Digital Commons Network^™

Conserving The Platte: A Documentary Short, Steven Speicher

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

With a history of litigation, deliberation, and conversation, the Platte River’s waters have been topic of much debate. In recent memory, historical decisions have been made regarding how to successfully manage this crucial water resource that sustains life in the Great Plains. The Platte River Recovery Implementation Program, a federally mandated tri-state conservation organization, began after years of consideration and an adamancy to avoid major litigation battle. Audubon Society has been a major player in conservation of habitats and protecting endangered species; Audubon Society’s Rowe Sanctuary, in specific, has worked in a variety of community- centered ways to conserve the …

At The Edge: University-Based Institutes And Their Communities, Ethan Seltzer

Institute of Metropolitan Studies Publications

Like other efforts at institutional restructuring or innovation, the full-flowering of the modern urban university is a work in progress. Whether we can identify a formula for success, or not, remains to be seen. Nonetheless, universities are moving ahead to design and implement a wide range of university-community linkages and, in the process, are generating new insights into the extent to which universities and communities can substantively join in common purpose. This paper reports on the experience at Portland State University with the creation and first six years of operation of the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies.

Negotiating Relationships And Intimacy: Bangladeshi Female Migrant Workers In Malaysia, K. Chakraborty

Research Publications (2011 to 2015)

This paper will review the context of female Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia. The paper begins by reviewing position of women in Bangladeshi society. This exploration points to the possibilities of a negative reputation when women do venture overseas to work. Then the paper investigates the historical background of Bangladeshi migration to Malaysia. This investigation shows that migration is a highly gendered discourse in both countries. Moreover post-modern policies in Bangladesh and Malaysia have problematized ‘women workers’ in many ways. The paper will then detail the methods used in this research and how they are culturally and gender sensitive to …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Conceptions Of Education For Sustainability, Neus (Snowy) Evans, Hilary Whitehouse, Ruth Hickey

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Environmental education researchers argue that pre-service teachers have a limited understanding of education for sustainability. The research described in this article applies a phenomenographic approach to investigating variations in how a representative cohort of 30 pre-service teachers, at various stages of completing an education degree at a small regional Australian university, understands the concept of education for sustainability. The results distinguish four related but distinctive categories of descriptions: (1) education that is continuous; (2) education about ecological systems and environmental systems; (3) education that is active, hands-on, local and relevant; and (4) education for the future. This paper discusses the …

The Classical World: Greece And Rome [7th-8th Grades], Kari Matthies

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This unit was written as an in-depth look at classical cultures and their far-reaching impacts. It will specifically consider the impact of classical culture on modern-day American society. The difference between written and unwritten history, along with variances between the two, will also be considered. Students will look at written history, and maps to understand the major political, philosophical, and cultural influences of Ancient Greece and Rome. They will discover the fundamental ideas and institutions of Western civilizations that originated in Greece and Rome with the purpose of understanding their own society better. The unit will culminate with a project …

Plate Tectonic: Plates And Their Consequences [8th Grade], Alexander Serna-Wallender

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

By the end of this unit students will able to identify the various layers of the earth and their characteristics. Students will be able to describe the relationship between the lithosphere and the mantle. Using their knowledge of this relationship, students will then be engaged in exploring how tectonic plates work and their interactions along plate boundaries. Students will also be able to predict the resulting geologic activity given a specific plate boundary type. Lastly, students will be able describe the formation and consequences of three common geologic events: earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building.

Encuentro Entre Culturas [9th-12th Grades], Jennifer Aranda, Juanita Castillo

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

In the teaching of the Spanish language, we know that it is not only assuring that students know the grammatical concepts and vocabulary, but also ensuring that the students understand the cultural references and connections. It is this way that students are able to fully involve themselves in the language and become life-long learners.

The Unit, “Encuentro entre culturas”, fuses the Spanish culture with the united states, depicting some of the beautiful architectural influences that have been fused to our own.

