Digital Commons Network^™

Assessment Of The Readiness Of Architectural Design Companies To Adopt Eco-Friendly Nanotechnologies In Sustainable Building Design, Ashwaq Essa Al Khalil

Dissertations and Theses

Nanotechnology is emerging as a promising innovation in sustainable architectural design, although its adoption remains slow. Research highlights the advantages of incorporating nanotechnologies in architecture, including improved material performance, enhanced thermal efficiency, reduced energy consumption, improved durability, and progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These advantages make nanomaterials a promising solution for sustainable building design, particularly in hot-climate regions where energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with conventional building design practices remain major concerns.

Despite this potential, nanotechnology adoption in architecture faces several challenges, including limited real-world applications, slow diffusion in practice, and persistent organizational, economic, and regulatory barriers. …

Optimization Of Cyanide Leaching Process Based On Grain Size And Slurry Density In Artisanal Small-Scale Gold Mining In Tatelu Area, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, Dadan Mohamad Nurjaman, Harmin Sulistiyaning Titah, Adji Kawigraha, Ipung Fitri Purwanti, Wahyu Hidayat

Journal of Sustainable Mining

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Tatelu Village, North Sulawesi, has shifted from mercury amalgamation to cyanide leaching. However, gold recovery remains inefficient, requiring process optimization. This study uses multiple linear regression analysis to evaluate the influence of grain size and slurry density on gold dissolution. The results indicate that grain size plays a dominant role in leaching efficiency, while slurry density, pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), and cyanide concentration have statistically insignificant effects (p > 0.05). Laboratory tests show that finer grain sizes enhance dissolution, with the highest recovery rate of 89.08% achieved at 75% passing through 44 …

Rfc - Request For Information - Waste Rock Dump Stormwater Runoff Collection System Substitution, Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

A Comprehensive Survey Of Artificial Intelligence Applications In Predicting Mining-Induced Subsidence, Deformation, And Landslides: Strengths, Limitations, And Future Trends, Long Quoc Nguyen, Dung Ba Nguyen, Minh Tuyet Dang

Journal of Sustainable Mining

Mining activities often cause mining-induced ground deformation, including subsidence and landslides, and related geo-environmental impacts, posing significant risks to infrastructure and safety. This study conducts a systematic assessment to identify, categorize, and evaluate AI-based methods (machine learning, deep learning, and hybrid models) for predicting and monitoring mining-induced ground deformation. The literature search was performed across major scientific databases, using predefined keywords and selection criteria, resulting in a final dataset of relevant peer-reviewed studies. The reviewed works were classified into three methodological groups: traditional machine learning, deep learning-based approaches, and hybrid methods. The results show that ML still dominates in terms …

Classifying Storm Surges Along Louisiana Coast Using Machine Learning, Faith Ewere Okunbor

Masters Theses

Storm surges are among the most significant threats to coastal wetlands, causing flooding and saltwater intrusion that alter hydrology, vegetation structure, and long-term ecosystem resilience. Along the Louisiana coast, storm surge effects vary depending on storm behavior, shoreline geometry, and marsh hydrologic connectivity, yet are commonly characterized using broad storm metrics rather than site-specific environmental responses. This study develops a data-driven framework to classify storm surges across coastal Louisiana wetlands using observations from the Coastwide Reference Monitoring System (CRMS). Hourly water-level and salinity time series from twelve hurricanes (2007-2024) were analyzed using a 40-day storm-centered window. Hydrologic and salinity metrics …

Disparities In The Identification Of Vulnerable Communities Due To Design Storm Methods: A Case Study In The Vermilion River Watershed, South Louisiana, Usa, Claire Orgeron

Masters Theses

Accurately identifying socially vulnerable populations at-risk of flooding is critical for equitable disaster mitigation and planning. This study investigates how the selection of design storm method, which is fundamental to developing flood risk maps used for this identification, influences which socially vulnerable populations are recognized as being at elevated flood risk. The most widely used design storm approach relies on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Atlas 14 point-based rainfall frequency estimates. These estimates are typically applied spatially using areal reduction factors, thereby disregarding rainfall spatial variability in real storms. Stochastic Storm Transposition (SST), an alternative design storm approach that …

Western Kentucky University Stormwater Utility Survey 2026, Warren Campbell

SEAS Faculty Publications

In the U.S., more than 2200 stormwater utilities have been enacted. This year, we have expanded the survey to include stormwater utilities in other countries. Many of these stormwater assessments are called taxes, but if the assessment is recurring, is not an ad valorem tax, and is dedicated to stormwater purposes, we call it a stormwater utility. With the help of ChatGPT we have been able to identify 25 stormwater fees in Australia. We were also able to identify 3 in New Zealand, and some in Europe as well.

