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Articles 1 - 15 of 15
Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Effects Of El Nino And Sunspot Cycles On Global And Reginal Climate, August Nathan Tolzman
Effects Of El Nino And Sunspot Cycles On Global And Reginal Climate, August Nathan Tolzman
Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts
Sunspots and El Nino affect the interannual variability of temperature on earth. Separately there is a positive relationship between higher sunspots and warmer temperatures or more intense El Nino and warmer temperatures globally and in Missoula. This is with the bias of climate change removed. Putting these two processes together it is expected that when intense El Ninos and high sunspots happen in the same year there will be warmer temperatures. This was not the case, there was no data to support that putting these to processes together makes them more or less intense.
The Birds And The Trees: Quantifying The Drivers Of Whitebark Pine Decline And Clark's Nutcracker Habitat Use In Glacier National Park, Vladimir Kovalenko
The Birds And The Trees: Quantifying The Drivers Of Whitebark Pine Decline And Clark's Nutcracker Habitat Use In Glacier National Park, Vladimir Kovalenko
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), recently listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, is in steep decline in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA due to the non-native pathogen Cronartium ribicola, causal agent of the fatal disease white pine blister rust. A sample of the park’s population suggests that approximately 70 percent of whitebark pines have died, while 65 percent of the remaining trees are infected. Using landscape and climate variables, we show how geographic location, elevation, aspect, solar radiation, relative humidity, and snowpack interact with tree diameter to affect mortality, disease incidence, cone production, and regeneration. We also examine how …
Evaluating The Use Of Environmental Tracers To Reduce Conceptual Model Uncertainty Of Hydrogeologic Models, Andrew Nordberg, Jon Graham, W. Payton Gardner
Evaluating The Use Of Environmental Tracers To Reduce Conceptual Model Uncertainty Of Hydrogeologic Models, Andrew Nordberg, Jon Graham, W. Payton Gardner
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Environmental tracer concentrations for CFC12, SF6, and tritium are used in groundwater simulations to assess the ability of these tracers to reduce conceptual model uncertainty due to uncertainty of a site’s geologic and recharge characterization. The resulting groundwater simulations are characterized by site-specific hydrologic and geologic data, and with coordination from a field team with years of knowledge about the site. First-order (conceptual) uncertainty is directly addressed by using a stochastic modeling approach for spatial variability of the proposed subsurface configurations. Simulations of environmental tracer concentrations and water levels are used to assess six alternate conceptual models that are based …
Lidar-Landsat Covariance For Predicting Canopy Fuels, Margaret D. Epstein
Lidar-Landsat Covariance For Predicting Canopy Fuels, Margaret D. Epstein
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Managing wildfires in the western United States is becoming increasingly complex. Visualizing and quantifying canopy structures allows fire managers to both plan for fire and track recovery. Light detecting and ranging, or LiDAR can measure forests in three dimensions, but has limited spatial and temporal coverage. LiDAR-Landsat covariance uses machine learning to fill in the spatial and temporal gaps of LiDAR coverage with supplemental Landsat imagery. However, in order to capture real forest dynamics, a model needs to be stable enough to detect long term trends, sensitive to episodic disturbance, and general enough to work on multiple landcovers. The purpose …
Managing Forest Disturbances: Effects On Mule Deer And Plant Communities In Montana's Northern Forests, Teagan Ann Hayes
Managing Forest Disturbances: Effects On Mule Deer And Plant Communities In Montana's Northern Forests, Teagan Ann Hayes
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) are frequently the focus of population and habitat management in the western United States. Land and wildlife managers use disturbance to reset forests to earlier successional stages and improve the quality and quantity of forage available to mule deer. However, the effects of management practices on nutrition and selection vary widely, so the implementation of management practices raises ecological as well as management-related concerns. This work investigated how disturbance from wildfire, prescribed fire, and timber harvest influences the spatial and temporal distribution of nutritional resources in mule deer summer range, and therefore, how the …
