Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Analysis Of Spatio-Temporal Landscape Patterns For Protected Areas In Northern New England: 1099-2010, Spencer Meyer, Mary-Kate Beard-Tisdale, Christopher S. Cronan, Robert Lilieholm

Publications

Context: Landscape ecology theory provides insight about how large assemblages of protected areas (PAs) should be configured to protect biodiversity. We adapted these theories to evaluate whether the emergence of decentralized land protection in a largely private landscape followed the principles of reserve design. Objectives: Our objectives were to determine: (1) Are there distinct clusters of PAs in time and space? (2) Are PAs becoming more spatially clustered through time? and (3) Does the resulting PA portfolio have traits characteristic of ideal reserve design? Methods: We developed an historical dataset of the PAs enacted since 1900 in the northern New …

Environmental Monitoring Report For Volturnus Deployment In Castine, Me, Damian C. Brady, University Of Maine Advanced Structures And Composites Center

Maine Sea Grant Publications

On June 13th, 2013 the University of Maine’s VolturnUS 1:8 floating offshore wind turbine was energized and began delivering electricity through an undersea cable to the Central Maine Power electricity grid. Deployment continued until late November 2014. The following describes the results of extensive environmental monitoring at the Castine site. The primary observations of the site were derived from weekly visual surveys, bat echolocation detectors, underwater acoustic receivers, and web camera surveillance. The latter method consisted of observing the turbine and platform by web camera every 15-30 seconds throughout the deployment.

Evaluation Of A Waistband For Attaching External Radiotransmitters To Anurans, Luke Alexander Groff, Amber Pitt, Robert Baldwin, Aram J K Calhoun, Cynthia Loftin

Publications

Radiotelemetry provides fine-scale temporal and spatial information about an individual's movements and habitat use; however, its use for monitoring amphibians has been restricted by transmitter mass and lack of suitable attachment techniques. We describe a novel waistband for attaching external radiotransmitters to anurans and evaluate the percentages of resulting abrasions, lacerations, and shed transmitters. We used radiotelemetry to monitor movements and habitat use of wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus) in 2006 and 2011–2013 in Maine, USA; American toads (Anaxyrus americanus) in 2012 in North Carolina, USA; and, wood frogs, southern leopard frogs (L. sphenocephalus), and green frogs (L. clamitans) in 2012 …

Senator George J. Mitchell Lecture On Sustainability, Senator George J. Mitchell Center For Sustainability Solutions

Cultural Affairs Distinguished Lecture Series

On Thursday, October 15, 2015 the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions will host the 2015 Senator George J. Mitchell Lecture on Sustainability. This event is free and open to all. It will take place at 1pm at Wells Conference Center on the University of Maine campus. Roger A. Pielke, Jr., a key thought leader on effective roles for scientists in political debates and the formulation of public policy, will be the keynote speaker. Senator Mitchell will provide remarks.

The central mission of the Mitchell Center is to serve as a leader and valued partner in understanding and …

Strengthening The Role Of Universities In Addressing Sustainability Challenges: The Mitchell Center For Sustainability Solutions As An Institutional Experiment, David Hart, Kathleen P. Bell, Laura Lindenfeld, Shaleen Jain, Teresa Johnson, Darren Ranco, Brian Mcgill

Publications

As the magnitude, complexity, and urgency of many sustainability problems increase, there is a growing need for universities to contribute more effectively to problem solving. Drawing upon prior research on social-ecological systems, knowledge-action connections, and organizational innovation, we developed an integrated conceptual framework for strengthening the capacity of universities to help society understand and respond to a wide range of sustainability challenges. Based on experiences gained in creating the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions (Mitchell Center), we tested this framework by evaluating the experiences of interdisciplinary research teams involved in place-based, solutions-oriented research projects at the scale …

Understanding Social Resilience In The Maine Lobster Industry, Teresa R. Johnson, Anna M. Henry

