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Physical and Environmental Geography Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2011

Selected Works

Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Physical and Environmental Geography

Investigating The Impact Of Restricted Irrigation Practices On Soil Moisture Variability And Distribution In A Dry Farmed Vineyard Site, Boise, Idaho, J. Duffin, David Wilkins, J. Guenther Dec 2011

Investigating The Impact Of Restricted Irrigation Practices On Soil Moisture Variability And Distribution In A Dry Farmed Vineyard Site, Boise, Idaho, J. Duffin, David Wilkins, J. Guenther

David E. Wilkins

Changing climate in semiarid regions may result in increased water stresses for agricultural production as timing and form of precipitation may result in diminished surface water for irrigation. To prepare for these changing conditions, studies are being conducted on the possibility of dry farmed agriculture as an alternative to irrigated production. This study specifically investigates the ability to grow productive wine grapes with limited or zero irrigation in the Boise Front Foothills, West Foothills TIC Vineyard, located in a climate zone receiving less than 300 mm of annual precipitation. Traditional vineyard performance factors such as planting densities, soil type, rootstock, …

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Sophomore Field Experiences As An Introduction To The Nature Of Geosciences: Data Collection And Analysis Using Dendrochronology, David Wilkins, M. Kunkel Dec 2011

Sophomore Field Experiences As An Introduction To The Nature Of Geosciences: Data Collection And Analysis Using Dendrochronology, David Wilkins, M. Kunkel

David E. Wilkins

Opportunities for field experiences are often presented as a primary reason that undergraduate students gravitate towards geosciences as a major field of study. What those students may not understand is that, for professional geoscientists, field experiences go beyond the freshman-level field trip, and students may overlook the processes of observation, data collection and analysis that are inherent to the science. The Department of Geosciences at Boise State has developed a set of sophomore field experience courses designed to "set the hook" into new majors and prepare them for field experiences in upper division coursework. These sophomore courses have been shown …

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Carbon Storage And Cycling Of Reclaimed Mine Soils In Southeastern Kentucky, Alice Jones, Kelly Barber, Peter Acton, James Fox Sep 2011

Carbon Storage And Cycling Of Reclaimed Mine Soils In Southeastern Kentucky, Alice Jones, Kelly Barber, Peter Acton, James Fox

Alice Jones

Since the passage of the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) in 1977, the most common type of surface mine reclamation is heavy compaction followed by grass seeding. To promote better vegetative recovery after mining, the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative (ARRI) promotes leaving the top four feet of fill material loose and planting a seedling mix of native hardwood trees. This study aims to quantify the effects of the resulting soil bulk densities on decomposition processes through the analysis of carbon storage and cycling in the soil column. Soil carbon storage mechanisms are divided into specific size classes/pools, each corresponding …

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Professional Development For Graduate Students Through Outreach Partnerships With Science Learning Centers, Karen Viskupic, Jennie Rylee, Cindy Busche, Sara Focht, David Cannamela, Annelise Carleton-Hug, James Belthoff, David Wilkins Sep 2011

Professional Development For Graduate Students Through Outreach Partnerships With Science Learning Centers, Karen Viskupic, Jennie Rylee, Cindy Busche, Sara Focht, David Cannamela, Annelise Carleton-Hug, James Belthoff, David Wilkins

David E. Wilkins

With funding from the National Science Foundation’s Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education program (GK-12), students from Boise State University’s graduate programs in biology and geosciences gain experience in curriculum development and delivery in a wide range of settings. The project uniquely partners graduate students with educators at three informal science centers that use their settings to focus on science and environmental issues of local, regional, and global importance. Two-three graduate students per year (GK-12 Fellows) are placed at each learning center where they work to create, modify, and deliver learning activities that incorporate local and regional themes as well …

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Wallace-Mcharg’S Plans For Greater Baltimore, Garrett Power May 2011

