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Challenges And Best Practices For The Development Of Coastal Hazard Decision Support Tools, Noah Hallisey

Open Access Dissertations

There is growing interest in developing Decision Support Tools (DSTs) supporting emergency managers and other decision-makers during coastal storm events. Yet many tools fail to inform decision-making due to challenges associated with their development and transition into operational tools for real-time decision-making. This dissertation investigates these challenges and offers best practices for their development and implementation for real-world decision-making through a literature review, interviews with subject matter experts in the United States, and a real-world case study.

Manuscript 1 reviews existing published literature to understand whether and how tool developers are incorporating emergency managers in the development of DSTs and …

Assessing Fisheries Dependence Of Coastal Communities In Managed Mangrove Forests In Latin America, Ariel Alexander Quintanilla Magana

Open Access Dissertations

Fisheries dependency refers to the action of a person, community, or society linking their social, cultural, and economic actions to different ecosystem services (ES) for covering their food system with essential marine species, developing a governance system to conserve these fishing areas, their local ecological knowledge, and guaranteeing food security in the coastal areas. In Latin America, most fishing activities are practiced within three nautical miles of the shoreline, estuaries, lagoons, and mangrove forest channels, using small vessels and traditional gear such as hooks, trammel nets, and gill nets. Some coastal communities have developed their subsistence and livelihood activities in …

Volatiles In Mantle Sources At Mid-Ocean Ridge And Intraplate Settings, Rebecca Lippitt

Open Access Dissertations

Volatiles play an integral role in upper mantle processes and the eruptive styles of volcanoes. Although we know the importance of volatiles to volcanic systems, processes like melting, crystallization, and degassing alter the volatile abundances of mantle melts, making it difficult to quantify mantle source compositions and the extent to which volatiles influence melting processes. Additionally, volatile content may be a key factor in setting the oxidation conditions of mantle source rocks and subsequently changing those conditions in a body of magma as it ascends through the crust and is erupted at the Earth’s surface. Recent work, however, has identified …

Information Asymmetry: A Configurational Perspective In Buyer-Supplier Relationships, Soode Vaezinejad

Open Access Dissertations

Information asymmetry in buyer-supplier relationships has been linked to several influencing factors. However, these factors are often examined in isolation, limiting understanding of their synergistic effects. Grounded in agency theory, signaling theory, and transaction cost economics, this study adopts a configurational perspective to examine which combinations of factors lead to high information asymmetry. Using a three-part study design, we first conduct a systematic literature review to identify relevant factors, which are then refined and prioritized through a Delphi study. Building on this foundation, fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) is applied to survey data from 385 buyer managers to uncover equifinal …

Guacamole And Beyond: Reflections On Cooking 19th Century Avocado Recipes, Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

The Archives and Special Collections Library at the University of Texas at San Antonio holds more than 3000 historical Mexican cookbooks, providing a rich resource for understanding Mexican foodways. I selected 20 recipes from the collection, dating from 1808 to 1930, that include avocado leaves or fruit as an ingredient. Over several months, I adapted the handwritten recipes for a 21st-century kitchen and cooked the historic dishes using traditional ingredients and culinary tools. This paper will report the lessons learned from the cooking process, the use of avocado as an ingredient in different forms, and insights into the recipe creators …

Vol. 29, No. 1: Masthead

Water Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 29, No. 1: Editor's Note, Nikki Hernandez

Water Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 29, No. 1: Full Issue

Water Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Old Flows With The New: Interstate Compacts As A Modern Mechanism For Water Governance On The Colorado River, Zachary Alberts

Water Law Review

When first researched in the summer of 2024, this article sought to examine the theoretical inability of Colorado River Basin States to negotiate a new water deal in the wake of the Federal Government’s proposed intervention in 2023. Since pre-publication, a new administration has taken aggressive hold of federal agencies, the Basin States have still not reached an agreement to divide Colorado River water, and as 2025 draws to a close, the state of Colorado is possibly facing its driest winter in history. This article seeks to do one thing: reintroduce interstate compacting as a tool to reduce friction in …

Dammed Water Markets: How Western Water Transfer Markets May Be Inhibiting An Efficient Allocation Of Water, Robert Putka

Water Law Review

Water transfer markets, in theory, provide a pareto-optimal solution to increasing water scarcity. The experience of municipal water purchasers, however, does not appear to square with theory. Indeed, municipal purchasers facing water supply shortfalls often pay comparatively exorbitant premiums for marginal units of water; this evidenced prices-paid differential is likely imputable to allocative inefficiency in water transfer markets—i.e., prices paid by municipal water purchasers are distorted above the marginal cost of supplying the water. Broadly, the hypothesized allocative inefficiency is a market failure in-and-of-itself, calling into question normative arguments that water transfer markets provide for an ideal mode of resource …

Open To The Public: Legal Protections For Public Access To Shifting Ocean And Great Lakes Shorelines, Emma Ehrlich, Cora Sutherland, Melissa Scanlan

Water Law Review

Shorelines and beaches are shifting and eroding as climate change causes ocean levels to rise and the Great Lakes to alternate between more erratic high and low water levels. Two common responses to shifting shorelines and erosion are hard shoreline armoring and beach nourishment. However, these responses raise concerns regarding access to public trust resources. Shoreline armoring can restrict public access to the oceans and Great Lakes, as well as diminish their sandy beaches. Government-funded beach nourishment projects may also take place near private homes, resulting in questions as to who is benefiting from these publicly funded projects.