In this Unit, students will be able to describe how different cultures interact, and be able to understand cultural …

Take A Stand For Australia: Considering Australia’S Economic And Environmental Concerns Now And In The Future [9th Grade], Adele Barnett

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

While studying the region of Australia, students will study differing perspectives on its economic development and efforts to protect its environment. Students will adopt roles of different Australian citizens and conduct research in order to draw conclusions about how people as different as coal mine owners and marine biologists would feel about economic and environmental issues. After learning about these crucial contemporary issues and dilemmas that face the country, students will complete a performance task of writing a persuasive letter or speech advocating for a specific position of course of action that will promote the best possible future or Australia …

Texas Regions [4th Grade], Hannah Rinn

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This is a unit on Texas Regions written for fourth graders. The unit covers the four Texas regions. While learning about the Texas regions, students will gain an understanding that regions are formed based on common characteristics that influence the human environment. Students will also be required to look at how technology has impacted the land that we live on. This unit helps students to think critically about- what is a region and how it is “formed” and how technology has changed our land.

Persecutory Agency In The Racial Prerequisite Cases: Islam, Christianity, And Martyrdom In United States V. Cartozian, Douglas M. Coulson

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

This article examines the trial transcript and judicial opinion in the 1924 naturalization trial of Tatos Cartozian, whose naturalization was opposed by the United States Department of Labor based on the assertion that as an Armenian he was not “white” and was therefore racially ineligible for naturalization under a law that limited eligibility for naturalization to “white persons” and other racial groups until 1952. The article situates the case within its legal and historical context then examines the arguments advanced by the Armenian defense during the trial as reflected in the transcript preserved by the National Archives and Records Administration, …

Stratigraphy Of Quaternary Dunes By Sand Mineralogy And Pedogenic Features, Los Osos, California, Lyssa A. Cousineau

Master's Theses

The goal of this study was to assess mineralogy and pedogenic features of sand dunes in a stratigraphic sequence. The purpose was to determine whether these features significantly differ to reflect age differences with depth within the sequence. This study was conducted in Montaña de Oro State Park, located on the central Californian coast eighteen kilometers northwest of San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo County.

Samples were collected from the vertical exposure of one dune face by stratified random sampling at 1.0-m vertical intervals. Particle size distribution was determined through particle-size analysis by hydrometer and sieve. Electrical conductivity and …

Integration Of The Daycent Biogeochemical Model Within A Multi-Model Framework, Jared Abodeely, David Muth, Kenneth Mark Bryden

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agricultural residues are the largest near term source of cellulosic biomass for bioenergy production, but removing agricultural residues sustainably requires considering the critical roles that residues play in the agronomic system. Determination of sustainable removal rates for agricultural residues has received significant attention and integrated modeling strategies have been built to evaluate sustainable removal rates considering soil erosion and organic matter constraints. However, the current integrated model, comprised of the agronomic models WEPS, RUSLE2, and SCI, does not quantitatively assess the impacts of residue removal on soil organic carbon and long term crop yields. Furthermore, it does not evaluate the …

Modelling And Simulating Social Vulnerability Under The Influence Of Climate Change In The Cordillera Blanca (Peru), Thaís López-Inojosa, Martina Neuburger, Sebastian Medina-Plascencia

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The objective of this research is to develop and simulate a model of theecosocial concept of populations’ vulnerability under the impact of environmentalchange in the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca, through a social vulnerability indicator.Numerous studies provide evidence for the impact of climate change on nature,water scarcity, and social problems; people living near glaciers are particularlyaffected by these natural hazards. The Peruvian Cordillera Blanca, an area withone fourth of the world’s tropical glaciers and its population are highly at risk. Theapplications of fuzzy algorithms to research works in this area, and even more tosocial and ecological aspects, is a new approach to …

Agroecosystem-Watershed (Ages-W) Model Evaluation For Streamflow And Nitrogen/Sediment Dynamics On A Midwest Agricultural Watershed, James C. Ascough Ii, Olaf David, Douglas R. Smith, Holm Kipka, Manfred Fink, Timothy R. Green, Peter Krause, G. S. Mcmaster, Sven Kralisch, L.R. Ahuja

