Digital Commons Network^™

An Emergent Seafood Nationalism Takes Hold In The United States, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper introduces the concept of ‘seafood nationalism’ to describe how, since 2024–2025, the United States increasingly uses tariffs, trade remedies, food safety enforcement and origin-based rules to favour American seafood over foreign products. Federal actions include Executive Order 14276, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, which directs agencies to address unfair trade practices, unsafe imports and to develop a coordinated seafood trade strategy. Additional measures include a tariff package imposing a 10% duty on nearly all seafood imports and 30% on seafood from China, as well as new anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders on warm-water shrimp. This paper presents Gulf …

Tectonic Genetic Mechanisms Of Burnt Rocks In The Upper And Middle Reaches Of The Yellow River Basin, Sun Qiang, Hu Xin, Wang Shuangming, Ding Xiaoying, Geng Jishi, Wu Jiakun, Wei Shaoni, Luo Donghai

Coal Geology & Exploration

Objective The upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River basin represent significant coal bases of China, while burnt rocks formed by the high temperature of coal fires greatly affect the safe and green coal mining in this region. Therefore, investigating the distribution patterns and geological genetic mechanisms of burnt rocks in this region is of great scientific significance and practical value. Methods This study systematically investigated the distribution range and patterns of burnt rocks in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River basin. Using analysis of geological processes, this study explored the geological genetic mechanisms and primary …

Movement Ecology And Population Dynamics Of Box-Nesting Black-Bellied Whistling-Ducks (Dendrocygna Autumnalis) In Louisiana, Katie E. Miranda

LSU Master's Theses

Understanding demographic and behavioral processes underlying population dynamics is essential for effective wildlife management, especially for species subject to harvest pressure or experiencing population shifts. Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) are currently undergoing a notable northward range expansion and are increasing in abundance across the southeastern United States, raising management concerns for both ecological and economic reasons. As a result, there is growing public support for a special Black-bellied Whistling-Duck-specific harvest season, yet little research has been conducted on this species, particularly within newly-established populations. To address this gap, I conducted this study with the goal of evaluating seasonal …

(Re)Claiming Homeplace: Dance As Embodied Resistance & Healing For Health & Spatial Justice, Preeya G. Kannan

University Honors Theses

This thesis argues that dance functions as both an upstream public health intervention and a form of radical spatial resistance; creating healing, agency, and belonging among historically marginalized communities. Drawing on bell hooks' concept of homeplace, Jasbir Puar's assemblage theory, Nancy Krieger's eco-social theory, and Katherine McKittrick's Black geographies, I position the body as both an ecological and political landscape shaped by histories of colonialism, racial capitalism, displacement, and resilience.

Through this community-based participatory research study, Homeplace, I explore dance as a form of social prescription that centers liberation rather than pathology. Movement is often reduced in public health discourse …

The Role Of Urban Forests In Mitigating Flooding Effects: A Case Study In Savannah, Georgia, Gillian Bush

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Flooding in coastal communities is shaped by the interaction between natural systems and urban development. Chatham County, a low-elevation region in the Savannah, Georgia metropolitan area along the eastern coast of the United States, is prone to coastal storms and frequently affected by flooding. It serves as a useful case study to better understand the factors behind flooding and the areas that are most at risk. This study uses GIS-based analysis to examine the overlap between flood risk, urban forest cover, and impervious surfaces. The results indicate elevated vulnerability along major transportation corridors and barrier islands, where high-risk flood zones …

Quantifying Terrain Controls On Satellite-Based Snow Water Equivalent Estimation: A Spatially Explicit Machine Learning Approach, Brant Giovannetti

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Terrain variables are widely incorporated into machine learning Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) models but are rarely evaluated for their independent contribution relative to spectral predictors. Using a four-tier stepwise Random Forest framework with Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 imagery and Airborne Snow Observatory LiDAR ground truth, this study isolates the contribution of elevation, slope, northness, and eastness across Peak and Ablation snowpack regimes in the East Taylor River Watershed, Colorado. During peak snowpack, adding terrain improved R² by 0.214, with elevation alone accounting for 42.8% of model importance. During ablation, full-dataset terrain gains were modest, increasing R² by only 0.036. However, when …

