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Final Technical Report: Integrated Restoration Strategies Towards Weed Control On Western Rangelands, Robert Nowak

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

Invasive species are having severe ecological (Mack et al. 2000) and economic (Pimentel et al. 2005) impacts on ecosystems around the world. Invasive species can alter many ecosystem processes (Crooks 2002, Walker & Smith 1997) including: water and nutrient availability, such as form and amount of N if the soil (Evans et al. 2001, Sperry et al. 2006); primary productivity, through shifts in growth rates or efficiency of resource use; disturbance regimes, including the type, frequency, and severity of disturbances such as fire (D’Antonio 2002); and community dynamics, such as species replacements (Alvarez & Cushman 2002). The economic losses and …

From Herd Diversification To Livelihood Diversification As A Response To Poverty: The Case Of The Waso Boran Of Northern Kenya, D. Layne Coppock, Abdullahi D. Jillo, Abdillahi A. Aboud

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

The Waso Boran of northern Kenya used to have large, mobile, and diverse herds of livestock that exploited equally large and diverse rangelands. Forty years of human population growth, drought, environmental change, and lack of relevant policies have altered this situation, however, with the majority of Waso Boran today being livestock poor and engaged in a variety of non-pastoral activities to diversify their livelihoods. One-third of 540 households we surveyed in Isiolo District now have ten head of cattle or less, and a larger census suggests that only 15 percent of households can currently be categorized as mobile pastoralists. The …

Community Perceptions Concerning Key Ecological Resources At Risk In Baringo District, Kenya, D. Layne Coppock, Mark N. Mutinda, Abdillahi A. Aboud

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Key ecological resources in arid and semi-arid lands are often characterized by small patches of seasonal grazing and important water points that lend critical support to entire production systems. When key resources are degraded or lost, production systems can be badly compromised. The Baringo District of north-central Kenya is well known for enduring decades of environmental degradation and food relief. As an initial part of an effort to map and characterize key ecological resources at risk in Baringo, we interviewed 136 resident leaders from pastoral and agro-pastoral areas. We asked them to identify and rank their most vulnerable ecological resources, …

Collective Action By Women’S Groups To Combat Drought And Poverty In Northern Kenya, D. Layne Coppock, Solomon Desta, Getachew Gebru, Adan Wako, Ibrahim Aden, Chachu Tadecha, Seyoum Tezera

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Collective action can be an effective means of local development and risk reduction among rural people, but few examples have been documented in pastoral areas. We conducted extensive interviews for 16 women’s groups residing in northern Kenya. Our objectives were to understand how groups were formed, governed, and sustained and what activities they have pursued. The groups we interviewed were 10 years old, on average. Charter memberships averaged about 24 women, 20 of whom were illiterate. Half of the groups formed after facilitation by a development partner and half formed spontaneously. Groups are governed under detailed constitutional frameworks with elected …

Public Engagement To Prioritize The Pastoral Research Agenda At The Pastoral And Agro-Pastoral Research Center Of Oari In Ethiopia, D. Layne Coppock, Getachew Gebru, Lemma Gizachew, Sintayehu Mesele, Mohammed Hassena, Solomon Desta

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

The Oromia Agricultural Research Institute (OARI) has a mandate to conduct agricultural and livestock research throughout the Regional State of Oromia in Ethiopia. OARI has recently opened a facility near Yabello town on the Borana Plateau called the Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Research Center. A meeting was held in August 2006 at Yabello that involved representatives from pastoral communities, the private sector, government, and non-governmental organizations. The aim was to engage stakeholders in a process of problem prioritization and set the stage to create new partnerships to better address pressing problems. The final priorities included: addressing a general decline in forage …

Changes In Land Cover And Soil Conditions For The Yabelo District Of The Borana Plateau, 1973-2003, D. Layne Coppock, Sintayehu Mesele, Heluf Gebrekidan, Lemma Gizachew

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

It has been proposed that the Borana Plateau has markedly changed in terms of land cover and land use in recent decades, but no hard data have been available to critically assess this claim. In addition, systematic analysis of soil properties has been limited. Research was designed to measure changes in land cover/land use over 30 years in the 400-km2 Yabelo District of southern Ethiopia using three satellite images taken at an average interval of 15 years. Samples were also collected to assess variation in the physical and chemical properties of dominant soils. Results indicated that Yabelo District has indeed …

Tropic And East Fork Irrigation Company, Tropic Ditch Replacement Project, Environmental Assessment, Bureau Of Reclamation, Provo Area Office

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

The purpose of this project is to reduce the amount of salt entering the Paria River and ultimately the Colorado River. One way to reduce the amount of salt reaching the Colorado River is to eliminate seepage from the historic Tropic Ditch. The Bureau of Reclamation, Provo Area Office has proposed funding for the project under the Colorado River Salinity Control Program. In addition to reducing the amount of salt loading, the project would also conserve water lost to evaporation and seepage.