Wallace-Mcharg’S Plans For Greater Baltimore, Garrett Power

Garrett Power

This essay considers the growth of the partnership between David Wallace and Ian McHarg into one of the nation’s dominant urban design and environmental planning firms. It focuses on the firm’s undertaking in the Greater Baltimore region in the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s. With the benefit of fifty years of hindsight it looks at the successes and failures of their plans for Charles Center, the Green Spring and Worthington Valleys, and the Inner Harbor. Surprisingly, prize-winning innovations praised in one generation came to be judged as the design flaws of the next. Less surprisingly, their plans to “design with nature” …

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Physiographic Factors Defining The Snake River Valley Ava; Beyond "Vin De Idaho", David Wilkins, Virginia Gillerman, Krista Shellie, Ron Bitner, Gregory Jones Apr 2011

Physiographic Factors Defining The Snake River Valley Ava; Beyond "Vin De Idaho", David Wilkins, Virginia Gillerman, Krista Shellie, Ron Bitner, Gregory Jones

David E. Wilkins

Beginning in 1971 with the first plantings of wine grapes, the wine and wine grape industry in southwest Idaho have grown to become significant contributors to the state economy with an annual impact of $75 million (Bierle et al., 2008). With around 1600 acres under cultivation in 50 vineyards producing at least 24 varietals (as of 2007), wine grapes are the state's second largest fruit crop in acreage, with the majority of the crop (USDA, 2008) being produced in the western Snake River Plain of southwestern Idaho and eastern Oregon. In April, 2007, a 21,400 sq. km area in this …

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Estimates Of Streambank Erosion In A Surface Mined Disturbed Watershed Of Southern Appalachia, Alice Jones, Kelly Foley, Darren Martin, James Fox, Peter Acton, Nathanial Adams Feb 2011

Estimates Of Streambank Erosion In A Surface Mined Disturbed Watershed Of Southern Appalachia, Alice Jones, Kelly Foley, Darren Martin, James Fox, Peter Acton, Nathanial Adams

Alice Jones

Mountaintop coal mining is a debated environmental issue which has a significant influence on Appalachian watersheds, particularly their channel evolution. A major issue related to the mining is the increase in sediment load and transport from increased runoff and streambank erosion during storm events. Estimates of streambank erosion associated with surface mining are important presently because environmental regulations of mining are being reevaluated. This study uses a compartmental streambank erosion model to estimate rates of streambank erosion in an actively mined first-order watershed in Eastern Kentucky. The study site is Island Branch (2.2 km²), a subwatershed of the Line Fork …

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Mountain Treelines: A Roadmap For Research Orientation, George P. Malanson Dec 2010

Mountain Treelines: A Roadmap For Research Orientation, George P. Malanson

George P Malanson

For over 100 years, mountain treelines have been the subject of varied research endeavors and remain a strong area of investigation. The purpose of this paper is to examine aspects of the epistemology of mountain treeline research—that is, to investigate how knowledge on treelines has been acquired and the changes in knowledge acquisition over time, through a review of fundamental questions and approaches. The questions treeline researchers have raised and continue to raise have undoubtedly directed the current state of knowledge. A continuing, fundamental emphasis has centered on seeking the general cause of mountain treelines, thus seeking an answer to …

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Anthropogenic Landform Modeling Using Gis Techniques Case Study: Vrancea Region, Adrian Ursu, Dan A. Chelaru, Florin C. Mihai Dec 2010

Anthropogenic Landform Modeling Using Gis Techniques Case Study: Vrancea Region, Adrian Ursu, Dan A. Chelaru, Florin C. Mihai

Florin C MIHAI

Anthropogenic landforms are the result of significant changes in the Earth's crust due to technological development of human society, guided by its economic, social and cultural needs. nthropogenic landforms of the studied area was analyzed using GIS techniques at the general scale, conducting the entire study area maps, and detailed modeling of representative samples in detail. Representing the anthropogenic landforms on the digital elevation model can be very important in studying natural hazards, such as hydrological modeling on flood plains, which could influence the direction of the flood wave. The digital elevation model (DEM) made by traditional methods can not …

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