This Article …

Georgia, Rose Mccormick

Water Law Review

H.B. 143, 2025 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2025)

New Mexico, Andrew Laughlin

Water Law Review

S.B. 21, 57th Leg., 1st Sess. (N.M. 2025)

Oregon, Katelyn Banks, Allison Medulan

Water Law Review

H.B. 3372, 83d Legis. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Or. 2025)H.B. 3342, 83d Leg. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Or. 2025)

U.S. Supreme Court, Eli Miller

Water Law Review

City and Cnty. of S.F. v. EPA, 145 S. Ct. 704 (2025) (Barrett, J., dissenting)

United States Court Of Appeals For The Tenth Circuit, Weston Rasmussen

Water Law Review

Clark v. Haaland, No. 22-2141, 2024 WL 4763759 (10th Cir. 2024)

District Court Of Colorado, Emily Funk

Water Law Review

Save the Colorado v. Semonite, No. 18-cv-03258-CMA, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 102344 (D. Colo. May 29, 2025)

Colorado, Eli Miller, Elizabeth Witting, Lexi Lecroy

Water Law Review

Franktown Citizens Coal. II, Inc. v. Indep. Water and Sanitation Dist., 567 P.3d 121 (Colo. 2025)Town of Firestone v. BCL Colorado LP (In re Water Rts. Of Town of Firestone), 569 P.3d 89 (Colo. 2025)Baker v. Safadi-Chamberlain, 575 P.3d 458 (Colo. App. 2025)

Robert Macfarlane, Is A River Alive?

Water Law Review

No abstract provided.

Founder Ceo Leadership And Financial Resilience In U.S. Critical Infrastructure Firms: Evidence On Solvency, Stability And Bankruptcy Risk, Md Asif Ul Alam, Md Maruf Ul Alam, Toufiq Nazrul

Business Administration

This study investigates the role of founder CEO leadership in enhancing corporate financial resilience and its broader implications for economic stability in the United States, focusing on utility firms as a critical component of national infrastructure. The financial health of these firms is closely tied to the reliability of essential services, infrastructure continuity, and U.S. economic security, as emphasized by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Drawing on agency theory, stewardship theory, and founder imprinting theory, the study argues that founder CEOs, due to their long-term orientation, concentrated ownership, and strong organizational commitment, are more …

Audit Guides And The Administrative State, Joshua D. Blank, Leigh Osofsky

Faculty Publications

Scholars are engaged in deep debate about the transformative power of recent Supreme Court cases that appear to limit the role of agencies in making rules of law. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court overruled a longstanding doctrine of judicial deference to agency rules and prescribed more boundaries around the scope of such rules. Scholars have debated to what extent these changes will usher in new forms of judicial review that will transfer power from agencies to the courts.

This Article argues that this debate misses important elements of where agency …

Financial Statecraft, Graham S. Steele

Faculty Publications

The purse is mightier than the sword. In recent decades—from the Cold War to the War on Drugs to the War on Terror to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—financial institutions have increasingly become the conduits for the United States government’s foreign policy. This Article argues there are deep and under-appreciated connections between the use of money and credit to influence geopolitics, which this Article terms “financial statecraft,” and the goals of financial regulation.

This Article begins by establishing a framework for understanding the partnership between banks and the government in service of financial statecraft. Next, this Article engages in a critical …

A Preliminary Investigation Of Research Collaboration Through Scientific Paper Co-Authorship In The Gulf Of Mexico, Juliet Vallejo, Evelyn Roozee, Dongkyu Kim, Andrew M. Song, Christopher A. Gabler, Jasper R. De Vries, Antonia Sohns, Gordon M. Hickey, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

It is well known that publications with collaborators from external institutions increase citations. This effect scales with spatial distance. There are also many barriers to long-distance collaborations, including linguistic differences, funding constraints, and the incremental costs of remote collaboration. This paper uses the Gulf of Mexico as a case study to examine long-distance research collaboration because it consists of three countries with diverse development levels and two prominent diplomatic languages, within a singular regional ecosystem of tremendous natural and economic value. This paper uses bibliometric network analysis to examine scientific research article co-authorship in the Gulf of Mexico from 2000 …

Using Low-Cost Sensors For Source Attribution And Health Assessment: An Air Quality Study In Brownsville, Texas, Sai Deepak Pinakana, Kabir Bahadur Shah, Daniel Jaffe, Juan L. Gonzalez, Owen Temby, Gabriel Ibarra-Mejia, Amit U. Raysoni

