Digital Commons Network^™

Reduced And Earlier Snowmelt Runoff Impacts Traditional Irrigation Systems, Yining Bai, Alexander Fernald, Vincent Tidwell, Thushara Gunda

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

Seasonal runoff from montane uplands is crucial for plant growth in agricultural communities of northern New Mexico. These communities typically employ traditional irrigation systems, called acequias, which rely mainly upon spring snowmelt runoff for irrigation. The trend of the past few decades is an increase in temperature, reduced snow pack, and earlier runoff from snowmelt across much of the western United States. In order to predict the potential impacts of changes in future climate a system dynamics model was constructed to simulate the surface water supplies in a montane upland watershed of a small irrigated community in northern New Mexico …

Integrating Agriculture And Ecosystems To Find Suitable Adaptations To Climate Change, Anastasia W. Thayer, Aurora M. Vargas, Adrian A. Castellanos, Charles W. Lafon, Bruce A. Mccarl, Daniel L. Roelke, Kirk O. Winemiller, Thomas E. Lacher

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

Climate change is altering agricultural production and ecosystems around the world. Future projections indicate that additional change is expected in the coming decades, forcing individuals and communities to respond and adapt. Current research efforts typically examine climate change effects and possible adaptations but fail to integrate agriculture and ecosystems. This failure to jointly consider these systems and associated externalities may underestimate climate change impacts or cause adaptation implementation surprises, such as causing adaptation status of some groups or ecosystems to be worsened. This work describes and motivates reasons why ecosystems and agriculture adaptation require an integrated analytical approach. Synthesis of …

Projected Impacts Of Climate Change On Risk Of Spring Frost And Fire Blight For Malus Domestica, Paul J. Racco

Theses and Dissertations

The impact of climate change is projected for apple phenology, frost attrition, and fire blight risk under the highest emissions scenario through the 21st century.

Wku Greeks Go Green: Mobilizing Community For A Cause, Claire Kaelin

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Sustainability, or meeting the needs of current generations without sacrificing the needs of future generations, has become an increasingly pressing issue as more and more people realize that humanity is living far beyond its means. Greeks Go Green was a new competition on campus seeking to address this issue, by harnessing the power of the Greek competitive spirit and pitting organizations against each other to have the most sustainable chapter. Its goal was to not only have a tangible impact as a community, but to also show members of the Greek community how easy it is to make a difference …

Understanding Global Change: From Documentation And Collaboration To Social Transformation, Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

The conclusion to the book situates the chapters within four programs of anthropological research on climate change: (1) documentation of local impacts of and adaptations to climate change, (2) connections to socioeconomic and political contexts, (3) collaborations with nonanthropologists, and (4) activism and social transformation. The final section notes the persistent challenges to creating positive change and meaningful research outcomes. It highlights some examples of success and outlines future directions for politically engaged anthropological work around climate change.

Estimating Yield Of Household Groundnut Fields In Rural Smallholder Farming Systems: Implication For Household Food Security, Daniel Kpienbaareh, Isaac Luginaah, Jinfei Wang

Africa Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Credit Access And Perceived Climate Change Resilience Of Smallholder Farmers In Semi-Arid Northern Ghana, Evans Batung

Africa Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Higher Temperatures Have Contrasting Effects On Different Components Of Forage Quality For Caribou In Northern Alaska, Heidi Becker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rising temperatures in the Arctic may affect vegetation, which in turn can affect herbivores, such as caribou, that rely on these plants for forage. Several plant traits contribute to forage quality, including digestibility, nitrogen content, and antiherbivory secondary compounds, but the effect of temperature on these traits individually and combined is unclear. I conducted a three-component study on the effect of higher temperatures on the forage quality of graminoids, deciduous shrubs, and evergreen dwarf shrubs on the North Slope of Alaska. The components included: 1) short and long-term experimental warming, 2) natural temperature variation between south and north-facing slopes, and …

Complicity And Climate Change, Shalomita Kristanugraha

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As individuals, how should we understand our personal complicity in climate change related harms? In this thesis, I argue that the predominant way we think of complicity within the Western moral paradigm—that is, as a distribution problem—is inadequate in helping us understand the nature of our complicity in climate change related harms. This inadequacy, in turn, psychologically hampers individual citizens residing in high-emitting nations of the Global North from effective and sustainable social and political engagement with climate change. To address the inadequacy and obstructions that result from it, I follow the discussion between Christopher Kutz and Iris Marion Young …

Towards A Resilient Future: Federal Policies For Adapting The U.S. Coasts To Climate Change, Samuel Horowitz

Pitzer Senior Theses

Climate change is projected to have a devastating impact on the American coast, yet coastal communities and states have largely failed to prepare for projected impacts. This is in large part due to a lack of resources. This thesis analyzes innovative federal policy mechanisms that will address the current gap between actions and forecasted impacts, and will make U.S. coastal communities more resilient in the face of climate change.

