunfer and Fridolin Krausmann, “Adaptation on an Agricultural Frontier:  Socio-Ecological Profiles of Great Plains Settlement, 1870-1940,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 46 (Winter 2016):  1-38.

Geoff Cunfer, “Ken Burns’s The Dust Bowl and the Limitations of Historical Documentary Film,” Agricultural History 88 (Spring 2014):  270-275.

Geoff Cunfer and Fridolin Krausmann, “Sustaining Agricultural Systems in the Old and New Worlds:  A Long-Term Socio-Ecological Comparison,” in Long Term Socio-Ecological Research:  Studies in Society-Nature Interactions Across Spatial and Temporal Scales, eds. Simron Singh, Helmut Haberl, Martin Schmid, Michael Mirtl, and Marian Chertow (Berlin:  Springer, 2013), 269-296.

Geoff Cunfer, “The Southern Great Plains Wind Erosion Maps of 1936-1937,” Agricultural History 85 (Fall 2011):  540-559.

Geoff Cunfer, "Scaling the Dust Bowl," in Placing History:  How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS are Changing Historical Scholrship, Anne Kelly Knowles, ed. (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2008), 95-121.

Geoff Cunfer, “Creating the Dust Bowl: Making History, Making Art,” a digital supplement to Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship, Anne Kelly Knowles, ed. (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2008). A 27-slide presentation on CD-ROM, including images, film clips and extensive interpretive notes, plus GIS datasets and 5 animated map sequences.
 
H. Haberl, V. Winiwarter, K. Andersson, R. Ayres, C. Boone, A. Castillo, G. Cunfer, M. Fischer-Kowalski, W. Freudenburg, E. Furman, R. Kaufmann, F. Krausmann, E. Langthaler, H. Lotze-Campen, M. Mirtl, C. Redman, A. Reenberg, A. Wardell, B. Warr, H. Zechmeister, “From LTER to LTSER: Conceptualizing the Socio-Economic Dimension of Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research,” Ecology and Society 11 (2006), iss. 2: 13.
 
Kenneth M. Sylvester, Susan Hautaniemi Leonard, Myron P. Gutmann, and Geoff Cunfer, “Demography and Environment in Grassland Settlement: Using Linked Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Data to Explore Household and Agricultural Systems,” History and Computing 14 (2002; published 2006), 31-60.

Myron P. Gutmann, William J. Parton, Geoff Cunfer, and Ingrid C. Burke, “Population and Environment in the U.S. Great Plains,” in Population, Land Use, and Environment:  Research Directions, ed. Barbara Entwisle and Paul C. Stern, National Research Council (Washington: National Academy Press, 2005).
 
Geoff Cunfer, “Manure Matters on the Great Plains Frontier,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34 (Spring 2004): 539-567.
 
Ingrid C. Burke, William K. Lauenroth, Geoff Cunfer, John E. Barrett, Arvin Mosier, and Petra Lowe, “Nitrogen in the Central Grasslands Region of the United States,” BioScience 52 (Sept. 2002): 813-823.
 
Geoff Cunfer, “Causes of the Dust Bowl,” in Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History, Anne Kelly Knowles, ed. (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2002), 93-104.
 
Douglas J. Spieles and Geoff Cunfer, “Collaborative Integration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Co-curricular Undergraduate Research,” Council for Undergraduate Research Quarterly (Fall 2002): 41-44.
 
Geoff Cunfer, “The New Deal’s Land Utilization Program in the Great Plains,” Great Plains Quarterly 21 (Summer 2001): 193-210.
 
Geoff Cunfer, author of three chapters in Draining the Great Oasis: An Environmental History of Murray County, Minnesota, Anthony J. Amato, Janet Timmerman, and Joseph A. Amato, eds. (Marshall, Minn: Crossings Press, 2001). Authored “Crops and Land Use,” “Horse Ecology,” and “Ditches” (with Dennis Guse).

Research

HGIS North America agricultural landscapes digital humanities environmental history historical geography history