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

AgroEcoSystem-Watershed (AgES-W) is a modular, Java-based spatially distributed model which implements hydrologic/water quality simulation components under the Object Modeling System Version 3 (OMS3). The AgES-W model was previously evaluated for streamflow and recently has been enhanced with the addition of nitrogen (N) and sediment modeling components refactored from various agroecosystem models including J2K-S, SWAT, WEPP, and RZWQM2. The specific objective of this study was to evaluate the accuracy and applicability of the enhanced AgES-W model for uncalibrated estimation of streamflow and N/sediment loading. The Upper Cedar Creek Watershed (CCW) in northeastern Indiana, USA was selected for model application. AgES-W model …

Development Of An Activity-Based Cellular Automata Land-Use Model: The Case Of Flanders, Belgium, Tomas Crols, Roger White, Inge Uljee, Guy Engelen, Frank Canters, Lien Poelmans

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Cellular automata (CA) models are increasingly applied for simulating land-use change in urban areas. However, in areas with strongly mixed land uses, like Flanders, Belgium, different types and intensities of human activity occur within a single dominant land use. This is in conflict with the discrete and dominant land-use states applied in CA. The direct modelling of the intensity of activities (population density and employment in different sectors) within a CA grid environment is an interesting alternative to model mixed and multifunctional land use. In this research, an activity-based cellular automata (ACA) model, developed by White et al. [2012] will …

Methods For The Assessment Of Human Health Impacts From Air Pollution Based On Monitoring Data, Atmospheric Dispersion Model Results And Contextual Data In Scotland, S. Reis, S. Steinle, H. Cowie, F. Hurley

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

High ambient concentrations of air pollutants, such as particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5),nitrogen oxides (NOx) or ground-level ozone, occur in densely populated areas and thus have thepotential for serious adverse human health effects. While statutory requirements for air qualitymonitoring due to national or European legislation defines the need for the operation of monitoringstations in particular in the densely populated urban areas, the spatial distribution of those sites isoften not sufficient to adequately assess exposure to air pollutants for the whole population. Theassessment of exposure to one or several air pollutants in an integrated manner has been describedin Reis et al. (2005) …

Estimating Scale Effects Of Catchment Properties On Modeling Soil And Water Degradation In Benin (West Africa), A. Y. Bossa, B. Diekkrüger

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Distributed physically-based models require large amount of data,including detailed spatial information (e.g. geology, soil, vegetation). The relevanceof spatial information highly depends on the modeling scale and may control themodeling issue, mainly model parameters, which already depend on modelassumptions and target processes. In this study, scale dependent catchmentproperties were used to derive SWAT model parameters (for ungauged basins)using uncertainty thresholds and statistical approaches. Six individual sub-basinsof the Ouémé River (Benin) ranging from 586 to 10,072 km2 in size wereinvestigated, leading to the multi-scale modeling of discharge, sediment andnutrient dynamic. The Sequential Uncertainty Fitting approach was applied forcalibration and an uncertainty analysis. …

Approaching Uncertainties In Land-Use Change Modeling In The Amazon Rainforest With Bayesian Belief Networks, Carsten Krüger, Dennis Funke, Tobia Lakes

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In recent years, modeling techniques to study land-use change and to develop scenarios for highlighting possible future pathways of land-use change have been increasingly applied and studied. While modeling results always incorporate uncertainties in terms of input data, model parameters, model boundaries, and model structure, up to now, only few land-use change modeling approaches have explicitly focused on uncertainties using e.g. Monte-Carlo simulation or Fuzzy logic. Decision makers, however, are not only interested in understanding possible consequences, but also in evaluating the reliability of these. Since land-use change is spatially dependent on its neighborhood, we especially address uncertainties associated with …

Sustainable Settlement Growth By Modelbased Decision Support: Comparison Of Two Mca-Tools For Urban Regions, Sophie Schetke, Dagmar Haase

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Multi-criteria decision support systems (MCA-DSS) have been gaining enormous importance for land use planning and policy making. The number of MCA-DSS is large and their purposes, actors to be involved and spatial context for application are highly diverse. In Germany, the national research programme “REFINA” (Research for the Reduction of Land Consumption and for Sustainable Land Management) funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) produced a number of different DSS for different actors and purposes. But also at the cross-national level, large research initiatives such as European Union’s Sixth Framework programme for research, priority »Global change and …

