Digital Commons Network^™

Envisioning The Role Of Community-Owned Stores & Aligning Federal Food Policies: A Participatory Approach To Food Security And Food Sovereignty In Sambaa K’E, Denendeh (Northwest Territories, Canada), Narayan Subramoniam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Northern Indigenous communities have relied on traditional food systems for meaningful, nutritious diets since time immemorial. But many Indigenous communities in remote northern regions of Canada still face disproportionately elevated levels of food insecurity due to climate change radically altering the availability for traditional foods, colonial food policies imposing Western diets, and the high costs of transporting store-bought foods. Extreme weather events such as wildfires further isolate fly-in remote communities increasing both the costs of transporting store-bought foods and the difficulties of harvesting traditional foods. There are many examples of community-based initiatives for supporting traditional and locally grown foods, however, …

Mapping Climate Risks & Building Resilience: A Participatory Approach To Harvester Safety In Kakisa, Nwt., Susan Kerubo Ombwori

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation (KTFN) community in the Northwest Territories is experiencing rapid environmental changes which are driven by climate change. These changes are threatening the community’s food security. The community is seeing a disruption to its traditional land-based food systems due to increasing climate risks such as unpredictable weather, thawing permafrost, wildfires, and flooding. These changes are reducing access to traditional foods and intensifying threats to harvester safety. Building on the existing relationship with the community through previous projects, this thesis examines the impacts of climate risks on the availability and access of the KTFN’s on the land …

Adapting To Aridity: Crop Production Trends Among Smallholder Farmers In Iramba District, Tanzania, Nashokigwa Shalua, Digna Wolfram Mlengule, Johnstone M. Andrea

Tanzanian Economic Review

Increasing crop production amid recurrent droughts remains a critical challenge for smallholder farmers in the semi-arid Iramba District; however, empirical evidence on crop production remains scarce. This paper analysed trends in crop production in Iramba District from 1995 to 2024. Mixed methods were used, and data were collected through structured interviews, focus group discussions, field observations, in-depth interviews and document reviews. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics while qualitative data were thematically analysed. The results indicate that 84.2% (n=95) of the households showed an increase in crop yields despite concurrent severe drought. Sunflower, maize, bulrush millet, and sorghum were …

Artificial Intelligence As A Catalyst For Systemic Sport Ecology, Ugo Arbieu, Laís Carneiro, Sonia Tieo, Franck Courchamp

Journal of Applied Sport Management

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping both sport management and environmental science, yet these developments have largely evolved in parallel. AI can serve not merely as a technical tool but also as a catalyst for systemic sport ecology, a field that integrates sport, digital innovation and environmental sustainability. Advances in discriminative, generative and agentic AI enable the synthesis of complex ecological and sport-related data, improving monitoring, forecasting, resource efficiency, policy design, and decision-making across scales. In doing so, AI offers a pathway beyond fragmented sustainability interventions and can support holistic approaches to the interconnected crises of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity …

Book Review: Ecologies Of Inequity. How Disaster Response Reconstitutes Race And Class Inequality, Abel Traslaviña-Arias

Critical Disaster Studies

In Ecologies of Inequity: How Disaster Response Reconstitutes Race and Class Inequality, Sancha Doxilly Medwinter gathered diverse stories about how various migrant communities had to overcome not only disaster but also the overlapping networks established by those who were supposed to support them in 2012 in New York City. Medwinter portrays this contested post-disaster landscape through a thorough data recording of 120 individuals affiliated with various groups: racialized migrants or locals, tenants or property owners, local or external helpers, and those from wealthy or impoverished backgrounds. Ecologies of Inequity refer to the spatialized networks of organizational and interpersonal relations …

Evaluating The Preparedness Of Local Zoning Regulations For Flood Risk Reduction In The Most Affected Local Jurisdictions In Nebraska, Md Asaduzzaman Noor

