Digital Commons Network^™

Soil Erosion Risk Factors And The Impacts Of Diversification On Organic Strawberry Farms Along California’S Central Coast, Kay Sterner

Pomona Senior Theses

Soil erosion is a major issue that threatens to undermine our current system of agriculture. Due to the fact that this system is in turn the number one cause of erosion, agricultural practices in the United States need to be rethought. This study explores how traditional ideas of erosion risks are related to observed erosion on organic strawberry farms along California’s Central Coast. In addition, diversified farming systems are addressed as a possible solution for the current unsustainability of our farming practices. The data from this research suggest that diversity of crops on farms could be linked to less soil …

Sources And Long-Term Trends In Fecal Bacteria Contamination In The Fresh And Marine Waters Of The Grand Strand, Cara E. Schildtknecht

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Microbial water quality is of significant concern in the two watersheds of the Grand Stand. Polluted runoff, malfunctioning septic tanks, and centralized sanitary sewer failures are common sources of fecal bacteria contamination in coastal areas and pose a threat to human health through recreational use of waterbodies and shellfish consumption. Volunteer water quality monitoring programs are crucial in expanding upon assessments of fecal bacteria contamination by regulatory monitoring. Bacteria monitoring data collected by volunteers and Coastal Carolina University’s Environmental Quality Laboratory has been used to identify sites to be investigated by microbial source tracking. Microbial source tracking has been used …

Evaluating The Potential Of A Geospatial/Geostatistical Methodology For Locating Rain-Derived Infiltration And Inflow Into Wastewater Treatment Systems In The Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area, Minnesota, Usa, Vinson Aaron Williams

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

A significant issue facing municipal wastewater treatment infrastructure (WWTI) is how to manage infiltration and inflow (I/I). I/I of rain and ground water permeate into WWTI after precipitation events, periods of groundwater table rise, and percolation from surrounding surface waters. This can create discharges above the infrastructure's flow capacity, increase costs for processing the wastewater and add undesired stress to aging wastewater networks. In an attempt to assess this problem cost and time inefficient approaches have commonly been applied. This study utilizes a new and more radical methodology to try and make WWTI management more efficient. This study applies ArcGIS …

Information Technology Approaches To Forest Management, Mary Snow, Richard Snow

Publications

The majority of the world’s forests occur where there is a dry season long enough to affect a seasonal change in the forest community. The seasonal forest may include evergreen, semi-deciduous, deciduous trees, or some combination of these. Local differences in soil or other site characteristics often determine which community persists. Since the seasonal forests exist where there is seasonal precipitation, the character of the forest is closely associated with the length of the rainy season. As the length of the rainy season decreases, the density of the canopy decreases. If the global climate system warms and prolonged drought gives …

Cost-Effective Recovery Of Concentrated Cooling Tower Blowdown Using The Cerro Process, Lindsey Nicole Larson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Concentrate Enhanced Recovery Reverse Osmosis (CERRO) process is a seawater-RO unit that can cost-effectively achieve extremely high recoveries from water high in silica, carbonate and sulfate concentrations. This relatively new technology takes advantage of the induction time of potential foulants to recover more water than what is normally achievable with a conventional desalination system. The scope of the project was to evaluate the efficiency of the CERRO process as a pilot study using cooling tower blowdown which varied in water quality parameters daily. It was found that the CERRO pilot could successfully achieve 85% recovery, and the main limitation …

Cycling Of Gypsiferous White Sands Aerosols In The Shallow Critical Zone At White Mountain, New Mexico, Patrick Richard Rea

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Dry deposition significantly affects evolution of the critical zone by nutrient supply and contributing to soil genesis. Dust influx and cycling in soils are difficult to quantify because dust sources can be chemically similar to local soils. White Sands, New Mexico, emits gypsum dust with a unique chemical and isotopic signature, providing an opportunity to investigate dust deposition and its movement in soils. This study evaluated the mobility of White Sands dust particles in the critical zone at White Mountain, New Mexico, a highland 100 km downwind. Four soil profiles were collected over limestone, igneous, mixed limestone and dolostone, and …

Household Water Consumption In El Paso, Texas: Perceptions And Behaviors Towards Water In Urban Households, Diego Armando Sanchez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The main objective of this research is to determine perceptions and behaviors of household water consumption and to examine how those may affect the patterns of water use and consumption levels in households of El Paso, Texas.