Future Dynamics Of Irrigation Water Demand In The Farming Landscape Of The Venice Lagoon Watershed Under The Pressure Of Climate Change, Stefano Balbi, Sabindra Bhandari, Animesh Gain, Carlo Giupponi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Climate change impacts on the Venice Lagoon Watershed (VLW), an area of 2,038 km2 in the north-eastern part of Italy, are expected to be particularly relevant for agriculture, given that approximately two-thirds of the total area is devoted to field crops, horticulture and market gardens. Farmer’s irrigation behaviour plays a crucial role for the sustainability of crop productions and water consumption. In this study, an agent-based model is developed to explore how farmers’ decisions affect future water consumption in the VLW. The model is an “agentized version” of a soil water balance model based on the FAO-56 procedure. A climatic …

Towards Integrated Model Building With Semantically Annotated Components, Oliver Schmitz, D. Karssenberg, Jean-Luc De Kok

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated models are valuable tools for research and decision support as they allow a comprehensive analysis of environmental systems. Component–based software frameworks aid in their development by a more straightforward construction and coupling of generic components. Formal descriptions of model components and their relationships by means of ontologies ease the clarification of the embedded knowledge. However, existing approaches do not adequately cover the development and assessment phases of integrated models. Here, we define invariant characteristics of process–based spatio– temporal systems and introduce an ontology to semantically describe model components and their interactions. We address the role of the ontology during …

Visual Integration Of Diverse Environmental Data: A Case Study In Central Germany, C. Helbig, Karsten Rink, A. Marx, Joerg A. Priess, M. Frank, Olaf Kolditz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Land use and climate changes are some of the most important phenomena which will influence our life in the coming decades. To analyze these phenomena and the projections of their impact, diverse and dynamic data are collected and complex projects for observation and measurement are being developed (e.g. GLUES and TERENO projects). The goal is to find an appropriate way to visualize measured data in combination with simulation results. We propose to develop a generic methodology that can be used beyond the envisaged case study region ’Central Germany’ (Thuringia / Saxony / Saxony-Anhalt). The basis of the visualization consists of …

Which Household Tolerates Droughts? – Strategies To Secure Pastoral Livelihoods, Romina Drees, A. Linstadter, Karin Frank, Birgit Müller

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Increasing frequencies of droughts pose a threat to pastoral livelihoods in drylands. Using a rangeland model, we analyze the effects of droughts and mobility strategies on herd size dynamics. Since the herd provides the basic income for mobile pastoralists, we evaluate herd dynamics as income to estimate the risk of endangered livelihoods due to droughts. This methodology enables us to identify critical changes in natural resource use systems which are prone to shocks. Model results show that the socio-economic type of the household and therewith its adaptive capacity to be mobile rather than the obvious ecological effects of droughts determine …

Realizing Transition Pathways To Provide Required Ecosystem Services – An Inverse Approach, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, Ricardo Crespo

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this study we propose an inverse modeling approach to quantify required ecosystem services provision for reaching future planning goals. As a case study we investigate urbanization processes in two regions in Switzerland. We use a binary logistic econometric model to relate probabilities of urbanization to a set of land use determinants such as geographical factors, climate, agricultural subsidies, and ecosystem services. By the use of the inverse modeling we find the necessary trade-offs between ecosystem services in order to achieve a given probability of land use change from agricultural to settlement. From an urban planning perspective such given probability …

Transdisciplinary Research For Supporting Environmental Management, Meike Düspohl, Sina Frank, Tuck-Fatt Siew, Petra Döll

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Generation and integration of different forms of disciplinary knowledgeand knowledge outside of academia have become increasingly important in theeffort of tackling real-world problems that are related to complex and uncertainhuman-environment systems. In recent years, transdisciplinary research hasemerged as a collaborative and integrative approach for the co-generation ofsystem knowledge, target knowledge, and transformation knowledge amongscientists and stakeholders. In this paper, we present a methodology forparticipatory modelling processes that we apply in a transdisciplinary project forsustainable energy supply based on renewable energies in the county of Groß-Gerau in the German state of Hesse. The core of the transdisciplinary researchproject is a stakeholder …

