Digital Commons Network^™

Re: Conditional Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2025 Revised Draft Final Unreclaimed Sites Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) (Dated May 15, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

How’S It Growing? Tools For Observing Snow And Sea Ice In A Changing Arctic Ocean, Ian Alexander Raphael

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

September Arctic sea ice extent has diminished by roughly 50% in the 45 years since satellite observations began. The Arctic Ocean may experience ice-free summers within the next decade, with implications for habitat, resource extraction, geopolitics, and local and global climate change. To predict how Arctic sea ice will change in the future, we need to understand its behavior in the present. In situ sea ice mass balance measurements (snow accumulation, ice growth, snow and ice surface melt, and bottom melt) are essential for studying the processes driving rapid changes in the ice pack, and for validating remote sensing measurements …

Enhancing Water Scarcity Resilience In Egypt Through Machine Learning-Driven Phenological Crop Mapping And Water Use Efficiency Analysis, Surendra Maharjan, Wenzhao Li, Shahryar Fazli, Aqil Tariq, Rejoice Thomas, Cyril Rakovski, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Agriculture forms the backbone of Egypt’s economy, with the Nile Valley and Delta serving as key production zones for crops like wheat, rice, and clover. However, the sector faces mounting pressure from water scarcity, as it depends almost entirely on the Nile for irrigation, making it necessary to map major crops for assessing Water Use Efficiency (WUE) and informing agricultural planning. In this study, we used machine learning (ML) techniques—specifically Support Vector Machine (SVM) to time-series phenological data and optical indices (Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Bare Soil Index (BSI), Land Surface Water Index (LSWI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and …

Evaluation Of Ecostress Collection 2 Evapotranspiration Products: Strengths And Uncertainties For Evapotranspiration Modeling, Zoe Amie Pierrat, Adam J. Purdy, Gregory Halverson, Joshua B. Fisher, Kanishka Mallick, Madeleine Pascolini-Campbell, Youngryel Rye, Martha C. Anderson, Claire Villanueva-Weeks, Margaret C. Johnson, Brenna Hatch, Evan Davis, Yun Yang, Kerry Cawse-Nicholson

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) collects thermal observations from the International Space Station to support evapotranspiration (ET) research at fine spatial resolutions (70 m × 70 m). Initial ET from ECOSTRESS Collection 1 was used in scientific research and applications, though subsequent analyses identified areas for improvement. This study outlines updates to ECOSTRESS Collection 2 ET and presents an accuracy assessment of ET and auxiliary variables validated against in situ data from AmeriFlux. Key updates in Collection 2 include use of four independent model estimates of instantaneous latent energy (LE) and improved auxiliary forcing data. …

Analyzing Human - Nonhuman Primate Conflict Mitigation Techniques In Mto Wa Mbu, Northern Tanzania, Lil Adams

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Human-wildlife conflict is a widespread challenge faced by those living in regular contact with wildlife that can have profound impacts on livelihood outcomes for humans, wildlife, and their shared environment (Barua et al., 2013; Blackie, 2023). Human – non-human primate conflict is particularly crucial due to primates’ high capacity to live among human populations (Chapman & Chapman, 1990; Alberts & Altmann, 2006; Reader et al., 2011; Sinha & Vijayakrishnan, 2017), and is currently on the rise due to increasing contact between human and non-human primates (Hockings, 2016; Uddin et al., 2020). To characterize and analyze techniques currently being used to …

Great Work Is Done While We Sleep, Julie Wildschut

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Culture And Environment: The Calling Lakes Ecomuseum As A Community Sustainability Initiative, Kace N. Anders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Located in Saskatchewan, Canada, the Calling Lakes Ecomuseum, CLEM, is a community-based organization focused on water management and sustainability. Ecomuseums are holistic organizations that occupy landscapes, are responsive to community needs, conserve in situ heritage, and incorporate sustainability along with community development. The ecomuseum movement came from a need for holistic heritage management that disengaged with conventional museology and created space for communities to engage with their heritage in ways that promote community identity. This thesis analyzes the Calling Lakes Ecomuseum and how it utilizes the ecomuseum concept alongside environmental sustainability. Both semi-structured interviews and place-based field observations were used …

A Spatial Analysis Of Residential Photovoltaic Adoption In New Jersey: Focusing On 2020 With Trends Through 2025, Brandon Mcalister

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

This capstone project seeks to find the relationship between socioeconomic and demographic variables and their relationship to residential photovoltaic installations across New Jersey. The study consists of Geographic Weighted Regression Analyses to construct and socioeconomic index indicating the likelihood of photovoltaic adoption in New Jersey zip codes. Then using the index to predict future photovoltaic adoption across the state. The study found that socioeconomic and demographic variables can predict photovoltaic adoption within one year, but when placed in an index and used to predict future adoption trends, the model under predicts and extremely over predicts. While socioeconomic status is a …

Utilizing Spatial Criteria To High-Grade Wyoming Eor Opportunities Along Proposed Pipeline Corridors: A Value Driven Approach, Jack Borski