I conducted a qualitative exploratory research to collect important data that is often left unexplored in quantitative research. The collected data is a mixture of qualitative and quantitative. I do report the quantitative data using descriptive statistics, which help the reader see basic patterns in the study.

Qualitative data can help to understand the reasons that impact water consumption perceptions and behaviors in …

Renewable Energy Systems Optimization Using Monte Carlo Simulation And Evolutionary Algorithms, Nicolas Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation explores the Renewable Energy Integration Problem, and proposes a Genetic Algorithm embedded with a Monte Carlo simulation to solve large instances of the problem that are impractical to solve via full enumeration. The Renewable Energy Integration Problem is defined as finding the optimum set of components to supply the electric demand to a hybrid

microgrid. The components considered are solar panels, wind turbines, diesel generators, electric batteries, connections to the power grid and converters, which can be inverters and/or rectifiers. The methodology developed is explained as well as the combinatorial formulation. In addition, 2 case studies of a …

A Comparison Of Uvr-Induced Mortality In Bdelloid Rotifers, Maite Martin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Increases in UV radiation (UVR) reaching Earth's surface as a result of anthropogenic activities and changing climate patterns are having a variety of effects on ecosystems. Such effects have been observed in aquatic environments, although certain parameters such as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations can modulate the level of exposure. Bdelloid rotifers are aquatic micro-invertebrates that pose a remarkable variety of special abilities to survive adverse conditions, including a resistance to UVR. Previous studies have suggested this resistance may have evolved in response to episodes of desiccation that they experience in their natural habitats. This characteristic may be especially important …

A New Method For Ultra-Low Sulfate Extraction And A Pilot Study In Arid Soils, Marisela Montelongo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Sulfur in soils is a crucial nutrient for all organisms including plants. Sulfate (SO42-), a water soluable anion, is a good source of this important element. Because of the importance of sulfur for agriculture, the use of sulfate has been well studied in temperate climate zones, and it is generally accepted that microbes play a critical role in controlling the availability of sulfate. Organically bound sulfur, such as sulfate esters and carbon-bonded sulfur, compounds that are generated and decomposed by microbes, are essential sulfur sources for plants under these conditions. For arid environments, knowledge of sulfate turnover in soils by …

The Former Asarco Demolition Fallout, A Post Study On Lead Soil Concentrations And Environmental Agents Of Redistribution In El Paso, Texas, Stephanie A. Robinson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The former El Paso ASARCO Smelting and Refining Co. operated between 1877 and 1999, the pyrometallurgic activity was estimated to have discharged excess of a 1,000 tons of lead (Pb) into the atmosphere from 1969-71. It was estimated 96 tons of (Pb) were emitted on an annual basis from the standing ore and fluid beds. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that lead (Pb) is the heavy metal of the highest concentration within the vicinity of the smelter. After the smelter production ceased, flash flooding common to the southwest, such as the 2006 historic flood, increased transportation of superficial contaminants …

Advancing High Spatial And Spectral Resolution Remote Sensing For Observing Plant Community Response To Environmental Variability And Change In The Alaskan Arctic, Sergio Armando Vargas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Arctic is being impacted by climate change more than any other region on Earth. Impacts to terrestrial ecosystems have the potential to manifest through feedbacks with other components of the Earth System. Of particular concern is the potential for the massive store of soil organic carbon to be released from arctic permafrost to the atmosphere where it could exacerbate greenhouse warming and impact global climate and biogeochemical cycles. Even though substantial gains to our understanding of the changing Arctic have been made, especially over the past decade, linking research results from plot to regional scales remains a challenge due …

