Digital Commons Network^™

Complex Impacts Of Wars On Global Sustainable Development In A Metacoupled World, Qutu Jiang, Zhenci Xu, Yuanzheng Cui, Jianguo Liu

I-GUIDE Forum

Wars and armed conflicts have had profound impacts on local and global sustainable development in an interconnected world. However, evidence on the impacts of wars is fragmented and little attention has been paid to the impacts on the 17 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a unifying framework for achieving global sustainable development. This perspective synthesizes the scattered information to provide a holistic analysis and highlight the applications of remote sensing in assessing the impacts of wars on global sustainable development in a metacoupling world. Wars have complex impacts on all 17 SDGs, which cascade beyond conflict zones and spillover to …

Geospatial Data Integration Middleware For Exploratory Analytics Addressing Regional Natural Resource Grand Challenges In The Us Mountain West, Shannon Albeke, Nicholas Case, Samantha Ewers, Jeffrey Hamerlinck, William Kirkpatrick, Jerod Merkle, Luke Todd

I-GUIDE Forum

This paper describes CyberGIS-based research and development aimed at improving geospatial data integration and visual analytics to better understand the impact of regional climate change on water availability in the U.S. Rocky Mountains. Two Web computing applications are presented. DEVISE - Derived Environmental Variability Indices Spatial Extractor, streamlines utilization of environmental data for better-informed wildlife decisions by biologists and game managers. The WY-Adapt platform aims to enhance predictive understanding of climate change impacts on water availability through two modules: “Current Conditions” and “Future Scenarios”. It integrates high-resolution models of the biophysical environment and human interactions, providing a robust framework for …

Large-Scale Google Street View Images For Urban Change Detection, Fangzheng Lyu, Xinlin Ma, Yan Song, Eric Zhu, Shaowen Wang

I-GUIDE Forum

Urbanization has entered a new phase characterized by urban changes occurring at a micro-scale and “under the roof”, as opposed to external modifications. These changes, known as urban retrofitting, involve the incorporation of novel technologies or features into pre-existing systems to promote sustainability. Given the limitations of remote sensing images in identifying such urban changes, novel tools need to be developed for detecting urban retrofitting. In this study, we first build a pipeline to collect large-scale time-series urban street view images from Google Street View in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. And we examine the feasibility of utilizing the acquired dataset …

Cross-Scale Urban Land Cover Mapping: Empowering Classification Through Transfer Learning And Deep Learning Integration, Zhe Wang, Chao Fan, Xian Min, Shoukun Sun, Xiaogang Ma, Xiang Que

I-GUIDE Forum

Urban land cover mapping is essential for effective urban planning and resource management. Thanks to its ability to extract intricate features from urban datasets, deep learning has emerged as a powerful technique for urban classification. The U-net architecture has achieved state-of-the-art land cover classification performance, highlighting its potential for mapping urban trees at different spatial scales. However, deep learning approaches often require large, labeled datasets, which are challenging to acquire for specific urban contexts. Transfer learning addresses this limitation by leveraging pre-trained deep learning models on extensive datasets and adapting them to smaller urban datasets with limited labeled samples. Transfer …

Solving Geospatial Problems Under Extreme Time Constraints: A Call For Inclusive Geocomputational Education, Coline C. Dony

I-GUIDE Forum

To prepare our next generation to face geospatial problems that have extreme time constraints (e.g., disasters, climate change) we need to create educational pathways that help students develop their geocomputational thinking skills. First, educators are central in helping us create those pathways, therefore, we need to clearly convey to them why and in which contexts this thinking is necessary. For that purpose, a new definition for geocomputational thinking is suggested that makes it clear that this thinking is needed for geospatial problems that have extreme time constraints. Secondly, we can not further burden educators with more demands, rather we should …

Curriculum Design Of Artificial Intelligence And Sustainability In Secondary School, Jinyi Cai, Mei-Po Kwan, Chunyu Hou, Dong Liu, Yeung Yam

