Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Missouri National Recreational River, Natural Resource Condition Assessment, Kevin J. Stark, Lucas J. Danzinger, Michael R. Komp, Andy J. Nadeau, Shannon Amberg, Eric J. Iverson, David Kadlec, Barry Drazkowski

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

As a unit in the National Park Service (NPS), Missouri National Recreational River (MNRR) is responsible for the management and conservation of natural resources within its boundaries. This mandate is supported by the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916, which directs the NPS to:

conserve the scenery and natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

In 2003, NPS Water Resources Division received funding through the Natural Resource Challenge …

Scotts Bluff National Monument Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring, 2011 Annual Report, Isabel W. Ashton, Michael Prowatzke, Michael R. Bynum, Tim Shepherd, Stephen K. Wilson, Kara Paintner-Green

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

The Northern Great Plains Inventory & Monitoring Network (NGPN) was established to develop and provide scientifically credible information on the current status and long-term trends of the composition, structure, and function of ecosystems in thirteen parks located in five northern Great Plains states. NGPN identified upland plant communities, exotic plant early detection, and riparian lowland communities as vital signs that can be used to better understand the condition of terrestrial park ecosystems (Gitzen et al. 2010). Upland and riparian ecosystems are important targets for vegetation monitoring because the status and trends in plant communities provide critical insights into …

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring, 2011 Annual Report, Isabel W. Ashton, Michael Prowatzke, Michael R. Bynum, Tim Shepherd, Stephen K. Wilson, Kara Paintner-Green

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

The Northern Great Plains Inventory & Monitoring Network (NGPN) was established to develop and provide scientifically credible information on the current status and long-term trends of the composition, structure, and function of ecosystems in thirteen parks located in five northern Great Plains states. NGPN identified upland plant communities, exotic plant early detection, and riparian lowland communities as vital signs that can be used to better understand the condition of terrestrial park ecosystems (Gitzen et al. 2010). Upland and riparian ecosystems are important targets for vegetation monitoring because the status and trends in plant communities provide critical insights into …

Review Of Hard Grass: Life On The Crazy Woman Bison Ranch. By Mary Zeiss Stange, Linda M. Hasselstrom

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Twenty years ago, Stange and her husband traded a modest New Jersey house for seven square miles of overgrazed prairie and set out to right the wrongs done to a place that had been mismanaged ecologically as well as environmentally. The restoration begins disastrously with llamas before it proceeds to success with bison. Her narration includes her own experiences, but most of her essays are serious, in-depth studies of the broader topics that constitute life in the great grasslands spreading across the interior of the country. She begins with prehistory, analyzing the evolution of both plants and animals in the …

Preservation, Passivity, And Pessimism, Sheila Lintott

Faculty Journal Articles

Many committed and passionate environmental thinkers currently champion restoration as an appropriate and positive model for human-nature interaction and interdependence. Recent philosophical defenses of restoration sidestep the issues that have been raised about the possibility of restoring degraded nature to a state that is identical, ontologically or evaluatively, to some pre-degraded state. Informed by feminist theory, I expose and explore some problematic assumptions and associations found in common defenses of restoration and defend the thesis that preservation is the more promising avenue to character remediation and the forging of a harmonious human-nature culture. I allow that many restoration projects will …

Collaborative Research: Microparticle/Tephra Analysis Of The Wais Divide Ice Core, Karl J. Kreutz, Andrei V. Kurbatov, Mark Wells, Paul Andrew Mayewski

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to perform continuous microparticle concentration and size distribution measurements (using coulter counter and state-of-the-art laser detector methods), analysis of biologically relevant trace elements associated with microparticles (Fe, Zn, Co, Cd, Cu), and tephra measurements on the WAIS Divide ice core. This initial three-year project includes analysis of ice core spanning the instrumental (~1850-present) to mid- Holocene (~5000 years BP) period, with sample resolution ranging from subannual to decadal. The intellectual merit of the project is that it will help in establishing the relationships among climate, atmospheric aerosols from terrestrial and volcanic sources, ocean biogeochemistry, and …

Homestead National Monument Of America, Geologic Resources Inventory Report, J. Graham

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

This report accompanies the digital geologic map data for Homestead National Monument of America in Nebraska, produced by the Geologic Resources Division in collaboration with its partners. It contains information relevant to resource management and scientific research. This document incorporates preexisting geologic information and does not include new data or additional fieldwork.