Depositional Controls And Sequence Stratigraphy Of Lacustrine To Marine Transgressive Deposits In A Rift Basin, Lower Cretaceous Bluff Mesa, Indio Mountains, West Texas, Andrew Anderson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Successful hydrocarbon exploration in former rift basins of the South Atlantic pre-salt has generated interest in understanding depositional, diagenetic, and stratigraphic controls on pre-salt deposits. However, most studies to date have focused on attributes and controls on presalt lacustrine carbonate reservoir systems and little work has been done on the overlying marine sealing facies. Currently our standard sequence stratigraphic model of marine transgression of rift systems involves a single pulse of marine flooding over fluvially-incised valleys resulting in backstepping of fluvial and estuarine siliciclastic facies within the erosionally confined zone of an incised valley. However, the pre-salt systems of the …

Utilizing Historical Mosquito Surveillance Data To Investigate The Efficacy Of Municipal Fogging In Controlling Mosquito Population Density, Andrea Betina Carzoli

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Mosquito borne diseases are the cause of many different disease syndromes and deaths in animals, both wild and domesticated, and humans of all ages and ethnicities. Though El Paso, TX is located in an arid region, mosquito populations are still rapidly growing in urban and agricultural communities and so are the mosquito borne illnesses. The most common vectors associated with mosquito borne illnesses in El Paso County are Culex quinquefasciatus, Culex tarsalis, and Aedes aegypti. Vector management is often the primary option to prevent and control outbreaks of mosquito borne illnesses and very often utilize fogging as the primary …

Integration Of Biological Effects, Fish Histopathology And Contaminant Measurements For The Assessment Of Fish Health: A Pilot Application In Irish Marine Waters, Michelle Giltrap, Jenny Ronan, John Bignell, Brett Lyons, Evelyn Collins, Heather Rochford, Brendan Mchugh, Evin Mcgovern, Lorraine Bull, James Wilson

Articles

This study investigates the use of a weight of evidence (WOE) approach to evaluate fish health status and biological effects (BEs) of contaminants for assessment of ecosystem health and discusses its potential application in support of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). External fish disease, liver histopathology and several BEs of contaminant exposure including 7-ethoxy resorufin O-de-ethylase (EROD), acetylcholinesterase (AChE), bile metabolites, vitellogenin (VTG) and alkali labile phosphates (ALP) were measured in two flatfish species from four locations in Ireland. Contaminant levels in fish were generally low with PCBs in fish liver below OSPAR environmental assessment criteria (EAC). There were …

The Impact Of New York State's 2016 Mold Licensing Requirement On Indoor Air Quality Assessments, Angelo Lampousis, Mark Drozdov

Publications and Research

As of January 2016, New York joined a select number of states in regulating mold. The New York State Department of Labor has approved mold-related training courses in three levels, ranging from two to four days. These include the mold abatement worker, mold remediation contractor, and mold assessor courses. In this presentation we share the experience obtained to date from delivering the above referenced courses and challenges as an approved training provider. We also evaluate the relative effectiveness of the mode of delivery as it relates to different audiences.

Environmental And Climate Justice Along The Brahmaputra River In Northeast India, Costanza Rampini

Faculty Publications, Environmental Studies

The glaciers of the Himalayas are the source of all of Asia’s major rivers and are crucial to Asia’s water supply, economies, and livelihoods. The Himalayan region is uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, while also becoming one of the most dammed regions in the world. This case study explores the unequal distribution of the impacts of climate change and dam building along the Brahmaputra River in Northeast India. It examines how the combined impacts of these two processes negatively affect local communities and explores environmental and climate justice issues. In discussing climate change impacts and hydropower …

The Potential Of Atmospheric Air Cold Plasma For Control Of Bacterial Contaminants Relevant To Cereal Grain Production, Agata Los, Dana Ziuzina, Daniela Boehm, Patrick J. Cullen, Paula Bourke

Articles

The aim of this work was to investigate the efficacy of dielectric barrier discharge atmospheric cold plasma (DBD ACP) against bacteria associated with grains quality and safety. ACP inactivation efficacy was tested against biofilms formed by different strains of E. coli, Bacillus and Lactobacillus in grain model media and against B. atrophaeus endospores either in grain media or attached on abiotic surfaces. Effects were dependent on bacterial strain, media composition and mode of ACP exposure. ACP treatment for 5min reduced E. coli spp., B. subtilis and Lactobacillus spp. biofilms by >3 log10, whereas insignificant reductions were achieved for B. atrophaeus. …