Desert Dichotomies: Climatic Imaginaries Of The Arid+[Ant]Arctic, Amanda Aman

Mavs Open Press Open Educational Resources

Desert Dichotomies is a research-based architecture design studio that examines the impacts of climate change across arid and polar desert environments, revealing unexpected parallels between landscapes often understood as environmental opposites. Focusing on Antarctica, Arctic Alaska and the Sonoran Desert, the project investigates how climate change, resource extraction and human systems of control are transforming ecological processes, water systems and cultural landscapes. While arid deserts face increasing drought and water scarcity, polar deserts are experiencing accelerated warming, ice loss, permafrost thaw and flooding. Despite these contrasting conditions, both regions exhibit similar consequences, including declining water quality, biodiversity loss, infrastructural vulnerability …

Measurement Discipline For Sustainable Industrial Transition: Frontier Productivity Evidence From Shandong And Jiangsu Manufacturing, 2013-2023, Shaopu Wu, Jianguang Hou, Danlin Yu

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Sustainable industrial transition requires productivity evidence that separates real efficiency improvement from scale expansion, capital deepening, and reporting change. This study develops a reproducible frontier-productivity diagnostic for provincial leading industry policy, using official 2013-2023 sector panels for 23 two-digit manufacturing sectors in Shandong Province and a matched 2019-2023 benchmark against Jiangsu. The framework combines input-oriented Banker-Charnes-Cooper (BCC) data envelopment analysis (DEA), Simar-Wilson bootstrap bias correction, Malmquist total factor productivity change (TFPCH) decomposition, producer price index (PPI) deflation diagnostics, scale-productivity classification, and targeted sensitivity tests. Bootstrap correction lowers mean BCC efficiency from 0.77 to 0.69 in Shandong and from 0.79 to …

Flood Risk Assessment And Water Diversion Scenarios For Terre Haute, Indiana Based On Time-Series Remote Sensing And In-Situ Measurements, Hung Q. Ha

2026 Spring Reports (Terre Haute)

The City of Terre Haute has faced growing concerns over the increasing frequency and intensity of riverine flooding along the Wabash River, alongside risks associated with urban inundation. To create more safely floodable areas – specifically by locating wetland areas using GIS and researching government ordinances on development in those areas – the City of Terre Haute sought to better understand flood patterns and identify viable floodwater diversion strategies. The project was formally titled as “Pattern of Flooding along the Wabash River in Vigo County and Scenarios for Floodwater Diversion”. Faculty and students from Geospatial Intelligence Lab, Department of Earth …

Utah Growing Water Smart: The Water-Land Use Integration Guidebook For Central Utah, Kelly Kopp, Joanna Endter-Wada

Utah Growing Water Smart

The Utah Growing Water Smart workshop brings together key staff and water and land use planning decision makers to help communities build a more resilient and sustainable water future. The workshop uses a range of public engagement, planning, communication, and policy implementation tools to help community teams realize their water efficiency, smart growth, watershed health, and water resiliency goals.

Not Everyone Gets A Tree: Housing Values, Street Trees, And Equity In Portland, Matthew Moller

University Honors Theses

Street trees are positively associated with Portland home sale prices, but exposure and capitalization are uneven by race/ethnic neighborhood context. Urban trees are ecological assets, but their economic and equity implications remain uneven. This thesis examines street-tree exposure and 2023 residential sale prices in Portland, Oregon (n = 6,414) using a mixed-methodology hedonic design. Ordinary least squares models measure inventoried street-tree counts within 20m, 50m, and 100m buffers together with structural controls and census-block racial and ethnic context. Trees are positively and significantly associated with logged prices at all radii, with scale-sensitive magnitudes and modestly better fit as wider buffers. …

Potential Recyclable Materials In Buildings: A Framework For Greenhouse Gas Emissions Assessment Of Residential Buildings In Singapore, Pradeep Alva, Riccardo Talami, Wanyu Pei, Goran Sibenik, Martin Mosteiro-Romero, Clayton Miller, Rudi Stouffs

