Digital Commons Network^™

Soil Carbon Sequestration Efforts In Arid And Semi-Arid Climates Under Conservation Agriculture And Reforestation, Samantha Lynn Colunga

Theses and Dissertations

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a vital role in the global carbon cycle and aids in climate change mitigation. However, deforestation and intensive agricultural practices threaten topsoil and carbon (C) pools through soil disturbances releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) by enhancing the decomposition of organic materials. Degraded soils typically lack stable aggregates, nutrient and water retention, and overall low fertility. In arid and semi-arid regions, soils are in an even more dire situation, as low precipitation and high temperatures slow down the accumulation of SOC. This thesis has two objectives: 1) to evaluate whether conservation tillage practices increase …

Traffic Analysis Of Cities In San Bernardino County, Sai Kalyan Ayyagari

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This research offers an in-depth analysis of vehicular traffic within San Bernardino County, California, aiming to spotlight congestion areas and suggest improvements for more efficient and sustainable transportation. Leveraging 2021 data from StreetLight Data, traffic patterns in 15 key cities were examined based on their population sizes, covering various vehicle types to dissect dynamics and flow. The methodology focused on analyzing trip purposes and metrics to calculate Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and its influence on congestion and environmental factors.

Findings indicate considerable disparities in traffic volume, purposes, and timings across different urban areas, with population density and intercity connections significantly …

Truck Traffic Analysis In The Inland Empire, Bhavik Khatri

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study undertakes a meticulous examination of truck traffic within the Inland Empire, focusing on the distribution and dynamics of medium and heavy-duty vehicles, to advocate for the region's transition to electric trucks. Utilizing advanced spatial analysis and data from Streetlight Data, it segments the region into six subregions, revealing distinct traffic patterns and environmental impacts. Notably, the research uncovers that the North Center and West zones, integral to the logistics and warehousing sectors, exhibit the highest traffic volumes, significantly influencing air quality and infrastructure.

Quantitative results from 2021 illustrate a pronounced disparity in truck activity: medium-weight vehicles accounted for …

Bay Water Level Influences On Inundation And Morphological Changes Of A Semi-Connected Barrier Island During A Hurricane, Sydney D. Goodman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This research aims to identify flooding and erosion changes along a semi-connected barrier island system due to varying bay water levels during storm conditions. The numerical model XBeach is used to simulate Hurricane Michael conditions and the resulting inundation and morphological change near Tyndall Air Force Base (Tyndall AFB). The installation is located 12 miles southeast of Panama City Beach along the panhandle of Florida and is vulnerable to flooding due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), Saint Andrew Sound and Saint Andrew Bay. A land bridge connects the barrier island to the mainland of Tyndall AFB …

Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models Based Accelerated Mri, Alexander Francis Bugielski

Theses and Dissertations

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a cornerstone in obtaining intricate visualizations of anatomy and physiological processes within the human body. However, its extensive scan duration not only causes patient discomfort but also increases the likelihood of motion-induced artifacts in the images. To address such a challenge, this study investigates deep neural network models for reconstructing high-resolution MRI images from noisy and significantly undersampled data in a supervised learning manner. Specifically, it compares three models: a conventional U-Net, a self-attentive U-Net, and an innovative probabilistic diffusion model that builds upon the self-attentive U-Net architecture. These models are evaluated on their ability …

Evaluating Taxonomic Approaches: A Comparative Study Of Educational Frameworks Applied To Mathematics Assessments, Lily Roth

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The design of effective assessments and reporting of a student’s achievement on learning objectives are often overlooked, leaving educational stakeholders lacking the ability to create meaningful evaluations. To assist in creating substantial mathematics assessments this work seeks to answer the following research questions: ‘How can educational taxonomies be utilized to improve the design of mathematics assessments’? and ‘What are the strengths and weaknesses of applying different taxonomies onto mathematics assessments?’. The purpose of this study is to (1) develop a practical design instrument for easier identification and categorization of assessment questions within each educational taxonomy structure and (2) evaluate the …

Resource Scarcity Caused By Environmental Changes: Driving Factor In Terrorism Attacks In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Amaris Bustamante

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Climate change, resource scarcity, and terrorist attacks are ever-growing crises that disproportionately impact different states. They are crises that can impact the stability and resilience of humanity in the following decades if they are not addressed and mitigated. This study addresses the impact of resource scarcity caused by climate change that can then serve as a driving force in terrorist attacks in climate-sensitive and conflict-prone states. The objective of this mixed-methods study is to identify the correlation between climate changes that lead to resource scarcity such as rainfall and surface temperatures with terrorist attacks when taking into consideration other demographic, …

