Digital Commons Network^™

Local Knowledge And Climate Information: The Role Of Trust And Risk In Agricultural Decisions About Drought, Adam J. Snitker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change is projected to dramatically impact agricultural production across the world. Agricultural producers must adapt to changing conditions by implementing practices and utilizing knowledge that creates resilient operations. This study explores how Montana farmers and ranchers use of different types of knowledge during periods of drought and how risk perceptions and trust influence the use of knowledge. To understand the role trust and risk in producers’ use of local knowledge and climate information, I conducted five focus groups with 34 Montana agricultural producers. Producers explained that they encounter many agriculture-related risks, including uncertain forecasts, financial losses, and adverse weather. …

Soil Moisture Drives Canopy Water Content Dynamics In The Western U.S., Drew S. Lyons

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Drought stress is a major contributing factor to adult tree mortality and limits regeneration across the globe. Drought effects are often studied on a site level, but recent advances in remote sensing allow for observations of plant water status across broader geographic scales. The vegetation optical depth (VOD) derived from satellite sensor microwave backscatter has been shown to be sensitive to canopy water content, and can therefore provide useful information on how plant water status changes over time. We develop an index which quantifies the normalized difference between diurnal VOD retrievals (nVOD) across the western U.S. to determine where plant …

Patterns Of Wildfire Risk In The United States From Systematic Operational Risk Assessments – How Risk Is Characterized By Land Managers, Erin Kathleen Noonan-Wright

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Since the turn of the 21st century, the complexity and costs of wildfires have increased substantially. There is a need to evaluate entrenched fire management practices that encourage status quo decision making to suppress fires. Data stored in mandated reporting systems collected during wildfires may provide a perspective on fire management decision-making needed to change wildfire governance structures. The Relative Risk Assessment (RRA) resides within a federally mandated workflow process necessary for all longer duration federal wildfires since 2010. Land managers rate hazard, probability and values at risk as high, moderate or low throughout the course of an incident to …

Estimates Of Forest Characteristics Derived From Remotely Sensed Imagery And Field Samples: Applicable Scales, Appropriate Study Design, And Relevance To Forest Management, John S. Hogland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Information and knowledge about a given forested landscape drives forest management decisions. Within forest management though, information that adequately describes various characteristics of the forested environment in the spatial detail desired to make fully informed management decisions is often limited. Key metrics such as species composition, tree basal area, and tree density are typically too expensive to collect using ground-based inventory methods alone across broad extents for forest level planning (thousands of ha) at fine spatial detail that permit use at tactical spatial scales (tens of ha). However, quantifying these metrics accurately, in spatial detail, across broad landscapes is important …

Jubah And Nashoba: An Artful History, Theodore Cecil Decelles

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This creative dissertation unites art and history by writing a play using extensive historical research. The main body of work focuses on events surrounding the Natchez Revolt of 1729. The Natchez nation and colonial Louisianans attempted to accommodate each other by reaching a middle ground. Nonetheless, incivility culminated in a massacre at Fort Rosalie. The Natchez experienced profound sociopolitical changes that resulted in a downgrade of female power. North American history asserts many female chiefs interacted with colonial male leaders. Even so, female chiefs have remained at the margins of history. This creative work focuses on the hidden history behind …

Remote Sensing Of Avalanche Paths In Glacier National Park, Montana, Morgan Voss

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Snow avalanches are the common form of mass wasting in the high mountain environments of Glacier National Park (GNP), Montana. These natural disturbances play important roles in mountain ecosystems by regularly disturbing montane systems, providing critical habitat for some species, transporting debris, and influencing vegetation and fire dynamics. Since the 1900s, natural avalanche-related activity recorded along important transportation corridors within the park has frequently disrupted transportation.

While many of the steep slopes of GNP are susceptible to avalanching, formal inventories exist only for small, critical portions of the park and they vary substantially from one another. GNP’s protected status does …

The Quest Of Vision: Visual Culture, Sacred Space, Ritual, And The Documentation Of Lived Experience Through Rock Imagery, Aaron Robert Atencio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This document will approach the multifaceted concepts that arise through the study of rock art and the cultivation of culture and belief through vision. Through this document the audience will encounter conceptual ideas regarding belief systems, ritual, experience, cognition, sacredness, and space/landscape — and how these are all essential dynamics that take place in the processes that cultivate the Shoshone visual culture. This document will employ an anthropological lens on the mentioned subject matters, while also approaching these concepts with an interdisciplinary curiosity of how they intermingle; creating a cohesive experience that focuses on these processes which empowered these people[s] …

The Missionary Enterprise, Racial Conflicts, And The Transformation Of American Evangelicalism, 1945-1980, Timothy Paul Ballard

