Environmental Monitoring Commons^™

Releases Of Hazardous Materials And Waste From Transportation Incidents In The Us: An Analysis To Increase Environmental Resiliency, Elizabeth Irene Tautges

Master's Projects and Capstones

Excessive amounts of hazardous materials and waste are released into the environment from transportation incidents. The United States federal government has regulations on the movement of hazardous material and waste during transportation, but preventing environmental releases is not a major priority. Multiple external factors influence the release of hazardous material and waste into the environment. Transportation incidents can be prevented by modifying the information collected in emergency reports, adjusting transportation patterns and conditions, and expressing negative environmental impacts, preparing responder efforts to communicate effectively. The components of previous hazardous materials and waste releases emphasize the needed improvements for increasing environmental …

Land Cover Classification And Change During Mine Reclamation In Northeast Florida Using Multispectral Imagery, Daniel Burow, Robert Brown, Alexis Caldwell, Patrick Hunter, Jett-Ramy Kaddour, Alexander Kingma, Justin Kozicki, Blake Neal, Abigail Neff, Rylan Randolph, Devon Tanner, Isaiah Vahos

Sustainability Conference

Titanium is commonly used in the aerospace industry because it is lightweight and durable in extreme temperatures. The Green Cove Springs Mine, near Green Cove Springs, Florida, was used for mining and processing titanium and other minerals from 1972 until 2009. Since then, the mine area is being reclaimed, or rehabilitated and restored to its natural state, as required by Florida Department of Environmental Protection regulations. In this study, we use high-resolution multispectral satellite and aerial imagery obtained from 2016 to 2022 to examine land cover (LC) changes at the Green Cove Springs Mine during this reclamation period. We use …

Safe Water For All: A Multi-Modal Approach To North Alabama's Water Resources, Elijah Walker

Theses

Environmental degradation is a destructive force produced by the human disturbance of pollution. It is a phenomenon that gradually evolves landscapes over time resulting in irreversible outcomes. Environmental degradation physically affects spaces’ resources, objects, and inhabiting humans. This study observes the impacts of pollution beyond physical boundaries and how it affects human identity/sense of place through the utilization of geographic information systems. Specifically, it examines cultural identity developed through human experiences and connections to landscapes containing water resources. Following, pollution contaminates water resources disrupting experiences and connections thus causing the cultural identity to disappear. The case study applied to this …

Seasonality Of Nitrogen Balances In A Mediterranean Climate Watershed, Oregon, Us, Jiajia Lin, Jana E. Compton, Scott G. Leibowitz, George Mueller-Warrant, William Matthews, Stephen H. Schoenholtz, Daniel M. Evans, Rob A. Coulombe

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Staff Publications

We constructed a seasonal nitrogen (N) budget for the year 2008 in the Calapooia River Watershed (CRW), an agriculturally dominated tributary of the Willamette River (Oregon, U.S.) under Mediterranean climate. Synthetic fertilizer application to agricultural land (dominated by grass seed crops) was the source of 90% of total N input to the CRW. Over 70% of the stream N export occurred during the wet winter, the primary time of fertilization and precipitation, and the lowest export occurred in the dry summer. Averaging across all 58 tributary subwatersheds, 19% of annual N inputs were exported by streams, and 41% by crop …

Land-Use/Land-Cover Changes And Their Influence On The Ecosystem In Chengdu City, China During The Period Of 1992–2018, Xiaojuan Lin, Min Xu, Chunxiang Cao, Ramesh P. Singh, Wei Chen, Hongrun Ju

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Due to urban expansion, economic development, and rapid population growth, land use/land cover (LULC) is changing in major cities around the globe. Quantitative analysis of LULC change is important for studying the corresponding impact on the ecosystem service value (ESV) that helps in decision-making and ecosystem conservation. Based on LULC data retrieved from remote-sensing interpretation, we computed the changes of ESV associated with the LULC dynamics using the benefits transfer method and geographic information system (GIS) technologies during the period of 1992–2018 following self-modified coefficients which were corrected by net primary productivity (NPP). This improved approach aimed to establish a …

A Land Use Regression Model For Explaining Spatial Variation In Air Pollution Levels Using A Wind Sector Based Approach, Owen Naughton, Aoife Donnelly, Paul Nolan, Francesco Pilla, Bruce Misstear, Brian Broderick