Assessing Urban Tree Coverage Along The U.S.-Mexico Border: A Gis Analysis Of Paso Del Norte, Melanie Escobar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In recent years, researchers have extensively studied the spatial distribution of social demographics and urban tree canopy (UTC) in urban cities, but very few, to this date, address U.S.-Mexico border cities. To date, there is no research that assesses the distribution of urban tree canopy (UTC) in the city of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, along the U.S.- Mexico border. Leveraging advanced mapping techniques and GIS tools, the study performs comparisons between countries (Juárez vs. El Paso urbanized areas and intra-country (within each country). It compares land cover classifications, assesses variations in UTC distribution across census tracts and …

Depositional Facies And Petrophysical Characterization Of The Leonardian Carbonate (Lower Clear Fork), Tex-Mex, S.E. Field, Central Basin Platform, West Texas, Seyram Nyamasekpor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Lower Clear Fork from Tex-Mex, S.E. Field on the Central Basin Platform is a typical complex reservoir that displays high heterogeneity in lithological and petrophysical properties. The unit represents a producing reservoir succession of Leonardian platform carbonates deposited in shallow marine water during the Early Permian. The sediment of the Lower Clear Fork is composed of a mixed succession of dolomite interbedded with anhydrite, minor clay minerals, and siliciclastics. The high heterolithic nature of the reservoir makes efficient recovery of hydrocarbons difficult. This situation requires an understanding of the variability in depositional facies in terms of mineralogy, depositional textures …

Evaluation Of The Extent Of Floods In 2022 In Different Land Cover And Land Use Classes In Sindh Province, Pakistan Using Sentinel-1 And Sentinel-2 Imageries, Alina Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Floods are one of the most frequent and most devastating natural disasters, which cause widespread destruction and pose significant risks to human life, infrastructure, and the environment. Advancement in remote sensing technologies and methodologies have demonstrated their efficacy in disaster-related applications, such as the detection, monitoring, and analysis of floods. This study explores the utilization of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical imagery for flood extent mapping and studying the extent of flood over various land cover and land use classes in Pakistan's Sindh province, utilizing the cloud computing power of Google Earth Engine. The change detection method identified extensive …

Grading Climate Action Plans In The Midwest, Megan Baker

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

As agreed upon by international climate scientists, decarbonization in the American Midwest is critical to keeping the planet below the 1.5C increase in global temperature from pre-industrial levels. However, most previous research that evaluates climate action plans (CAPs) to find their weaknesses and provide policy recommendations neglects this crucial region of the United States. To fill this gap, this paper replicates Deetjen et al.’s (2018) review of CAPs in 29 US cities by applying their CAP rubric to 11 Midwestern cities. The results of both quantitative analysis were used to analyze the differences in plans in the Midwest versus the …

An Intelligent Academic Advising System For Course Recommendation Using Large Language Models, Malika Maya Iratni

Theses

Academic advising is an important resource for students, especially in higher education, in order to guide them to make the best possible decisions to improve their overall academic performance and overall academic journey. With the increasing number of students joining these institutions each year, traditional advising becomes a time-consuming and inefficient process that can leave students discouraged, and advisors overwhelmed. Therefore, there is a need to develop intelligent advising systems that make use of the recent advancements in technology, to support the advising process, and increase overall student satisfaction. In this work, an academic advising model that uses Recommender Systems …

Biomass Estimation Of Mature Mangrove Trees In The Uae Using Spaceborne Remote Sensing Techniques, Yasmine Ashraf Heikal

Theses

Mangrove forest ecosystems play an essential role in diminishing the effects of climate change caused by the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Estimating mangrove forest aboveground biomass (AGB) and hence aboveground carbon (AGC) can assist in decision-making for conservation, sustainable use, and protection of these forests. The goal of this research project was to map the AGB of mangrove forests along the coasts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the aid of Landsat-8-9 satellite imagery data acquired in September 2023. 12 AGB estimation models were developed based on the combination of in situ measurements and Landsat-8-9 derived …

Impacts Of Lake Elevation Decline On Tui Chub, A Critical Forage Species For Lahontan Cutthroat Trout In Pyramid Lake, Nevada, Usa, Sarah Barnes