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Flooding has profound social, economic, and environmental impacts on local communities, and zoning plays a critical role in mitigating these risks. The 2019 Nebraska floods, among the most severe in the state’s history, highlighted the urgent need to strengthen local preparedness and mitigation strategies. This study assesses the extent to which local zoning regulations in Nebraska’s most affected jurisdiction, including rural areas, address flood risk reduction. A systematic review of 117 zoning ordinances from counties, cities, towns, and villages, we applied a structured analytical framework encompassing regulatory and permitting policies, voluntary and incentive-based measures, and nature-based solutions. The results show …

Linking Climate And Demography To Predict Population Dynamics And Persistence Under Global Change., Jennifer L. Williams, Amy L. Angert, Aldo Compagnoni, Ali Campbell, Megan L. Demarche, Margaret E K Evans, Joshua C. Fowler, Amy M. Iler, Jenna A. Loesberg, Allison M. Louthan, Scott W. Nordstrom, Multiple Additional Authors

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Predicting the effects of climate change on plant and animal populations is an urgent challenge for understanding the fate of biodiversity under global change. At the surface, quantifying how climate drives the vital rates that underlie population dynamics appears simple, yet many decisions are required to connect climate to demographic data. Competing approaches have emerged in the literature with little consensus around best practices. Here we provide a practical guide for how to best link vital rates to climate for the purposes of inference and projection of population dynamics. We first describe the sources of demographic and climate data underlying …

Mountain Communities During A Time Of War: A Case Study Of The Hutsul Region In The Carpathian Mountains Of Ukraine, Pavlo Rybaruk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the ethno-ecological technologies employed by the Hutsul people within the highland agrarian economy of the Carpathian Mountains. Over centuries, the Hutsuls have developed ethno-ecological technologies that maintain ecological integrity while supporting community livelihoods.

The study addresses three primary research questions: What are the most important ethno-ecological technologies of the Hutsul highland economy? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be applied to economic, agricultural, and tourism development in the Hutsul region? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be combined with contemporary approaches to encourage sustainable development in the region?

The research explores the devastating impact of the Russian …

Modeling Flood Risks For Small-Scale Coastal Watershed Across Shared Socioeconomic Pathway Scenarios, Sebastian Loschner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Coastal flooding, driven by the mixture of natural processes and human activities such as precipitation, waves, sea level rise, and urbanization, remains a growing concern. While recent flood-risk studies use IPCC's Shared Socioeconomic Pathways with climate projections to assess future flood exposure, smaller coastal watersheds, < 120,000 acres, remain insufficiently studied. Projected sea level rise is expected to intensify these impacts in smaller systems, potentially causing more severe flooding than reported for larger watersheds. To address this gap, this study used the SRH-2D model integrated with Aquaveo's Surface-water Modeling System to simulate flooding in the lower Fish River basin, Alabama. A coastal watershed sensitive to both riverine and tidal influences. Simulations tested different sea levels based on SSP scenarios corresponding to low, moderate, and high emissions for the years 2050 and 2100. Results indicate that the midcentury scenarios remained even in inundation extent and volume, between 9.9-10.4% compared to the 2020 baseline, the latter scenarios had a wider range in results of between 25.9-50.3% compared to the same baseline. Across scenarios, the most vulnerable and inundated areas of the smaller coastal watershed were the narrow points where upstream flow convene with downstream backwater. These findings highlight the need for futuristic location-specific flood mitigation strategies.