Publications

The Maine lobster Homarus americanus fishery is considered one of the most successful fisheries in the world due in part to its unique comanagement system, the conservation ethic of the harvesters, and the ability of the industry to respond to crises and solve collective-action problems. However, recent threats raise the question whether the industry will be able to respond to future threats as successfully as it has to ones in the past or whether it is now less resilient and can no longer adequately respond to threats. Through ethnographic research and oral histories with fishermen, we examined the current level …

Maine Healthy Beaches 2014 Report To Us Epa, K. Kaczor, M. Sims

Maine Sea Grant Publications

There are more than 29 miles of public access beaches stretching along Maine’s coast. Maine Healthy Beaches (MHB) is managed by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and coordinated by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension (UMaine Extension). This team worked with 28 local management entities to conduct routine monitoring, assessment and public notification of water quality conditions for 60 beach management areas spanning Kittery to Mount Desert Island.

MHB is a voluntary program and monitoring coastal water quality for swimming and other water contact usage is the responsibility of local jurisdictions and is not mandated by state law. …

An Analysis Of The Maine Solid Waste Management Hierarchy And Recommendation For Future Implementation, Jaime Steven

Honors College

The current Solid Waste Management Hierarchy does not adequately deter land disposal of waste in Maine. In this paper, I analyze the Maine State Solid Waste Management Hierarchy as it reads in Title 38 M.R.S.A. § 2101, found in Appendix B. The purpose of this paper is to address the hierarchy’s issues, as well as to offer additions to the hierarchy that will help in its goal of reducing solid waste landfilled. In this paper I analyze the original intentions of the hierarchy when it was enacted, and addresses the faults within the hierarchy that do not aid these intentions …

A Community Guide To Starting & Running A Wood Bank, Sabrina Vivian, Jessica Leahy

Forest Resources Student Scholarship

Imagine your local food pantry. Replace the food with firewood and you have programs known as wood banks. Like a food pantry, wood banks are programs that aim to help community members with life essentials by supplying firewood at little to no cost to those in need that rely on firewood as a heating source. As straightforward and tangible as these centers sound, as of 2014 only about a dozen wood banks are clearly recognized across the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, with only a handful consistently active in Maine. There may be many more wood banks that …

Maine's Sustainability Science Initiative, Michael Eckardt, Vicki Nemeth, David Hart

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Goals: Maine's Sustainability Science Initiative (SSI) seeks to catalyze and expand the state's interdisciplinary research capacity for understanding the coupled dynamics of social-ecological systems (SES) and determining how such knowledge can best inform stakeholders and their decision-making processes. The core SSI objective is to create a new statewide Center for Sustainability Solutions (CSS) where place-based systems research, knowledge to action focus, and strong stakeholder partnerships will serve as a testbed for developing solutions to sustainable development challenges in and beyond Maine. The research focuses on three interacting drivers of landscape change (urbanization, forest ecosystem management, and climate change) that affect …

Promotingclimate Change Awareness And Adaptive Planning In Atlantic Fisheries Communities Using Dialogue-Based Participatory Vulnerability Analysis, Mapping, And Collaborative Systems Dynamic Modeling, Thomas Webler, Seth Tuler, Esperanza Stancioff, Elizabeth Fly

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The goals for the proposed project are twofold:

• First, the project will improve understandings of how a changing climate will affect fishing communities’ abilities to maintain marine fisheries and the local economies historically dependent upon them.

• Second, the project will investigate the role of a structured dialogue and participatory modeling process to support decision makers in fishing communities addressing consequences, vulnerabilities, and adaptive strategies in a context of climate stressors.

