Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Role Of Dignity In Rural Natural Resource Governance, Tora Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dignity is “an internal state of peace that comes with the recognition and acceptance of the value and vulnerability of all living things” (Hicks, 2011, p. 1). Dignity is a crucial element in effective governance arrangements. This study applies dignity theory, and related theories of natural resource governance and environmental communication, to understand and overcome barriers to effective governance of common pool resources in rural communities. Chapter 1 reviews relevant literature on natural resource governance and develops a theoretical framework for dignity. Chapter 2 applies dignity theory to a contentious comprehensive planning process in a small Maine town in order …

Spatial Analysis Of Distributions And Habitat Conditions Of Fallopia Japonica (Japanese Knotweed) Invasive Species Applying Unmanned Helicopter Remote Sensing, Jiazhen Zhang

Great Lakes Center Masters Theses

Abstract:

Fallopia japonica (Japanese knotweed) is a perennial herbaceous plant that is native to East Asia. It is considered as one of the worst invasive species worldwide because of its serious impact on biological diversity and human activities (Lowe et al., 2001). Once established, Japanese knotweed forms dense stands that shade and crowd out native plant species. The objectives of this research were to verify and confirm the distribution of Japanese knotweed as published online by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) – iMap and to identify the geographic areas of spreading and the local habitat conditions. In …

Transportation And Sanitation Drivers Of Land Use/Land Cover Change: Loss Of The Jamaica Bay Wetlands, Margaret Joy Cytryn

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an analysis (1830-2014) of the historical events of land use/land cover change in the Jamaica Bay estuary, identification of the agents of change, and a perspective on the potential drivers of transportation and sanitation in land use/land cover change.

Human And Black Bear Interactions In Buncombe County, North Carolina, From 1993–2013, Adam Guy Alsamadisi

Masters Theses

Over the past 20 years the frequency of interactions between humans and black bears in Buncombe County, North Carolina has been increasing, posing threats to human safety, black bear populations, ecological stability, and conservation support. During this time, both the human population and the American black bear population increased in southern Appalachia, which, combined with both urban expansion and landscape fragmentation, led to an increase in human and black bear interactions. Reducing future interactions with black bears is important as these interactions put support for conservation at risk. I performed a landscape analysis to better understand where human and black …

Tourism And Organic Food Production In Croatia: Case Study Of The Cetina Region, Marina Pavletic

Masters Theses

Croatia is an emerging tourist destination where attractive beaches, rich culture and culinary delights form a perfect combination for a great vacation. As the number of tourists visiting Croatia continues to grow, their demand for food is following suit. However, more than half of the food purchased in Croatia is imported, while agricultural land in many Croatian regions is neglected. As the largest number of Croatia’s tourists comes from the European Union, which spent €22 billion on organic food in 2014, this study looks at opportunities and challenges for organic farming in Croatia as an alternative to conventional agriculture in …

The Adoption And Diffusion Of Leed Certification In The Great Lakes Region: 2008-2015, Douglas Vander Hulst

Masters Theses

This research examines multiple factors that were previously used to describe where LEED-certified homes locations from 2008 to 2015 in the Great Lakes states. This study includes an analysis of 1,040 buildings located in 144 cities across six Great Lakes states. Along with the data in the LEED homes dataset, LEED homes locations are compared using three climate factors: heating degree days, cooling degree days, and average annual temperature. Socioenvironmental factors hypothesized to influence the location of LEED-verified buildings included the city population, the city’s total area, water area, percent water area, land area, population density, and housing density. Two …

An Eerie Jungle Filled With Dragonflies, Sniper Bullets And Ghosts: Changing Perceptions Of Vietnam And The Vietnamese Through The Eyes Of American Troops, Matthew M. Herrera

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the changing perceptions of Vietnam’s landscape and the Vietnamese in the eyes of American troops throughout the Vietnam War. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Vietnamese were depicted as a people misguided by the French and in need of political mobilization by the American media and government. Following heavy investment and a rigged election in 1956, South Vietnam was painted as a beacon of democracy in Southeast Asia and an example of what American aid is capable of. As an increasing American military presence was being established in South Vietnam in the early 1960s, American …

Environment And Human Health In The Anthropocene: Interaction Between Natural And Social Systems In Coastal Tanzania, Frederick A. Armah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Coastal Tanzania, a region of historical and geopolitical importance in the western Indian Ocean, is a place where the problem of rapid environmental change is inextricably entwined with the challenges of development. In this region, although the fingerprint of the anthropocene has been discernible over the last century, there is paucity of research on how the population has interacted with the changing environment to generate disparities in perceptions of climate change and human health outcomes. The objectives of this thesis are four-fold: to assess barriers to climate change adaptation based on context (place), to explain group disparities in barriers to …