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.

Multimodal Machine Learning For Soil Burn Severity Mapping Across California Wildfires, Sanjana Checker

Master's Theses

Accurate mapping of soil burn severity (SBS) is critical for post-fire watershed management, erosion risk assessment, and ecological recovery planning, yet traditional field-based approaches remain costly, time-intensive, and spatially limited. This thesis presents a machine learning pipeline for wall-to-wall SBS classification across California wildfires using multi-sensor satellite imagery, terrain derivatives, and bioclimatic covariates. Field-collected SBS observations (n = 2,180) from 52 wildfires occur- ring between 2013 and 2025, sourced from the U.S. Forest Service and CAL FIRE, were used to train and evaluate multiple classification architectures within a Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud-based prediction framework. After upsampling the unburned …

Draft Final 2022 Unreclaimed Sites Sampling: Ur-07 Site Evaluation Summary Report, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Final Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Unreclaimed (Ur) Sites New And Mahoney (Ur-23) Construction Completion Report (Ccr), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Draft Final Bpsou Unreclaimed Sites: Ur-46 Remedial Action Work Plan (Rawp), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Riparian Land-Cover Change And Impervious-Cover Expansion In A Rapidly Urbanising Himalayan Capital City, Karma Jamtsho, Tashi Dorji, David Blake, Mark A. Lund, Eddie Van Etten

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Urbanisation and impervious-cover expansion are reshaping riparian landscapes, particularly in mountain cities where steep terrain concentrates development along valley floors. This study examined spatiotemporal land-cover change within the regulated riparian corridors of Thimphu City, Bhutan, over a 25-year period from 1997 to 2022 using Landsat imagery, Random Forest classification and Google Earth Engine. Results show substantial transformation of riparian land cover, with impervious cover increasing from 26.14% to 32.63%, equivalent to an overall increase of 24.83%, while agriculture/barren/low-vegetation declined from 30.59% to 26.01%, equivalent to an overall decrease of 14.98%. A modest increase in detectable vegetation cover was also observed, …

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 …

Re: Approval Letter For The Draft Final 2026 Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Type B Borrow Material Submittal #3 (Dated May 6, 2026), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Conditional Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2026 Revised Draft Final Backfill And Cover Soil Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) (Dated May 13, 2026), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit Diggings East Final 100% Remedial Design Package Submittal, Josh Bryson

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Comment Letter For Bpsou Blacktail Creek Riparian Actions Uniform Federal Policy Quality Assurance Project Plan Addendum (Dated April 24, 2026), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Soil Health And Crop Yield In Louisiana Agricultural Systems: Impacts Of Best Management Practices And Prediction Models, Hector J. Mendoza Lagos

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The adoption of conservation management practices is critical for improving soil health, enhancing nutrient use efficiency, and sustaining crop productivity in row crop systems in Louisiana. This study evaluated the role of conservation agronomic practices, soil biochemical indicators, and machine learning predictive models to improve soil nutrient dynamics, soil health indicators, microbial communities (MC), and crop productivity on a corn (Zea mays L.) research plot scale and in a commercial forty-hectare cotton (Gassypium hirsutum L.)-corn-soybean (Glycine max L.) rotation system in northeast Louisiana. The objectives of the study were to evaluate soil nutrient dynamics and MCs under …

Silver Bow Creek Conservation Area Approved Final Principles For A Greener Cleanup Report, Woodard & Curran

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

High-Throughput Robotic Ethanol Inhibition Assays For Engineered Thermophilic Biofuel Strains, Kevin He, Daniel Olson, Marybeth Maloney, Anthony Lanahan

