Environmental Health and Protection Commons^™

Rethinking Urban Green Infrastructure As A Means To Promote Avian Conservation, Allen Lau

Master's Projects and Capstones

There is an under-recognized potential for cities to use urban green infrastructure to contribute to avian biodiversity conservation. At the global scale, climate change and growing urbanization are primary global drivers leading to decline and homogenization in world bird populations. Birds are fundamental and intricate species in ecosystems, and even in urban areas, act as indicator and regulator species contributing to healthy ecosystem function. While many cities have recognized the economic and social benefits associated with green spaces, such as the vast benefits ecosystem services provide to the urban dweller, the use of green spaces to concurrently contribute to avian ...

Economic Evaluation Of Coastal Land Loss In Louisiana, Stephen R. Barnes, Craig Bond, Nicholas Burger, Kate Anania, Aaron Strong, Sarah Weilant, Stephanie Virgets

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

Louisiana has lost approximately 1,880 square miles of land over the past eighty years. Projections suggest that in a future without action, the next fifty years could result in the loss of 1,750 additional square miles of land area. As land loss continues, a large portion of the natural and man-made capital stocks of coastal Louisiana will be at greater risk of damage, either from land loss or from the associated increase in storm damage. We estimate the replacement cost of capital stock directly at risk from land loss ranges from approximately $2.1 billion to $3.5 ...

Attracting Beneficial Insects To Your Farm: A Comparison Of Habitat Modification Strategies, Kelly Rourke

Master's Projects and Capstones

Thoughtful planning to enhance diversity in agricultural landscapes can present a multitude of ecological, cultural and economic benefits. Land managers have many options when considering which habitat modification techniques they can implement on their agri-environment schemes. This comparative analysis of 47 peer reviewed journal articles assesses which landscape enhancements are most effective in attracting beneficial insects, namely pollinators and natural enemies to pests. Through biological control, natural invertebrate predators inhibit vegetative pests that can be detrimental to croplands. The promotion of natural enemies can decrease the need for chemical use and maintenance on farms. Pollinators contribute tremendous benefits to crop ...

The Limitation Of Spread Of Non-Native Marine Invertebrates From Artificial Structures To Natural Habitats, Whitney Mcclees, Catherine E. De Rivera

ESM Colloquium

Artificial structures created for aquatic anthropogenic activities are often colonized and fouled by many non-native species, few of which have invaded natural areas. Some research has indicated predation is limiting the spread of non-native species, while other research has indicated that it is dispersal-driven. To determine the effects of dispersal limitation and predation on the risk to surrounding habitats of being invaded by non-native species established on marina docks, we used a three-factor design, deploying seven unglazed ceramic panels per each treatment combination of 1) inside versus outside a marina in Yaquina Bay, Oregon; 2) cage keeping out predators >mesh ...

Funding Strategies For Non-Traditional University Ms4 Stormwater Programs, Elizabeth M. Garrett

Community and Regional Planning Program: Student Projects and Theses

Stormwater programs have historically been stymied by lack of proper funding resources. Unlike drinking water and sanitary sewer utility services that long ago transitioned to enterprise funds, a stormwater utility continues to evade stable and direct revenue sources throughout much of the United States. Inefficiently funded stormwater programs utilizing general funding practices leaves stormwater management programs unable to properly plan for long-term improvement, management, regulatory compliance, and maintenance. Funding research has established that forms of direct funding sources are crucial for successful stormwater programs, however, focus has been directed to strategies for municipalities. This paper will attempt to analyze, through ...

Tailings Dust Emissions, Emily Degner, Sam Horn, Zakary Galligan, Ryan Bernard, Julie Jameson, Josh Mueller, Natalie Tucker, Joe Griffin

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Fugitive dust emissions from the storage and handling of mine tailings presents environmental and safety concerns, which must be addressed to promote the land sustainability and the health and safety of individuals around a tailings storage facility (TSF). The investigated dust control methods were agglomeration, binder slurry injection, and topical spray.

The Dust Busters determined that pelletizing was the most practical method of agglomeration. In order to produce durable pellets from the mine tailings, which consist primarily of silica, a binder must be added. A variety of binders were considered including magnesium and calcium chloride, bentonite, barite, cement, vinyl polymers ...