Articles

Estimating pollutant concentrations at a local and regional scale is essential for good ambient air quality information in environmental and health policy decision making. Here we present a land use regression (LUR) modelling methodology that exploits the high temporal resolution of fixed-site monitoring (FSM) to produce viable air quality maps. The methodology partitions concentration time series from a national FSM network into wind-dependent sectors or “wedges”. A LUR model is derived using predictor variables calculated within the directional wind sectors, and compared against the long-term average concentrations within each sector. This study demonstrates the value of incorporating the relative position …

Gis Analysis Of Brownfield Sites In The City Of Minneapolis, Shreya Vaidya

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Brownfield sites have many negative ramifications on a local area which includes loss of economy, decline in land use value and potential hazard to human health and the environment. Despite the efforts on redeveloping brownfields, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) claims that over 10,000 known contaminated or potentially contaminated sites remain across Minnesota and thousands are likely to exist but have not been identified and recorded. The objectives of this study are to map the brownfield sites in Minneapolis based on the information provided by the regulatory sources and to categorize and analyze all the sites on the basis of …

Using Gis To Delineate Headwater Stream Origins In The Appalachian Coal-Belt Region Of Kentucky, Jonathan A. Villines

Theses and Dissertations--Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Human activity such as surface mining can have substantial impacts on the natural environment. Performing a Cumulative Hydrologic Impact Assessment (CHIA) of such impacts on surface water systems requires knowing the location and extent of these impacted streams. The Jurisdictional Determination (JD) of a stream’s protected status under the Clean Water Act (CWA) involves locating and classifying streams according to their flow regime: ephemeral, intermittent, or perennial. Due to their often remote locations and small size, taking a field inventory of headwater streams for surface mining permit applications or permit reviews is challenging. A means of estimating headwater stream location …

Mapping Potential Crp Land And Determining Crp Profitability In Lancaster County, Jamie Pesek

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Annually 17 tons of soil is lost due to the erosion of agriculture land. A majority of the soil lost is fertile topsoil, which can render the land unproductive. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was enacted to reduce the high erosion rates on agriculture land by giving landowners a monetary incentive to let their land lay idle and allow the soil to regenerate. Although there is awareness of the benefits of CRP, little effort has been put toward delineating CRP eligible land. In this project, Geographical Information Systems were used to map CRP eligible land in Lancaster County, Nebraska based …

Slides: Introduction To Large-Scale Planning And The Intermountain Bmp Project, Kathryn Mutz

Best Management Practices (BMPs): What? How? And Why? (May 26)

Presenter: Kathryn Mutz, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law

18 slides

Aquatic Habitat Mapping Within The Obed Wild And Scenic River For Threatened And Endangered Species Habitat Delineation, Joseph Ross Candlish

Masters Theses

There is a need to define a more efficient and accurate approach to aquatic habitat mapping. Traditional approaches have focused on intense biological/non-biological sampling and observation analysis within specific and restrained scales. Therefore, an underwater video mapping system (UVMS) has been developed in efforts to identify federally protected aquatic species’ habitats within the Obed Wild and Scenic River (OBRI). The UVMS kayak apparatus provides georeferenced video footage correlated with GPS (global positioning systems) for GIS (geographic information systems) mapping applications. Based on its fluvial and geomorphological trends, OBRI was dissected quantitatively and integrated into databases for species-specific GIS habitat queries. …

Slides: Intermountain Oil And Gas Bmp Project, Kathryn Mutz

Best Practices for Community and Environmental Protection (October 14)

Presenter: Kathryn Mutz, Natural Resources Law Center

19 slides

Categorization Of Shellfish Tmdl Sites Final Report, Julie Herman, Carl Hershner, Howard Kator

Reports

There were two important goals for this project, including the assembly and compilation of digital data for the Coastal Plain and tidal waters of Virginia, and the categorization of the Division of Shellfish Sanitation (DSS) shellfish growing areas to determine if some are similar enough for water quality models to be effectively transferred from the modeled growing areas to other areas. This report summarizes the data and statistical analyses and discusses the results. Note: The digital data has a very fine resolution. The maps displayed in this report cannot convey this information on 8.5x11" paper. All digital data layers (shape …