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Oil and gas development has played a critical role in human civilization, and continues to bring drive economies around the world. One such economy is the state of Wyoming that has seen oil and gas production generally decline of the last several decades due to the depletion of high volume conventional reservoirs. A proven secondary technique such as CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) may serve as a method to arrest declining production, and increase economic activity. Wyoming has recognized this opportunity, and has attempted decrease the barriers of entry for oil and gas operators to invest in field-level CO2 EOR …

Object-Based Image Analysis And Artificial Intelligence Identification Of Anthropogenic Disturbance On Lesser Prairie Chicken Habitat In Cheyenne County, Colorado, Tara Hoelzer

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Renewable energy projects often require extensive landcover for their operations. When one of these projects encroaches into territory of threatened species, such as Lesser Prairie Chickens, an analysis of habitat suitability and human disturbance is required to proceed. Traditionally, this involved manually reviewing aerial imagery within a 6-mile radius, digitizing features, and interpreting them using a human technician—an approach that was time-consuming and prone to human error. By using pretrained AI models within Model Builder™, the identification of roads and structures was automated, making the process faster and more consistent than manual visual analysis. As AI and technology continue to …

Cultivating Resilience In The Anthropocene: Evaluating A Gssw Ecological Justice Curriculum, Windy Selig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This Dissertation in Practice evaluated the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) Ecological Justice Pathway to examine how resilience is conceptualized and cultivated within the curriculum. Grounded in a constructivist paradigm and guided by an ecological justice framework, this evaluation explored the pedagogical and curricular strategies designed to prepare social work students for the emotional, ethical, and professional demands of practicing in the Anthropocene—a time marked by ecological degradation, climate crisis, and compounding social inequities.

Through qualitative methods, including faculty interviews and curriculum document analysis, the evaluation identified both explicit and implicit components that foster student resilience. …

Toward Sustainable Human Well-Being: A Multidimensional Assessment In Colorado, Uma Umut Baysal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating progress in human well-being is essential for guiding effective policy and promoting sustainable development. Traditional approaches often emphasize economic and social dimensions while overlooking ecological indicators critical to long-term sustainability. This research addresses that gap by proposing a layered, scalable local framework for county-level analysis and bottom-up decision-making, integrating multiple objective indicators to assess and compare well-being outcomes across regions.

The first goal of this dissertation is to measure human well-being in Colorado counties by developing a Human Well-Being Index (HWBI). This index combines a newly developed Built Environment Index (BEI) comprising five sub-indices: accessibility, housing affordability, transportation, …

Roles Of Organic Agriculture For Water Optimization In Arid And Semi-Arid Regions, Shikha Sharma, Matt A. Yost, Jennifer R. Reeve

Plants, Soils and Climate Student Research

Water scarcity is a critical challenge in arid and semi-arid regions, where agricultural water consumption accounts for a significant portion of freshwater use. Conventional agriculture (CA) methods with high reliance on chemical and mechanical inputs often exacerbate this issue through soil degradation and water loss. This review aims to examine how different organic practices, such as mulching, cover cropping, composting, crop rotation, and no-till (NT) in combination with precision technologies, can contribute to water optimization, and it discusses the opportunities and challenges for the adoption and implementation of those practices. Previous findings show that organic agriculture (OA) may outperform CA …

Spatiotemporal Analysis Of Available Freshwater Resources In Watersheds Across Northern New Jersey, Toritseju Oyen, Duke Ophori

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Groundwater is a critical freshwater resource, yet its quality is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities, particularly in urbanized regions. This study employs geospatial analysis to evaluate the spatiotemporal variability of groundwater quality across 11 Watershed Management Areas (WMAs) in northern New Jersey, from 1999 to 2016. Using specific conductance (SC) as a proxy for salinity, we applied Ordinary Kriging interpolation to estimate SC values in unmonitored locations, leveraging data from 295 shallow wells within the New Jersey Ambient Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network. The results reveal significant spatial heterogeneity in groundwater quality, strongly associated with land use and road density. The …

Re: Comment Letter For The Final Butte Reduction Works (Brw) Smelter Area Waste Remediation And Contaminated Groundwater Hydraulic Control Site Air Monitoring Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) For Interim Demolition Activities (Dated May 19, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Approval Letter For The Draft Final Butte Reduction Works (Brw) Air Monitoring For Interim Demolition Activities – Phase I Data Summary Report (Dated March 21, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Western Kentucky University Stormwater Utility Survey 2025, Warren Campbell

SEAS Faculty Publications

This survey provides data on 2147 U.S. and 82 Canadian stormwater utilities. The data is intended to provide useful data to communities that wish to enact stormwater utilities. Different fee systems are examined with the goal of avoiding legal exposure. Recently, the major source of pre-disaster mitigation funds was eliminated. States should consider state-wide stormwater utilities to make up for this loss.