Who Is Morally Responsible For Microfiber Pollution?, Luka Cai

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Microplastic fiber pollution (MFP) is the persistence of microfibers (fibrous plastic particles less than 5mm in diameter and length) in the environment in levels sufficient to harm aquatic/marine ecosystems, primarily caused by the laundering of polyester garments. MFP is a compelling issue because it causes harm to natural habitats, animals, and human beings, harm that moral agents need to be held accountable for. I define moral responsibility as an agent’s accountability for an act which they voluntarily committed/contributed to. Causal responsibility is the relationship between an agent and an outcome of the agent’s act. I theorize ...

Financial Assessment Of Agricultural Lands At Risk To Coastal Salt Marsh Migration In Relation To Climate Change Induced Sea Level Rise In Dorchester County, Maryland, Jewell Porter

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

The increasing rate and effects of sea level rise is a major environmental concern in the Chesapeake Bay. This paper evaluates the impacts of rising sea level on coastal salt marshes and the surrounding agricultural lands at risk in Dorchester County, Maryland to build off existing environmental monitoring work performed by NOAA’s Sentinel Site Program. The results of the spatial analysis were used to estimate monetary benefits to incentivize farmers to protect these marshes by making their land available for marsh migration to occur. Looking at three scenarios of sea level rise and marsh migration, grain crops (corn, soybeans ...

Policy Comment: Proposals For Ontario's Solar Future, Rashin Alizadeh

Western Journal of Legal Studies

In Ontario, the protection of solar energy is both complicated and limited. In order to take advantage of evolving greener energy sources, and reduce our contribution to global warming, Ontario must better protect solar energy use and solar energy investments. This commentary evaluates the incentives for extending the use of solar technology as part of the Green Energy Act, 2009, SO 2009. The analysis focuses on the relationship between the provincial and municipal governments as it relates to the green energy industry, and the level of public engagement and awareness that is being achieved. Reform to municipal zoning bylaws are ...

Estimating The Impact Of A Select Criteria Pollutant (Pm2.5) On Childhood Asthma In Florida, Shabnam Mehra

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Asthma has been reported in children as a leading chronic illness in the US and around the world. It is also the third leading cause of hospitalization among children under the age of 15, and is also one of the most common causes of school absenteeism. Children are at higher risk of asthma attacks and they pose a higher burden on health care system. Nearly 20.6% of middle and high school children in Florida have been told they have asthma, this prevalence has grown over 3% from 2006 to 2012. Changes in air pollutant levels are often related to ...

The Effects Of Traffic Related Air Pollution And Proposed Legal Remedies, Alessandro Magi

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

This paper intends to examine the environmental issues that accompany air pollution generated from traffic related incidents, and the implications that this mass-generated pollution has on air quality, as well as the quality of life of humans exposed chronically to airborne carcinogens. Traffic related air pollution is an environmental problem that is heightened by urban design and population demographics such as urban sprawl, spatial distribution, population density, and infrastructure design. Furthermore, this paper will scrutinize Canadian legislation that regulates traffic related air pollutants, and develop an argument for how to apply legislation going forward. As Cartier, Benmarinha, and Brousselle (2015 ...

Mapping Community Space And Place In Mto Wa Mbu, Tanzania Through Surveys And Gis, Jessica Craigg

Georgia College Student Research Events

Cities throughout the African continent have been developing at an unprecedented pace, many of them due to the influence of the tourism industry. This is particularly true in Tanzania, a country famous for its national parks and their draw to tourists who help provide money for development. However, the only way to get the whole story on how to spend this money is through the experiences and needs of the people themselves. This study focuses on a small town in northeastern Tanzania, Mto wa Mbu, situated near Lake Manyara National Park, and its people’s perceptions of the park and ...

Winter Rye Cover Crop Biomass Production, Degradation, And N Recycling, J. L. Pantoja, J. E. Sawyer, D. W. Barker

John E. Sawyer

Winter rye (Secale cereale L.) as a cover crop can take up residual inorganic N between annual row crops and therefore be used to help reduce NO3 -–N loss from fields and movement to water systems. However, does the rye N uptake affect N recycling to soil and add to plant available N? The rye carbon:nitrogen (C:N) ratio could also influence N recycling. The objectives of this study were to evaluate rye biomass degradation and N recycling after spring rye termination in a no-till corn (Zea mays L.) - soybean [Glycine max. (L.) Merr.] rotation. A two year experiment ...