Established as a memorial to pioneer life and the Homestead Act of 1862, Homestead National Monument of America preserves approximately 92 ha (228 acres) of terraced grassland and riparian, floodplain environments. Included in the monument are about 40 ha (100 acres) of restored tallgrass prairie and …

Holding My Breath: The Experience Of Being Sikh After 9/11, Muninder Kaur Ahluwalia

Department of Counseling Scholarship and Creative Works

This article is based on the author’s experiences after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City and the impact of the attacks on her life as a New Yorker, an academic, and a member of a Sikh family and community. To position the author’s narrative, her reflection integrates race-based traumatic stress (Carter, 2007), a model suggesting that individuals who are targets of racism experience harm or injury. The author outlines lessons learned that affect her both personally and professionally, including (a) Paralysis can happen but advocacy and allies are healing, (b) Trauma changes the work, and (c) …

Coca And Conservation: Cultivation, Eradication, And Trafficking In The Amazon Borderlands, David S. Salisbury, C. Fagan

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

The cultivation and traffic of coca, Erythrolxylum coca, and coca derivatives remain understudied threats to the conservation of the Amazon rainforest. Currently the crop is transforming land use and livelihoods in the ecologically and culturally rich borderlands of Amazonian Peru. The isolated nature of this region characterized by indigenous populations (both settled and uncontacted), conservation units, resource concessions, and a lack of state presence provides fertile ground for the boom and bust cycle of coca production and facilitates the international transport of the product to neighboring Brazil. This paper explores the social and environmental impacts of coca production, eradication, and …

Amenity Migration, Exurbia, And Emerging Rural Landscapes: Global Natural Amenity As Place And As Process, Kirsten Valentine Cadieux, Patrick T. Hurley

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Designing A Raw Water Fee Scheme For Groundwater Extraction In Cagayan De Oro, Philippines, Rosalina Palanca-Tan

Economics Department Faculty Publications

Our earlier study (Palanca-Tan and Bautista 2003) looked into groundwater depletion in Cagayan de Oro City (CDO) and the viability of collecting a raw groundwater fee to control the excessive abstraction of groundwater and to generate revenues to finance watershed preservation activities. This current study is an action research project that endeavored to push the CDO government to legislate and implement a raw groundwater pricing scheme as a resource management tool. The project included a hydrological study that was done to estimate the safe yield of the CDO aquifer. The hydrological study also aimed to equip our research team with …

Building A Resilient Coast: Results From Focus Groups And Surveys With Maine Coastal Property Owners And Municipal Officials, Kristen Grant, Holli Andrews

Maine Sea Grant Publications

This summary provides an analysis of information gathered in 2007 and 2008 during a two-year study conducted by Maine Sea Grant and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The results were generated from broadly distributed surveys and six focus groups attended by Maine coastal property owners, municipal officials and recreational waterfront users. Findings highlight the logical steps needed to build coastal communities that are more resilient to coastal storms, flooding and erosion.

Factors For Improved Fish Passage Waterway Construction, David N. Sillars, Hamid Moradkhani, Nicholas Tymvios, Trevor D. Smith

TREC Final Reports

Streambeds are important fish passageways in Oregon; they provide for the necessary habitats and spawning cycles of a healthy fish population. Oregon state law requires that hydraulic structures located in water properly provide fish passage. Increasingly stringent state and federal regulations apply to these fish passageways, and designers must become more cognizant of conditions over a range of flows to accommodate fish movement and avoid expensive structural failure of these passageways. Fish passage structures are built when roads cross streambeds and may include culverts, or bridges. When these structures are built, the streambeds are re-created using a technique called “roughened …

Bioindicator-Based Stated Preference Valuation For Aquatic Habitat And Ecosystem Service Restoration, Robert J. Johnston, Eric T. Schultz, Kathleen Segerson, Elena Y. Besedin

EEB Articles

No abstract provided.

Vegetation Classification And Mapping Of Homestead National Monument Of America, Project Report, Kelly Kindscher, Hayley Kilroy, Jennifer Delisle, Quinn Long, Hillary Loring, Kevin Dobbs, Jim Drake

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

Homestead National Monument (HOME) was created at the to celebrate the significance of the Homestead Act of 1862 which granted 160 acres of free land to claimants and was one of the most significant and enduring events in the westward expansion of the United States. The National Monument encompasses 184 acres in Gage County, west of Beatrice, Nebraska. This unique site also hosts the oldest prairie restoration in the National Park system, and the second-oldest tallgrass prairie restoration known. This park unit also has a small remnant of native tallgrass prairie and remnants of bur-oak forest.