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Rewilding The Built Environment: Navigating Economic, Political, And Social Barriers To Urban Ecological Restoration, Carly E. Smith

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Urban rewilding offers a nature-based approach to restoring ecological processes in cities while advancing climate resilience, biodiversity, and public well-being. Unlike conventional green infrastructure, rewilding allows ecosystems to develop with minimal intervention, emphasizing succession, complexity, and long-term adaptability. This paper examines the political, economic, and social factors that frame how rewilding is understood and implemented in urban planning. Governmental frameworks often prioritize order, predictability, and short-term results, making it difficult to accommodate the uncertainty and ecological complexity that rewilding requires. Economic models struggle to capture its long-term value, frequently overlooking ecosystem services or reconciling competing land uses. Social perceptions of …

Understanding Rice Production Stagnation In The Philippines: Regional Evidence And Development Implications, Henry Bartelet, Alenn Jhulia D. Prodigalidad, Janelle S. Dy, Jan Gabriel N. Manzano

Quantitative Methods and Information Technology Faculty Publications

Despite decades of investment in agricultural research and rice development, the Philippines continues to face stagnation in domestic rice production. This persistent trend, occurring despite a sizable arable land base and large rural workforce, has contributed to the country’s growing reliance on rice imports to meet national food needs. In response, the government has implemented a tariff-based import system designed to fund domestic productivity improvements. While previous studies have explored the technical and environmental constraints affecting rice production, such as irrigation shortfalls, land degradation, and climate variability, few have examined recent national trends using regionally disaggregated data alongside qualitative insights. …

Volume 66-1, May 2025: Complete, Nancy Hoalst Pullen, Mark W. Patterson

The Geographical Bulletin

Volume 66-1, May 2025: Complete

Cover And Foreword, Nancy Hoalst Pullen, Mark W. Patterson

The Geographical Bulletin

Cover and Foreword

The Potential Of National Parks And Protected Areas In The Anthropocene: Emerging Incubators Of Environmental Justice And Co-Stewardship Conservation, Yolonda Youngs

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

National parks are often praised as natural labs for physical science researchers and scholars. They are also cultural labs where ideas about public lands management, use, and access are reformulated and revised. In the Anthropocene, these sites hold special relevance. Within this context, parks can serve as active and evolving incubators of social and climate resilience guided by just conservation initiatives. Yet few studies have explored the new models of collaboration and partnerships between the U.S. National Park Service and Tribal Nations that seek to create co-stewardship conservation. This article addresses that gap with a qualitative and historical case study …

The Reciprocity Of Misfortune: The Little Tradition Of Disasters In The Philippines, Greg Bankoff, Bianca Angelien Aban Claveria, David Lozada Iii, Camille L. Silva

History Department Faculty Publications

Just as there is a great and little tradition in religion and civilization, there is a great and little tradition in disaster. This article explores the origins of community resilience in rural areas of the Philippines based on local reciprocity and cooperation and how ­ these customary practices form the basis of national disaster risk-­reduction policies. The endless strug­gle to feed and shelter a family and contend with repeated hazards, whether natu­ral or human-­induced, promotes collective action. There is a need to cooperate with neighbors, a web of dyadic and community relationships born out of necessity that constitutes a “reciprocity …

Urban Heat Islands In Mountain West Cities, 2024, Mia Tschan, Krish Sharma, Olivia K. Cheche, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet presents data on Urban Heat Islands (UHIs) in six cities across five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are derived from the 2024 Climate Central report, “Urban Heat Hot Spots in 65 Cities,” which includes data on how UHIs boost temperatures in 65 major cities across the United States. This fact sheet focuses on UHIs in six Mountain West cities: Albuquerque, NM; Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Salt Lake City, UT; and Tucson, AZ.

Understanding And Assessing Climate Change: Preparing For Nebraska’S Future, 2024 Climate Change Impact Assessment Report, Deborah J. Bathke, Eric Hunt, Heather Akin, Andrea D. Basche, Jesse E. Bell, Daniel R. Dileo, Ross Dixon, Martha Durr, Tonya Haigh, Francis John Hay, Kristina W. Kintziger, Nicholas A. Mcmillan, Hank Miller, Jerome Okojokwu-Idu, Crystal Powers, Tirthankar Roy, Zhenghong Tang, W. Ryan Wishart, Aaron R. Young, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Jonathan J. Spurgeon