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Lake level decline affects lakes worldwide, changing the availability and character of nearshore habitat used by fish to spawn, and increasing total dissolved solids (TDS), similar to salinity, a factor that negatively impacts fish health. Lake level decline can affect different lakes in different ways, but typically when lake level declines significantly, there is less nearshore habitat overall, and what nearshore habitat remains has less diverse habitat for fish. We investigated whether both impacts of lake level decline may be causing declines of Tui Chub Siphateles bicolor, a large minnow native to Pyramid Lake that spawns in nearshore habitat. …

Deterministic Global 3d Fractal Cloud Model For Synthetic Scene Generation, Aaron M. Schinder, Shannon R. Young, Bryan J. Steward, Michael L. Dexter, Andrew Kondrath, Stephen Hinton, Ricardo Davila

Faculty Publications

This paper describes the creation of a fast, deterministic, 3D fractal cloud renderer for the AFIT Sensor and Scene Emulation Tool (ASSET). The renderer generates 3D clouds by ray marching through a volume and sampling the level-set of a fractal function. The fractal function is distorted by a displacement map, which is generated using horizontal wind data from a Global Forecast System (GFS) weather file. The vertical windspeed and relative humidity are used to mask the creation of clouds to match realistic large-scale weather patterns over the Earth. Small-scale detail is provided by the fractal functions which are tuned to …

Designed For Life: Unearthing Just And Sustainable Urban Design Through The Daylighting Of Phalen Creek, Corgan R. Archuleta

Geography Honors Projects

This thesis conceptualizes a relational approach to urban design. Often separated from justice, I argue urban design can shape spaces to enable respectful and reciprocal human and more-than- human relationships. Focusing on Phalen Creek in Saint Paul, Minnesota, I illuminate just and sustainable possibilities between ecologically sustainable and socially inclusive design. Phalen Creek was a natural waterway buried in a pipe during 20th century urbanization to be partially reconstructed through daylighting. The Indigenous and Immigrant stories driving restoration expand urban design’s liberatory potential. Combining just sustainabilities with infrastructure theory and Indigenous Knowledges, I contend urban design offers a relational approach …

A Cold Laboratory Hyperspectral Imaging System To Map Grain Size And Ice Layer Distributions In Firn Cores, Ian E. Mcdowell, Kaitlin M. Keegan, S. Mckenzie Skiles, Christopher P. Donahue, Erich C. Osterberg, Robert L. Hawley, Hans-Peter Marshall

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are covered in a layer of porous firn. Knowledge of firn structure improves our understanding of ice sheet mass balance, supra- and englacial hydrology, and ice core paleoclimate records. While macroscale firn properties, such as firn density, are relatively easy to measure in the field or lab, more intensive measurements of microstructural properties are necessary to reduce uncertainty in remote sensing observations of mass balance, model meltwater infiltration, and constrain ice age – gas age differences in ice cores. Additionally, as the duration and extent of surface melting increases, refreezing meltwater will greatly alter …

Spectral Properties Of Wetlands In Michigan Using Remote Sensing To Identify And Classify Wetlands In Roscommon County, Michigan, Kolin Williamson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Biological, geological, and physical. These are only a handful of the many environmental aspects that wetlands functions maintain and protect. Unfortunately, wetlands within the United States have been razed at an alarming rate. The State of Michigan has not gone through this unscathed either, loosing over 1000 acres of wetland a year. One of the most important tools to prevent this destruction are the maps and programs that show where these essential ecosystems are located. The current, federally-created maps and imaging software in use by environmental consultants and contractors may not be up to date which can pose challenges for …

Net Fluxes Of Broadband Shortwave And Photosynthetically Active Radiation Complement Ndvi And Near Infrared Reflectance Of Vegetation To Explain Gross Photosynthesis Variability Across Ecosystems And Climate, Kanishka Mallick, Joseph Verfaillie, Tianxin Wang, Ariane Arias Ortiz, Daphne Szutu, Koong Yi, Yanghui Kang, Robert Shortt, Tian Hu, Mauro Sulis, Zoltan Szantoi, Gilles Boulet, Joshua B. Fisher, Dennis Baldocchi