Developing Integral Ecologists: Description And Analysis Of The State Of Environmental Education At Jesuit High Schools In Light Of Religious Ecological Commitments And Science Education Research, Philip Nahlik Nahlik

Master's Theses

This research responds to numerous calls to focus more immediately and deeply on environmental education in the context of local communities. Jesuit high schools offer a rich network to study this movement, as schools with long histories of scholarly and moral concerns for forming students to think about and act on worldwide problems. The key research question is: How can science education research inform environmental education in these schools? The research methodology includes data collection and analysis of publicly-accessible website data, phone interviews with teachers, and a literature review of science education research. Recommendations are given for vertically aligning the …

Payments For Carbon Sequestration To Alleviate Development Pressure In A Rapidly Urbanizing Region, Jordan Smith, Monica A. Dorning, Douglas A. Shoemaker, Andréanne Méley, Lauren Nicole Dupéy, Ross K. Meentemeyer

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to determine individuals’ willingness to enroll in voluntary payments for carbon sequestration programs through the use of a discrete choice experiment delivered to forest owners living in the rapidly urbanizing region surrounding Charlotte, North Carolina. We examined forest owners’ willingness to enroll in payments for carbon sequestration policies under different levels of financial incentives (annual revenue), different contract lengths and different program administrators (e.g., private companies versus a state or federal agency). We also examined the influence forest owners’ sense of place had on their willingness to enroll in hypothetical programs. Our results showed …

Drivers And Constraints Of Conversion To Organic Farming In The Kingdom Of Bhutan, Parladh Mahat

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Organic farming is one of the several approaches towards environmental conservation and aims to increase agricultural production and household income for small-scale farmers to enable them to come out of poverty and improve livelihood. The objective is to investigate the key drivers and constraints in conversion to organic farming for domestic organic certified and non-certified but organic farmers and provide policy recommendation to government and relevant agency. The survey data of 146 respondents comprising of certified organic (n=47) and non-certified (n=99) were collected from Gasa district of Bhutan during the month of October 2017. The data analysis includes the use …

The Effect Of Edta-Application To Heavy Metals Phytoremediation By Vetiver, Ramida Wasino

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Contaminated soil with heavy metals includes Pb, Zn, and Cd were remediated by phytoremediation with vetiver to solved the problem in Thailand. This study compared the ability of two species of vetiver (i.e., Songkhla 3 and Prachuap Khiri Khan) in absorbing Pb, Zn, and Cd in contaminated soils and study the effect of EDTA application. After the experiment, Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test, Allium test, and seed germination were used to determined the toxicity of remediated soil. In this study, 5 mmol of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) was used to improve the solubility of heavy metals in soil which leads …

Integration Of Anaerobic Digester With Oxidation Ditch-Membrane Bioreactor As A Zero Organic Waste System For Building Application, Arpapan Satayavibul

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The objective of this study is to study the efficiency of organic substance removing in anaerobic digestion system and oxidation ditch membrane bioreactor (OD-MBR) for managing liquid digestate and wastewater sludge to completely zero organic waste. The process can be done by digesting food waste from the canteen with sludge from OD-MBR with the proportion of 10:1 by weight and liquid digestate from anaerobic digestion process will be further treated by OD-MBR to study the productivity of methane and efficiency of waste treatment. This study is a semi-continuous experiment by adjusting the experimental conditions for six conditions, as follows ; …

การประยุกต์ใช้เทคนิคทางชีววิทยาโมเลกุลเพื่อประเมินขนาดประชากรของเต่ากระ Eretmochelys Imbricata วัยเจริญพันธุ์บริเวณเกาะทะลุ จังหวัดประจวบคีรีขันธ์, มุกเรขา เชี่ยวชาญชัย