A three-year …

Vegetation Classification And Mapping Of Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Project Report, Kelly Kindscher, Hayley Kilroy, Jennifer Delisle, Quinn Long, Hillary Loring, Kevin Dobbs, Jim Drake

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (TAPR) encompasses 10,894 acres in eastern Kansas, just north of Strong City. This park unit was created on November 12, 1996 and is the first to protect a nationally significant example of the once vast tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Of the 400,000 square miles of tallgrass prairie that once covered the North American continent, less than four percent remains, primarily in the Flint Hills. The park unit is primarily rocky upland prairies and deep-soiled prairies in the lowlands. It also contains some wet prairie ravines, riparian forests and some former cropland and restored prairie. …

Evaluation Of The Sensitivity Of Inventory And Monitoring National Parks To Acidification Effects From Atmospheric Sulfur And Nitrogen Deposition, Northern Great Plains Network (Ngpn), T. J. Sullivan, T. C. Mcdonnell, G. T. Mcpherson, S. D. Mackey, D. Moore

United States National Park Service: Publications

Northern Great Plains Network (NGPN)

National maps of atmospheric sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) emissions and deposition are provided in Maps A through D as context for subsequent network data presentations. Maps A and B show county level emissions of total S and total N for the year 2002. Maps C and D show total S and total N deposition, again for the year 2002.

There are three parks in the Northern Great Plains Network that are larger than 100 square miles: Badlands (BADL), Missouri (MNRR), and Theodore Roosevelt (THRO). In addition, there are 10 smaller parks.

Total annual S …

Historic And Contemporary Trends Of The Conservation Reserve Program And Ring-Necked Pheasants In South Dakota, Christopher R. Laingen

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Over the past century, the interactions between agricultural land use and government cropland retirement programs have affected pheasant population change. Two government land retirement programs that returned croplands to grasslands, Soil Bank in the 1960s and the current Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), help to illustrate these connections. From 2007 to 2010, South Dakota lost 41% of its CRP lands and experienced an 18% decline in pheasants per mile. However, because of where CRP expirations have occurred and where pheasant populations are found, some regional variability is seen. Western South Dakota (Region 1) had an 80% increase in pheasants per mile …

What Research Should Be Done And Why? Four Competing Visions Among Ecologists, Mark W. Neff

Environmental Studies Faculty and Staff Publications

Information we collect about our planet depends, in part, on the questions scientists ask regarding the natural world. Asking other questions might lead to different innovations and alternative understandings of policy problems and their potential solutions. With a seemingly infinite number of potential study subjects but limited resources with which to study them, why have we chosen to focus on the topics that we have? Here, I present a Q-method study that explores ecologists' thought processes as they evaluate the merits of potential research topics. The participants, ecologists attending the Ecological Society of America's 2008 Annual Meeting, nominally agreed with …

Review Of: "Escape From The Ivory Tower: A Guide To Making Your Science Matter", By Nancy Baron, Mark W. Neff

Environmental Studies Faculty and Staff Publications

Collectively, ecologists produce a staggering amount of information each year. Using the Web of Science Journal Citation Reports subject classification to define the field of ecology, our discipline comprises 129 ecology-specific journals that in 2009 published an astounding 14 280 articles. How much of that information is being used by policymakers? How much is potentially useful to those audiences? The message in Nancy Baron’s new book, Escape from the ivory tower: a guide to making your science matter, is that all of it could be taken up by the media, publicized, and utilized by policymakers if only we could …

Evaluation Of The Sensitivity Of Inventory And Monitoring National Parks To Nutrient Enrichment Effects From Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition Northern Great Plains Network (Ngpn), T. J. Sullivan, T. C. Mcdonnell, G. T. Mcpherson, S. D. Mackey, D. Moore

United States National Park Service: Publications

Northern Great Plains Network (NGPN)

National maps of atmospheric N emissions and deposition are provided in Maps A and B as context for subsequent network data presentations. Map A shows county level emissions of total N for the year 2002. Map B shows total N deposition, again for the year 2002.

There are three parks in the Northern Great Plains Network that are larger than 100 square miles: Badlands (BADL), Missouri (MNRR), and Theodore Roosevelt (THRO). In addition, there are 10 other smaller parks.

Total annual N emissions, by county, are shown in Map C for lands in and surrounding …

Decolorization Of Azo Dye (Orange Mr) By An Autochthonous Bacterium, Micrococcus Sp. Dbs 2, Rajee Olaganathan, Jamila Patterson

Publications

Soil and sediment samples obtained from Orange MR dye contaminated habitat were screened for heterotrophic bacterial population. The heterotrophic bacterial density of dye-contaminated soil was 2.14 9 106 CFU/g. The generic composition of heterotrophic bacterial population was primarily composed of 10% of Proteus sp., 15% Aeromonas sp., 20% Bacillus sp., 25% Pseudomonas sp. and 30% Micrococcus sp. The bacterial strain that decolorized the azo dye Orange MR up to 900 ppm was identified as Micrococcus sp. The optimum inoculum load, pH and temperature were found to be 5%, 6 and 35°C, respectively. The rate of decolorization was assessed using spectrophotometer …

Building A Resilient Coast: Maine Property Owner's Guide To Managing Flooding, Erosion And Other Coastal Hazards, Peter Slovinsky, Catherine Schmitt

Maine Sea Grant Publications

Originally designed as an online owner's guide for coastal property owners and municipal officials. Describes sandy beach, hard and soft bluff, and coastal wetland habitats, vulnerabilities to erosion, and actions that property owners and communities can take to improve the resiliency of coastal lands in the face of sea-level rise, waves, flooding, hurricanes, and climate change related hazards.