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

A significant challenge in global change research is understanding how vegetation interacts with the environment to influence ecosystem gross primary productivity (GPP) through carbon assimilation. One emerging objective is to consistently predict GPP fluctuations worldwide by establishing a robust scaling relationship between GPP measured at flux towers and satellite spectral reflectance data. However, a major hurdle in achieving this goal is the discrepancy in spatial resolution between early satellite measurements and eddy flux measurements. By using a large set of growing season data covering 100 site-years in North and Central America, we explored the potential of transforming incident and reflected …

A Climatology Of North American Monsoon Precipitation Over Arizona From Mrms Data, Greta Graeler, Mark Sinclair, Curtis N. James

Publications

The North American Monsoon (NAM) is a seasonal shift in pressure and wind which accounts for over half of the southwest’s annual precipitation. North-central Arizona has variable terrain which influences the location and intensity of convective storms. Severe weather such as strong winds, lightning, and hail can cause loss of life, property, and fires. High spatial and temporal resolution data along with reanalysis data is used to identify convective cells and their motion for the 2015 to 2022 NAM seasons. The heaviest precipitation in north-central Arizona is found over the Bradshaw Mountains and is most active in July and August. …

Amending The Native American Graves Protection And Repatriation Act: Human Rights, Sovereignty, And Cultural Sustainability, Maddie Mulcahey

Sustainability Research & Practice Seminar Presentations

Madeline Mulcahey, Anthropology '24 presents "Amending the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: Human Rights, Sovereignty, and Cultural Sustainability"

Kinematic And Dynamic Structure Of The 18 May 2020 Squall Line Over South Korea, Wishnu Agum Swastiko, Chia-Lun Tsai, Seung Hee Kim, Gyuwon Lee

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

The diagonal squall line that passed through the Korean Peninsula on the 18 May 2020 was examined using wind data retrieved from multiple Doppler radar synthesis focusing on its kinematic and dynamic aspects. The low-level jet, along with warm and moist air in the lower level, served as the primary source of moisture supply during the initiation and formation process. The presence of a cold pool accompanying the squall line played a role in retaining moisture at the surface. As the squall line approached the Korean Peninsula, the convective bands in the northern segment (NS) and southern segment (SS) of …

Strategic Pattern And Optimization Of China's Eco-Regions During Fifteenth Five-Year Plan Period, Kan Zhou, Jie Fan, Daojing Zhou, Zhedong Qian, Hu Yu, Hanchu Liu, Jian Zhang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Since the implementation of the major function oriented zoning, the ecological space of key ecological functional areas has continuously expanded, with a significant increase in vegetation coverage. Concurrently, there has been a dual change in population dynamics, characterized by a decrease in total population and an increase in the urban population. Furthermore, significant achievements have been made in economic and social development, and there has been a steady improvement in the functions of ecological security barriers, contributing to an alleviation of tension in human-environment relationships. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it is imperative to adhere to the functional orientation …

“Don’T Call On Me!”: Mediating Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Mathematics Anxiety In A Problem-Based Classroom, Christina Koehne, Wenyen Huang, Nataly Chesky

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

This study aims to understand the ways in which problem-based teaching in a mathematics content course can alleviate pre-service elementary school teachers' mathematics anxiety. The significance of this work is to help increase the content and pedagogical knowledge of mathematics education, as outlined in STEM policies. Using a mixed method approach, the teachers-researchers explore what methods, procedures, and other perhaps unknown variables, helped pre-service elementary teachers decrease their mathematics anxiety during two mathematics content courses. The findings illuminate five major themes the authors discuss, which are illustrated by rich descriptions of students’ narratives and interviews. Given the importance of mathematics …

Patterns, Drivers, And Implications Of Postfire Delayed Tree Mortality In Temperate Conifer Forests Of The Western United States, Sebastian Busby, Cody Evers, Andrés Holz

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Conifer forest resilience may be threatened by increasing wildfire activity and compound disturbances in western North America. Fire refugia enhance forest resilience, yet may decline over time due to delayed mortality—a process that remains poorly understood at landscape and regional scales. To address this uncertainty, we used high-resolution satellite imagery (5-m pixel) to map and quantify delayed mortality of conifer tree cover between 1 and 5 years postfire, across 30 large wildfires that burned within three montane ecoregions in the western United States. We used statistical models to explore the influence of burn severity, topography, soils, and climate moisture deficit …

Supply, Demand, And Fiscal Sustainability Of Outdoor Recreation In Utah, Jordan W. Smith, Chris Monz

