Natural Resource Economics Commons^™

Examining The Effectiveness Of Ecotourism As A Funding Source For Protected Area Management In Guyana, Jordan S. Flagel

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Protected areas in tropical rainforests serve many important ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration. These areas are often in need of donor or grant funding to operate as governments in tropical forested countries are not always able to provide adequate funds for protection. This paper focuses on the Iwokrama International Center for Rainforest Conservation and Development in the South American country of Guyana, which has had funding issues since the global economic crisis of 2008 and an accompanying shift in donor country financial priorities. Increasing the amount of sustainable ecotourism in the Iwokrama reserve was identified as a potential source for …

Methane Production By A Packed-Bed Anaerobic Digester Fed Dairy Barn Flush Water, Sean Richard Thomson

Master's Theses

Packed-bed digesters are an alternative to covered lagoon digesters for methane production and anaerobic treatment of dilute wastewaters such as dairy barn flush water. The physical media of packed-beds retain biofilms, often allowing increased treatment rates. Previous studies have evaluated several types of media for digestion of dilute wastewaters, but cost and media fouling have setback commercial development. A major operational cost has been effluent recirculation pumping.

In the present effort, a novel approach to anaerobic digestion of flush dairy water was developed at pilot-scale: broken walnut shells were used as a low-cost packed-bed medium and effluent recirculation was replaced …

Spreading The Char: The Importance Of Local Compatibility In The Diffusion Of Biochar Systems To The Smallholder Agriculture Community Context, Laura C. V. Munoz

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis enters the context of smallholder agriculture communities in the developing world. It explores the potentials of biochar and what biochar systems could bring to the smallholder communities while simultaneously bringing environmental benefits. It then acknowledges the challenges of diffusion –the spreading of an unfamiliar innovation. It seeks to answer the question of what will make diffusion of biochar systems more successful in the smallholder context, fixating on the characteristic of compatibility as well as the role local community members can play in making a new biochar system more visible to the rest of the communities.

Agriculture, Environmental Restoration And Ecosystem Services: Assessing The Costs Of Water Storage On Agricultural Lands In South Florida, Kayla Ouellette

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A large part of the environmental restoration required by the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan calls for more water-storage on lands south of Lake Okeechobee in order to restore the natural water flows of the Everglades watershed. The Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) can be used for increased water storage in order to relieve coastal estuaries of excess water in the rainy season. This water storage can deliver additional ecosystem services of soil retention and reduced CO2 emissions that could compensate farmers for the cost of water storage by increasing long term farm profitability. The goals of this study were 1) to …

The Effects That Liquid And Solid Cattle Manure Have On The Water Quality Of Drainage Ditches In Putnam County, Ohio, Janelle Horstman

Honors Projects

Lake Erie has experienced harmful algal blooms with increased frequency since the mid-1990s due to excess nutrients from Rivers, such as the Maumee River, and largely agricultural watersheds. Nonpoint source pollution from agriculture contributes to eutrophication, algal blooms, and the degradation of water quality. This creates stress on aquatic fauna, reduced aesthetic quality, odor, and limits of the water for usage of drinking, recreation, and industry. This research paper asks what the contributions of having access to manure application records, soil records, and information about antibiotics have on what is known about manure management and antibiotic resistance, which has been …