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation examines the history of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to understand the creation of a color-conscious theological discourse about racial identity and racial pluralism that emerged among evangelicals in the mid-twentieth century. Although a colorblind articulation of racial identity had wide currency among white and black evangelicals as a way to counter segregationists’ claims of racial superiority, it had little effect in challenging the exercise of white hegemony even among those who advocated for racial equality. The limits of colorblindness came to light as black evangelicals forged new approaches to evangelization among African Americans and white evangelicals challenged the validity …

Mapping Ideologies: Place Names In Glacier National Park, Kaitlin E. Pipitone

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines the intersection of place names and language ideologies. In particular, I identify and analyze the emergent language ideologies in discussions about place names in six written sources related to Glacier National Park. I propose that the authors construct language ideologies about place names through the three semiotic processes identified by Irvine and Gal (2000): iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure. Further, I argue that language ideologies have historically authorized choices about place names on the basis of linguistic differentiation.

Examining six written sources, the publication of which span nearly a century, I identify several excerpts in which authors …

Perceptions Of Vulnerability To Flooding, Hurricanes, And Climate Change On Grand Isle, Louisiana’S Only Inhabited Barrier Island, Lauren Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study used in-depth interviews of permanent residents on Grand Isle, Louisiana, a remote barrier island, to better understand their perceptions of structural flood measures, non-structural responses to flooding and hurricanes, and perceptions of vulnerability to flooding, hurricanes, and climate change on a remote barrier island-Grand Isle, Louisiana. Residents' perceptions regarding the various structural measures implemented by the federal, state, and local government appeared mixed. Non-structural responses to flooding risks implemented at the household, community, state, and federal level continue to strengthen resiliency on Grand Isle. According to interviewees, aspects of environmental, rural, and economic vulnerability on Grand Isle impact …

Whitewater Ecotourism Development In Bhutan: Opportunities And Challenges For Local Communities, Kira E. Tenney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Whitewater raft and kayak ecotourism can provide environmental, social-cultural, and economic benefits and opportunities to local communities, but can also result in respective challenges. Globally, adventure ecotourism is seen as a potent win-win strategy for conservation and local community development; however, there is a significant proportion of adventure and whitewater tourism that do not meet ecotourism tenets, and there is a call for incorporating greater investment in local community involvement. Whitewater ecotourism is particularly significant because of the unique opportunities and challenges associated with rivers, the resource upon which the industry directly depends. Clean, free-flowing rivers provide a range of …

Understanding Tourism Within A Social-Ecological System: Ometepe Island, Nicaragua, Chelsea Leigh Leven

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Tourism endures as a major component of development strategies worldwide, despite a dearth of documented successes. Tourism failures arise in part from simplistic and reductionist approaches to sustainability and tourism. Successfully implementing tourism to support sustainable futures requires, at a minimum, a more holistic and complex conceptualization than tourism currently receives, including recognition of how human values shape a system. To achieve a more complex understanding of tourism, I analyzed tourism through a social-ecological system (SES) perspective using the paradigm of resilience thinking. Through a case study in Ometepe, Nicaragua, my research considered opportunities for tourism contributions to sustainable futures …

State Regulated Relationships: Mothers' Experiences Of Partner Incarceration, Hannah Brianne Fields

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The effects of incarceration on families have been studied in-depth, but little research evaluates the effects on women parenting children after the incarceration of their romantic partner. This research evaluates how mothers manage to keep their families intact throughout the duration of their partner’s incarceration. I approached this question using a geography theory of care developed by Sophie Bowlby and Linda McKie. This theory states that the quality of care is dependent on the space in which it is provided, the social expectations within the caring environment, and the amount of time required to provide or receive care. Using this …

Community-Centered Sustainable Conservation And Ecotourism Planning In The Bossou Forest Reserve, Guinea, West Africa, Destina Samani

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ecotourism management has evolved over the years towards responsible conservation of the natural environment, sustaining the well-being of local people, enriching personal experiences and increasing environmental awareness. The development of a forest reserve is characteristic of the management–visitor–host community interface and the attendant competing interests in the face of new challenges, ideas and theories. In particular, host community participation in the conservation of the forest space tends to breakdown under weak ecotourism management, partly evident by the imbalanced exploitation of ecosystem services resulting in wildlife and society’s inability to cope effectively with the changes (Walker et al., 2016).