Draft Final 2025 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) Annual Update (Non-Residential Parcels And Residential Daycares), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Comment Letter For Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Superfund Operation And Maintenance (O&M) Request For Maintenance – Kelley Stormwater Channels (Dated April 22, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Draft Final 2025 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) Annual Update (Residential Parcels), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Session 2: The Cases For Industry Self-Regulation And Government Regulation Of Ai, Boaz Ashkenazy, Kevin Bartholomew, Kevin De Liban, Christopher Yoo

SITIE Symposiums

In Session Two of the SITIE 2025 Symposium titled “The Cases for Industry Self-Regulation and Government Regulation of AI,” moderated by Seattle University Technology Ethics Initiative Director and Professor Onur Bakiner, the panelists discuss their perspectives and experiences with AI regulation. They share observations about the industry and delve into the topics of AI complexity, concerns around accountability, the shift to agentic AI, the current state of AI regulation, existing legal guardrails, and their outlook on AI regulation.

Session 1: Guidance From International Regulation Sources, Charlotte Tschider, Marie-Charlotte Roques-Bonnet

SITIE Symposiums

In Session One of the SITIE 2025 Symposium titled “Regulating Artificial Intelligence: From Where and When?”, Professor Mark Chinen moderated a panel featuring Professor Charlotte Tschider and Dr. Marie-Charlotte Roques-Bonnet. The discussion focused on international AI regulation, privacy, data governance, and the EU’s regulatory approach to AI oversight.

8th Annual Innovation And Technology Law Conference: Regulating Artificial Intelligence: From Where And When?, Steven Bender

SITIE Symposiums

Since 2018, the Seattle University School of Law has presented an annual late spring/summer conference on innovation and technology, shifting to a virtual conference in 2020. The virtual format fosters inclusion of national and even international speakers (as this year with Marie-Charlotte Roques-Bonnet, Data Protection/AI Consultant & Research Lead, ID side.eu, joining from France), and participation from a broad base audience, which this year included over 200 registrants who joined live or watched the recording.

Tellings Of The Pacific Ocean: A Landscape-Based Approach For Multispecies Design And Hci, Maliheh Ghajargar

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Environmental disturbances induced by climate change have caused significant changes in our ecosystems and are threatening the health of our environments. As a response to this issue, a growing body of work has emerged in HCI and design, which seeks to foreground more-than-human stories in support of making more sustainable and just futures. This research contributes to this broad agenda by probing graphic novels as a multispecies storytelling method for design and HCI. Combining ideas from Anna Tsing’s adventures of landscape and from HCI and design’s use of sequential art (e.g., storyboards), we use landscape as the main protagonist of …

Colonization-Persistence Trade-Offs In The Human Microbiome, Liam F. Nokes

Environmental Studies Senior Theses

Understanding how diverse microbial taxa coexist in the human body without competitively excluding one another remains a key challenge in microbiome ecology. One proposed explanation is the colonization-persistence trade-off, where species with high colonization ability are poor persisters, and vice versa. We test for this trade-off across human associated microbial communities among many individuals and in multiple body sites using a large-scale participant-level meta-analysis of longitudinal microbiome datasets curated from the MGnify database. We applied island biogeography-based models to calculate effective colonization and persistence rates for microbial families and genera across 606 individuals over twenty-six studies. Regression of the log-transformed …

Final 2025 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Rock Creek Cattle Company Borrow Submittal #1, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Spatial Analysis Of La Nana Bayou Watershed To Assess Stream Health, Rylee G. Gabbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of using land cover mapping to identify water quality indicators within a river basin, assessing whether this method provides greater efficiency compared to traditional field-based water quality testing. Land cover mapping has efficiently monitored environmental changes by detecting alterations within specific areas. With the La Nana Bayou Watershed positioned in the heart of Nacogdoches City, an urbanized environment; it is subject to human induced alterations that can negatively affect the natural functionality of its system. When water quality indicators are successfully related to land cover maps, changes within the landscape …

Land Instability Compounds The Risk Of Sea Level Rise In Alexandria, Egypt, Rejoice Thomas, Sara Zouriq, Shahryar Fazli, Amr Fawzy, Nikolay Grisel Todorov, Surendra Maharjan, Wenzhao Li, Erik Linstead, Daniele Struppa, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The coastal region of Alexandria Governorate in Egypt holds significant strategic importance for trade while being susceptible to extreme weather events. It confronts a dual challenge of the rising sea levels and, as found in this study, land instability. While much attention has been rightly directed towards sea level rise (SLR), the stability of the land warrants equal consideration. Here, a comprehensive analysis of land stability is conducted in Alexandria by measuring Line of Sight (LOS) displacements and assessing their topographical, hydrological, and coastal impacts. Persistent Scatterer Interferometry technique is used to measure the LOS displacements in association with land …

Re: Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final 2025 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Rock Creek Cattle Company Borrow Submittal #1 (Dated May 23, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Response To Comment Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Butte Reclamation Evaluation System (Bres) Draft 2024 Field Evaluation Summary And Technical Recommendations Report (Dated April 10, 2025), Abby Peltomaa

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.