The Influence Of Tropical Forests And Climate Change On The Fates Of Select Organic Pollutants In A Jamaican Watershed, Kayon Barrett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many organic compounds, although beneficial, are associated with negative health and ecological impacts. It is therefore imperative to understand the environmental fates of these contaminants. Whereas the fates and health impacts of many persistent organic pollutants have been extensively examined, there is limited research characterizing the fates of these and the less persistent organic compounds in tropical multi-use watersheds. This study therefore aimed to evaluate the roles of forests and climate change on the environmental fates and health impacts of select organic chemicals in the Rio Cobre watershed, a tropical river basin in Jamaica. A total of 16 organic compounds ...

Persistent Organic Pollutants And Mortality In The United States, Kristiann Fry, Melinda Power

GW Research Days 2016 - Present

Background/Objectives: Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are environmentally and biologically persistent chemicals that include polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), per- and polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and organochlorine (OC) pesticides. Currently, there is limited data on the association between exposure to POPs and the risk of mortality in the general US population. The objective of this study was to determine if higher exposure to POPs are associated with greater risk of all-cause, cancer, heart/cerebrovascular disease, or other-cause mortality in persons aged 60 years and older.

Methods: The analyses included participants aged 60 years and older from the 1999-2006 National ...

Multi-Scaled Approaches For Protecting Montana's Watersheds And Water Resources, Elizabeth Yoder

Graduate Student Portfolios

The central theme carried among my four portfolio pieces is: using scientific and governmental approaches to conserve watershed health. For the purposes of this portfolio, I define watershed health as a very general term that describes the state of water quantity and quality that is available for human and ecosystem needs in a watershed. I see each of my portfolio pieces focusing on a different scale and method (i.e., science or government, including different levels of government, local, state and federal) for conserving watershed health. My first portfolio piece reviews water quality degradation caused by pharmaceuticals and personal care ...

The Giving Trees: The (Un)Sustainability Of Palm Oil In Indonesia, Amber Rosche

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Palm oil is the main source of cooking oil for much of Africa, Asia and Brazil. Due to the increasingly high demand for palm oil, countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia have cleared millions of acres of tropical rainforests to create space for oil palm plantations. This deforestation has led to extreme environmental and social concerns such as the burning of peatlands, the endangerment of a number of species, including the Sumatran Tiger, rhinos and orangutans, and the displacement of native populations. Indonesia is the world’s largest consumer and producer of palm oil, producing almost half of the world ...

Woodchip Denitrification Bioreactors: Impact Of Temperature And Hydraulic Retention Time On Nitrate Removal, Natasha L. Hoover, Alok Bhandari, Michelle L. Soupir, Thomas Moorman

Michelle L. Soupir

Woodchip denitrification bioreactors, a relatively new technology for edge-of-field treatment of subsurface agricultural drainage water, have shown potential for nitrate removal. However, few studies have evaluated the performance of these reactors under varied controlled conditions including initial woodchip age and a range of hydraulic retention times (HRTs) and temperatures similar to the field. This study investigated (i) the release of total organic C (TOC) during reactor start up for fresh and weathered woodchips, (ii) nitrate (NO3–N) removal at HRTs ranging from 2 to 24 h, (iii) nitrate removal at influent NO3–N concentrations of 10, 30, and 50 mg ...

An Analysis Of The Economic And Environmental Impact Of The U.S. Epa's Brownfields Program In New York And New Jersey From 2009 To 2014 Using Gis, Schenine Mitchell, Cindy Wang, Karmin Chong, Angelo Lampousis

Publications and Research

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) as part of its mission to protect human health and the environment has developed a Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative designed to empower States, communities and other stakeholders in economic development to work collaboratively to in a timely manner to prevent, assess, safely clean up and sustainably reuse brownfields. In order to effectively carry out the mission of the Brownfields Program, all ten regions share in the same goal of redeveloping brownfields. In this project we explore correlations between median household income and Brownfields funding (i.e., Phase I/Phase II assessments ...

Murray Energy Corporation V. Mccarthy, Sarah M. Danno

Public Land and Resources Law Review

Holding that the widespread effects of environmental regulation on the coal industry constituted sufficient importance, the Northern District of West Virginia ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct analysis on employment loss and plant reduction resulting from regulatory effects. In admonishing the EPA’s inaction, the court ruled that the Agency had a non-discretionary duty to evaluate employment and plant reduction. Furthermore, the court held that the EPA’s attempt to put forth general reports in place of required evaluations was an invalid attempt to circumvent its statutory duty.