The Bossou …

An Investigation Of Historic Euro-American Inscriptions At Madison Buffalo Jump, Jay Thomas Vest

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores the cultural significance and interpretive potential of historic inscriptions left behind by primarily Euro-Americans at Madison Buffalo Jump; a Native American bison jump situated in the Madison Valley of southwestern Montana. The inscriptions are analyzed through the lens of Cultural Landscape Theory and their typology, distribution, and content are examined in detail. By looking at these inscriptions in this manner, opportunities for ongoing research are highlighted, the future potential of these types of inscriptions to contribute to a new interpretive is examined, and the challenges of appropriate conservation strategies is considered. This thesis presents the argument that …

Why Does My Town Smell Like Nail Polish?: Using The Toxics Release Inventory To Investigate Industrial Chemical Pollutants In Elkhart County, Indiana, Magdalena Lehman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis investigates 2017 industrial chemical air pollution in Elkhart County, Indiana starting with data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators model (RSEI). TRI requires facilities across the United States to report release amounts for certain chemicals known to cause adverse human health impacts. A related database, the RSEI model adds context to release amounts by modeling for toxicity and exposure. The resulting RSEI score approximates relative risk among releases. In combination, these tools are intended to allow communities to identify risks and provide oversight of point-source industrial chemical pollution in their neighborhoods. …

Utilization Of Various Methods And A Landsat Ndvi/Google Earth Engine Product For Classifying Irrigated Land Cover, Andrew Nemecek

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Methods for classifying irrigated land cover are often complex and not quickly reproducible. Further, moderate resolution time-series datasets have been consistently utilized to produce irrigated land cover products over the past decade, and the body of irrigation classification literature contains no examples of subclassification of irrigated land cover by irrigation method. Creation of geospatial irrigated land cover products with higher resolution datasets could improve reliability, and subclassification of irrigation by method could provide better information for hydrologists and climatologists attempting to model the role of irrigation in the surface-ground water cycle and the water-energy balance. This study summarizes a simple, …

The Work Of The Living, D'Addario, Thomas J. D'Addario

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Development Along Rattlesnake Creek: An Assessment Of Stream Health, Channel Form, And Land Cover, Christopher D. Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using existing water quality data, historical aerial photographs, and recent orthoimagery, this research assessed how the environmental conditions of Rattlesnake Creek near Missoula, Montana have changed over nearly 90 years of human alteration of the Rattlesnake valley. To characterize stream health, the following indicators were investigated: fish genetic composition and species distribution, water temperature, streamflow, and nutrient levels. Five overlapping aerial photos from 1929 were georectified and compared to 2015 orthoimagery to assess changes in channel form (particularly channel straightening) and land cover across the Rattlesnake Creek valley bottom. Results indicate that trout species in Rattlesnake Creek have hybridized, in …

Understanding The Relationship Between Discursive Resources And Risk-Taking Behaviors In Outdoor Adventure Athletes, Mira Ione Cleveland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explores the various discursive resources influencing the identities of outdoor adventure athletes, specifically in regard to risk taking behaviors. The qualitative analysis reported here relied on participants’ accounts on how they understood themselves, specifically as outdoor adventure athletes. Interviewees had the opportunity to reflect on their identities when they were asked questions about their experiences in their sports. Discourse was the means to both develop and express understanding of their identities. Results indicate that personal relationships and mountain environments were perceived to have a major influence on both identity and risk taking. These influences emerged through the processes …

Tectonic Geomorphology Of The Ne Clark Canyon Reservoir Area, Beaverhead County, Montana, Ian Robinson Thomsen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Clark Canyon Reservoir occupies the northern Red Rock Valley in Beaverhead County, southwestern Montana. The region is a part of the northern Basin and Range province of western North America. It is characterized by a series of north-south trending extensional basins that have served as sediment traps since their formation. The Red Rock Valley is drained by the Red Rock River, which flows from Lower Red Rock Lake north to the Clark Canyon Reservoir at its confluence with the Beaverhead River. This river system has been active in the Red Rock Valley since the Miocene epoch.

This study characterizes …

Heritage Alchemy: A Model For Sustaining The Built Heritage Of Montana In The Changing Landscapes Of The 21st Century Via Perspectives From The Netherlands On Policy, Education, And Stewardship, Jeffrey Macdonald

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This Ph.D. dissertation presents sets of interrelated research problems, and challenges to sustaining the built heritage of Montana, in the context of the changing modern landscapes in the western United States. The research connects issues of heritage policy, education, and stewardship as common, and connected themes in historic preservation, historical archaeology, anthropology, and cultural landscape practices. The dissertation is comprised of three articles that are under review for publication, presenting perspectives and data assembled via empirical, and place-based field research, interviews, and interaction with heritage professionals, and site investigation conducted throughout the Netherlands between August 2013 and February 2017. These …

Decisions Leading To Inequalities In The Juvenile Justice System: Using Data To Predict Delinquent Outcomes, Inform Decisions, And Reduce Disparities For Justice-Involved Youth, Patrick David Mckay

