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Dartmouth College

Environmental Studies

Articles 1 - 17 of 17

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Chesapeake Governance Study: Report Of 2021 Decision Maker Interview Results, D.G. Webster Dec 2022

Chesapeake Governance Study: Report Of 2021 Decision Maker Interview Results, D.G. Webster

Dartmouth Scholarship

This report describes the aggregate results from a series of interviews conducted with decision makers involved in governance of the Chesapeake Watershed. Interviews began in June and ended in December of 2021. Information collected will be combined with other data to create and then test a computer model to predict likely policy changes under a range of future scenarios. It is part of a larger project funded by the National Science Foundation called Modeling the Dynamics of Human and Estuarine Systems with Regulatory Feedbacks (Award #2009248). Using the Chesapeake Bay as an example, this project will combine the policy model …

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Between Two Rivers: Environmental Justice And The Politics Of Ecological Improvement In Puget Sound, Grant M. Gutierrez Sep 2022

Between Two Rivers: Environmental Justice And The Politics Of Ecological Improvement In Puget Sound, Grant M. Gutierrez

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Environmental justice (EJ) has become a central framework for historically marginalized communities in the United States to identify unequal exposure to environmental harm. Yet, what once began as a radical social movement challenge to different forms of environmental racism has been taken-up by a wide swathe of civil society across diverse political, cultural, and ecological landscapes. In particular, river restoration efforts – and the many communities they implicate – are emerging as key sites of political-ecological interventions that are central to EJ. However, not all river restoration efforts employ EJ as a guiding framework. Through this dissertation, I ask: how …

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Ecotourism And The Middle East: Lessons In Development, Andrew Ver Steeg Sep 2019

Ecotourism And The Middle East: Lessons In Development, Andrew Ver Steeg

Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Economics and World Affairs

In this paper I hope to introduce the reader to the aims of the ecotourism industry, its different actors, and some of its pitfalls and potential. I then turn discussion to the unique successes and challenges of developing the ecotourism sector in two nations that have already done much to lead the field in the Middle East, Jordan and Oman. I conclude with larger lessons and recommendations that have relevance for the Middle East as a whole while arguing that, though it may face some challenges, ecotourism has the potential to sustainably and sensitively aid the development of Middle Eastern …

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Small-Scale Forestry And Carbon Offset Markets: An Empirical Study Of Vermont Current Use Forest Landowner Willingness To Accept Carbon Credit Programs, Alisa E. White, David A. Lutz, Richard B. Howarth, José R. Soto Aug 2018

Small-Scale Forestry And Carbon Offset Markets: An Empirical Study Of Vermont Current Use Forest Landowner Willingness To Accept Carbon Credit Programs, Alisa E. White, David A. Lutz, Richard B. Howarth, José R. Soto

Dartmouth Scholarship

This study investigates the preferences of small forest landowners regarding forest carbon credit programs while documenting characteristics of potentially successful frameworks. We designed hypothetical carbon credit programs with aggregated carbon offset projects and requirements of existing voluntary and compliance protocols in mind. We administered a mail survey to 992 forest landowners in Vermont’s Current Use Program utilizing best-worst choice, a novel preference elicitation technique, to elicit their preferences about these programs. We found that small forest landowners see revenue as the most important factor in a carbon credit program and the duration of the program as the least important factor. …

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Spatial Heterogeneity In The Abundance And Fecundity Of Arctic Mosquitoes, Lauren E. Culler, Matthew P. Ayres, Ross A. Virginia Aug 2018

Spatial Heterogeneity In The Abundance And Fecundity Of Arctic Mosquitoes, Lauren E. Culler, Matthew P. Ayres, Ross A. Virginia

Dartmouth Scholarship

The abundance of mosquitoes is strongly influenced by biotic and abiotic factors that act on the immature (aquatic) and adult (terrestrial) life stages. Rapid changes in land use and climate, which impact aquatic and terrestrial mosquito habitat, necessitate studying the ecological mechanisms, and their interplay with the changing environment, that affect mosquito abundance. These data are crucial for anticipating how environmental change will impact their roles as pests, disease vectors, and in food webs. We studied a population of Arctic mosquitoes (Aedes nigripes, Diptera: Culicidae) in western Greenland, a region experiencing rapid environmental change, to quantify spatial variation …

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Building Student Capacity To Lead Sustainability Transitions In The Food System Through Farm-Based Authentic Research Modules In Sustainability Sciences (Farms), Selena Ahmed, Alexandra Sclafani, Estephanie Aquino, Shashwat Kala, Louise Barias, Jaime Eeg Aug 2017

Building Student Capacity To Lead Sustainability Transitions In The Food System Through Farm-Based Authentic Research Modules In Sustainability Sciences (Farms), Selena Ahmed, Alexandra Sclafani, Estephanie Aquino, Shashwat Kala, Louise Barias, Jaime Eeg