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Contents

Report Team

Acknowledgments

Executive Summary

Introduction

Climate Change Contexts: Global, National, and State

Observed Changes in Nebraska's Climate

Projections of Nebraska's Future Climate

Water Systems

Energy

Ecosystems

Agriculture

Human Health

Communities and the Built Environment

Indigenous Peoples

Climate Justice and Equity

The Response of Faith Communities

Nebraskans' Perceptions of Climate Change

Next Steps and Future Work

Supplemental Report: Adaptation, Risks, and Impacts

About the Authors

Faith-based Communities Survey

Evaluated Plans and Assessments

References

Practitioners’ Perspectives On Preventing Environmental Gentrification In Chicago, Illinois, Usa, Tania Schusler, Amy Krings

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Pollution cleanup, green space creation, and other improvements to environmental quality in cities are important to urban sustainability. However, because they occur within a political economic context characterized by structural racism, urban greening initiatives can intentionally or unintentionally reproduce racial, economic, and social inequities through environmental gentrification. We explored possibilities for improving environmental quality without displacing or excluding long-term residents including people of color, the poor, and members of other marginalized groups. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with community organizers, environmental justice advocates, urban planners, housing specialists, and others who held deep expertise through their lived and professional experience in …

Flowing Progress: Transforming The Danube Through Infrastructure, Stefan Dorondel, Luminita Gatejel

Central European Studies

Flowing Progress: Transforming the Danube Through Infrastructure focuses on how different political regimes and forms of governance have imagined and technologically transformed the most international river in the world. Multidisciplinary and drawing on methodologies of history, anthropology of infrastructure, and science, technology, and society, this collection explores the tensions between the river and its natural pulses, the humans that populate its floodplains, state agencies, and infrastructure. The book engages the concept of disturbance to point out the circular and spiraling dynamics between hydrological processes and technopolitical and economic practices. Disturbance denotes a specific type of long-term dynamic between human attempts …

The First Thirty Years Of Green Stormwater Infrastructure In Portland, Oregon, Michaela Koucka, Cara Poor, Jordyn Wolfand, Heejun Chang, Vivek Shandas, Adrienne Aiona, Henry Stevens, Tim Kurtz, Svetlana Hedin, Steve Fancher, Joshua Lighthipe, Adam Zucker

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over the past 30 years, the City of Portland, Oregon, USA, has emerged as a national leader in green stormwater infrastructure (GSI). The initial impetus for implementing sustainable stormwater infrastructure in Portland stemmed from concerns about flooding and water quality in the city’s two major rivers, the Columbia and the Willamette. Heavy rainfall often led to combined sewer overflows, significantly polluting these waterways. A partial solution was the construction of “The Big Pipe” project, a large-scale stormwater containment system designed to filter and regulate overflow. However, Portland has taken a more comprehensive and long-term approach by integrating sustainable stormwater management …

Technoscientific Imaging And The Territorialization Of Ocean Depth, João Afonso Baptista, Pedro Figueiredo Neto, Irus Braverman, Philip Steinberg, Gabriella Palermo, Stefan Helmreich, Melody Jue, John Childs

Journal Articles

Once the last unclaimed solid expanse on Earth, the ocean floor has become one of the most contested spaces in contemporary geopolitics. The data-imagery produced by technoscience serves as the ultimate tool for nations asserting sovereignty in this territorial race. This symposium gathers diverse perspectives on the ongoing expansionist drive on the seabed, drawing inspiration from Abissal——a film-article featuring the Portuguese modern odyssey on the ocean floor that serves as the symposium’s centerpiece. Aligned with modern ocean law, technoscience strives to render ocean depth visible to politics and territorializable for coastal states. However, the submerged prolongations and divisions it proffers …

Advancing Interactive Web Cartography Through Designing And Developing An Open-Source, Data-Driven Framework For Accessible Geovisualization Of Geospatial (Big) Data, Sarigai Sarigai