Understanding And Informing Permitting Decisions For Tidal Energy Development Using An Adaptive Management Framework, Teresa R. Johnson, Jessica Spelke Jansujwicz

Publications

Marine hydrokinetic (MHK) energy offers a promising new source of renewable ocean energy. However, the young industry is faced with significant challenges. Most notable is the challenge of regulatory uncertainty that is thought to hamper the successful deployment of new tidal energy technologies. Adaptive management may be one approach to deal with uncertainty and inform permitting decisions for hydrokinetic projects. In this study, we apply the concept of adaptive management to the Cobscook Bay Tidal Energy Project in Maine to better understand and inform permitting decisions. Using a social science approach of observation, interviews, and document analysis, we examine (1) …

Will Offshore Energy Face “Fair Winds And Following Seas”?: Understanding The Factors Influencing Offshore Wind Acceptance, Mario F. Teisl, Shannon K. Mccoy, Sarah J. Marrinan, Caroline L. Noblet, Teresa R. Johnson, Megan Wibberly, Sharon Klein

Publications

Most offshore energy studies have focused on measuring or explaining people’s perceptions of, and reactions to, specific installations. However, there are two different types of acceptance: one surrounds the siting of projects while the other surrounds a more general acceptance of offshore energy. Understanding what drives this second type of acceptance is important as governments have implemented new financial incentives and policies to support renewable energy development; however, citizens and government officials may be increasingly opposed to some of these support mechanisms. Our paper fills a void in the literature by using regression approaches to better understand how people’s evaluations …

A Multilevel Evolutionary Framework For Sustainability Analysis, Timothy M. Waring, Michelle Ann Kline, Jeremy Brooks, Sandra Goff, John Gowdy, Marco Jansen, Paul Smaldino, Jennifer Jacquet

Publications

Sustainability theory can help achieve desirable social-ecological states by generalizing lessons across contexts and improving the design of sustainability interventions. To accomplish these goals, we argue that theory in sustainability science must (1) explain the emergence and persistence of social-ecological states, (2) account for endogenous cultural change, (3) incorporate cooperation dynamics, and (4) address the complexities of multilevel social-ecological interactions. We suggest that cultural evolutionary theory broadly, and cultural multilevel selection in particular, can improve on these fronts. We outline a multilevel evolutionary framework for describing social-ecological change and detail how multilevel cooperative dynamics can determine outcomes in environmental dilemmas. …

How Changing Climate Created Mount Desert Island, Catherine Schmitt

Maine Sea Grant Publications

Acadia is a national park, the first place in eastern U.S. to receive such designation, because of its scenery. Diverse and exposed geology forms the foundation for Acadia’s beauty, but the landscape of today is the result of climate changes over millennia. Climate influences include a land surface worked by glaciers, and diverse flora and fauna as a result of the island’s position on the coast, within a transition zone between temperate ecosystems to the south and the boreal north.

Maine Healthy Beaches Program: Summary Report Of Enhanced Monitoring And Pollution Source Tracking Efforts In The New Salt Rd. Tributary, Goosefare Brook, Old Orchard Beach, Maine 2012-2014, M. Sims, K. Kaczor

Maine Sea Grant Publications

The Goosefare Brook forms the border between the towns of Saco to the south and Old Orchard Beach (OOB) to the north. Maine Healthy Beaches (MHB) has supported multi-year enhanced monitoring and pollution source tracking efforts, held Stakeholder Workshops, and more to address impaired water quality throughout the watershed. Over the past three years, MHB has focused primarily on OOB’s New Salt Rd. Tributary (NSRT). In 2014, 180 enterococci (ENT) samples at 17 sites and 149 optical brightener (OB) samples at 16 sites were analyzed. ENT values ranged from6,490 MPN/100mls with a combined geometric mean of 275 MPN for all …

Art As A Tool To Communicate Science, Jillian Pelto

Honors College

My thesis explores effective ways to communicate science through art. My main goal is to illustrate significant environmental issues in a way that engages people emotionally, as well as intellectually. Researchers need a means of sharing fascinating things to broaden people’s horizons on science. In order to gain inspiration and ideas, I have researched and discussed a wide range of artists, past and present. This exploration has fueled the content of the body of artwork I have developed throughout this project.