Dartmouth Scholarship

Undergraduate courses provide valuable opportunities to train and empower students with the knowledge, skills, and motivation to advance society in more sustainable directions. This article emphasizes the value of bridging primary scientific research with undergraduate education through the presentation of an integrated experiential learning and primary research model called Farm-based Authentic Research Modules in Sustainability Sciences (FARMS). FARMS are collaboratively designed with agricultural stakeholders through a community needs assessment on pressing food system issues and opportunities with the objective for faculty and students to jointly identify evidence-based management solutions. We illustrate the implementation of FARMS in an undergraduate course in …

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Scape Goats, Silver Bullets, And Other Pitfalls In The Path To Sustainability, D. G. Webster Mar 2017

Scape Goats, Silver Bullets, And Other Pitfalls In The Path To Sustainability, D. G. Webster

Dartmouth Scholarship

This paper draws from The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin to highlight some of the most likely pitfalls on the political road to a sustainable planet. Through the literary device of dreams that can change the world, Le Guin explores how the individual’s egoistic desire to save humanity can be twisted by the limitations of our psyche and our society, turning an already uncomfortable future Earth into a devastated planet. It is a stinging critique of answers handed down from above, and a call to action for those of us who just get by here below. Her story …

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The Pathology Of Command And Control: A Formal Synthesis, Michael Cox Jan 2016

The Pathology Of Command And Control: A Formal Synthesis, Michael Cox

Dartmouth Scholarship

One of the most important theories in the study of environmental governance and policy is the pathology of command and control, which describes the negative consequences of top-down, technocratic governance of social and ecological systems. However, to date, this theory has been expressed somewhat inconsistently and informally in the literature, even by the seminal works that have established its importance and popularized it. This presents a problem for the sustainability science community if it cannot be sure of the precise details of one of its most important theories. Without such precision, applications and tests of various elements of the theory …

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The Price Of Snow: Albedo Valuation And A Case Study For Forest Management, David A. Lutz, Richard B. Howarth Jun 2015

The Price Of Snow: Albedo Valuation And A Case Study For Forest Management, David A. Lutz, Richard B. Howarth

Dartmouth Scholarship

Several climate frameworks have included the role of carbon storage in natural landscapes as a potential mechanism for climate change mitigation. This has resulted in an incentive to grow and maintain intact long-lived forest ecosystems. However, recent research has suggested that the influence of albedo-related radiative forcing can impart equal and in some cases greater magnitudes of climate mitigation compared to carbon storage in forests where snowfall is common and biomass is slow-growing. While several methodologies exist for relating albedo-associated radiative forcing to carbon storage for the analysis of the tradeoffs of these ecosystem services, they are varied, and they …

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The Action Cycle/Structural Context Framework: A Fisheries Application, D. G. Webster Jan 2015

The Action Cycle/Structural Context Framework: A Fisheries Application, D. G. Webster

Dartmouth Scholarship

There is a growing consensus that environmental governance is a wicked problem that requires understanding of the many linkages and feedbacks between human and natural systems. Here, I propose an action cycle/structural context (AC/SC) framework that is based on the concept of responsive governance, in which individuals and decision makers respond to problems rather than working to prevent them. By linking agency and structure, the AC/SC framework points out two key problems in the realm of environmental governance: the profit disconnect, whereby economic signals of environmental harm are dampened by endogenous or exogenous forces, and the power disconnect, whereby those …

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A Basic Guide For Empirical Environmental Social Science, Michael Cox Jan 2015

A Basic Guide For Empirical Environmental Social Science, Michael Cox

Dartmouth Scholarship

In this paper, I address a gap in the literature on environmental social science by providing a basic rubric for the conduct of empirical research in this interdisciplinary field. Current literature displays a healthy diversity of methods and techniques, but this has also been accompanied by a lack of consistency in the way in which research in this area is done. In part this can be seen as resulting from a lack in supporting texts that would provide a basis for this consistency. Although relevant methods texts do exist, these are not written with this type of research explicitly in …

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Unintended Outcomes Of Farmers' Adaptation To Climate Variability: Deforestation And Conservation In Calakmul And Maya Biosphere Reserves, Claudia Rodriguez-Solorzano Jan 2014

Unintended Outcomes Of Farmers' Adaptation To Climate Variability: Deforestation And Conservation In Calakmul And Maya Biosphere Reserves, Claudia Rodriguez-Solorzano