Homestead National Monument, Vegetation Classification [Map], United States National Park Service

United States National Park Service: Publications

Color graphic vegetation map of Homestead National Monument of America in Beatrice, Nebraska, USA. Created as part of the Homestead NM of America Vegetation Mapping Project in April and May 2011. Includes a color-coded vegetation classification.

Homestead National Monument, Vegetation Mapping Project [Poster], Kelly Kindscher, Hayley Kilroy, Jennifer Delisle, Quinn Long, Hillary Loring, Kevin Dobbs, Jim Drake

United States National Park Service: Publications

Homestead National Monument was created in 1936 to celebrate the significance of the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted 160 acres of free land to claimants. This was one of the most significant and enduring events in the westward expansion of the United States. The site is the first tract homesteaded under the act by Daniel Freemen, and encompasses 184 acres in Gage County, west of Beatrice, Nebraska.

This unique site also hosts the oldest prairie restoration in the National Park system and the second-oldest tallgrass prairie restoration known. This park unit also has a small remnant of native tallgrass …

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Vegetation Mapping Project [Poster], Kelly Kindscher, Hayley Kilroy, Jennifer Delisle, Quinn Long, Hillary Loring, Kevin Dobbs, Jim Drake

United States National Park Service: Publications

The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve encompasses 10,894 acres in eastern Kansas, just north of Strong City. This park unit was created on November 12, 1996, and is the first to protect a nationally significant example of the once vast tall grass prairie ecosystem. Of the 400,000 square miles of tall grass prairie that once covered the North American continent, less than four percent remains, prin1arily in the Flint Hills. The park unit is primarily rocky upland prairies and deep-soiled prairies in the lowlands. It also contains some wet prairie ravines, riparian forests and some former cropland and restored prairie. These …

Peak Oil And Transition: The Making Of A Documentary Video, John A. Duvall

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Many scientists and academics have raised serious concerns regarding the depletion of fossil fuels—especially the peaking of oil production—and its impact upon society. According to these researchers, oil for transportation and production will soon become expensive and scarce, and known alternative sources of energy will be insufficient to make up the difference within the required time frame. Therefore, world civilization (and the United States in particular) will soon undergo a crisis in energy supply that will have significant impacts on the structure of community life, economic wellbeing, political organization, and individual lifestyles.

One response to these threats is to attempt …

A History Of Resilience Is A History Of Resistance, Melissa Ooten

Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

As an historian, I’m struck by the emphasis this documentary places on non-humans – be it animals, plants, soil, or mountains – although as a native of Appalachia, that doesn’t surprise me. The film is billed as “America’s first environmental history series: and as such, it gives us a bold, unique template of how to talk holistically about the concept of place and the specific place of Appalachia. While it may be particularly prescient to talk about the broader concept of place through ecology and other facets when analyzing the history of Appalachia, surely it is no less important when …

Moving "Eco" Back Into Socio-Ecological Models: A Proposal To Reorient Ecological Literacy Into Human Developmental Models And School Systems, Nicholas Stanger

Environmental Studies Faculty and Staff Publications

Socio-ecological models contribute to the understanding of how context influences human development and construction of worldviews. However, the claim that socio-ecological models represent the “true” influencers of an individual might be a misrepresentation of the complexity of whole ecological systems. This paper explores the possibility of adapting the use of the “socio-ecological model” to better represent the ecological influencers, rather than the primary focus of human and social factors. With reference to the new trends in environmental education, this paper explores the definitions of ecologically-based language, outlines the current domain of socio-ecological models, and proposes a re-orientation of socio-ecological models …

Cascadia Reconsidered: Questioning Micro-Scale Cross-Border Integration In The Fraser Lowland, Patrick H. Buckley, John Belec

Environmental Studies Faculty and Staff Publications

Cascadia has been promoted as the premier cross-border region (CBR) along the western US-Canada border. However, most studies of this CBR have a strong normative inflection that assumes a great desire by the actors to emancipate themselves from dominance by the nation-state. Unlike as in other regions of the world such as Europe, little micro-level empirical investigation has been done of this hypothesis. This study seeks to address that issue by focusing on a proposed power plant in the heart of Cascadia which was to integrate resources and services between the border towns of Sumas, Washington and Abbotsford, British Columbia …