Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Applying The Food-Energy-Water Nexus Approach To Urban Agriculture: From Few To Fewp (Food-Energy- Water-People), Silvio Caputo, Victoria Schoen, Kathrin Spect, Baptiste Grard, Chris Blythe, Nevin Cohen, Runrid Fox-Kämper, Jason Hawes, Joshua Newell, Lidia Poniży

Publications and Research

Many studies examine the correlation between the use of resources such as water, energy and land, and the production of food. These nexus studies focus predominantly on large scale systems, often considering the social dimensions only in terms of access to resources and participation in the decision- making process, rather than individual attitudes and behaviours with respect to resource use. Such a concept of the nexus is relevant to urban agriculture (UA), but it requires customisation to the particular characteristics of growing food in cities, which is practiced mainly at a small scale and produces not only food but also …

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Paleontological Resources Management Plan (Public Version), Scott Kottkamp, Vincent L. Santucci, Justin S. Tweet, Jessica De Smet, Ellen Stark

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

Since Agate Springs Ranch was founded by James H. Cook in 1887, exquisite examples of transitional Miocene mammalian fauna have been found along this stretch of the Niobrara River valley. Collectively these paleontological discoveries, along with the existing archeological and historical Native American collection, were the basis for establishing Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (AGFO) as a unit of the National Park System (NPS). The fossil remains from the Harrison and Anderson Ranch formations span a short, but important, time period within the Miocene Epoch. AGFO has provided science with an intimate look into North American mammalian evolution …

Analysis Of Interdunal Wetlands And Ecosystem Dynamics Using Uas And Obia In Ludington State Park, Michigan, Claire Gilbert

Masters Theses

The Great Lakes sand dunes are the world's largest freshwater dune complex. There is a functional relationship between coastal wetlands and freshwater sand dune, referred to as interdunal wetlands. Interdunal wetland systems are highly dynamic and change dramatically seasonally and annually. Using geographic information systems (GIS) and unoccupied aerial systems (UAS), this thesis project is focused on understanding the spatial distribution of sparse and dense vegetation, and abiotic influence such as distance to coast, slope, and aspect influence interdunal wetland stability within a Great Lakes shoreline dune system. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) classification results extracted meaningful vegetation densities of growth …

Geology, Soils And Climate Of The Margaret River Wine Region, Peter J. Tille, Angela Stuart-Street, Peter S. Gardiner

All other publications

This report is an extract from the broader description and analysis of the Geology, soils and climate of Western Australia's wine regions. It expands on the brief descriptions in the second edition of 'Viticulture' (Coombe & Dry 2004) concerning the soils and landscapes of Western Australia’s main wine growing regions. We have tailored this report extract to the specific needs of the Margaret River wine region. It contains local soil names and soil-landscape zones and systems maps.

The wine industry recognises the importance of giving customers an understanding of the vines’ environment and how that may influence wine character …

Airborne Observations Of Thermal Anisotropy From Urban Residential Neighbourhoods In Salt Lake City, Utah, Samantha J. Claessens

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Urban surface temperatures are important variables in urban climatological processes. This thesis examines the directional variability of remotely sensed urban surface temperatures (thermal anisotropy or Λ) for three vegetated residential neighbourhoods in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Airborne thermal remote sensing using a thermal imager sampled the directional brightness temperature (DBT) at three times within a day for each site. Results indicate that temporal variability over a 20 – 30-minute flight was not negligible. Average DBT were then extracted from atmospherically corrected images and plotted on polar plots. For low density residential neighbourhoods Λ is increased with increasing tree-canopy coverage …

Long-Term Ndvi And Recent Vegetation Cover Profiles Of Major Offshore Island Nesting Sites Of Sea Turtles In Saudi Waters Of The Northern Arabian Gulf, Rommel H. Maneja, Jeffrey D. Miller, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Ace Vincent B. Flandez, Joshua J. Dagoy, Joselito Francis A. Alcaria, Abdullajid U. Basali, Khaled A. Al-Abdulkader, Ronald A. Loughland, Mohamed A. Qurban

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Vegetation is an important ecological component of offshore islands in the Arabian Gulf (AG), which maintains long-term resilience of these islands. This is achieved by influencing sediment retention and moisture acquisition via condensation during periods of high humidity and by providing a variety of microhabitats for island fauna. The resilience of offshore islands’ ecosystems in the Saudi waters is important because they host the largest number of nesting hawksbill and green turtles in the AG. This study defines the characteristics and the long-term trends in vegetation cover of the offshore islands used by sea turtles as nesting grounds in the …

