Digital Commons Network^™

Predicting Water Quality Vulnerability Under Climate Change With Machine Learning, Khanh Thi Nhu Nguyen

Doctoral Dissertations

Water quality deterioration is a global and pervasive issue due to pollution caused by industrialization, urbanization, agriculturalization, and human population growth in the modern era. This issue is even more challenging in the context of climate change due to warming temperatures and the intensification of precipitation. Therefore, assessing the potential impacts of climate change on water quality is a concern. Assessment is necessary so that planners can prepare for and reduce the negative impacts on water quality. At present, climate change impact assessment frameworks are relatively adolescent. Most studies rely on climate projections from General Circulation Models for simulations of …

The Roles Of Identity And Beliefs About Social Change In Decision Making Processes For Identity-Laden Social Change Efforts, Joel Ginn

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents three investigations into distinct processes that attempt to explain people’s decision making around social change action in three identity-laden domains. Chapter 1 reviews existing literature and theory on how social identity and social change beliefs can impact social change action. Chapter 2 examines identity-based motivated cognition by showing how identification as a meat-eater leads to biased estimates of meat reduction’s climate change impacts. Chapter 3 examines cisgender student reactions to faculty who use gender pronouns as an inclusion strategy for transgender and gender nonconforming students to examine if this action leads to stereotyping and judgement. Chapter 4 …

The Global Impact Of The Antarctic Ice Sheet In A Warming World: Using Numerical Modeling And Critical Physical Geography To Assess Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, And Climate Justice

Doctoral Dissertations

Anthropogenic climate change is causing disruptions in the Earth system with negative ramifications for life on our planet. Increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations lead to accumulated heat content and the cryosphere is one of the earliest places to show changes in response to rising temperatures. The melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet will have myriad effects on global climate due to interconnections and feedbacks between the ice sheet, ocean, and atmosphere. In this dissertation I use numerical modeling and critical geography to assess future climate conditions that occur in response to changes in Antarctic Ice Sheet melt as well as …

Coping With Climate Change, Andrea Yj Mah

Masters Theses

Climate change is a source of anxiety and stress. To be resilient to the changes that are occurring, individuals must cope with that stress. Because there are many ways that people might manage stress we examined variation in coping strategy use among Americans who reported some concern about climate change to understand generally how people cope with such stress, and whether it can be predicted from individual difference factors, namely degree of climate change concern and political ideology. We examined these variables specifically because in the study of responses to climate change, conservatives and liberals often report divergent beliefs, attitudes, …

Utilizing Climate Change Refugia For Climate Change Adaptation And Management In The Northeast, Sara A. Wisner

Masters Theses

To account for the effects of climate change, management plans in the northeast need to incorporate climate adaptation. Conserving climate change refugia is one adaptation strategy. Climate change refugia are areas buffered by climate change that enable the persistence of valued physical, ecological, and cultural resources; preserving these areas could be a potential adaptation strategy. Using a translational ecology approach where researchers and managers from the National Park Service, US Geological Survey, the University of Massachusetts, and elsewhere worked together, we focused on identifying refugia for tree, herbaceous plant, mammal, and bird species in order to prioritize them for conservation …

The Influence Of Climate Change On The Ecology Of The Arctic Ground Squirrel In Denali National Park, Ak., Nigel A. Golden

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation research focuses on the ecology of the Arctic ground squirrel (Urocitellus parryii) in Denali National Park and Preserve, AK. The Arctic ground squirrels is a species of interest for monitoring efforts under the National Park Services’ Vital Signs Monitoring Program under the Vital Signs Monitoring program. The focus of this program is to monitor what is considered to be the most significant indicators of ecological conditions of the specific park resources that are of the greatest concern. The CAKN designated the Arctic ground squirrel (Urocitellus parryii) as one indicator species of park ecosystems. Despite being easy to observe …

A Tipping Point In The Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest: Current And Future Land-Use And Climate Change Trends, Alula Shields

Masters Theses

Many regions of the Amazon are experiencing drastic changes as deforestation and climate change drive the world’s largest continuous rainforest towards a ‘tipping point’. These disturbances are changing natural cycles that once past a critical threshold, will mark an unstoppable transition to an altered ecosystem. Losing areas of the Amazon rainforest will have implications for the global climate, global carbon budget, and global hydrological regimes. Scholars have projected these tipping points for areas of the eastern Amazon rainforest, but much less scholarship focuses on the headwaters of the Western Amazon, an area of great cultural and biological importance. Ecuador is …

2022 Update Mtg Jan 27: New Issues-Climate Change In Cranberry, Christopher Neill, Martha Sylvia

Cranberry Station Extension meetings

No abstract provided.

Planning And Management Of Complex Landscapes: The Case Of Rio De Janeiro, Carioca Landscapes, José Antonio Hoyuela Jayo

ISCCL Scientific Symposia and Annual General Meetings // Symposiums scientifiques et assemblées générales annuelles de l'ISCCL // Simposios científicos yy las Asambleas Generales Anuales

The PRODOC4018 project aimed to develop tools for the planning and management of the Carioca landscapes, a World Heritage Site since 2012. The proposal promotes a shared and integrated management of cultural heritage of excellence through preservation guidelines, with intervention criteria and protection and management tools incorporated in action plans and geo-referenced monitoring mechanisms. These analysed properties were located in the World Heritage area and its surroundings, 'Carioca Landscapes: between the mountain and the sea.

Landscape heritage must be evaluated, ordered and managed in its spatial and temporal context, but also in the social, environmental and economic context in which …

Breaking Down Barriers To Consistent, Climate-Smart Regulation Of Invasive Plants - A Case Study Of Northeast States, Bethany A. Bradley, Evelyn M. Beaury, Emily Fusco, Lara Munro, Carrie Brown-Lima, William Coville, Benjamin Kesler, Nancy Olmstead, Jocelyn Parker

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Efforts to prevent the introduction and spread of new invasive plants are most effective when regulated species are consistent across jurisdictional boundaries and proactively prohibit species before they arrive or in the earliest stages of invasion. Consistent and proactive regulation is particularly important in the northeast U.S. which is susceptible to many new invasive plants due to climate change. Unfortunately, recent analyses of state regulated plant lists show that regulated species are neither consistent nor proactive. To understand why, we focus on two steps leading to invasive plant regulation across six northeast states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, …