Geography ETDs

The growth of geospatial big data has intensified the demand for open-source, accessible tools for interactive spatial exploration. This dissertation introduces a modular web mapping framework and details its design, extension, and evaluation to advance geovisualization through user-centered, transferable design. The first study presents the original framework, named dciWebMapper, establishing foundational cartographic and information visualization principles, with a focus on modularity and extensibility. The second study extends dciWebMapper with advanced capabilities—such as diverse map types, bivariate visualizations, temporal filtering, spatial querying, and hotspot analysis—and demonstrates its broad transferability across domains. The third study offers a structured usability evaluation of …

Citizen Science Helps Monitor Urban Biodiversity: An Interactive, Data-Driven, And Open-Source Perspective, Katie Slack

Geography ETDs

Story maps, a powerful tool for communicating environmental narratives, are often commercial and lack many interactive functions. We integrate a data-driven and interactive geovisualization within an open-source story map created from high-attribute citizen science datasets. This story map creates a backend programming infrastructure for accessible, open-source science communication tools. Our story map intuitively communicates the findings from our web map application (app) portion of the story map to the public and helps reveal findings from the iNaturalist datasets. Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States is a demonstrative case study, but our tools can be flexibly adapted to other cities. Geovisualizations revealed …

Analyzing Environmental Health: Air Pollution And Human Health Using Geospatial Data Science, Yanhong Huang

Geography ETDs

Air pollution from industrial emissions and wildfire smoke poses growing threats to public health. This dissertation employs geospatial data science to examine these challenges through three interrelated studies. The first study investigates the relationship between maternal residential exposure to industrial pollutants and low birth weight, identifying five chemicals as significant risk factors. The second study assesses the impact of industrial air pollution on lung and bronchus cancer survival, finding that exposure to 1,1,1-trichloroethane and cobalt is associated with reduced survival. The third study explores disparities in wildfire smoke PM_2.5 exposure and its association with asthma exacerbations. Results show disparities …

Living Heritage, Resilience And Ethically Informed Infrastructures In Malawi, Martha B. Lerski, Frank Puluputu Mwale

Publications and Research

Rooted in a rural community’s needs, this paper explores how historically, and ethically informed infrastructures can support community engagement towards identification, documentation, and dissemination of local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge relating to climate change. The paper examines climate adaptation and sustainability issues through the lenses of community organizing and Library & Information Science best practices. It draws on a growing body of literature identifying a role for expanded epistemological and subject discipline perspectives. While the impacts of climate on material culture are increasingly recognized, intangible, and biocultural heritage have not received as much attention. Living heritage traditions and knowledge systems …

Assessing Vulnerabilities Associated With High-Risk Dams In Utah, Courtney Flint Dr., Michael Englert, Upmanu Lall Dr.

I-GUIDE Forum

Across the United States, the age of dam infrastructure presents a substantial threat. The potential for structural failure associated with these aging dams is exacerbated by increased climate uncertainty and the threat of dam overtopping due to extreme and prolonged precipitation events. These compound threats place downstream areas at pronounced risk. These downstream areas vary widely. Some are relatively free of vulnerable elements, while others have a complex mix of infrastructure, populations, and ecologically important elements. This paper highlights the risk situation associated with aging dams and hydroclimatic extremes, the methodological and geospatial challenges and opportunities associated with mapping the …

Elemental Analysis Of Sediments In Johnson County, Kansas: Applications In Fluvial Suspended Sediment Tracing, Kiena Campbell

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This exploratory study investigates whether bulk elemental analysis of sediment samples using inductively coupled mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) can reveal chemical signatures that identify anthropogenic contributions to sedimentation and increased fluvial suspended sediment loads, and whether these contribution sources can be identified. Human activity, urbanization, and changes in land use increase erosion, resulting in higher-than-natural suspended sediments (SS) in waterways and increasing sedimentation in reservoirs across the state of Kansas. These threats to freshwater storage capacity are especially urgent given the projected rise in freshwater demand in the Great Plains region driven by climate change. Understanding the origin of anthropogenic SS …

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 …

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, …