Impact Of Agroecology Adoption, Migration And Remittance Receipt On Household Welfare, Joseph Kangmennaang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis aims to examine the impact of two livelihood strategies on household wellbeing in Northern and Central Malawi. Specifically, the study aims to examine how agroecology adoption, migration and remittance receipt impact household food security and asset poverty levels. Prior research has revealed that agroecological farming methods and remittance receipt can increase productivity, yield stability and resilience of family farmers as well as increase their incomes and propel them out of poverty. Agroecology as an alternative agricultural approach has gained momentum through some high-level FAO meetings as well as reports highlighting its potential. Migration and remittances flows have also …

The Demand For Change: A Study Of Recreational Amenities For Ramona Park, Nicholas K. Mucha

Masters Theses

For years, Ramona Park has been a summer destination spot for residents of the City of Portage. With beach access as well as picnic areas and playground structures, Ramona Park has offered visitors a place to beat the summer heat. This thesis looks at what priorities visitors have for potential future developments in the park. Park visitors were surveyed during the summer months of May, June, July, and August of 2014 to see what should be included in future developments of the park, and the potential impacts of those improvements on future park usage. Initial findings indicated that visitors are …

Time Series Analysis Of Modis Ndvi Data With Cloudy Pixels: Frequency-Domain And Sizer Analyses Of Vegetation Change In Western Rwanda, Ephraim Robert Love

Masters Theses

Remote sensing is a valuable source of data for the study of human ecology in rural areas. In this thesis, I attempt to analyze the presence of a long-term trend indicative of post-resettlement adaptation in the vegetation signals of Western Rwanda. There is a dearth of research utilizing medium resolution imagery to study difficult environments, such as tropical-montane regions, where complex topography and cloud cover diminish image accuracy. I attempt to add to the extant literature on frequency-domain smoothing methods as well as the literature on human-environment interaction in tropical-montane regions by applying a harmonic filtering and smoothing algorithm to …

A Decade Of Lessons Learned: The Local Implementation Of Stormwater Programs In Tennessee, Catherine Trudy Olsen

Masters Theses

Over the past decade, communities across the nation have innovated, regulated, and constructed their way to managing urban stormwater runoff, with the grand goal of making the nation’s waters fishable and swimmable. Regulated under federal NPDES MS4 Phase II stormwater permits, communities have endeavored to implement the comprehensive requirements of this unfunded federal mandate. Reducing the considerable impact of municipal runoff on water resources across the country is imperative to the achievement of grand goals under the Clean Water Act: to restore and protect the quality of the nation’s waters (USEPA, 2000). Across the state of Tennessee, the capacity of …

Environmental Impact Of Conference Realignment, Bradley Farley

Masters Theses

Sports have a large impact on the environment. While leagues and teams are looking at improving their sustainability at stadiums, they also have increased their travel distances. NCAA Division I athletic conferences have recently endured conference realignments. This expanding geographic footprint of these conferences has led to teams having an increased travel distances for all sports. This research investigates the environmental impact of travel distances that conference realignment has had in NCAA Division I athletics, particularly regarding the Power 5 conferences carbon footprint. The research question examined is, based on travel distances, has the carbon footprint of the conferences changed …

Learning From Cinara: Exploring The Depths Of Participatory Water Engagement In Cali, Colombia, Zachary T. Strickland

Honors College Theses

Located within the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia, CINARA is an academic institution, comprised of both engineers and social scientists, that has almost three decades of experience regarding participatory approaches to water supply and environmental sanitation. In this paper, I argue that CINARA’s work is important due to its emphasis on meaningful community participation that significantly involves communities in decisions on technical matters that are usually allocated exclusively to “experts.” Furthermore, the valuation of social considerations and non-technical knowledge found amongst CINARA’s engineers stands in distinct contrast to traditional development practices and engineering mindsets. This paper will go on …

Habitat Suitability Study Of Parcel In Gourdneck State Game Area For Downy Woodpeckers, Emma Fojtik

Honors Theses

This study examines the habitat suitability for Downy woodpecker for a parcel of land in Gourdneck State Game Area, Portage, Michigan. Land within the State Game Area has undergone habitat restoration from forest and shrub to savanna and prairie, intentionally excluding two parcels directly north of the restoration. This study took place on one of the excluded parcels. Using the Habitat Suitability Index Model produced by the Fish and Wildlife Service, basal area and number of snags within the study site were measured to determine suitability of the study site for Downy woodpeckers. Ten-1/10th acre sample plots were randomly chosen …