Wetterhahn Science Symposium Posters

Ethanol stress assays are commonly used to evaluate microbial tolerance, metabolic adaptation, and fermentation performance. However, manual liquid handling introduces variability across replicate wells and small-volume pipetting steps, limiting reproducibility and throughput. This study developed an automated OT-2 robotic workflow to generate replicated ethanol concentration gradients for high-throughput inhibition assays in engineered thermophilic biofuel strains. Kinetic plate-reader measurements were used to quantify ethanol-dependent growth responses under anaerobic fermentation conditions. The reasearch question is: How do engineered thermophilic biofuel strains differ in ethanol-dependent growth inhibition under anaerobic fermentation conditions, and can automated robotic assays improve the reproducibility of these measurements? Can …

Mining And Sustainable Development In Sierra Leone: The Role Of Institutional Quality, Ibrahim Massaquoi

Journal of Sustainable Mining

While mining can drive economic growth, create jobs, and promote infrastructural development, it also poses risks to the environment, human health, and social well-being. Therefore, to achieve sustainable development, responsible mining is crucial. This study empirically examines the role of institutional quality in the mining-sustainable development nexus in Sierra Leone. With the use of the planetary pressures-adjusted human development index (PHDI) as a comprehensive measure of sustainable development, the study is able to integrate economic, social, and environmental dimensions. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model confirms the existence of both short-run and long-run dynamics. The results of the study show …

Geological Environment’S Dynamic Responses And Damage Reduction-Oriented Geological Guarantee In Coal In-Situ Conversion, Wang Shuangming, Geng Jishi, Sun Qiang, Shi Qingmin, Liu Lang, Wang Shengquan, Yang Yuru, Yuan Shihao, Zhang He, Hu Xin

Coal Geology & Exploration

Objective Coal in-situ conversion (ISC) emerges as an important transformative technology for clean and efficient utilization of coal resources. However, safe and stable coal ISC is currently restricted by two major bottlenecks: an unclear understanding of the mechanisms underlying the geological environment’s dynamic responses and a lack of damage reduction-oriented geological guarantee. Methods To construct a damage reduction-oriented geological guarantee system for safe and green coal ISC, this study, from the perspective of the geological environment’s dynamic responses throughout coal ISC, elucidates the scientific connotations of both the dynamic responses and the geological guarantee in coal ISC. Based on the …

Theory And Key Technologies Of Collaborative Management And Control For Groundwater Protection, Treatment, And Utilization In Coal Mining Areas, Dong Shuning, Wang Hao, Guo Xiaoming, Dong Xingling, Qiao Wei, Wang Xiaodong, Zhang Xiyu, Zhang Wenzhong, Zhu Kaipeng, Hu Yunhao, Zhou Zhenfang, Duan Jianhua, Miao Hechao, Wang Tiantian, Wang Hai, Xue Jiankun

Coal Geology & Exploration

Background and Methods To mitigate the contradiction between abundant coal resources and scarce water resources in China, this study proposes a collaborative management and control solution for groundwater protection, treatment, and utilization in coal mining areas. From a theoretical perspective, this study investigates the propagation chains of both the coal mining disturbance to groundwater and the responses of groundwater systems to engineering interventions. Furthermore, it elucidates the core idea, scientific connotation, and technical architecture of the collaborative management and control and explores key technologies involved. Results and Conclusions A technical system based on accurate prediction and precise monitoring, covering treatment-protection …

A Review Of Full-Lifecycle Management Practices For Blue Mining Centered On Sustainable Development And Resource Efficiency, Hou Zhengmeng, Zhang Shengyou, Chen Qianjun, Sun Wei, Zhang Tian, Cai Nan, Huang Liangchao, Wang Qichen, Shi Tianle, Xu Xiaochuan

Coal Geology & Exploration

Against the backdrop of China’s goals of peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality, along with the growing demand for critical minerals, this study presents a systematic review of domestic and international literature and engineering cases. Based on the Blue Mining concept proposed by Langefeld’s team of the Clausthal University of Technology and from the perspective of planning forward, this study organizes key technologies, treatment pathways, and essentials of full-lifecycle management used to transition mines from single-purpose stopes to multifunctional infrastructures. Centered on four guiding principles, i.e., energy, ergonomics, water resources, and circularity, this study reviews the synergetic planning process …

Latest Advances In Research On Co2-Enhanced Coalbed Methane Recovery, Sang Shuxun, Liu Shiqi, Li Dianshang, Zhang Shouren, Xu Tianfu, Han Sijie, Zhou Xiaozhi, Huang Fansheng, Liu Tong, Tian Yuchen, Zhang Helong, Niu Qinghe, Chen Yongchun, Zhang Bing, Wu Jie