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

การขยายตัวของกิจกรรมมนุษย์ทั่วโลกส่งผลรบกวนต่อเต่าทะเลอย่างเลี่ยงไม่ได้ โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่ง เต่ากระ Eretmochelys imbricata ซึ่งเป็นสัตว์ที่มีประชากรลดลงจนมีความเสี่ยงขั้นวิกฤติต่อการสูญพันธุ์ เนื่องจากการลดลงของพื้นที่แหล่งวางไข่และแหล่งหาอาหาร การเสียชีวิตจากการติดเครื่องมือประมง รวมถึงการถูกล่าโดยมนุษย์ ข้อมูลประชากรเต่ากระจึงมีความสำคัญสำหรับนำมาใช้ในการประเมินสถานภาพ ในการศึกษานี้จึงได้นำเทคนิคทางชีววิทยาโมเลกุลมาประยุกต์ใช้ศึกษาไมโทคอนเดรียลดีเอ็นเอและนิวเคลียร์ดีเอ็นเอของลูกเต่ากระที่เกิดในปี พ.ศ. 2557 เพื่อตรวจสอบรูปแบบพันธุกรรมที่ลูกเต่าได้รับจากเต่ากระเพศเมียและเต่ากระเพศผู้มีแหล่งผสมพันธุ์และแหล่งวางไข่ บริเวณเกาะทะลุ จังหวัดประจวบคีรีขันธ์ ประกอบกับการสืบค้นข้อมูลการพบเห็นเต่ากระในประเทศไทย เพื่อใช้เป็นข้อมูลสำหรับการประเมินสถานการณ์ประชากรเต่ากระ ผลการศึกษาภาวะพหุสัณฐานของไมโทคอนเดรียลดีเอ็นเอของลูกเต่ากระจำนวน 5 รัง รวมทั้งสิ้น 38 ตัว พบรูปแบบสารพันธุกรรม 1 แฮพโพลไทป์ และมีค่าความหลากหลายทางพันธุกรรมเท่ากับ 0 เมื่อพิจารณาร่วมกับบันทึกข้อมูลภาคสนามการขึ้นวางไข่ของเต่ากระเพศเมียที่เกาะทะลุ แสดงให้เห็นว่า ในปี พ.ศ. 2557 ลูกเต่ากระเกิดมาจากแม่เต่าตัวเดียวกัน กล่าวคือ พบเต่ากระเพศเมียจำนวน 1 ตัว ส่วนการศึกษาภาวะพหุสัณฐานของไมโครแซทเทลไลต์ในนิวเคลียร์ดีเอ็นเอของลูกเต่ากระจำนวน 5 รัง รวมทั้งสิ้น 214 ตัว สามารถประมาณการณ์จำนวนเต่ากระเพศผู้ได้ 1 - 4 ตัว สำหรับการสืบค้นข้อมูลการพบเต่ากระในประเทศไทยพบว่า เต่ากระส่วนใหญ่ (ร้อยละ 67) ถูกพบในรูปแบบการเกยตื้นตามพื้นที่ชายฝั่ง โดยมีเครื่องมือประมงและขยะทะเลเป็นปัจจัยหลักที่ส่งผลกระทบต่อการบาดเจ็บหรือเสียชีวิตของเต่ากระ จากการตรวจสอบด้วยเทคนิคทางชีววิทยาโมกุลที่พบว่ามีจำนวนเต่ากระวัยเจริญพันธุ์น้อย ประกอบกับแนวโน้มการเกยตื้นของเต่ากระที่สูงขึ้นในช่วง 5 - 10 ปีที่ผ่านมา แสดงถึงสถานการณ์ที่น่าเป็นห่วงของเต่ากระในบริเวณอ่าวไทย จึงควรมีการวางแผนการจัดการด้านการประมงและขยะทะเลในบริเวณอ่าวไทยเพื่อการอนุรักษ์พันธุ์เต่ากระต่อไป

Multiscale Habitat Suitability Modeling For Canary Rockfish (Sebastes Pinniger) Along The Northern California Coast, Portia N. Saucedo