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Air quality monitoring remains a challenge in areas lacking or having sparse federal monitoring infrastructure, posing significant barriers to public health research. This study demonstrates the usage of low-cost sensors in addressing gaps in air quality monitoring, source attribution, and health risk assessment in a Brownsville, TX neighborhood impacted by emissions from a barite and celestite mineral processing unit. PM2.5 concentrations were measured using PurpleAir sensors deployed across three residential locations, with the site nearest to the processing unit recording a 24-h averaged PM2.5 concentration of 25.12 μg/m3—approximately 2.79 times higher than the nearest Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) …

Academic Outcomes Of Associate Degree Transfer Students From Selected Two-Year Campuses To A Public Urban Research University In The Northeast U.S: An Empirical Analysis Using Administrative Unit Record Data, Michelle Bianchi

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This study examined academic outcomes for associate degree transfer students at an urban, public research university in the Northeast United States. In particular, this study examined differences in rates of retention, rates of graduation, and cumulative upper-division grade point average (GPA) at graduation between associate degree transfers and direct-entry undergraduates at the same institution, taking into account the two-year college attended. This approach provides a lens into campus effects, considering the profiles of associate degree transfers from identified two-year colleges to search for similarities and differences in academic outcomes for transfers by two-year college attended.

The study relied on student-level …

Analysis Of The Thermodynamic Variables Associated With Hawaiian Extreme Precipitation Using The Fraction Of Attributable Risk (Far), Matthew J. Sinnenberg

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The Hawaiian Islands experience extreme maxima in precipitation that vary spatially, by season, and in response to different teleconnection patterns. Due to the islands’ unique geography, they are not well-resolved by global climate models, necessitating a focused assessment to identify  climatological trends. In this study, a probability-based analysis was conducted on regionally averaged thermodynamic variables relevant to the formation of extreme events. The primary objective was to evaluate whether changes in the occurrence of extreme conditions have occurred and to understand how the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences these occurrence rates.

Hourly data from ERA5 spanning 1980-2019 were resampled to …

Light And Fire: Kerosene And The Rise And Fall Of Standard Oil, 1859-1911, Minseok Jang

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This dissertation revisits the rise and fall of Standard Oil between 1859 and 1911 through the lens of petroleum’s materiality and the fire hazards it posed. Moving beyond traditional narratives that focus on the company’s corporate strategy, this study argues that the volatility of petroleum and the global consumer experience of its environmental risks were central to shaping the company’s trajectory. The research highlights how Standard Oil struggled to control the flammable nature of kerosene—the primary petroleum product used for illumination at the time—before aligning with Great Britain’s advanced inspection technologies and regulatory frameworks. This transimperial cooperation enabled Standard Oil …

Understanding The Syphilis Resurgence Among Females Of Childbearing Age: Informing Prevention Efforts In New York State, Salvatore Currenti

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Syphilis is caused by Treponema pallidum and transmitted through direct contact with infected mucosal lesions and via vertical transmission during pregnancy (i.e., congenital). Transmission of syphilis to an infant during pregnancy (i.e., congenital syphilis [CS]) can lead to early fetal death, stillbirth, neonatal death, preterm birth, low birthweight, and congenital infection in infants. The United States (U.S.) is experiencing epidemic increases in both females of reproductive age with syphilis and infants with CS. In New York State (NYS), these trends have also occurred, especially after COVID-19 emergence, and increases in reported cases and incidence rates are comparable to national statistics. …

Investigating A Mindfulness Curriculum And Prompting For Generalization On Overall Engagement Time, Caitlyn Ruggiero

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Mindfulness is a practice that has existed for centuries (Felver et al., 2022) and has been adapted to address various aspects of human life. Among the various uses of mindfulness practices, they have been adapted for use in school settings to support the use of adaptive learning behaviors in the classroom. For the target behavior to change in the natural setting, the student receiving intervention must be able to generalize the learned mindfulness skills to the classroom. The current study aimed to determine whether participation in the Soles of the Feet mindfulness intervention increased students’ overall engagement time (OET) in …

A Cross-Species Meta-Analysis Of Environmental Enrichment Effects On Cognition, Greg S. Fitzgerald

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Environmental enrichment --providing animals or people with stimulating, complex surroundings --consistently improves cognitive performance in laboratory rodents. But when similar interventions are tested in humans, the benefits are much smaller. Understanding why matters: if researchers overestimate how well rodent findings will translate, it can mislead expectations for human cognitive interventions.

This dissertation presents the first cross-species meta-analysis comparing environmental enrichment effects on cognition between rodent and human studies. Drawing on 121 studies (71 rodent, 50 human) contributing 478 effect sizes, the analysis used multilevel models with variance correction to account for the statistical dependence created when studies report multiple outcomes. …