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Kansas Biological Survey

Understanding our environment

The Field Station's rammed-earth gateway was designed and built by KU architecture students.

The KU Field Station is part of the National Science Foundation's National Ecological Observatory Network.

With a $4.2 million National Science Foundation grant, the Survey's River Ecology Lab leads an eight-university group in the largest-ever comparison of river ecosystems.

The Survey uses satellite and aerial imagery to study land cover patterns and provide information needed by planners and policy makers.

A sample of the Canadian boreal forest floor, a small part of an ongoing comparative study, provides clues into ecosystem shifts.

GIS mapping through the Survey's KARS program supports flood disaster response, helps developers estimate landscape impacts, and provides data for many other applications.

Survey researchers, in collaboration with the Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry, established the School of Pharmacy medicinal teaching garden in 2011.

The KU Field Station's Baldwin Woods Forest Preserve doubled in size in spring 2016. (Photo: Edward Robison III)

The Kansas Biological Survey, established in 1911, is a KU research center. It is a nexus for natural sciences research, environmental mapping, conservation and education. Our scientists — working with graduate and undergraduate students, as well as visiting scholars — conduct research that affects our health, our state and our world. This research covers a broad spectrum and includes subjects such as water, air and soil quality; land use; threatened and endangered species; global change biology; environmental engineering; and aquatic ecology and watersheds.

The University of Kansas Field Station

The Survey also manages the 3,700-acre KU Field Station. The Field Station, established in 1947, protects wildlife habitat, preserves remnants of native prairie and old-growth forest, and serves as a living laboratory. It serves as site for a variety of KU student academic projects in the sciences, arts, humanities and professional schools. Five miles of public trails are open year-round, dawn to dusk, at the Field Station's Research and Operations Area, an 1,800-acre site just north of Lawrence, Kansas.

Interactive environmental maps

The Natural Resource Planner is an interactive online Kansas map that enables users to choose from and view, separately or simultaneously, more than 20 categories of natural resource and infrastructure data. These data sets include water bodies, native grasslands, oil and gas wells, electric transmission lines, wind speed and much more. This map was designed to help users make informed decisions in the planning of development projects, so Kansans may benefit from natural resources while protecting sensitive wildlife and habitat.

This is one of several data-rich interactive maps developed and hosted by Kansas Applied Remote Sensing (KARS), a program of the Kansas Biological Survey. Access all the Survey's interactive maps.

Visit the KU Field Station’s five-mile public nature trail system, just 15 minutes from downtown Lawrence.

Department News

March 12, 2018
KU Field Station’s spring burning begins with Prairie Acre on campus
February 13, 2018
KU student to discuss NSF river research expeditions into Mongolia, western US
February 12, 2018
Kansas Biological Survey to host public forums on Douglas County natural areas, historic sites

KU ecology seminars

Ecology seminars are held each week during the spring and fall terms. Three types of seminars are held during a typical week at KU. The Spring 2018 schedule is now being developed.

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