Digital Commons Network^™

Rva Parkland Acquisition & Maintenance Strategy, Natalie E. Somerville

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

Parks and green spaces offer myriad benefits to physical and mental well-being, environmental health, climate resilience, and community connection. Richmond, Virginia has added several new parks in recent years. However, there are still gaps between existing conditions and the City’s goal of having all residents live within a 10-minute walk of a quality park. The plan presents a land acquisition and maintenance strategy for future parkland expansion in the City of Richmond. Three questions guided the research: 1) which areas in Richmond are priority areas for creating new parks? 2) what processes should Richmond use to acquire land to expand …

State Climate Superfunds, Rachel Rothschild

Articles

The harmful effects of climate change have already arrived in cities and states across America, with disasters increasing markedly in recent years along with more gradual environmental changes like sea-level rise and drought. To protect populations and natural resources, significant funding will be necessary for preventative measures as well as disaster response.

At present, it is states and ordinary taxpayers who must shoulder the enormous costs and planning for climate adaptation. A number of state legislators, however, have recently proposed enacting new laws that would require the companies who have most profited from fossil fuel usage to assist in funding …

2026 Jan Term Course Catalog, Saint Mary's College Of California

Jan Term Course Catalog

No abstract provided.

Act Thompson Garden Project: Proposal And Accessibility Recommendations, Craig A. Condella, María Barragan, Olivia Costa, Kate Markowski, Sophiabella Nebroski

ENV 334 Environmental Justice

As a community oriented environmental justice project, the authors researched community gardens in school settings to make recommendations regarding the building of a community/school garden at Thompson Middle School in Newport, RI.

The Landless Rural Workers Movement (Mst) And New Agrarian Questions In Brazil, Estavan Coca, Gustavo Oliveira

Geography

The Landless Rural Workers Movement of Brazil (MST) primarily organized occupations of large-scale farms, forcing the redistribution of land for creation of agrarian reform settlements. In the past 20 years, however, land occupations and the establishment of new agrarian reform settlements have consistently declined, while the MST shifted strategies to strengthening existing agrarian reform settlements, increasing marketing mechanisms through government purchasing programs and direct rural–urban connections, cultivating new financial instruments, advancing agroecological transformations to strengthen production and contesting space in governance and discourse about sustainability, rural development and socio-ecological wellbeing. We argue this shift represents not an abandonment of the …

Who Bears The Cost? A Module For Researching The Intersection Of Technology, The Individual, And Climate Change, Jonathan Auyer

Climate Change and the Individual, 2025-26

Who Bears the Cost? A Module for Researching the Intersection of Technology, the Individual, and Climate Change is a multi-day writing and research module designed for first-year composition courses. Using the ongoing controversy surrounding the Science, Technology & Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP) in Genesee County, New York as a central case study, students investigate the ethical, environmental, and social dimensions of artificial intelligence and climate change. The module guides students from initial inquiry, exploring the philosophical question of whether technology is value-neutral or value-laden, through source research, collaborative discussion, and persuasive writing. Drawing on the rhetorical framework of They Say …

Black Carbon Exposure And Adult Mental Health And Cognitive Function: A Scoping Review, Zhihong Cai

Public Health Theses

Background: Black carbon (BC) is a particulate matter component that is closely linked to combustion and traffic sources, serving as both a short-lived climate pollutant and a potential risk factor for brain health. Despite a substantial burden of adult mental health disorders and cognitive decline, epidemiological evidence on BC exposure and brain health remains scattered.Objective: To systematically map study types, main findings, evidence gaps, and methodological limitations regarding BC exposure and its proxy indicators, such as PM₂.₅ absorbance and elemental carbon in relation to mental health and cognitive outcomes in adults. Methods: Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, I searched PubMed, Web of …

Water Resource Governance And Health Equity In Angola, Mads Harner

Public Health Theses

AbstractBackground: Angola is confronting a set of intertwined challenges including water insecurity, increasing climate variability, and deep structural inequality that together intensify the burden of waterborne and water-related diseases (Lombana Cordoba et al., 2021; World Health Organization, 2025). Roughly half of the population does not have reliable access to safe drinking water, and gaps in sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, especially in peri-urban and rural areas, facilitate the spread of illnesses such as cholera, diarrheal diseases, and malaria (UNICEF Angola, 2025; Moreira et al., 2012). These issues are further exacerbated by drought and broader climate variability, and underlying them are historical …