The purpose of this Environmental Assessment (EA) is to analyze the potential environmental consequences of the proposed construction …

Bear River Resource Conservation And Development Council Area Plan, United States Department Of Agriculture, Natural Conservation Service, Bear River Resource Conservation And Development Council

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

This five-year Area Plan is the guiding document for the Bear River RC&D Council, Inc. It identifies needs and opportunities and goals and objectives which lead the RC&D Council in its work.

Micro-Structural And Phase Configuration Effects Determining Water Content: Dielectric Relationships Of Aggregated Porous Media, J. M. Blonquist, Jr., Scott B. Jones, I. Lebron, D. A. Robinson

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Many porous media in which we determine water content are aggregated and characterized by a dual-porosity pore network, composed of interaggregate pores and intra-aggregate pores. This paper reports sample-scale permittivity measurements made in four stable aggregate media with dual porosity. Results indicate two distinct dielectric responses depending on whether the aggregates are surrounded by water or air. We relate transitions in the permittivity response to the water retention characteristic (WRC), showing that after the interaggregate pores have drained, the slope of the water content–permittivity relationship is significantly reduced (permittivity values ranging from 5 to 7). The hydraulic critical water content …

Remapping The Cliff Chipmunk (Neotamias Dorsalis) Distribution And Creating A Habitat Association Model In Southern Idaho, Masako Niwa

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The distribution of the cliff chipmunk in Idaho was previously considered to include only the Raft River Valley and the Goose Creek Basin. A pilot study was conducted in 2003 and 2004. Thirty-five cliff chipmunk presence locations and 124 absence locations were recorded. Habitat variables of elevation, slope, deviation from south, distance to water, and vegetation type were extracted for all of the absence and presence points by means of GIS analysis. The data were analyzed by implementing a classification tree, and a "GIS habitat association model" was created. The model was tested in 2005, and the overall model accuracy …

Scoping Summary Report: Development Of Lower Basin Shortage Guidelines And Coordinated Management Strategies For Lake Powell And Lake Mead, Particularly Under Low Reservoir Conditions, U.S. Department Of The Interior, Bureau Of Reclamation

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) acting on behalf of the Secretary of the Department of the Interior (Secretary) proposes to take action to adopt specific Colorado River Lower Basin shortage guidelines and coordinated reservoir management strategies to address operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead, particularly under low reservoir conditions. This proposed Action will provide a greater degree of certainty to all water users and managers in the Colorado River Basin by providing more detailed guidelines for the operation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead and by allowing water users in the Lower Basin to know when, and by how …

Summary Of Public Scoping Comments For The Oil Shale And Tar Sands Resources Leasing Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, Argonne National Laboratory

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

Section 369(d)(1) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Public Law 109-58 (H.R. 6), enacted August 8, 2005, directs the Secretary of the Interior to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for a commercial leasing program for oil shale and tar sands (OSTS) resources on public lands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming (see Figure 1). Through the Oil Shale and Tar Sands Resources Leasing PEIS, the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will evaluate decisions regarding which public lands will be open for leasing in the three-state area and under what constraints. The PEIS will …

Zion National Park Environment Assessment/ Assessment Of Effect, Engineering-Environmental Management, Inc.

Elusive Documents

This environmental assessment I assessment of effect examines in detail two alternatives: no action and the National Park Service preferred alternative. The preferred alternative considers rehabilitation of the roadway and associated structures on either side of Route 10 (Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway) tunnel. The road work would primarily occur on the east side of the tunnel in a 0.25-mile segment beginning at the east tunnel entrance. Modifications on the east side of the tunnel would include slurry sealing the road surface and scaling rock slopes on both sides of the road; re-configuring two parking areas; creating a painted center median with …

Integrated Restoration Strategies Towards Weed Control On Western Rangelands, U.S. Forest Service

Wildlife Conservation and Management

An attempt to find native plant materials competitive with cheatgrass to help break the cheatgrass-fire cycle and begin the transition from exotic annual-dominated vegetation to native perennial dominated vegetation.