Federal Legislative And Administrative Framework, John C. Dernbach, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 will necessitate significant changes to most of America’s physical assets, from its power generation and transmission infrastructure to its buildings, vehicles, factories, forests and farms. These broad changes will need to address all four pillars of deep decarbonization – electricity decarbonization, energy efficiency and conservation, electrification of transportation and buildings, and carbon capture – supplemented by significant reductions in emissions of non-CO₂ pollutants. Such comprehensive change will necessitate the coordinated action of most of the departments of the Federal Government, from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE) to Department of …

Migration As Reparation: Climate Change And The Disruption Of Borders, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article examines the legal and moral basis for migration as a form of reparation for the harms inflicted on the states and peoples of the Global South through climate change and through centuries of predatory economic policies. Using Central American migration to the United States as a case study, the article explains that susceptibility to climate change is a function of two variables: exposure and social and economic vulnerability. High-emitting affluent states are disproportionately responsible for Central America’s exposure to climate change due to their historic and current greenhouse gas emissions, their unwillingness to curb these emissions, and their …

Accelerating Deep Decarbonization In The U.S. Transportation Sector, Daniel Sperling, Lewis Fulton, Vicki Arroyo

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The transportation sector includes light-duty vehicles, heavy-duty vehicles (trucks), off-road vehicles, buses, rail, shipping, and aviation. Reducing emissions in this sector is critical in order to achieve the pathways to zero carbon. Transportation emissions accounted for 37 percent of total CO₂ emissions from energy and industry in 2019. The principal strategy for decarbonizing transportation is electrification (including battery, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cells) of all light-duty vehicles, urban-based trucks and buses, rail, much of long-haul trucking, and some short-haul shipping and aviation. For long-haul aviation and long-haul ocean shipping, advanced low-carbon biofuels and synthetic liquids or gases produced with …

Bridging The Food Gap: Founding And Sustaining A Food Recovery Network Chapter At Wku, Elaine Losekamp

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Food waste is a pervasive global issue with many environmental and social repercussions. While about one-third of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste, many people in the United States and the world are affected by food insecurity. Food recovery, the process of rescuing edible food that would otherwise go to waste and delivering to hungry people, is an effective solution for both food waste and food insecurity. The author of this capstone created a food recovery program at Western Kentucky University (WKU) in January 2019 and has grown the program’s scope and impact since that time. This …

Reflections On Rural Resilience: As The Climate Changes, Will Rural Areas Become The Urban Backyard?, Elizabeth Andrews, Jesse Reiblich

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Article discusses the impacts of climate change on rural communities, including how they can exacerbate current economic and environmental challenges there, such as increasing absentee landownership and nonexistent or failing septic systems. It focuses on the accompanying policy challenges in addressing these issues with an emphasis on efforts to address the needs of socially vulnerable communities. Additionally, it proposes key policy recommendations, including funding, planning for sea level rise, public education and communication, and addressing rural needs in the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (“TMDL”) process.

Beneficial Precaution: A Proposed Approach To Uncertain Technological Dangers, Edward L. Rubin

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

As a result of the specialization and cumulation of knowledge in the era of High Modernity, research and development in most technical fields is largely incomprehensible to anyone outside that field. What should policy makers do when technical specialists disagree, and particularly when some predict an oncoming catastrophe and others dismiss the concern? This is the situation with the so-called Singularity, the point at which machines design, build, and operate other machines. Some experts in cybernetics and artificial intelligence argue that this is imminent, while others consign the possibility to science fiction. If the skeptics are right, nothing need be …

The Law And Science Of Climate Change Attribution, Michael Burger, Jessica A. Wentz, Radley Horton

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

There is overwhelming scientific agreement that human activities are changing the global climate system and these changes are already affecting human and natural systems. The observational record shows that the planet is getting significantly warmer, with eighteen of the nineteen warmest years on record occurring since 2001. Other observed changes include rising sea levels, ocean warming and acidification, melting sea ice, thawing permafrost, increases in the frequency and severity of extreme events, and a variety of impacts on people, communities, and ecosystems. There are multiple lines of evidence linking these changes to anthropogenic influence on climate.