Rfia: An R Package For Estimation Of Forest Attributes With The Us Forest Inventory And Analysis Database, Hunter Stanke, Andrew O. Finley, Aaron S. Weed, Brian F. Walters, Grant M. Domke

United States National Park Service: Publications

Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) is a US Department of Agriculture Forest Service program that aims to monitor changes in forests across the US. FIA hosts one of the largest ecological datasets in the world, though its complexity limits access for many potential users. rFIA is an R package designed to simplify the estimation of forest attributes using data collected by the FIA Program. Specifically, rFIA improves access to the spatiotemporal estimation capacity of the FIA Database via space–time indexed summaries of forest variables within user-defined population boundaries (e.g., geographic, temporal, biophysical). The package implements multiple design-based estimators, and has …

Using Historical Maps For Contaminated Site Identification And Prediction, And Environmental Justice Implications: A Case Study In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dana Heusinkveld

Masters Theses

As the production of synthetic chemicals has grown in the past centuries to increase production, lower costs, and generally make our lives more convenient, detecting and understanding the environmental impacts of these compounds has lagged significantly behind their mass production and wide-spread use. To combat this trend, sources of these contaminants, especially those that have been removed from the landscape, need to be quickly identified to make mitigation and remediation efforts more effective. In this study, historical Sanborn maps are used to extract and digitize historical site/land use in Grand Rapids during the early 1900s through the practical application of …

Summer Average Urban-Rural Surface Temperature Differences Do Not Indicate The Need For Urban Heat Reduction, Alberto Martilli, Matthias Roth, Winston T. L. Chow, Et Al

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This is a comment to the paper "Magnitude of urban heat islands largely explained by climate and population" by Manoli et al. (2019, Nature 573 p. 55-60; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1512-9)

Synergistic Use Of Remote Sensing And Modeling For Estimating Net Primary Productivity In The Red Sea With Vgpm, Eppley-Vgpm, And Cbpm Models Intercomparison, Wenzhao Li, Surya Prakash Tiwari, Hesham El-Askary, Mohamed Ali Qurban, Vassilis Amiridis, K. P. Manikandan, Michael J. Garay, Olga V. Kalashnikova, Thomas C. Piechota, Daniele C. Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Primary productivity (PP) has been recently investigated using remote sensing-based models over quite limited geographical areas of the Red Sea. This work sheds light on how phytoplankton and primary production would react to the effects of global warming in the extreme environment of the Red Sea and, hence, illuminates how similar regions may behave in the context of climate variability. study focuses on using satellite observations to conduct an intercomparison of three net primary production (NPP) models--the vertically generalized production model (VGPM), the Eppley-VGPM, and the carbon-based production model (CbPM)--produced over the Red Sea domain for the 1998-2018 time period. …

Development Of A Modified Floristic Quality Index As A Rapid Habitat Assessment Method In The Northern Everglades, Rebakah E. Gibble, Donatto D. Surratt

United States National Park Service: Publications

Floristic quality assessments (FQA) using floristic quality indices (FQIs) are useful tools for assessing and comparing vegetation communities and related habitat condition. However, intensive vegetation surveys requiring significant time and technical expertise are necessary, which limits the use of FQIs in environmental monitoring programs. This study modified standard FQI methods to develop a rapid assessment method for characterizing and modeling change in wetland habitat condition in the northern Everglades. Method modifications include limiting vegetation surveys to a subset of taxa selected as indicators of impact and eliminating richness and/or abundance factors from the equation. These modifications reduce the amount of …

Fire Monitoring Handbook

United States National Park Service: Publications

Fire is a powerful and enduring force that has had, and will continue to have, a profound influence on National Park Service (NPS) lands. Fire management decisions within the National Park Service require information on fire behavior and on the effects of fire on park resources. With good reason, the public is holding park management increasingly accountable, especially in the area of fire management. Federal and state agencies are instituting progressively more stringent guidelines for burning, monitoring, and evaluation. The impetus behind these guidelines and the purpose of this handbook are to ensure that management objectives are being met, to …

How Much Variation In Land Surface Phenology Can Climate Oscillation Modes Explain At The Scale Of Mountain Pastures In Kyrgyzstan?, Monika A. Tomaszewska, Geoffrey M. Henebry

