Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Composite Spatial Model Incorporating Groundwater Vulnerability And Environmental Disturbance To Guide Land Management, Johanna L. Kovarik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has long recognized and studied the dynamics of groundwater processes. More recently, groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are being recognized for their diversity and vulnerability to anthropogenic impact. Groundwater in karst landscapes presents a distinctive situation where flow through the subsurface often moves rapidly on the scale of days and weeks as opposed to years or millennia in other systems. This distinctive situation of karst systems and their vulnerability to human impacts necessitate an integrated and multifaceted approach for the management of these important resources. However, development of such an approach is complicated by the difficulty of obtaining detailed data …

Collaboration And Conflict In The Adirondack Park: An Analysis Of Conservation Discourses Over Time, Jeffrey Michael O'Donnell

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The role of collaboration within conservation is of increasing interest to scholars, managers and forest communities. Collaboration can take many forms, but one under-studied topic is the form and content of public discourses across conservation project timelines. To understand the discursive processes that influence conservation decision-making, this research evaluates the use of collaborative rhetoric and claims about place within discourses of conservation in the Adirondacks. Local newspaper articles and editorials published from January 1996 to December 2013 and concerning six major conservation projects were studied using content analysis. Results show that collaborative rhetoric increased during the study period, and conflict …

Discourse As Social Process In Outdoor Recreation And Natural Resource Management: Arguing, Constructing, And Performing, Monika Marie Derrien

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines the language-based, discursive processes through which meanings and experiences are socially constituted in outdoor recreation and natural resource environments. Language use and discourse are seen as interactive, constructive processes, approached through the theoretical perspectives of argumentation, social constructionism, and performance.

Three qualitative studies, based in data collected at Acadia National Park and forest-related sites throughout Vermont, comprise this dissertation. The first study uses rhetorical analysis to examine the ways National Park Service managers and community leaders argue for the meanings and management of dark night skies in and around Acadia. The second study examines how national park …