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation focuses on how decisions are made in the juvenile justice system and what strategies can be used to make more informed decisions in the future, in three separate investigations. (1) To begin, eight years of initial detention decisions (N=26,128) were collected to determine what factors affect the arresting officers’ decision to detain youth at arrest. Findings reveal that the severity of current offense and prior offending history are the greatest predictors of initial detention. However, results demonstrate that race and the distance from a detention facility also influence these decisions. Non-white youth are more likely detained than their …

Blasting The Farm: Chemical High Explosives And The Rise Of Industrial Agriculture, 1867-1930, Patrick Benjamin Swart

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Adaptation To A Geothermal Soil Mosaic Shapes Genome-Wide Patterns Of Diversity And Differentiation In Yellowstone Monkeyflowers (M. Guttatus), Kory M. Kolis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Local adaptation across habitat mosaics can generate phenotypic divergence in the face of gene flow; however, adaptive divergence in reproductive traits may also create barriers to genetic exchange within and among distinct habitats. In plants, life-history, phenology, and mating system traits may lead to divergent selection over short (microgeographic) spatial scales. Changes to these traits are likely to directly affect patterns of gene flow and genomic diversity. In this study, we combined field, common garden, and population genomic approaches to investigate phenotypic and genetic variation in Mimulus guttatus (yellow monkeyflowers) adapted to a complex geothermal soil mosaic in Yellowstone National …

Adaptation Under The Canopy: Coffee Cooperative And Certification Contributions To Smallholder Livelihood Sustainability In Santa Lucía Teotepec, Oaxaca, Meghan C. Montgomery

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The collapse and reorganization of global coffee markets associated with the “coffee crisis” have had profound, negative impacts on smallholder producer livelihoods throughout the world. In Mexico, the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) coincided with withdrawal of government support for agriculture, which devastated producers dependent on coffee for their livelihoods. Smallholders responded by shifting livelihood strategies to diversify income, migrating, and converting primary forest cover to subsistence crops and pasture to support household livelihood security. In some instances, producers also joined or formed cooperative organizations to access specialty certifications that offer higher priced markets, extension information, and other …

Pragmatist Ecological Economics: Focusing On Human-Nature Relationships And Social-Ecological Systems, Christopher Aden Armatas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I propose pragmatist philosophy as a companion for ecological economics, a research tradition with a focus on addressing sustainability issues and integrating ecological principles, economics, and the broader social sciences. Ecological economics laudable goals include balancing competing values, tradeoffs, and insights for more equitable decision-making. However, the field is built upon somewhat tenuous philosophical and theoretical foundations, which has resulted in a muddled body of literature, concerns about relativistic science, and questions about the future viability of the field. To address such concerns, I propose and articulate pragmatist ecological economics. Generally, joining pragmatism and ecological economics provides established beliefs about: …

Development Of An Open-Source, Custom Environmental Data Logger For Spatially Scalable Data Collection, Tim Anderson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Characterizing the processes that lead to differences in ecosystem productivity and watershed hydrology across complex terrain remains a challenge. This difficulty can be partially attributed to the cost of installing networks of proprietary data loggers that monitor differences in the biophysical factors contributing to vegetation growth or hydrological processes. Studies that aim to compare concurrent time-series data sets across multiple locations must therefore balance the high cost of these data logger systems with the need for spatial resolution in their data. Here, we present the design, implementation, and case study for an open-source “Pinecone” data logger system, released under the …

Threats Of Economic Sanctions And The Duration Of Civil War, Jared August Halvorson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Economic sanctions have been criticized as a tool of political expediency. Detractors argue that international leaders use sanctions to give the appearance of action, rather than as a true agent for change. Previous studies largely confirm this characterization, showing that sanctions are not effective. However, previous studies have ignored a major component of the economic coercion process and powerful tactic of negotiation: the threat of sanctions. Using survival analysis and data on civil wars and sanctions from 1960-2005, I find evidence that import restrictions and asset freezes are valuable types of sanctions in shortening the duration of civil war, and …

Watered Down: The Challenges Of Managing Water Resources In Montana, Beau E. Baker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Like much of the American West, Montana sits in the cross hairs of climate change. State drought resiliency projects and cooperative watershed management are on the rise in the face of decreased snowpack, early runoff, precipitation variability and lower seasonal stream flows. Population growth, land use practices, recreation and tourism all contribute to pressures on state water supplies.

Montana is faced with the arrival of invasive species that threaten the ecological health of its lakes, rivers and streams. State budget constraints and depressed agency capacity are hurting our ability to fend off these threats. There’s a lack of public education …