NASA Land-Cover Land-Use Change Data Sets

Climate oscillation modes can shape weather across the globe due to atmospheric teleconnections. We built on the findings of a recent study to assess whether the impacts of teleconnections are detectable and significant in the early season dynamics of highland pastures across five rayons in Kyrgyzstan. Specifically, since land surface phenology (LSP) has already shown to be influenced by snow cover seasonality and terrain, we investigated here how much more explanatory and predictive power information about climatic oscillation modes might add to explain variation in LSP. We focused on seasonal values of five climate oscillation indices that influence vegetation dynamics …

A Tale Of Two Species: Black-Tailed And White-Tailed Prairie Dog Biogeography From The Last Interglacial To 2070, April Dawn Bledsoe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ecological niche models (ENMs) were created for White-tailed and Black-tailed prairie dogs and projected into the Last Interglacial (LI), the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and mid-Holocene (mid-H) to discern possible past suitable habitat for both species. Additionally, ENMs were projected into the future year 2070 representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.5 to discern how climate change may affect future habitat suitability. Kernel density estimations, minimum convex polygons, and median distribution centers of White-tailed and Black-tailed occurrence records were examined between time-periods to discern the effects of anthropogenic westward expansion on both species’ distributions. Current ENMs were constructed from commonly …

Land Surface Phenology In The Highland Pastures Of Montane Central Asia: Interactions With Snow Cover Seasonality And Terrain Characteristics, Monika A. Tomaszewska, Lan H. Nguyen, Geoffrey Henebry

NASA Land-Cover Land-Use Change Data Sets

Many studies have shown that high elevation environments are among very sensitive to climatic changes and where impacts are exacerbated. Across Central Asia, which is especially vulnerable to climate change due to aridity, the ability of global climate projections to capture the complex dynamics of mountainous environments is particularly limited. Over montane Central Asia, agropastoralism constitutes a major portion of the rural economy. Extensive herbaceous vegetation forms the basis of rural economies in Kyrgyzstan. Here we focus on snow cover seasonality and the effects of terrain on phenology in highland pastures using remote sensing data for 2001–2017. First, we describe …

The Belknap Campus And Metro Louisville Urban Heat Island Effect: Air And Ground Surface Temperature Analysis, Kenyetta Johnson

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Numerous studies show that urban morphologies and land covers generate excess heat emissions and retain heat relative to surrounding rural areas, known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Urban fabrics paved by concretes and asphalts absorbs solar radiation during solar peak then radiates heat after sundown. This study investigates temperature distribution data related to the UHI effect on the Belknap campus at the University of Louisville, which represents a small aerial sample of the Louisville metropolitan UHI effect. The objective of this study is to measure the reflectivity of ground surfaces and air temperatures on the Belknap campus during …

Acoustically Advertising Male Harbour Seals In Southeast Alaska Do Not Make Biologically Relevant Acoustic Adjustments In The Presence Of Vessel Noise, Leanna P. Matthews, Michelle E.H. Fournet, Christine Gabriele, Holger Klinck, Susan E. Parks

United States National Park Service: Publications

Aquatically breeding harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) males use underwater vocalizations during the breeding season to establish underwater territories, defend territories against intruder males, and possibly to attract females. Vessel noise overlaps in frequency with these vocalizations and could negatively impact breeding success by limiting communication space. In this study, we investigated whether harbour seals employed anti-masking strategies to maintain communication in the presence of vessel noise in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Harbour seals in this location did not sufficiently adjust source levels or acoustic parameters of vocalizations to compensate for acoustic masking. Instead, for every 1 dB …

Carnivore Population Structure Across An Urbanization Gradient: A Regional Genetic Analysis Of Bobcats In Southern California, Julia G. Smith, Megan K. Jennings, Erin E. Boydston, Kevin R. Crooks, Holly B. Ernest, Seth Riley, Laurel E. K. Serleys, Shaelynn Sleater-Squires, Rebecca L. Lewison

United States National Park Service: Publications

Context In human-dominated landscapes, habitat fragmentation and barriers to movement can interrupt gene flow. While often considered at a local extent, regional analyses are also needed to reveal broader landscape-mediated population processes.

Objectives To explore the relationship between patterns of gene flow and fragmentation resulting from urbanization across southern California, we used the bobcat as an indicator species. We assembled data for a landscape level genetic analysis across southern California from both archived and new samples, including two northern Californian populations for comparison, to identify local and regional areas affected by isolation.