I-GUIDE Forum

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing numerous sectors with its transformative power, while at the same time, there is an increasing sense of urgency to address sustainability challenges. Despite the significance of both areas, secondary school curriculums still lack comprehensive integration of AI and sustainability education. This paper presents a curriculum designed to bridge this gap. The curriculum integrates progressive objectives, computational thinking competencies and system thinking components across five modules—awareness, knowledge, interaction, empowerment and ethics—to cater to varying learner levels. System thinking components help students understand sustainability in a holistic manner. Computational thinking competencies aim to cultivate computational thinkers to guide …

Reducing Uncertainty In Sea-Level Rise Prediction: A Spatial-Variability-Aware Approach, Subhankar Ghosh, Shuai An, Arun Sharma, Jayant Gupta, Shashi Shekhar, Aneesh Subramanian

I-GUIDE Forum

Given multi-model ensemble climate projections, the goal is to accurately and reliably predict future sea-level rise while lowering the uncertainty. This problem is important because sea-level rise affects millions of people in coastal communities and beyond due to climate change's impacts on polar ice sheets and the ocean. This problem is challenging due to spatial variability and unknowns such as possible tipping points (e.g., collapse of Greenland or West Antarctic ice-shelf), climate feedback loops (e.g., clouds, permafrost thawing), future policy decisions, and human actions. Most existing climate modeling approaches use the same set of weights globally, during either regression or …

How Sensitive Are Catchment Runoff Estimates To On-Farm Storages Under Current And Future Climates?, David E. Robertson, Hongxing Zheng, Jorge L. Pena-Arancibia, Francis H S Chiew, Santosh Aryal, Martino E. Malerba, Nicholas J. Wright

Climate Science Research Articles

Storage of water in farm dams is important to support irrigation, stock requirements and domestic uses when reticulated water is unavailable. Farm dams that fill by intercepting landscape runoff change the total volume and seasonality of catchment streamflow, potentially impacting water policy outcomes. While numerous studies have quantified how climate change and farm dams independently change streamflow characteristics, few studies have investigated their interactions. This study investigates the interactions between farm dams and climate change in the Murray-Darling Basin of southern and eastern Australia. We use hydrological modelling that explicitly represent farm dams and remotely sensed data describing historical farm …

Causes And Effects Of Shisper Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Event In Karakoram In 2022, Sandeep Kumar Mondal, Vatsal D. Patel, Rishikesh Bharti, Ramesh P. Singh

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Karakoram Himalayas are vulnerable to glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), which cause catastrophic floods in the surrounding areas. The increasing natural and anthropogenic activities, especially in the Indo-Gangetic Plains at the southern flank of the towering Himalayas, could be the cause of climate change affecting the frequency of the natural hazards in the Himalayas. In the present study, a detailed analysis of the Shisper Lake breach of 7 May 2022 is carried out using satellite remote sensing. A decreasing trend in the glacial mass balance is observed between 2017 and 2021; in this period, frequent GLOF episodes occurred. A pronounced …

The Great Displacement: Climate Change And The Next American Migration, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Weather/Natural Disasters

Bibliography and photographs of a display of government documents from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Friends In High Places: Establishing Pollination Networks For The Páramos Of Central Ecuador, Emma Diaz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Well-known for being a global biodiversity hotspot, the Andean Páramos hosts a unique array of floristic diversity seen nowhere else in the world (Luteyn, n.d.). With the resiliency of this ecosystem dependent on the successful reproduction of these plants, it is crucial to understand the pollination network which sustains them. Modern-day research has outlined networks in the Chilean, Venezuelan, and Argentinean Páramos, but one has yet to be defined for Ecuador, despite being the suspected home to nearly half of floristic diversity in the Páramos (Arroyo et al., 1985; Pelayo et al., 2021; Medan et al., 2023; Caranqui et al., …