Changing Seasons Of Resistance: Impacts Of Settler Colonialism And Climate Change In Indigenous Worlds, Elizabeth Jackson

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This paper looks at the relationship between neoliberal capitalism, genocide, the biopolitics of settler colonialism and the impacts of climate change on the cultures and traditional lifeways of Indigenous communities. It also explores Indigenous modes and methods of adaptation and resilience. Climate Change is almost certainly the most urgent social problem in the history of human life on planet Earth. Many Indigenous people are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to marginalization and their commitment to land-based practices. Using in depth interviews with Indigenous Peoples, primarily from the Pacific Northwest, and the analysis of existing literature, this …

An Evaluation Of Ground-Freezing Methods In The Zone Of Discontinuous Permafrost, Northwest Territories, Elzbieta Mastej Ms

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Northwestern Canada is one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth. The southern limit of the discontinuous permafrost zone is highly sensitive to small climatic fluctuations and presently experiencing a rapid landscape change due to accelerated permafrost thaw, which is further exacerbated by anthropogenic disturbances such as seismic exploration. Recent research has begun to examine both natural and mechanical approaches to minimize permafrost loss, although the utility of such methods in peatland environments is not well understood. This study explored the efficiency of natural and artificial ground cooling processes in a peatland environment by evaluating snow exclusion and thermosyphon …

Storm On The Horizon: Climate Change, Hurricanes, And The Future Of The Eastern Caribbean, Joseph P. Odegaard

Student Theses 2015-Present

Hurricanes are a fact of life in the Caribbean. This meteorological reality has shaped the islands’ development throughout its history. However, in recent years, the Atlantic’s most fearsome storms have been unprecedented, both in strength and number. This paper explores the relationship between climate change and hurricanes and the effect this relationship has on the Eastern Caribbean. Chapter 1 uses quantitative data from a variety of sources, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of the United Nations, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the National Climate Assessment of the United …

Preparing For Climate Change In New York City - Geographic Information Systems As A Valuable Tool For Natural Hazard Management, Amy Carrillo

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the impact of climate change in New York City. Chapter 1 focuses on details found in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report on the impact of climate change worldwide. At the city level, this paper analyzes New York City’s Risk Landscape: A Guide to Hazard Mitigation and New York City Panel on Climate Change 2019 Report, which provides data on how climate change will impact NYC, specifically. Chapter 2 explores the history of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and its use in mitigation and conservation practices over time. Chapter 3 studies how GIS has been …

Modeling Lake Temperature Response To Climate Change In The Alaskan Arctic, Thomas Balkcom

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis study focuses on simulating lake temperature and ice duration for four lakes at the Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research site, near the Toolik Field Station in Alaska. Model projections were driven by the representative global climate model outputs under different carbon emission scenarios. Results show that my simple lake model can reproduce historical lake temperature and ice duration observations, indicating the reliability of the model for future projections. Model projections show that JuneSeptember lake temperatures would increase by 4.3-5.8 °C from the historical period with most progressive carbon emission scenarios, but by 0.7-2.2 °C in the conservative scenarios. Results …

Vegetation, Rainfall, And Pulsing Hydrology In The Pantanal, The World's Largest Tropical Wetland, Sarah J. Ivory, Michael M. Mcglue, Stephanie Spera, Aguinaldo Silva, Ivan Bergier

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

Wetlands provide valuable ecosystem services and play a central role in global carbon cycling. Changes in rainfall and the flood-pulse are likely to disrupt the processes that maintain these landscapes; further, landscape modification may dramatically alter wetlands and promote terrestrialization. The Pantanal, South America, is the world's largest wetland due to flooding along the Upper Paraguay River. Predicting how water resources in the Pantanal may change is problematic due to a complex drainage network, resulting in the out-of-phase timing of rainfall and the flood pulse. We use remote sensing data of vegetation and climate to better understand the relationships among …

Disaster Effect Induced By Asian Water Tower Change And Mitigation Strategies, Cui Peng, Guo Xiaojun, Jiang Tianhai, Zhang Guotao, Jin Wen

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Tibetan Plateau, known as the "Asian Water Tower", has complex natural environment, significant climate differences, diverse landforms, developed glaciers, and strong crustal uplift and river undercut. It is highly prone to natural hazards, such as debris flow, flash flood, and glacial lakes outburst, which often happen suddenly, widely, causing serious damages and often with chained effects. They are mainly distributed along the fault zones and deep-incised valleys, and controlled by climatic and local hydrothermal conditions of horizontal and vertical zonality. Besides, the types of hazards, predisposing factors, and responses to climate change at different altitudes are different. Temperature and precipitation …