Methods Our regional analyses focused on a dataset …

Asynchronous Carbon Sink Saturation In African And Amazonian Tropical Forests, Wannes Hubau, Simon L. Lewis, Et. Al. Authors

United States National Park Service: Publications

Structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 percent of 1–3 anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Climate-driven vegetation models 4,5 typically predict that this tropical forest ‘carbon sink’ will continue for decades . Here we assess trends in the carbon sink using 244 structurally intact African tropical forests spanning 11 countries, compare them with 321 published plots from Amazonia and investigate the underlying drivers of the trends. The carbon sink in live aboveground biomass in intact African tropical forests has been stable for the three decades to …

Problematic Plant Monitoring In Homestead National Monument Of America, 2006–2017, Craig C. Young

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

Managers are challenged with the impact of problematic plants, including exotic, invasive, and pest plant species. Information on the abundance, distribution, and location of these plants is essential for developing risk-based approaches to managing these species. Based on surveys conducted in 2006, 2009, 2013, and 2017, Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network staff and contractors identified a cumulative total of 20 potentially problematic plant species in Homestead National Monument of America (NMA). Of the 13 species found in 2017, we characterized 4 as very low frequency, 4 as low frequency, 2 as medium frequency, and 3 as high frequency. Only …

Problematic Plant Monitoring In Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, 2006–2018, Craig C. Young

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

Managers are challenged with the impact of problematic plants, including exotic, invasive, and pest plant species. Information on the abundance, distribution, and location of these plants is essential for developing risk-based approaches to managing these species. Based on surveys conducted in 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018, Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network staff and contractors identified a cumulative total of 33 problematic plant species in Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Of the 27 species found in 2018, we characterized 14 as very low frequency, 9 as low frequency, 4 as medium frequency, and 0 as high frequency. Only 4 (14.8%) of …

Estimation Of Available Epinephrine Dose In Expired And Discolored Autoinjectors Via Quantitative Smartphone Imaging, Amirus Saleheen, Bill M. Campbell, Rebecca A. Prosser, Christopher A. Baker

United States National Park Service: Publications

Epinephrine autoinjectors (EAIs) are important first aid medications for treating anaphylaxis. A 10-fold price increase over the past 12 years and evidence that expired EAIs may still contain significant doses of available epinephrine have motivated interest in the efficacy of expired EAIs as treatments of last resort. Degradation of expired EAIs, which can be caused by improper storage conditions, results in various degrees of discoloration of the epinephrine solution. Previous studies have determined that significant epinephrine remains available in expired EAIs, but these have only considered EAIs that show no discoloration. Here, we investigate the potential for colorimetric estimation of …

Nurse Rock Microclimates Significantly Buffer Exposure To Freezing T Temperature And Moderate Summer Temperature, Joshua L. Conver, Elliott Yarwood, Lucas D. Hetherington, Don E. Swann

United States National Park Service: Publications

Nurse tree canopies mitigate exposure to freezing temperatures that could result in injury or mortality to the saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea). Abiotic objects have been hypothesized to provide similar beneficial microclimates. We used data loggers at 11 nurse rock sites to record daily daytime summer maximum and winter nighttime minimum temperatures at Saguaro National Park, Arizona, to examine the effectiveness of rocks to moderate seasonal temperature extremes in the microclimate. Temperatures at rock sites averaged 2 °C warmer than exposed open control sites in winter. We found that the efficiency of rocks to act as insulators significantly increased as temperature …

Effects Of Culling White-Tailed Deer On Tree Regeneration And Microstegium Vimineum, An Invasive Grass, John Paul Schmit, Elizabeth R. Matthews, Andrejs Brolis

United States National Park Service: Publications

Reduction of forest regeneration due to overbrowsing by white-tailed deer is a growing concern for land managers. Abundant deer can impede forest regeneration through direct predation on tree seedlings. Additionally high deer density can facilitate the establishment of a dense understory of browse tolerant plant species that shades seedlings and persists even in the absence of deer. In response to these challenges, land managers have sought to reduce deer herds to restore tree regeneration, but few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of this management. Our study took place in Catoctin Mountain Park, a US National Park Service unit with a …