Carbon Credibility: Strategic Opportunities For Asean Regional Industrial Policy In Voluntary Carbon Markets, Bryan Jed Soh

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Carbon offsets have come under increasing scrutiny due to uncertainties in real carbon abatement, transparency, and fears that it will exacerbate global inequality by allowing the global North to ‘pay to pollute’ through ethically questionable projects in the South. Following Article 2.1.C of the Paris Agreement, this paper argues that the global green transition requires private capital to be fully mobilized through voluntary carbon markets (VCMs). Given that ASEAN states face some of the world’s greatest climate risks while being a fast-growing region, this case study answers the question: how can states play a more proactive role in regulating VCMs …

George C. Caldwell (1834-1907): American Agricultural Chemist, Pat Munday

Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Articles

George Caldwell served as president of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 1892. Prior to this time, the ACS had been a rather parochial New York City based organization. In 1890, the constituency of the ACS expressed its desire to become a truly national body. Toward this end, it forged closer ties with the Chemical Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and merged with the Chemical Section in 1891. As Caldwell had been active with the AAAS group for several years previous to this merger, his election to the presidency of the ACS can be …

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, September - October 2023, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Page 1 Dean's Message
Page 2 New Faculty an Staff for the Fall 2023 Semester
Page 3 Awards
Page 4 Student Ambassadors in CNS
Page 5 Meet our Jacks
Page 6-8 Events
Page 9-11 Media Coverage of CNS
Page 12-13 Spring 2023 Dean's List
Page 14 Open PRAIRIE Data

Considering Equity In Infrastructure Planning Processes And Outcomes For Coastal Resilience, Wie Yusuf, Marina Saitgalina, Tom Allen, Nicole S. Hutton, Jennifer L. Whytlaw, Joshua Behr

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Northeast Safe And Thriving For All, Linda Shi, Vanessa Levesque

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Final Report to NOAA Climate Program Office Climate Adaptation Partnerships Planning Grant

Geographic Differences In The Magnitude Of Black-White Disparities In Having Obesity, Steven A. Cohen, Monique J. Brown, Furong Xu, Caitlin C. Nash, Mary L. Greaney

Faculty Publications

Background

Obesity disparities in the United States are well documented, but the limited body of research suggests that geographic factors may alter the magnitude of these disparities. A growing body of evidence has identified a “rural mortality penalty” where morbidity and mortality rates are higher in rural than urban areas, even after controlling for other factors. Black-White differences in health and mortality are more pronounced in rural areas than in urban areas.

Objective

Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore how rural-urban status and region moderate Black-White health disparities in obesity.

Methods

Data were abstracted from the 2012 …

The Carbon Footprint Of Tourist Transportation In Gettysburg National Military Park, Charlie T. Cross, Justin P. Sawina

Student Publications

National Parks have a contradictory mandate to preserve the environment while providing resources for recreation. We studied the emissions of Gettysburg National Military Park (GNMP), specifically: What are the annual and per capita emissions caused by the various forms of transportation within the park? How does the annual and per capita emissions of GNMP compare with other national parks? To study this we compiled visitor statistics from the National Parks Service of vehicle and visitor count. We then observed 165 vehicles at Pickett’s Charge to find a breakdown of tourist vehicle types. These proportions were then used to find the …

Clean Water Saves Lives: Improving Clean Water Access In Yeakpee Town, Liberia, Mishael F. Ohanwadi

Student Publications

Civil unrest in Liberia, a West Coast African nation, has caused the destruction of essential infrastructure, particularly water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) systems. As a result, there is a high reliance on unsafe water sources and prevalence of waterborne diseases and health issues, particularly in the Yeakpee Town Community. Inadequate funding has hindered progress, and there are connections between gender inequalities and limited access to clean water. The Clean Water Save Lives project, launched in 2020, aimed to provide sustainable access to clean water in Yeakpee Town community by constructing a water pump with a filtration system. The project aimed …