Implementing Climate Remedies, Camila Bustos

Vanderbilt Law Review

Climate change litigation has emerged as a powerful tool for addressing the climate crisis, particularly in the face of executive and legislative inaction. Across jurisdictions, courts have issued landmark decisions mandating stronger mitigation targets and recognizing rights-based claims against governments and corporations. While recent scholarship has examined the trends, legal theories, and broader effects of this relatively new phenomenon, it has primarily focused on bringing and winning legal challenges. Less attention has been paid to a crucial phase: the implementation and enforcement of judicial rulings. A deeper understanding of how climate remedies are implemented can provide valuable insights for climate …

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 …

3 Years Of School In 30 Hours, Nicholas Thanh Morrow Nguyen

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

The academic, professional, and personal development throughout the Master of Social Work program within the University of Montana demonstrates natural progression when getting a masters degree early in the years of professional development. The portfolio examines how coursework, field practicums, supervision, and critical self-reflection contributes to individual development as a social worker professional. Through these experiences, the portfolio demonstrates the development of knowledge and skills related to ethical practice, advocacy, assessment, intervention, evaluation, research, policy, and leadership. The different practicum experiences provided opportunities to apply concepts learned within the classroom to real-world situations while working with individuals with different needs …

Msw Portfolio, Marcus Chiaretto

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

The Golden Rule: An Msw Portfolio Narrative, Russell Jared Jacobs

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

The experiences and research behind Russell "Jared" Jacobs' MSW journey that showcases his abilities in the field of social work.

Distributional Reinforcement Theory, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As Donald Trump’s assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) reveals, the concept of racial equality is sufficiently malleable that what used to be viewed as remedies for discrimination against racial minorities can now be recharacterized as reverse discrimination against the White majority. Such recharacterization is possible because the concept of equality itself lacks any stable meaning that exists independent of one’s normative preferences about race. In a democracy, normative disputes are properly resolved through the political process, unless there is some representation reinforcement defect that makes judicial intervention necessary to ensure compliance with our second order constitutional equality principle. …

Un-Dam The Klamath: The River Flows Freely, Sasheen Raymond

IdeaFest 2026

A Panel Discussion and Q&A during Indigenous Peoples Week. In September 2002, over 34,000 fish died in the Klamath River due to algae blooms, devastating Tribal communities that rely on the river for culture and subsistence. After decades of Tribal-led advocacy, the river’s undamming marks a major victory for environmental justice and Indigenous sovereignty. As part of Indigenous Peoples Week, ITEPP and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will host “Un-dam the Klamath: The River Flows Freely,” a panel featuring Tribal leaders, attorneys, and advocates. Open to the campus and community, the event explored environmental justice, restoration, and Tribal …

Tourism And Local Access On The Public Beaches Of Paros, Greece, Maria Kouidi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines how tourism development affects public beach access on the island of Paros, Greece. In recent years, Paros has experienced significant tourism growth, which has contributed to economic development while also placing pressure on natural resources, infrastructure, and coastal spaces. Beaches are protected as public goods under the Greek constitution; however, there are concerns regarding commercialization, overcrowding, and the illegal privatization of these public spaces. This thesis uses a qualitative research approach to explore how these changes are experienced and understood by different stakeholder groups. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted in Paros in July 2025. Participants …

Ethnonationalism By Algorithm, Spencer A. Overton

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In the United States, artificial intelligence (“AI”) policy has become a critical arena for ethnonationalism—an ideology that defines national belonging through shared ancestry, culture, and language. Amid rapid demographic change and cultural anxiety, the second Trump Administration has harnessed federal AI governance to advance its broader agenda of dismantling diversity—most notably through Executive Order 14,179, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” and related legal directives. By eliminating safeguards against algorithmic bias and recasting equity as an ideological threat to innovation, the policies facilitate exclusion under the guise of neutrality. These moves are not merely deregulatory; they represent a …

Reversing Progress: The Political And Legal Ramifications Of The 2025 Dei Policy Rollback, Bridgette Baldwin

Faculty Scholarship

The year 2025 will mark a significant turning point in the landscape of American civil rights policy, as federal executive orders the Trump administration initiated seek to dismantle longstanding diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI") initiatives. Rooted in a historical context of civil rights progress, these orders aim to curtail affirmative action programs, eliminate DEI mandates within federal agencies and contractors, and challenge the legal foundations of inclusive policies across the country. This Article explores the evolving landscape of civil rights and DEI in the United States, examining its historical roots, recent legal and political developments, and ongoing challenges. From landmark …

Governing Agroecological Transitions: Landscape Legacies, Participation, And Socioecological Change In The Northeastern United States, Kristen Jovanelly

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Agroecological transitions are often presented as purposeful shifts toward more resilient, equitable, and ecologically sustainable landscapes. In practice, these transitions unfold through histories, ecological feedback, institutional arrangements, and contested forms of participation. This dissertation examines how these forces shape what agroecological transitions become, for whom, and with what socioecological consequences across urban and working landscapes in the northeastern United States.