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

As countries aim to reduce resource consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Whole Life Carbon Assessment (WLCA) has become a vital method for quantifying embodied and operational GHG emissions. However, few studies have conducted WLCA on an urban scale, often addressing operational or embodied GHG emissions in isolation without considering their cumulative impact. This study introduces a city-wide WLCA framework to assess the potential recyclable materials of urban building stock, using Singapore as a case study with 5915 public residential buildings. Upfront GHG emissions are calculated from material intensity and building information, while operational emissions are based on energy use …

Spatiotemporal Pah Patterns In Size-Fractionated Particles (Pm>10-Pm0.1) From Northern Thailand Biomass Burning Via Sentinel-2, Phakphum Paluang, Watinee Thavorntam, Sarawut Sangkham, Phuchiwan Suriyawong, Hisam Samae, Thaneeya Chetiyanukornkul, Masami Furuuchi, Worradorn Phairuang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Biomass burning, particularly from forest fires and crop residue burning during the dry season, is a major source of particulate pollution across many Asian countries. However, accurately identifying these emissions remains challenging due to uncertainties in burned area estimation and the limited availability of country-specific emission factors. This study quantified the spatiotemporal distribution of emissions from biomass burning using satellite imagery. Burned areas were classified using a random forest (RF) algorithm implemented on the Google Colaboratory (Colab) platform. The RF model showed strong performance, with a kappa coefficient of 0.85 and an average accuracy of 0.81. Emission estimates for the …

Comparative Analysis Of Transportation Emissions And Policy In Lahore And Los Angeles, Laiba Rehman

Master's Projects and Capstones

In 2023, exposure to air pollution killed 7.9 million people globally, becoming the second leading cause of death worldwide. Transportation emissions are among the primary drivers of this burden especially in rapidly urbanizing cities where vehicle fleets are growing faster than regulatory frameworks respond. This study examines the contribution of transportation emissions to urban air quality, public health and climate change in Lahore, Pakistan and Los Angeles, California. First, it employs a secondary data analysis of PM_2.5 and ozone concentrations and vehicle fleet composition in each city, followed by an analysis of emission inventories. Second, it evaluates the regulatory …

Productive Armature, Gabriel Ofem Peter

Masters Theses

What if water was all you had, what if your only source of survival was a body of water? I shudder to think that some people get to be put in this situation in the world we live in. As I understand the importance of water to survival, it is obvious that water can be the only lifeline of survival for a community. This is the experience for residents of Makoko, Lagos. Their survival depends on the Lagos Lagoon, a large body of water flowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. This research looks beyond the surface of what this community …

Unquaint Pigs’ Stakeholder Perspectives On Wild Swine In Central Western Florida, Tyler Koerner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Anthropocene presents important questions for how to address the continuous transferal of new species into new spaces and the cascading impacts of environmental transformations. Novel ecosystems present one such outline for conservation that acknowledges the modification of historic ecosystems and the social entanglements that arrive with new species. I argue that novel ecosystems can benefit from further anthropological integrations that aid in describing the entanglements of introduced species and the pursuit of best managerial outcomes. For wild swine in Florida, the adoption of a novel approach is especially relevant because of entanglements with historic and modern Floridian stakeholders and …

Heavy Metal And Metalloid Accumulation In The Gallinas River Following The Hermit's Peak / Calf Canyon Wildfire, Olivia A. Kelly

Geography ETDs

This study evaluates the persistence and bioavailability of heavy metals and metalloids in the Gallinas River three years after the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Wildfire of 2022 using a multicompartment sampling framework that includes water, sediment, and benthic macroinvertebrate tissue analysis via inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Results indicate that the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire continues to influence the hydrogeochemical condition of the Gallinas River. Sediments contain elevated concentrations of several metals and metalloids, and these same elements are detectable in macroinvertebrate tissues, linking sediment contamination to biological uptake. Zinc (Zn), silicon …

Saving The Great Basin: Creating Places For The Birds, Bees And Beyond, Carlos Gomez

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

This project looks at how vacant and underused parcels along the Truckee River in Reno, Nevada, can be rethought as part of a larger ecological system. Rather than treating these parcels as empty leftover spaces, the project sees them as opportunities to create small habitat patches that can support native species, improve stormwater function, and strengthen the river corridor over time. The work focuses on three sites along the Truckee River: California Avenue, Island Avenue, and Commercial Row. Each site responds to a different condition along the urban transect, from a sloped residential river edge to a tighter urban parcel …