The Application Of The Virtual Ecologist Approach To Evaluating The Effects Of Uncertainty In Plot Based Monitoring Schemes Due To Landscape Spatial And Temporal Heterogeneity, Alex Lechner, Daniel Clarke, Dion Weatherley, Andrew Fletcher, Peter Erskine, Alexis Comber

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Monitoring programs that can detect changes in ecosystem condition are critical to assessing the success of rehabilitation and detecting negative anthropogenic impacts from activities such as mining. However, vegetation communities vary considerably and may exhibit short-term condition changes that mask long-term trends. This paper describes the development of a virtual ecologist (VE) landscape and observation simulation model for time-series data (VELOS_t). VELOS_t can be used to quantify the relationship between vegetation temporal and spatial variability, measurement uncertainty and sampling design to evaluate the robustness of a particular monitoring strategy. The model has four components: i) a landscape model that uses …

Evaluation Of Different Sources Of Uncertainty In Climate Change Impact Research Using A Hydro-Climatic Model Ensemble, Markus Muerth, Blaise Gauvin St-Denis, Ralf Ludwig, Daniel Caya

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The international research project QBic3 (Quebec-Bavarian Collaboration on Climate Change) aims at investigating the potential impacts of climate change on the hydrology of regional scale catchments in Southern Quebec (Canada) and Bavaria (Germany). Yet, the actual change in river runoff characteristics during the next 70 years is highly uncertain due to a multitude of uncertainty sources. The so-called hydro-climatic ensemble that is constructed to describe the uncertainties of this complex model chain consists of four different global climate models, downscaled by three different regional climate models, an exchangeable bias correction algorithm, a separate method to scale RCM outputs to the …

Design And Implementation Of The Land Surface Model Naturalenvironment Within The Generic Framework Opendanubia For Integrative, Distributed Environmental Modelling, Daniel Waldmann, Markus Muerth, Wolfram Mauser

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The project GLOWA-Danube (http://www.glowa-danube.de) aimed atinvestigating the manifold consequences of Global Change on regional waterresources in the Upper Danube Basin. In order to achieve this task, aninterdisciplinary, university-based network of experts developed the integrativeDecision Support System OpenDanubia (OD). The common base for implementingand coupling the various scientific model components is a generic framework,which provides the coordination of the coupled models that run in parallelexchanging iteratively data via their interfaces. The OD framework takes care oftechnical aspects, such as ordered data exchange between sub-models, dataaggregation, data output, model parallelization and data distribution over thenetwork, which means that model developers do not …

Classification-Driven Air Pollution Mapping As For Environment And Health Analysis, S. Wiemann, S. Richter, P. Karrasch, J. Brauner, K. Pech, L. Bernard

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This article presents an air pollution modelling approach and its use in healthapplications within the EO2HEAVEN project. The model is based on a multidimensionalInverse DistanceWeighting and makes use of artificial distances between area attributes.The number and type of attributes used is fully customizable and can be adapted accordingto specific application fields and data preconditions. It is kept flexible and simple andthus, suitable to be used within a Spatial Data Infrastructure to provide access to realtimeair pollution information via the internet. In a prototypical implementation the modelis applied to estimate the concentration of particular matter and ozone in the FederalState of …

Assessing The Influence Of Long-Term Urban Growth Scenarios On Urban Climate, Rahim Aguejdad, Julia Hidalgo, Omar Doukari, Valéry Masson, Thomas Houet

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The objective of this paper is to assess the influence of future urbangrowth scenarios on future urban climate in Toulouse metropolitan area (France).Specifically, we aim to test the hypothesis that urban growth based on sprawlingpatterns has a greater influence on the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomena thancompact patterns. Three urban growth scenarios are built by 2100 followingdifferent urban patterns (edge growth, spontaneous growth and a hybrid of both).Those simulations are performed using a new spatially explicit urban growth model(SLEUTHR) which was specifically developed for that purpose. The impact of urbangrowth on the air temperature is estimated under the same climate …