Drawing on historical and critical analysis, ecological modeling, greenhouse experimentation, ethnographic fieldwork, and institutional analysis, I trace transition through urban forests, community-garden seed banks and soils, temperate agroforestry systems, and a participatory tree nursery. Analyses of urban greening and agroforestry …

Black Ecological Care: Conservation, Environmental Justice, And Sovereignty In Baltimore, Maryland, Alexandria Nicole Casteel

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Dominant traditions of urban planning, municipal policy, and environmental science register Black urban spaces through a vocabulary of pathology, as sites of ecological deficit, contamination, and social decay. This dissertation investigates how Black communities in U.S. cities attend to the environment in ways that address legacies of environmental and social injustice while opening pathways toward different environmental futures. I gather these practices under the analytic of Black ecological care, which captures the generative labor of making and maintaining livable worlds within, alongside, and beyond histories of harm. I develop the analytic across twenty-nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2021 and …

A Systems Analysis Of Long-Term Community Recovery Following The 2023 Lāhainā Wildfire: Understanding Recovery As A Complex Adaptive Social-Ecological System, Christy Shaver

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

No abstract provided.

Planetarity And Relation: Ecology As Method, Ashish Ghadiali

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The List of Works submitted comprises research through film, text, exhibition, performance and policy engagement, developed during a three-year period from 2021 to 2024 in the site-specific location of Southwest England. This multi-modal and interdisciplinary practice is framed in response to the question of how art and cultural strategy can, in the contexts of climate breakdown and global racial inequity, be conceived of as agency for environmental justice. In this integrative summary, I present a theoretical framework where ecology, in response to conditions of environmental crisis, is understood not only as a subject of inquiry but also as method. In …

“We Only Care For White Germs”: How Black Chicagoans Used Community Care To Overcome Medical Discrimination, Kylie Power

Research Honors

This project examines the use of Community Care as a means of healthcare within Black American populations, specifically in Chicago. Background information is provided on the evolution of Community Care, from slavery, to post-emancipation, to the early 20th century. Provident Hospital of Chicago in particular is examined during the early 20th century section, with a look at how the 1918 Spanish Influenza affected the Hospital, it's patrons, and Chicago. Important pieces of literature from the time period are combined with newspaper articles and other reports, as well as secondary literature, to construct this social history.

Essay – Rethinking The Fund Termination Sanction, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Data Sanctuaries: Rethinking Technological Progress To Preserve Federalism, Nathan S. Lee

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

Why are sanctuary states and cities in the present moment largely failing to protect immigrants and other vulnerable people from federal enforcement of an agenda based on mass deportation and fear? While federalism was painted during the Civil Rights Era as a weapon of states to protect policies of discrimination and segregation, federalism was also a powerful tool used by Northern States before the Civil War to resist Southern and federal laws enabling the dehumanizing capture and transport offugitive slaves (or suspected fugitive slaves). What has changed in the passing years to make federalism seem like such a thin concept, …

Annotated Legal Bibliography

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Coalition Building And Citizen Science For Radon Risk Reduction, Stacy Stanifer, Kathy Rademacher, Whitney Sedio, Naomi Cheek, David Gross, Caitlyn Curtis, Amanda Thaxton-Wiggins, Mary Kay Rayens, Ellen J. Hahn

Nursing Faculty Publications

We evaluated the implementation of local coalitions led in partnership with citizen scientists, community-based organizations, and public libraries in four rural communities to lower exposure to radon in the home. The objectives were to (1) describe the Reach-Effectiveness-Adoption-Implementation-Maintenance (RE-AIM) of four radon coalitions, and (2) compare RE-AIM factors among citizen scientists who participated in the coalitions and those who did not. A larger community-engaged research project embedded coalition building using a citizen science approach. Three of the four coalitions focused on health and wellness more broadly (18–34 members); one focused solely on radon (10 members). Coalition membership and activities varied …

Queering Poetry Workshops, Dobby Morse

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

To what extent do participants report that a poetry workshop builds connections between poets and strengthen their confidence in writing? What do participants want or expect from a poetry workshop?

Through this project I hope to attend and host poetry workshops with an emphasis on the queer community. I will collaborate with campus and community organizations like Queer Humboldt and other organizations that are interested in exploring queer experiences through writing, connection, and meditation. This project will serve as a how-to guide for those seeking to conduct their own workshops.

Clean Energy And Enclosure, Ann M. Eisenberg

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Renegotiating The Energy Transition, Hannah J. Wiseman, Jennifer Baka, Kaitlyn Spangler

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.