Dartmouth Scholarship

Minimizing the impact of climate change on farmer livelihoods is crucial, but adaptation efforts may have unintended consequences for ecosystems, with potential impacts on farmers’ welfare. Unintended outcomes of climate adaptation strategies have been widely discussed, however, empirical exploration has been neglected. Grounded in scholarship on climate adaptation, environmental governance, social–ecological systems, and land-use change, this paper studies whether farmers’ climate adaptation contributes to deforestation or forest conservation. The paper draws on interviews with 353 farmers from 46 communities in Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Mexico and Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala. Farmers in the area of study have implemented adaptation …

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Using Participatory Scenarios To Stimulate Social Learning For Collaborative Sustainable Development, Kris A. Johnson, Genya Dana, Nicholas R. Jordan, Kathy J. Draeger, Anne Kapuscinski Jan 2012

Using Participatory Scenarios To Stimulate Social Learning For Collaborative Sustainable Development, Kris A. Johnson, Genya Dana, Nicholas R. Jordan, Kathy J. Draeger, Anne Kapuscinski

Dartmouth Scholarship

Interdependent human and biophysical systems are highly complex and behave in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. Social and ecological challenges that emerge from this complexity often defy straightforward solutions, and efforts to address these problems will require not only scientific and technological capabilities but also learning and adaptation. Scenarios are a useful tool for grappling with the uncertainty and complexity of social-ecological challenges because they enable participants to build adaptive capacity through the contemplation of multiple future possibilities. Furthermore, scenarios provide a platform for social learning, which is critical to acting in the face of uncertain, complex, and conflict-laden problems. We …

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Changes In Nitrogen Cycling During The Past Century In A Northern Hardwood Forest, Kendra K. Mclauchlan, Joseph M. Craine, W. Wyatt Oswald, Peter R. Leavitt, Gene E. Likens May 2007

Changes In Nitrogen Cycling During The Past Century In A Northern Hardwood Forest, Kendra K. Mclauchlan, Joseph M. Craine, W. Wyatt Oswald, Peter R. Leavitt, Gene E. Likens

Dartmouth Scholarship

Nitrogen (N) availability, defined here as the supply of N to terrestrial plants and soil microorganisms relative to their N demands, limits the productivity of many temperate zone forests and in part determines ecosystem carbon (C) content. Despite multidecadal monitoring of N in streams, the long-term record of N availability in forests of the northeastern United States is largely unknown. Therefore, although these forests have been receiving anthropogenic N deposition for the past few decades, it is still uncertain whether terrestrial N availability has changed during this time and, subsequently, whether forest ecosystems have responded to increased N deposition. Here, …

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Stage-Specific And Interactive Effects Of Sedimentation And Trout On A Headwater Stream Salamander, Winsor H. Lowe, Keith H. Nislow, Douglas T. Bolger Jan 2004

Stage-Specific And Interactive Effects Of Sedimentation And Trout On A Headwater Stream Salamander, Winsor H. Lowe, Keith H. Nislow, Douglas T. Bolger

Dartmouth Scholarship

In species with complex life cycles, stage-specific effects of environmental conditions combine with factors regulating stage-specific recruitment to determine population-level response to habitat disturbance. The abundance of the stream salamander Gyrinophilus porphyriticus(Plethodontidae) is negatively related to both logging-associated sedimentation and brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) in headwater streams throughout New Hampshire, USA. To understand the mechanisms underlying these patterns, we investigated stage-specific and interactive effects of sedimentation and brook trout on G. porphyriticus. We conducted quantitative surveys of salamanders, brook trout, and substrate embeddedness in 15 first-order streams and used a controlled experiment to test the direct and interactive effects of …

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Africa's Conservation For Development, Norman Miller, Rodger Yeager Jan 1987

Africa's Conservation For Development, Norman Miller, Rodger Yeager

Dartmouth Scholarship

Africa's modern dilemma is a "floor of life" issue. Resource loss, environmental degredation, and overpopulation have reduced many people to the lowest subsistence levels in living memory. By all accounts a biologically diverse wonderland, Africa is quite literally the last place on earth for many plant and animal species. Yet the basis of human and nonhuman survival has become threatened in many areas because of soil and water depletion, deforestation, and desertification. Human mistakes are invariably cited as among the basic causes of these tragedies.

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Journey In A Forgotten Land - Part 1: Food And Drought In Ethiopian/Kenyan Border Lands, Norman Miller Dec 1974

Journey In A Forgotten Land - Part 1: Food And Drought In Ethiopian/Kenyan Border Lands, Norman Miller

Dartmouth Scholarship

The herding peoples who live in the border areas of Kenya and Ethiopia share a common complaint. They believe themselves to be a forgotten people, unknown and unwanted in the capitals of Addis Ababa and Nairobi. This is not entirely true, but the remote, inhospitable nature of their land supports the belief that they are indeed untouched by the outside world. The majority of the people on both sides of the border are Boran, or their near cousins the Gabbra. They are traditionally pastoralists who move with their cattle, camels, sheep, and goats over vast areas of this dry land. …

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