Geoff Cunfer, "Causes of the Dust Bowl," in Anne Kelly Knowles, ed., Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History (Redlands: ESRI Press, 2002): 93-104.

SYNOPSIS:

Cunfer examines the causes of the Dust Bowl, using historical GIS techniques and methodologies. He finds that drought, not overplowing or the ways people used the land, was the main cause for the storms.

EXCERPT:

"This chapter asks the same question posed by New Dealers during the Depression and by Worster and Hurt: what natural and human factors contributed to the dust storms of the 1930s? It uses different methods and evidence than earlier studies and explores the question at a regional scale." (95)