Examination And Application Of Body Condition Methods In Cetaceans, Kira Anne Telford

Theses and Dissertations

Body condition assessments are a valuable tool for evaluating the relative health of a population through various metrics, indexes, or proxies. Long-term data collection can be used to examine the relationship between fluctuations in body condition and natural or anthropogenic drivers. Application of this information is vital for monitoring the success of the conservation management decisions for a species or population. Cetaceans have a variety of methods available to assess body condition, including invasive methods like biopsies and necropsies or observational methods such as photogrammetry. Exploration of the application of these methods in the literature revealed an emphasis on necropsies …

Oscars Vs. Ozone: The Motion Picture Industry’S Impact On Climate Change And What They Are Doing About It, Alexis J. Simpson

Senior Theses

This thesis focuses on demonstrating that the motion picture industry, which includes film and television production (and thus will also be called ‘the film and television industry’), has notably contributed to the global effects of climate change. Such contributions can stem from the industry’s emissions and waste, with examples including travel for cast and crew, energy use for production equipment (some of which run on diesel), and disposable physical sets and costumes. The intention here is to give an accurate picture of current production practices and share examples of progress in the industry that are combating the negative impacts of …

Poor Water Quality Persists In Diverse Urban Communities, Rae Cade, Danlin Yu, Kyle Whyte, Pankaj Lal, Cortni Borgerson

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

While humans need water to survive, water can also efficiently transmit microbial diseases and heavy metals to consumers. Over 50,000 water violations occurred in 2020 and such burdens were not borne equally amongst consumers. Yet, the factors that drive such variation remain unclear. We examined the interactions between water quality and inherited equity gaps in one of the most diverse urban areas in the United States. We used publicly available drinking water datasets to determine which contaminant was most prevalent between 2010–2020 and who was significantly more likely to be affected by this contamination. We found that a lack of …

Intelligence Versus Inferno: How Artificial Intelligence Can Be Used To Monitor And Manage Wildfires In Europe, Maxwell Feldman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Escalating wildfire occurrences in Europe, particularly in the southern Mediterranean region, are presenting significant challenges to socioeconomic, environmental, and ecosystem services. The increasing frequency and severity of these wildfires are straining resources and emphasizing the need for a better understanding of the relationship between suppression capacity and fire behavior in wildfire management. The following research addresses the urgent need for more proactive, knowledge-based, and technologically driven fire management strategies, throughout all four stages of wildfire response – fuel and land management, fire preparedness, fire suppression, and post-fire management. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly significant in climate change adaptation, especially …

Surveillance Systems In Western Kenya: Methods, Perceptions, And Effectiveness, Marissa Duffy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Surveillance is an important tool in monitoring and evaluating infectious disease patterns and trends. Surveillance is vital because it aids public health officials and medical professionals in creating better prevention methods and efficiently managing outbreaks. Kenya is home to many noncommunicable diseases making it an important location to conduct disease surveillance. Within Kenya, each county has its own surveillance unit which tracks and controls outbreaks. In addition, government run surveillance systems were established to determine disease burden, incidence, and patterns in specific at-risk communities around Kenya. One of these major surveillance systems is Population-Based Infectious Disease Surveillance (PBIDS) which has …

A Reflection Of Change: Evolutions In International Water Law Principles Through The Lens Of Euphrates-Tigris Dispute, Maeve Sullivan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As climate change intensifies, water scarcity will increase. Coupled with a growing global population, water security is a major modern challenge. To bring stability to international watercourses, states must establish effective sharing agreements. On this matter, international water law can help. International water law captures some of the major principles and considerations that states must account for while considering issues related to water security. This paper uses primary interviews and secondary sources to identify some of the major characteristics, features, and developments in international law to develop a conceptual framework for the topic. It then moves into a case study …