Climate Resilient Concrete Structures In Marine Environment Of Bangladesh, Sudarshan Srinivasan, Ian Gibb

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

Bangladesh has a vast coastal infrastructure seriously affected by climate change and associated extreme environmental conditions. The rural construction sector in Bangladesh will be undergoing rapid growth in the next 10 years through rural infrastructure development programmes funded by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. The Local Government Engineering Department (LGED in Bangladesh), owns the rural concrete infrastructure, maintains around 380, 000 linear metres of concrete bridges or culverts in the rural coastal areas and are planning to build more than 200,000 linear metres during the next ten years. In order to design and construct durable concrete structures …

Outcome Report On The Climate Crisis, Global Land Use And Human Rights Conference, Mateusz Kasprowicz, Sam Szoke-Burke, Kaitlin Y. Cordes

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

On September 27^th, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Landesa, the New York City Bar Association International Environmental Law Committee, and Wake Forest Law School hosted a day-long conference on the intersection between land use, the climate crisis and clean energy transition, and human rights.

Held at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, the conference brought together individuals from civil society organizations, governments, and academia, as well as lawyers, climate scientists, land-rights experts, indigenous representatives and other stakeholder groups. The panelists analyzed the critical role that land plays in …

Human Foraging Responses To Climate Change; Here Sorot Entapa Rockshelter On Kisar Island, Hendri A. F. Kaharudin, Mahirta Mahirta, Shimona Kealy, Stuart Hawkins, Clara Boulanger, Sue O’Connor

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This study explores prehistoric human subsistence adaptations within the context of changing marine and terrestrial environments on the tiny Island of Kisar, beginning during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition around 15,000 years ago (ka). We use zooarchaeological data on faunal remains (vertebrates and invertebrates) recovered from Here Sorot Entapa rockshelter (HSE) in temporal relationship to climate data from Flores to document prehistoric human responses to regional sea-level, temperature, and associated habitat changes that occurred after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Human settlement intensity peaked during the colder drier conditions of the Bølling-Allerød period at 14.4-13 ka, and the site was abandoned during …

Usable Science For Managing The Risks Of Sea-Level Rise, Robert E. Kopp, Elisabeth A. Gilmore, Christopher M. Little, Jorge Lorenzo-Trueba, Victoria C. Ramenzoni, William V. Sweet

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Sea-level rise sits at the frontier of usable climate climate change research, because it involves natural and human systems with long lags, irreversible losses, and deep uncertainty. For example, many of the measures to adapt to sea-level rise involve infrastructure and land-use decisions, which can have multigenerational lifetimes and will further influence responses in both natural and human systems. Thus, sea-level science has increasingly grappled with the implications of (1) deep uncertainty in future climate system projections, particularly of human emissions and ice sheet dynamics; (2) the overlay of slow trends and high-frequency variability (e.g., tides and storms) that give …

Response Of Water Resources To Future Climate Change In A High-Latitude River Basin, Peng Qi, Guangxin Zhang, Yi Jun Xu, Zhikun Xia, Ming Wang

Faculty Publications

Global water resources are affected by climate change as never before. However, it is still unclear how water resources in high latitudes respond to climate change. In this study, the water resource data for 2021-2050 in the Naoli River Basin, a high-latitude basin in China, are calculated by using the SWAT-Modflow Model and future climate scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The results show a decreasing trend. When compared to the present, future streamflow is predicted to decrease by 2.73 × 108 m3 in 2021-2035 and by 1.51 × 108 m3 in 2036-2050 in the RCP4.5 scenario, and by 8.16 × 108 …

Climate And Plant Trait Strategies Determine Tree Carbon Allocation To Leaves And Mediate Future Forest Productivity, Anna T. Trugman, Leander D.L. Anderegg, Brett T. Wolfe, Benjamin Birami, Nadine K. Ruehr, Matteo Detto, Megan K. Bartlett, William R.L. Anderegg

Faculty Publications

Forest leaf area has enormous leverage on the carbon cycle because it mediates both forest productivity and resilience to climate extremes. Despite widespread evidence that trees are capable of adjusting to changes in environment across both space and time through modifying carbon allocation to leaves, many vegetation models use fixed carbon allocation schemes independent of environment, which introduces large uncertainties into predictions of future forest responses to atmospheric CO2 fertilization and anthropogenic climate change. Here, we develop an optimization-based model, whereby tree carbon allocation to leaves is an emergent property of environment and plant hydraulic traits. Using a combination of …