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Because Utah's outdoor recreation destinations are managed by several different federal and state agencies, there is no comprehensive and consistent information on the amount and types of outdoor recreation resources available within the state. Additionally, there has been no research to date on how state programs whose revenues are dependent on outdoor recreation activity, are likely to fare in the coming years. This report begins to address these limitations by: 1) compiling and synthesizing data that characterize the amount and location of outdoor recreation resources throughout the state; and 2) presenting the results of a suite of econometric forecasting models …

Globe-Lfmc 2.0, An Enhanced And Updated Dataset For Live Fuel Moisture Content Research, Marta Yebra, Gianluca Scortechini, Karine Adeline, Nursema Aktepe, Turkia Almoustafa, Avi Bar-Massada, María Eugenia Beget, Matthias Boer, Ross Bradstock, Tegan Brown, Francesc Xavier Castro, Rui Chen, Emilio Chuvieco, Mark Danson, Cihan Ünal Değirmenci, Ruth Delgado-Dávila, Philip Dennison, Carlos Di Bella, Oriol Domenech, Jean-Baptiste Féret, Greg Forsyth, Eva Gabriel, Zisis Gagkas, Fatma Gharbi, Elena Granda, Anne Griebel, Binbin He, Matt Jolly, Ivan Kotzur, Tineke Kraaij, Agnes Kristina, Pınar Kütküt, Jean-Marc Limousin, M. Pilar Martín, Antonio T. Monteiro, Marco Morais, Bruno Moreira, Florent Mouillot, Samukelisiwe Msweli, Rachael H. Nolan, Grazia Pellizzaro, Yi Qi, Xingwen Quan, Victor Esco De Dios, Dar Roberts, Çağatay Tavşanoğlu, Andy F. S. Taylor, Jackson Taylor, İrem Tüfekcioğlu, Andrea Ventura, Nicolas Younes Cardenas

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Globe-LFMC 2.0, an updated version of Globe-LFMC, is a comprehensive dataset of over 280,000 Live Fuel Moisture Content (LFMC) measurements. These measurements were gathered through field campaigns conducted in 15 countries spanning 47 years. In contrast to its prior version, Globe-LFMC 2.0 incorporates over 120,000 additional data entries, introduces more than 800 new sampling sites, and comprises LFMC values obtained from samples collected until the calendar year 2023. Each entry within the dataset provides essential information, including date, geographical coordinates, plant species, functional type, and, where available, topographical details. Moreover, the dataset encompasses insights into the sampling and weighing procedures, …

Nowcasting Heavy Rainfall With Convolutional Long Short-Term Memory Networks: A Pixelwise Modeling Approach, Yi Victor Wang, Seung Hee Kim, Geunsu Lyu, Choeng-Lyong Lee, Soorok Ryu, Gyuwon Lee, Ki-Hong Min, Menas C. Kafatos

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

The recent decades have seen an increasing academic interest in leveraging machine learning approaches to nowcast, or forecast in a highly short-term manner, precipitation at a high resolution, given the limitations of the traditional numerical weather prediction models on this task. To capture the spatiotemporal associations of data on input variables, a deep learning (DL) architecture with the combination of a convolutional neural network and a recurrent neural network can be an ideal design for nowcasting rainfall. In this study, a long short-term memory (LSTM) modeling structure is proposed with convolutional operations on input variables. To resolve the issue of …

Climate Change And Voluntary Private Land Conservation: A Case Study Of Working Lands For Wildlife, Abigail Thompson

School of Professional Studies

This case study examines the role, impact, and future of voluntary private land conservation (VPLC) programs, with a particular focus on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) initiative. Climate change and population growth pose a significant threat to public land conservation, making alternative methods like WLFW increasingly important. WLFW is a relatively successful and well-received program, but it is still young and comparatively smaller than other VPLC programs operated by the government. Publications by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, WLFW partner organizations, and relevant scholarly articles were utilized in order to assess WLFW’s success independently and …

Analyzing Deaths From Extreme Weather Events And Their Relevance To The Life Insurance Industry, Erika Roof

Honors Projects in Biological and Biomedical Sciences

This study aims to discover the effect of extreme weather events on the life insurance industry. As climate change progresses and global temperatures increase, extreme weather events, which are separated into drought, freeze, severe storms, tropical cyclones, wildfires, and winter storms are expected to occur more often. Extreme weather events not only impact the local economies but increase local death rates as well. Using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NOAA NCEI), this study uses regression analysis to examine the correlation between extreme weather and mortality data. Time series regression analysis suggests that …