Open-Cast Mining Deformations Monitoring Using Sentinel-1 Sar Data (Sbas Technique), Mahvash Naddaf Sangani, Seyed Reza Hosseinzadeh, José Francisco Martín Duque, Mahnaz Jahadi Toroghi, Kapil Kumar Malik

Journal of Sustainable Mining

Land surface deformation created by mining activities can have negative impacts on the environment. Measuring them can be a tool for managing the environmental impacts of mining. Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry is a remote sensing method for measuring deformations. The main aim of this research is to investigate the deformation phenomenon on a region scale and extend our understanding of it to all mining deformation areas across the country. This paper used Small Baseline Subset Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technology to obtain deformations information in the Sangan mine based on mining activities. We used 48 scenes of Single Look Complex(SLC) …

Edge-Computing-Driven Internet Of Things: A Survey, Linghe Kong, Jinlin Tan, Junqin Huang, Guihai Chen, Shuaitian Wang, Xi Jin, Peng Zeng, Muhammad Khan, Sajal K. Das

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Internet of Things (IoT) is impacting the world's connectivity landscape. More and more IoT devices are connected, bringing many benefits to our daily lives. However, the influx of IoT devices poses non-trivial challenges for the existing cloud-Based computing paradigm. in the cloud-Based architecture, a large amount of IoT data is transferred to the cloud for data management, analysis, and decision making. It could not only cause a heavy workload on the cloud but also result in unacceptable network latency, ultimately undermining the benefits of cloud-Based computing. to address these challenges, researchers are looking for new computing models for the …

Impact Of Perceived Environmental Restorativeness On Tourists’ Pro-Environmental Behavior: Examining The Mediation Of Place Attachment And The Moderation Of Ecocentrism, Bin Zhou, Luting Wang, Songshan Huang, Qihao Xiong

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Guided by attention restoration theory and stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory, we developed an integrated model to investigate the impact of perceived environmental restoration on forest park visitors' pro-environmental behavior through the mediation of place attachment. We further tested the moderating role of eco-centrism to provide theoretical and practical implications for the sustainability of tourism destinations and positive human-nature interactions. Using a sample of 504 visitors to a national forest park in China, our study indicated all three dimensions of environmental restorative perception (compatibility, extent, and away) positively influenced place attachment. Place attachment promoted pro-environmental behavior. Place attachment was an important mediator …

A Review Of The Geothermal System Evolution And Distribution In The Central Anatolian Crystalline Complex (Türkiye), Mehmet Furkan Şener, Muhammed Zeynel Öztürk, Alper Baba

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

Türkiye is located in the Mediterranean sector of the Alpine-Himalayan tectonic belt and is among the foremost seven countries in the world having an abundance of geothermal resources. The Central Anatolian Crystalline Complex (CACC) is one of the most important geothermal regions in Türkiye. This study aims to evaluate the geothermal system of CACC using the geological, structural, and hydrogeochemical properties that were obtained from previous studies. The present study investigated and evaluated the hydrogeochemical and isotopic properties of 762 water samples belonging to 45 different localities from 41 scientific studies. The result shows that CACC has different heat sources …

Dynamics Of A Giant Slow Landslide Complex Along The Coast Of The Aral Sea, Central Asia, Gökhan Aslan, Marcello De Michele, Daniel Raucoules, François Renard, John Dehls, Ivanna Penna, Reginald Hermanns, Zi̇yadi̇n Çakir

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

We report here a slow-moving landslide complex of the lateral spreading type revealed by Sentinel-1 interferometric timeseries analysis. Located along the western coast of the Aral Sea, with a >150-km length and 3-km width, a giant active landslide complex, slides with a constant velocity of up to 60 mm/year. Systematic subsidence up to 5 mm/year is also observed along narrow strips of terraces that appear to result from rotations of fault-bounded blocks. The landslide deformation velocity does not correlate with the annual variations of the water level in the southwestern lake of the Aral Sea during the observation period of …