Revegetation Of Reconstructed Reaches Of The Provo River, Heber Valley, Utah, John A. Rice

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

Prior to the 1950s, the middle Provo River in Utah offered outstanding fish and wildlife habitat. This was due in part to the Provo River freely meandering through the Heber Valley. These bends in the river provided deep holes for fish and a dense streamside forest for many species of birds. This productive habitat was altered in the 1940s and 1950s when the river was dammed, channelized, and forced between dikes (figure 1). These dikes were constructed by the USDI Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) to contain high flows that came from additional water added to the Provo River from transbasin …

Record Of Decision: Operation Of Flaming Gorge Dam Final Environmental Impact Statement, U.S. Bureau Of Reclamation

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) has completed a final environmental impact statement (EIS) on the operation of Flaming Gorge Dam. The EIS describes the potential effects of modifying the operation of Flaming Gorge Dam to assist in the recovery of four endangered fish, and their critical habitat, downstream from the dam. The four endangered fish species are Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus lucius), humpback chub (Gila cypha), razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus), and bonytail (Gila elegans). Reclamation would implement the proposed action by modifying the operations of Flaming Gorge Dam, to the extent possible, to achieve the flows and temperatures recommended by participants …

Terpenes And Carbohydrate Source Influence Rumen Fermentation, Digestibility, Intake, And Preference In Sheep, J. J. Villalba, F. D. Provenza, K. C. Olson

Green Canyon Environmental Research Area, Logan Utah

We hypothesized that toxins and nutrients in foods interact to influence foraging behavior by herbivores. Based on this hypothesis we predicted that 1) terpenes in big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) influence intake and preference in sheep for diets varying in sources of nonstructural (barley grain) and structural (sugar beet pulp) carbohydrates, and 2) these effects are due to the differential effects of terpenes on fermentation products and apparent digestibility of each class of carbohydrates. Lambs were fed 2 isoenergetic and isonitrogenous diets with varying proportions of the same ingredients (beet pulp- and barley grain-based diet) or offered a choice between the …

Spatial Analyses Of Trophic Linkages Between Basins In The Great Salt Lake, Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh, David Naftz, Shane Bradt

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Although the Great Salt Lake is frequently treated as if it were a single body of water, the natural bays and transportation causeways have divided it into a system of four bays. The bays, however, do not function independently because water, nutrients and other contaminants flow between them. The purpose of our study was to analyze the water quality in three of the bays (Farmington, Bear River and Gilbert), to determine fluxes of nutrients between them, and to determine how this was influencing brine shrimp populations in the lake. Discharge and nutrient concentrations were measured at constrictions separating the three …

Salinity Controls Phytoplankton Response To Nutrient Enrichment In The Great Salt Lake, Utah, Usa, Amy M. Marcarelli, Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh, O. Griset

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

To examine how salinity and nutrient supply interact to control phytoplankton community composition, nutrient limitation, and dinitrogen (N2) fixation rates in the Great Salt Lake (Utah, USA), we conducted a series of bioassay experiments with plankton from both Gilbert Bay, where salinities are near 160 g·L–1, and Farmington Bay, where salinities range from 10 to 90 g·L–1. Six-day nutrient addition bioassay experiments showed that the extant phyto plankton communities in both bays were limited by nitrogen (N). However, in 28- to 30-day factorial bioassay experiments in which both salinities and nutrient supply were manipulated, phosphorus stimulated chlorophyll a as much …

An Examination Of External Influences Imbedded In The Historical Snow Data Of Utah, Randall P. Julander, Michael Bricco

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

Snowpack data collection has a long and storied history in Utah as well as the western United States. Many researchers use historical snow course data for various applications ranging from water supply forecasting to climate change. These data are far from a perfect data set and data users should know the errors and limitations within them. In the current setting, only those collecting the data have access to the raw data and the site biographical information. In Utah, records extend back to at least 1912. Systematic measurements began in the mid 1920's with many long term snow courses established at …