A Deep Learning Approach To Mapping Irrigation: U-Net Irrmapper, Thomas Henry Colligan Iv
A Deep Learning Approach To Mapping Irrigation: U-Net Irrmapper, Thomas Henry Colligan Iv
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Accurate maps of irrigation are essential for understanding and managing water resources in light of a warming climate. We present a new method for mapping irrigation and apply it to the state of Montana over the years 2000-2019. The method is based on an ensemble of convolutional neural networks that only rely on raw Landsat surface reflectance data. The ensemble of networks method learns to mask clouds and ignore Landsat 7 scan-line failures without supervision, reducing the need for preprocessing data or feature engineering. Unlike other approaches to mapping irrigation, the method doesn't use other mapping products like the Cropland …
Environmental Site Assessment And Hydrogeologic Impacts To Groundwater At St. Ignatius, Montana And Hanford, Washington, Ryan M. Carter
Environmental Site Assessment And Hydrogeologic Impacts To Groundwater At St. Ignatius, Montana And Hanford, Washington, Ryan M. Carter
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
The following Environmental Studies Master’s Portfolio is a compilation of works completed individually and with peers in order to fulfill requirements for the Master of Science degree. These works demonstrate range, depth, and the interdisciplinary nature of the course of study. As an undergraduate student at Eastern Washington University, I studied Environmental Science with a concentration in hydrogeology. I was interested in learning about the natural world and wanted to develop a deeper connection to it. Inevitably, I was exposed to courses that examined the causes and effects of hazardous waste site remediation, and this topic became my passion. The …
An Assessment Of Fecal Water Contamination In The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Daniel Paul Pendergraph 5024527
An Assessment Of Fecal Water Contamination In The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Daniel Paul Pendergraph 5024527
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Wilderness water sources are often defined as pristine or high quality due to the lack of point source pollution. Non-point source pollution from recreation to water resources can be extensive and is well-studied in protected areas globally. Bacterial contamination, specifically fecal bacteria, poses a significant threat to human health because of the risk for outbreaks of illness and disease. Water sources in designated Wilderness areas are particularly vulnerable to fecal water contamination due to high volume of backpackers and lack of backcountry waste facilities. To estimate the occurrence of fecal water contamination in Wilderness water resources, an exploratory analysis was …
Soil Moisture Drives Canopy Water Content Dynamics In The Western U.S., Drew S. Lyons
Soil Moisture Drives Canopy Water Content Dynamics In The Western U.S., Drew S. Lyons
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Drought stress is a major contributing factor to adult tree mortality and limits regeneration across the globe. Drought effects are often studied on a site level, but recent advances in remote sensing allow for observations of plant water status across broader geographic scales. The vegetation optical depth (VOD) derived from satellite sensor microwave backscatter has been shown to be sensitive to canopy water content, and can therefore provide useful information on how plant water status changes over time. We develop an index which quantifies the normalized difference between diurnal VOD retrievals (nVOD) across the western U.S. to determine where plant …
Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Nitrogen And Carbon Biogeochemistry In A Wetland-Stream Sequence, Patrick E. Hurley
Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Nitrogen And Carbon Biogeochemistry In A Wetland-Stream Sequence, Patrick E. Hurley
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Studies of aquatic ecosystems often segregate streams from the influential ponds, lakes, and wetland zones that act as important transitions between terrestrial and fluvial systems. Across the aquatic landscape, these zones interact to form linked ecosystems that function as discrete nutrient processing domains, shifting biogeochemical signals due to spatial and temporal variability in hydrologic and biologic controls. Using a mass-balance approach, we profiled nutrient dynamics along a 23-km wetland-stream sequence over three seasons. Hydrologic, morphologic, and biologic conditions, as well as landscape attributes, were quantified to determine potential controls on biogeochemical cycling in a tributary of the Upper Clark Fork …
Understanding The Food Water Nexus: Characterizing The Impact Of Climatological Anomalies On Agrosystems, Patrick M. Wurster Jr.