Claims Of The City? Rights Of The Countryside? Politics Of Water Contestation In The Mumbai-Thane Region Of India, Bharat Khushal Punjabi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation comprises three papers that focus on the interplay of formal and informal institutional processes in the sharing of water between the Mumbai Metropolitan region and an agricultural area to its north and east in Thane district. The first paper focuses on the interests and motivations that influence the everyday practices of the canal bureaucracy in the Surya project in Dahanu. This paper is largely a critique of the application of rational choice theory to analyzing bureaucratic corruption in a literature in development studies that was pioneered by Robert Wade. Using an ethnographic narrative style, the paper seeks to …

Materiality And Location: A Geographic Study Of Log Home Manufacturing, James S. Peters

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation presents a material-geographic analysis of the materiality of log home manufacturing and may be the first quantitative application of ‘new materiality’ concepts. It tests the thesis that log home attributes reveal a manufacturer’s geographic region and building culture. A study of human-environment interaction, the research investigated the organization of log home manufacturing in the Eastern Woodlands of North America and illustrates relationships between manufacturers, their perspectives on forest resources and their choices of log conversion (i.e., processing) methods. Data were obtained from secondary sources and by surveying managers of log home manufacturing firms. Methods included hierarchical cluster analysis, …

Intra- And Inter-Seasonal Variability Of Supra-Glacial 1 Streams And Lakes Over The West Greenland Ice Sheet 2 From High-Resolution Satellite Optical Data, Michael Gregory Brown

Dissertations and Theses

The Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is one of the largest glacial ice masses on Earth, second only to the Antarctic ice sheet. The surface hydrology of the GrIS plays a crucial role on the surface energy and mass balance budgets of the ice sheet as a whole. Surface water, known as supra-glacial water, is seasonally found in the ablation zone and feeds the en-glacial and sub-glacial hydrological environments of the ice sheet. The spatial distribution of surface streams is poorly understood and their temporal variability is (to our knowledge) unknown. One of the reasons for the lack of knowledge on …

Changing States: Using State-And-Transition Models To Evaluate Channel Evolution Following Dam Removal Along The Clark Fork River, Montana, Christopher Van Dyke

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Located just east of Missoula, Montana, Milltown Dam stood from 1908 to 2008 immediately downstream of the Clark Fork River’s confluence with the Blackfoot River. After the discovery of arsenic-contaminated groundwater in the nearby community of Milltown, as well as extensive deposits of contaminated sediment in the dam’s upstream reservoir, in 1981, the area was designated a Superfund site – along with much of the Upper Clark Fork Watershed. This motivated the eventual decision to remove the dam, perform environmental remediation, and reconstruct approximately five kilometers of the Clark Fork River and its floodplain. This study is part conceptual and …

The Use Of Improved Technology And Market-Based Incentives To Increase Forest Resource And Biodiversity Conservation In Rwanda, Kelly M. Rayens

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

This study evaluated the effectiveness of two distinct approaches to ecosystem conservation in Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park: cookstove technology adoption and market-based policy instruments. A June 2014 survey of 250 households revealed that use of improved cookstove technology dramatically decreased fuelwood consumption for households in rural Rwanda, but that design, engineering and conflicting policy issues can hamper the widespread use of energy-efficient cooking technology. The second component of this research used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) within a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) framework to explore the options for designing and implementing market-based instruments around the country’s conservation targets, particularly the highly …

Environmental Governance In The Carbon Economy: Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions In California's Cap-And-Trade Program, Patrick M. Bigger

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Since 2006 California has been pursuing the most ambitious climate change policy in the United States, implementing a suite of greenhouse gas reduction measures ranging from automobile refrigerant disposal rules to clean energy standards for electric power utilities. The most significant of these measures is the creation of a cap‐and‐trade program. Through this program, regulators seek to create a knowable price‐signal to incentivize emissions reductions among polluters. Using a suite of ethnographic methods, this dissertation looks at the people, ideas, and institutions that have been mobilized in the creation of California’s cap‐and‐ trade program.