Coal Geology & Exploration

Background The CO₂-enhanced coalbed methane recovery (CO₂-ECBM) technology integrates greenhouse gas emission reduction and enhanced CBM recovery, holding great significance for achieving the goals of peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality of China and ensuring national energy security. However, due to limitations of insufficient fundamental research and some technical bottlenecks, the engineering application of the CO₂-ECBM technology remains in the engineering test stage. This study reviews the latest advances in research on the mechanisms, evaluation methods, and technical systems of CO₂-ECBM and explores key scientific issues and technical pathways for geological …

Key Issues And Research Prospects Of The Commingled-Production Compatibility Of Deep Superimposed Coalbed Methane Systems, Guo Chen, Wang Shuangming, Qin Yong, Xu Fengyin, Sun Xueyang, Xia Yucheng, Hou Enke, Wang Sujian, Sun Qiang, Wang Shengquan, Tang Shengli, Yang Xiankuo, Gao Junzhe, Li Ruiteng, Shi Kang

Coal Geology & Exploration

Objective In recent years, significant breakthroughs have been achieved in the exploration and exploitation of deep coalbed methane (CBM), which has emerged as a major area for the reserve growth and production addition of CBM in China. Variations in the temperature and pressure conditions of deep formations inevitably cause substantial differences in the commingled-production compatibility of deep and shallow superimposed CBM systems. Therefore, revealing the depth effects of the commingled-production compatibility is critical to enhancing the efficiency of the multi-layer commingled production of deep CBM and even coal-measure gas. Methods Using a systematic literature survey of the exploration and exploitation …

Ecological Restoration Strategies Based On Plant And Soil Characteristics For Dumps Of Surface Coal Mines In Cold Arid Regions, Wang Hao, Li Haichao, Jiang Xinjun, Cao Shumiao, Yang Fan, Wang Qiangmin, Xu Ganggang, Shi Hui

Coal Geology & Exploration

Objective The dumps of surface coal mines in cold arid regions represent ecologically vulnerable areas formed under extreme disturbance. However, a lack of systematic studies on the vegetation and soils in dumps, including their spatial variation patterns and synergistic mechanisms caused by vertical differences of the dumps, leads to insufficient theoretical bases for formulating differential ecological restoration strategies in engineering practice.Methods By integrating field ecological surveys and physicochemical tests in the laboratory, this study investigated the dump with elevations ranging from 2498 m-2632 m of the Heishan coal mine on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang. Based …

Advances In Research On Eco-Geological Environment Monitoring Of Underground Coal Mining Areas Based On Airborne Remote Sensing, Li Jun, Zou Zhaohui, Zhang Chengye, Wang Yi, Cheng Yang, Xu Lianhang, Zhang Jinhe, Liu Chuanrui, Liang Lixia

Coal Geology & Exploration

Background Timely and effective monitoring of the current status of eco-geological environment holds great significance for scientific decision-making regarding both geological environment protection and ecological restoration in underground coal mining areas. Owing to its advantage of large-scale and rapid monitoring, airborne remote sensing technology has emerged as an important approach to the eco-geological environment monitoring of mining areas. Advances This study first clarifies relevant concepts of eco-geological environment monitoring, as well as the monitoring requirements and contents specific to underground coal mining areas. Accordingly, it presents a summary of the advances in research on airborne remote sensing technology for the …

From Follower To Leader: Seismic Coal Exploration Techniques In China Over The Past 70 Years−In Celebration Of The 70th Anniversary Of Ccteg Xi’An Research Institute (Group) Co., Ltd., Cheng Jianyuan, Wang Yunhong, Wang Baoli, Li Gang, Li Yuteng, Qin Si

Coal Geology & Exploration

Background After 70 years of innovation and development, China has successfully transformed from a follower into a leader in both high-resolution surface seismic coal exploration techniques and underground in-seam seismic exploration techniques for coal mines. Furthermore, it has achieved disruptive innovations in intelligent seismic-while-mining (SWM) and seismic-while-tunneling (SWT) techniques. These achievements have established China’s worldwide leading position in the overall development of seismic coal exploration techniques.Advances In terms of high-resolution surface seismic coal exploration techniques, China has undergone four development stages: arduously catching up, striving to follow, keeping pace with continuously, and overtaking international counterparts with advanced techniques during …