Urban Conflagrations: Structural Ash And Soil Metal(Loid) Contamination After California’S Eaton And Palisades Fires, S. Anselme Dossou, Leon Kelly, P. Louis Lu, Robin Jones, Oliver O'Donnell, Justin St. P. Walsh, Daniel D. Richter

Art Faculty Articles and Research

In the weeks after California’s Eaton-Palisades wildfires, structural ash of burned homes and soils from yards and curbsides were sampled for analysis of Pb, As, and eight metals from 32 burned residences. About six months after fires and after US Army Corps of Engineers’ Phase 2 cleanups removed 15 cm from structural ash footprints, 17 properties were resampled within about a meter of original sampling sites. Concentrations of metal(oid)s in structural ash and residential soils varied between and within properties with significant spatial and temporal patterns. Lead concentrations were highest in structural ash and soil of yards of select pre-1970s …

“The New Normal”: California’S Escalating Wildfire Crisis, Alexandra Vasquez

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the current state of California's wildfire epidemic and how the increasing effects of climate change have worsened the fires, harming residents' health and the state's economy. The wildfires are shaped by factors such as climate change, land-use choices, and policy designs. California wildfires have worsened substantially in the 21st century, with the worst burns in the 2020 season setting a record of 4.2 to 4.5 million acres destroyed. Given current policies and the administration's disinterest in combating climate change, understanding wildfire history and data is essential to improving California's wildfire resilience, creating sustainable land management practices, and …

The Role Of Gender And Salient Social Identities In Producing Vulnerability And Maladptation To Flooding In Koraso, Berekum, Ghana, Kingsley Damoah Oppong

Geography ETDs

This paper highlights how social identities like polygamy, illiteracy, and ethnicity hinder rural women farmers in Ghana from adapting to climate change. It advocates for an intersectional approach to address these challenges, moving beyond simplistic gender binaries. Using qualitative interviews (n=49) in a flood-prone village in Berekum, Ghana, the study reveals how these identities intersect with gender roles and colonial legacies, exacerbating vulnerability. It bridges Black feminist thought with climate change, an underexplored area, offering insights into climate change and environmental studies, as well as Black feminist scholarship. This research urges a reevaluation of how we understand climate change in …

Secondhand Or Second-Class? Environmental Injustice In Global Textile Waste Trade, Wendy S. Escalante

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the issue of textile waste dumping, specifically how secondhand clothing exports from the Global North create environmental, social, and public health burdens in the Global South. The study focuses on case studies in Chile’s Atacama Desert, where shipments of used clothing overwhelm local waste infrastructures and worsen patterns of environmental injustice. Chapter 1 describes the global flows of textile waste, including trade volumes, landfill accumulation, and the impacts of discarded clothing on ecosystem services such as clean water, fertile soils, and breathable air, alongside health risks from microplastic pollution, toxic runoff, and respiratory hazards from textile fires. …

Inconsistencies Emerge Between Regional And Local-Scale Water Security Metrics At Military Installations, Abigail Birnbaum, Michael L. Berg, Caitlin Grady, Daniel J. Weeks, Christopher M. Chini

Faculty Publications

Recent United States federal policy for military installations has emphasized the importance of developing a standardized approach for water security assessment to monitor changes in water resources and the ability for an installation to meet both its civilian and mission needs. For military installations in the United States, these assessments must consider demands both inside and outside the installation’s fence line, as regional resources are required to meet mission readiness. Focusing on physical water scarcity, this study compares four water security metrics with unique formulations and spatial resolutions, including an installation-scale metric and multiple regional metrics defined for either baseline …

Engineering Stormwater Resilience In Steep Valley Ccr Landfill Construction, Kevin Resnik, Grant Phelps

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

Construction of a CCR landfill within steep geography presents unique challenges related to stormwater management, erosion control, and establishing placement and compaction practices over an extended construction timeline. This presentation builds upon prior work focused on temporary rain cover and wet-weather resiliency, expanding the discussion to practical strategies implemented during the prolonged startup and subsequent phases of waste placement. Key topics include: Stormwater management during active construction, with emphasis on intercepting, conveying, and controlling runoff in a topographically constrained setting. Breaking up drainage areas to reduce flow concentrations, prevent channelized erosion, and improve maintainability as grading evolves. Erosion control approaches …

Geopolymers For Construction And Mining: Material Characterization And Application Prospects, Radoslaw Pomykala, Gabriela Fuks

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

Geopolymers have long been presented as an alternative to conventional concretes and cement-based binders, yet their practical use remains limited for various reasons. This paper examines both the material properties of such mixtures and their potential for broader application.