Substantively, the dissertation engages with three …

The San Antonio Wash: Addressing The Gap Between Claremont And Upland, Benjamin C. Hackenberger

Pomona Senior Theses

Access to water from San Antonio Creek was critical in Claremont’s growth from a small stop on the Santa Fe Railroad to an agricultural powerhouse and an elite college town. While Claremont has sought to distinguish itself from surrounding communities since its founding in 1882, the innovative Pomona Valley Protective Association (PVPA) aligned Claremont with the City of Pomona and its other neighbors in a scheme to conserve the Creek’s resources at the turn of the century. Organized around the discovery of local confined aquifers and the development of a strategy to recharge them with water from the San Antonio …

The Effects Of Surf-Driven Development On The Local Population Of Playa Gigante, Nicaragua, Nicholas Harrison William Earhart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In many of the world's developing countries, tourism is starting to play a more important role in the improvements of the local and national economies. One of these countries that have started to view tourism as a way to alleviate poverty throughout the country is Nicaragua. With miles of beaches, large swaths of pristine rainforests and beautiful volcanoes, Nicaragua has plenty to offer to travelers from all over the world. One of the sectors of tourism that has rapidly expanded in recent years is that which caters specifically to North American and European surfing tourists, who travel to Nicaragua for …

The Economic Impacts Of Forest Pathogens In Washington State: A Hedonic Approach, Logan Blair

All Master's Theses

An increase in the incidence of forest pathogens in the Western US has created new resource management issues. In this research I employ a dataset of 170,141 housing transactions in twelve Western Washington counties to quantify the impacts of parasitic forest damage on the proxy real estate market. Specifically, I estimate a set of hedonic fixed effects models to control for omitted variable bias and spatial autocorrelation. Results show statistically significant impacts on property values in the presence of species specific and aggregate defoliation, suggesting new information for forestry management and policy.

May You Walk In Beauty: The Decline Of Navajo Land And Culture, Jocelyn Catterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The Navajo homeland, Dinetah, is bordered by four mountains that are sacred to the Navajo people: two in Colorado, one in New Mexico, and one in Arizona. Historically, Navajo medicine men have traveled to these mountains to renew prayers and collect medicinal herbs. Today, the mountains, which exist outside of the reservation boundaries, are used for resource extraction and various recreational pursuits. While many Navajo are fighting for the protection of these sacred lands and their traditional culture, others are disinterested. Traditional practices and beliefs are slowly disappearing within the Navajo Nation. The land-use issues associated with these sacred mountains …

The Hazardous Effects Of Ship Scrapping And Recycling On Workers' Rights And The Environment, Maytee Gomez Salgueiro

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Raising Grain In Next Year Country: Dryland Farming, Drought, And Adaptation In The Golden Triangle, Montana, Caroline M. Stephens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change has already and will likely continue to impact agriculture in the Western United States, threatening water supplies for both irrigated and rainfed agriculture (Calzadilla et al. 2010; Chambers and Pellant 2008; MacDonald et al. 2010; Pedersen et al. 2009). In the Golden Triangle, a region in north central Montana, known for its dryland grain production, the same is true. There is a need for in-depth, fine-grained, place-based, and qualitative research about the process of climate change adaptation in agriculture (Miller et al. 2013). Drought challenges farmers in the Triangle, which is semiarid and receives 10-15 inches of annual …

(Re)Localizing Finland’S Foodshed: Grassroots Movements In Food Distribution And Urban Agriculture, Sophia E. Albov

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Finland’s agricultural landscape and food production systems have deep societal roots and intimate connections to the Finnish cultural identity. The thesis explores this cultural heritage through an examination of grassroots food distribution networks rapidly diffusing across Finland and an examination of urban agricultural practices in the capital city of Helsinki. This thesis aims to address the following questions: (1) What is the role of grassroots food distribution networks in Finland, and to what extent are they creating alternative farmer-consumer linkages that support eating local? (2) How is urban agriculture structured and organized in Helsinki and within the broader context of …

Remaking Nature In Montana: Topophilic Considerations Of Wolves And Wolf Trapping, Andrew Myers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 2011, after nearly forty years of federal protection, the gray wolf was removed from the Endangered Species List in Montana and its management entrusted to the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. The implementation of public trapping seasons in 2012 as a method to control wolf populations has further inflamed an already embroiled debate. The purpose of this research was to investigate how the presence of wolves and wolf trapping impacts human attachments to landscapes of “nature” in Montana by focusing on the following questions: What are the public’s social constructions of wolves? What are the public’s social constructions of …

Grassroots Planning: An Actor-Network Study Of Surfing Waves In Missoula, Montana, Alexander S. Pichacz Jr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Brennan’s Wave, in downtown Missoula, has become an iconic feature of the town. Through the diligent work of a group of community advocates a dangerous and unsightly irrigation diversion structure was repurposed to include a recreation feature in the middle of the river that improved safety while simultaneously maintaining the integrity of the structure. The success of Brennan’s Wave has led to its replication through the planning of another memorial wave, the Max Wave, to be built downstream at the site of a similar irrigation structure. This study investigates how these structures are planned for and built by utilizing an …