Implications Of Organic Mass To Carbon Ratios Increasing Over Time In The Rural United States, W.C. Malm, B.A. Schichtel, J.L. Hand, A.J. Prenni

United States National Park Service: Publications

The thermal evolution procedure used by most monitoring programs in the United States to determine carbonaceous aerosol concentrations is referred to as the thermal‐optical reflectance method, where an aerosol sample that has been collected on a quartz filter is heated and evolved carbon is characterized as either organic (OC) or light absorbing carbon (LAC). Evolved carbon assigned to OC is multiplied by a factor, Roc, to achieve an estimate of organic mass. Over the last 10–15 years, Roc, estimated through multiple linear regression analysis of data collected in the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) program, has increased at …

Beryllium-7 Elucidate Sediment Dynamics Of The Branford River Estuary, Connecticut, Usa, Gaboury Benoit, Matthew Hirschbeck, Beth Bisson

United States National Park Service: Publications

Berrylium-7 elucidates sediment dynamics (i.e., sources, sinks, deposition, and resuspension) in a Connecticut estuary. Average 7 −2−1 annual atmospheric deposition of Be is 290 mBq cm year. Sediment samples from 43 locations within the estuary show that 7Be deposition is spatially complex, but were statistically indistinguishable a year apart. Weekly time series of sediments indicate 7 that levels are nearly constant on this shorter time scale on ceradio active decay is taken into account. Be levels in sediments area balance between steady losses through radioactive decay and periodic pulse inputs following rainstorms. The water column was measured intensively during three …

Berry Important? Wolf Provisions Pups With Berries In Northern Minnesota, Austin T. Homkes, Thomas D. Gable, Steve K. Windles, Joseph K. Bump

United States National Park Service: Publications

Wolves (Canis lupus) primarily provision pups by catching mammalian prey and bringing remains of the carcass to the pups at a den or rendezvous site via their mouths or stomach. In August 2017, we observed an adult wolf regurgitating wild blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) to pups at a rendezvous site in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem, Minnesota, USA, which is the only known observation of wolves provisioning pups with wild berries. This observation, in combination with other evidence from the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem, suggests wild berries might be a more valuable food source for wolves in southern boreal ecosystems than previously appreciated.

Modelling Pinniped Abundance And Distribution By Combining Counts At T Terrestrial Sites And In-Water Sightings, Steven L. Whitlock, Jamie N. Womble, James T. Peterson

United States National Park Service: Publications

Pinnipeds are commonly monitored using aerial photographic surveys at land- or ice-based sites, where animals come ashore for resting, pupping, molting, and to avoid predators. Although these counts form the basis for monitoring population change over time, they do not provide information regarding where animals occur in the water, which is often of management and conservation interest. In this study, we developed a hierarchical model that links counts of pinnipeds at terrestrial sites to sightings-at-sea and estimates abundance, spatial distribution, and the proportion of time spent on land (attendance probability). The structure of the model also allows for the inclusion …

Dental Microwear As A Behavioral Proxy For Distinguishing Between Canids At The Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian) Site Of Predmostí, Czech Republic, Kari A. Prassack, Josephine Dubois, Martina Laznickova-Galetova, Mietje Germonpre, Peter S. Ungar

United States National Park Service: Publications

Morphological and genetic evidence put dog domestication during the Paleolithic, sometime between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago, with identification of the earliest dogs debated. We predict that these earliest dogs (referred to herein as protodogs), while potentially difficult to distinguish morphologically from wolves, experienced behavioral shifts, including changes in diet. Specifically, protodogs may have consumed more bone and other less desirable scraps within human settlement areas. Here we apply Dental Microwear Texture Analysis (DMTA) to canids from the Gravettian site of P�redmostí (approx. 28,500 BP), which were previously assigned to the Paleolithic dog or Pleistocene wolf morphotypes. We test whether …

Homestead National Monument Of America, Acoustic Monitoring Report, 2017, Emma Brown

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

This report presents acoustical data gathered by Student Conservation Association interns and the Natural Resource Specialist at Homestead National Monument of America in 2017. Data were collected at one site to provide park managers with information about the acoustical environment, sources of noise, and the existing ambient sound levels within the monument. This deployment also captured acoustic conditions during the total solar eclipse on 8/21/2017. (Results of the eclipse monitoring effort are provided in Appendix B.)

In this deployment, sound pressure level (SPL) was measured continuously every second by a calibrated sound level meter. Other equipment included an …