The study evaluated geopolymers produced from different types of fly ash, including typical siliceous ashes and ash with elevated CaO content. The influence of mixture components, such as solids content, activator type, and sample preparation and curing methods, on technological properties was investigated. Research covered fresh mixtures—rheological behavior and setting time—as well as hardened samples using mechanical testing, XRD, and SEM. …

Transportation Logistics Panel, John Ward, Andrew Vollmer, Tracy Zea, Marci Jenks

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

As the industry shifts from freshly generated ash to harvested materials and advanced utilization, logistics is becoming one of the primary drivers of project success or failure. This moderated panel will explore how sourcing, transportation, and storage realities are changing — and what project teams most often underestimate when working with harvested coal ash. Panelists will discuss what breaks, what becomes more complex, and how logistics considerations are reshaping planning and development.

Demystifying Large Language Models: How Ai Is Transforming Data, Compliance, And Decision-Making In Coal Ash And Environmental Management, Scott Pfeiffer

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

The environmental and coal combustion residuals (CCR) industries generate vast amounts of information—from groundwater monitoring reports and RCRA documentation to closure plans and analytical data. Managing, interpreting, and communicating this information is a growing challenge for utilities, regulators, and consultants alike. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s GPT architecture, represent a breakthrough in how organizations can interact with their technical data. These models use deep neural networks trained on billions of words to understand, summarize, and generate language with human-like accuracy. When securely adapted for enterprise use, LLMs can automate routine reporting, extract data from technical documents, generate regulatory …

Fossil-Fuels In A Decarbonized Country? Modeling The Drivers Of Icelandic Oil Sales, Inbal Armony

Environmental Studies Honors Projects

Although 100% of Iceland’s electricity comes from renewable energy sources, it still relies on fossil fuels for land transportation, marine transportation, aviation, and some industry. Understanding geographic nuances in oil use is critical to achieving Iceland’s goals of carbon neutrality by 2040. As the island has one primary urban center with two thirds of the population, information is lacking about oil use in non-Capital areas and a gap between state and municipal climate plans. Using newly available data of oil sales at the municipality-level in a Small Area Estimation model, we analyze drivers of oil sales across Icelandic municipalities. We …

Effects Of Wetting And Drying On Nutrient Mobilization In Aquatic Systems, Karessa Grace De La Paz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wetting and drying cycles are a fundamental, but underexplored, control on nutrient mobilization and transport in aquatic ecosystems. Such intermittency impacts approximately 60% of the world's streams and rivers, and the extent is expected to increase with future climate change. Additionally, aging reservoir infrastructure is driving restoration efforts, like large-scale drawdowns, that can expose benthic sediments to extended dry periods before refilling. Despite the prevalence of wet-dry cycles, how they influence nutrient transport and mobilization across different aquatic ecosystems remains poorly understood. To address this gap, this thesis presents two complementary studies exploring nutrient dynamics in Arkansas aquatic ecosystems that …

Geospatial Science And The Changing Environment: Applied Methods For Sustainable Agriculture And Landscape Management, Harrison Wakefield Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rapid environmental change is disrupting agricultural productivity, ecological function, and the long-term resilience of managed landscapes. At the same time, the rapid growth of geospatial data science has improved our understanding of environmental change and increasingly is being used to improve sustainability in agricultural and environmental management. However, critical gaps remain that limit the applicability of data-driven insights in landscape management. This dissertation investigates the potential of geospatial analytics for sustainable agriculture and landscape management, with a focus on applied methods that operate across spatial and temporal scales. Using field, landscape, regional, and national datasets, it explores the capabilities and …