Understanding The Food Water Nexus: Characterizing The Impact Of Climatological Anomalies On Agrosystems, Patrick M. Wurster Jr.
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Climate variability at global and regional scales is escalating with increased atmospheric carbon and is expected to magnify the intensity and duration of meteorological extremes, especially droughts. From the many environmental stresses that diminish crop production (e.g., soil salinity, frost, soil erosion) drought is one of the most prevalent. This study focuses on the sensitivity of three key crops produced in the northwestern United States to climatological anomalies, while controlling for attribution using anomalies in price. The study differs from similar studies in that we focus on variability in production which captures both yield (tonnes/ha) and cropping area (ha), as …
Assessing Riparian Ecosystem Condition And Monitoring Recovery From Natural And Anthropogenic Disturbance, Rachel Powers
Assessing Riparian Ecosystem Condition And Monitoring Recovery From Natural And Anthropogenic Disturbance, Rachel Powers
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Riparian ecosystems are the transition zones between river systems and uplands. They provide many valuable ecological functions including creating habitat for wildlife, stabilizing banks from erosion and providing a buffer that prevents excess nutrients from entering streams. Fires and other disturbances alter the function of these ecosystems. Currently, there is a lack of broadly used standardized assessments and monitoring methods in riparian areas within our current water policy framework. This study aims to examine this gap in riparian ecosystem protection by reviewing the assessment methods currently in use, selecting one method for field testing, and analyzing the effort involved in …
Adapting Near-Ultraviolet Colorimetry For Long-Term In Situ Monitoring Of Hexavalent Chromium In Groundwater Aquifers, Janine Carter
Adapting Near-Ultraviolet Colorimetry For Long-Term In Situ Monitoring Of Hexavalent Chromium In Groundwater Aquifers, Janine Carter
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
This paper briefly describes sources of hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] and the risk it poses to human health and the environment; current methods used to regulate, monitor, and measure Cr(VI); the basic design of a submersible, direct-reading sensor in development for long-term monitoring of Cr(VI) concentration in natural waters; and the means developed to correct sensor readings for two common analytical interferences, turbidity and pH, that could lead to an incorrect measurement of Cr(VI). The principal purposes of this study are to analyze the current methods used to compensate for sample turbidity, to develop methods to compensate for sample pH, and …
It’S Rooted In The Land: How Managing Natural Resources Leads Native American Tribes To Sovereignty, Nicky Ouellet
It’S Rooted In The Land: How Managing Natural Resources Leads Native American Tribes To Sovereignty, Nicky Ouellet
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Tribal management of land and natural resources within the boundaries of Native American reservations is often superseded by state and federal policy. But control of land and resources is, ultimately, what makes a nation a nation. The three stories in this portfolio depict tribes establishing control of natural resources to various degrees of success. Chapter one is a narrative outlining the stories, my reportage and plans for publication. Chapter two: Members of the Northern Cheyenne seek to establish a medical marijuana program after the federal government relaxed enforcement of cannabis bans. Chapter three: An activist on the Fort Berthold reservation …
Aquatic Food Webs And Heavy Metal Contamination In The Upper Blackfoot River, Montana, Jack E. Landers
Aquatic Food Webs And Heavy Metal Contamination In The Upper Blackfoot River, Montana, Jack E. Landers
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Acid mine drainage (AMD), characterized by low pH and abundant heavy metals, is a widespread problem affecting water quality and fish habitat in Montana. Montana’s upper Blackfoot River exhibits impaired water quality from historic mining that has significantly degraded aquatic habitat and reduced fish and invertebrate abundance in impacted streams. The goal of this study is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of mine-related heavy metals contamination on aquatic ecosystems by examining changes in aquatic community composition, bioaccumulation, and toxicity risk of heavy metals along a contamination gradient in the upper Blackfoot River. Three primary research questions were addressed …