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Detailed spatially-explicit data of the potential habitat of commercially important rockfish species are a critical component for the purposes of marine conservation, evaluation, and planning. Predictive habitat modeling techniques are widely used to identify suitable habitat in un-surveyed regions. This study elucidates the predicted distribution of canary rockfish (Sebastes pinniger) along the largely un-surveyed northern California coast using data from visual underwater surveys and predictive terrain complexity covariates. I used Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) modelling software to identify regions of suitable habitat for S. pinniger greater than nine cm in total length at two spatial scales. The results of …

Forward Osmosis For Wastewater Treatment And Energy Recovery: A Techno-Economic Analysis, Patrick William Buckwalter

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

A novel wastewater treatment system was investigated using forward osmosis membranes to treat municipal wastewater. Treatment by forward osmosis was determined to cost $10 million per million gallons per day (MGD) of wastewater capacity over a 20-year lifetime, with an energy consumption of 870 kWh per million gallons. A case study at the Arcata Wastewater Treatment Plant was conducted to investigate a treatment system that combines energy recovery from algae biomass with forward osmosis membrane treatment using local seawater as a draw solution. Total system cost was calculated to be $29.7 million over a 20-year lifetime with a 2.3 MGD …

Mursamacin: A Novel Class Of Antibiotics From Soil-Dwelling Roundworms Of Central Kenya That Inhibits Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, Ryan Musumba Awori, Peter Njenga Ng'ang'a, Lorine Nanjala Nyongesa, Nelson Onzere Amugune, Daniel Masiga

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, also called " superbugs", can at worst retrogress modern medicine to an era where even sore throats resulted in death. A solution is the development of novel types of antibiotics from untapped natural sources. Yet, no new class of antibiotic has been developed in clinical medicine in the last 30 years. Here, bacteria from insect-killing Steinernema roundworms found in the soils of Central Kenya were isolated and subjected to specific molecular identification. These were then assayed for production of antibiotic compounds with potential to treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections. The bacteria were identified as Xenorhabdus griffiniae and produced …

Population Dynamics Of A Recently Described And Rare Plant Species: Stachys Caroliniana (Lamiaceae), Shelby Moody

Theses and Dissertations

Stachys caroliniana J.B. Nelson & D.A. Rayner, a newly described ‘hedge-nettle’ is found in two locations in South Carolina. The first known collection of this species is from the Santee Coastal Reserve in Charleston County. The second location (the type locality) is from the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center in Georgetown County, approximately 8 air miles northeast of the first location. This study focused on the population in Georgetown County. Population dynamics of Stachys caroliniana were studied in order to provide management guidelines to South Carolina Department of Natural Resources for this species. This was achieved by assessing suitable habitat conditions, …

Molecular And Biochemical Responses Of Hypoxia Exposure In Atlantic Croaker Collected From Hypoxic Regions In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Md. Saydur Rahman, Peter Thomas

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

A major impact of global climate change has been the marked increase worldwide in the incidence of coastal hypoxia (dissolved oxygen, DOhif-α; neuronal nitric oxide synthase, nNOS; and insulin-like growth factor binding protein, igfbp mRNAs and protein carbonyl (PC, an oxidative stress indicator) content were elevated several-fold in brain and liver tissues of croaker collected from nGOM hypoxic sites. All of these molecular and biochemical biomarkers were also upregulated ~3-10-fold in croaker brain and liver tissues within 1–2 days of hypoxia exposure in controlled laboratory experiments. These results suggest that hif-αs, nNOS and igfbp-1 transcripts and PC contents …

Understanding Community Character As A Socio-Ecological Framework To Enhance Local-Scale Adaptation: An Interdisciplinary Case Study From Rural Northwest Connecticut, Joanna Wozniak-Brown

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Around the world, municipalities are facing new challenges, not the least of which is climate change. This is especially true for rural communities that, for a variety of reasons, will be disproportionately affected by the climatic changes and accompanying policies or programs.

This dissertation, written in manuscript-style, integrates climate change and social-ecological scholarship to address the unique character of rural communities, to communicate the complexity of rural identity through the term "rural character"; and to empower rural communities to incorporate adaptation strategies into their daily municipal operations and planning.

Specifically, this dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: What is …