Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Socio-Hydrology: An Interplay Of Design And Self-Organization In A Multilevel World, Vicken Hillis

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

The emerging field of socio-hydrology is a special case of social-ecological systems research that focuses on coupled human-water systems, exploring how the hydrologic cycle and human cultural traits coevolve and how such coevolutions lead to phenomena of relevance to water security and sustainability. As such, most problems tackled by socio-hydrology involve some aspects of engineering design, such as large-scale water infrastructure, and self-organization in a broad context, such as cultural change at the population level and the hydrologic shift at the river basin or aquifer level. However, within the field of socio-hydrology, it has been difficult to find general theories …

The Year The West Was Burning: How The 2020 Wildfire Season Got So Extreme, Mojtaba Sadegh, Ata Akbari Asanjan, Mohammad Reza Alizadeh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

More than 4 million acres of California went up in flames in 2020 – about 4% of the state’s land area and more than double its previous wildfire record. Five of the state’s six largest fires on record were burning this year.

In Colorado, the Pine Gulch fire broke the record for that state’s largest wildfire, only to be surpassed by two larger blazes, the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires.

Oregon saw one of the most destructive fire seasons in its recorded history, with more than 4,000 homes destroyed.

What caused the 2020 fire season to become so extreme?

Snow Depth Distribution Patterns And Consistency From Airborne Lidar Time Series, Megan A. Mason

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Snow provides fresh meltwater to over a billion people worldwide. Snow dominated watersheds drive western US water supply and are increasingly important as demand depletes reservoir and groundwater recharge capabilities. This motivates our inter- and intra-annual investigation of snow distribution patterns, leveraging the most comprehensive airborne lidar survey (ALS) dataset for snow. Validation results for ALS from both the NASA SnowEx 2017 campaign in Grand Mesa, Colorado and the time series dataset from the Tuolumne River Basin in the Sierra Nevada, in California, are presented. We then assess the consistency in the snow depth patterns for the entire basin (at …

Applications Of Continuous Snowpack Temperature Monitoring, Peter J. Youngblood

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Predicting metamorphism within seasonal snowpacks is critical for avalanche forecasting and runoff timing as it relates to water supply management. Snowpack temperature gradients play a key role in snow metamorphism, and their magnitude controls how snow strength changes; therefore, they are of interest to avalanche forecasters. Before major melt, the snowpack must warm to isothermal conditions at 0°C. Measuring this transition from warming to the ripening phase could help improve our current models for runoff timing. Measuring snowpack temperature gradients is currently a non-automated process that requires disturbance of the snow profile, and only gives a snapshot in time of …

Can Increased Training And Awareness Take Forest Research To New Heights?, David L. Anderson, Sarah Schulwitz, Matthew May, Gregory Hill, Will Koomjian, Christopher J. W. Mcclure

University Author Recognition Bibliography: 2020

Forest canopies contribute significantly to global forest biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, yet are declining and understudied. One reason for a knowledge gap is that accessing forest canopies can be difficult and dangerous. Thus, lack of relevant canopy access skills may compromise knowledge gain and personal safety. We assessed skill levels in canopy access methods and self-perception of skills amongst ecologists worldwide via a web-based survey, available in four languages. We obtained responses from expert arborists as a control group. From 191 respondents who said canopy access is relevant to their research (of 1,070 total responses), we found that ecologists are …

Does Updating Natural Hazard Maps To Reflect Best Practices Increase Viewer Comprehension Of Risk?, Carson C. Macpherson-Krutsky, Brittany D. Brand, Michael K. Lindell

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this study, we examine whether updating an interactive hazard map using recommendations from the literature improves user map comprehension. Analyses of experimental data collected from 75 university students revealed that map comprehension scores were not significantly better for those who viewed a “best practices” map compared to those who viewed an existing version. This may be because the existing map was itself better than most other interactive maps. Additionally, we found map comprehension levels to have significant positive relationships with objective tests, but not self-reported measures of spatial ability. Moreover, self-reported spatial ability had statistically significant, but only moderately …

Coronavirus Closures Could Lead To A Radical Revolution In Conservation, James Stinson, Elizabeth (Libby) Lunstrum

University Author Recognition Bibliography: 2020

In the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, social media was flooded with reports of animals reclaiming abandoned environments. According to one widely shared post, dolphins had returned to the canals of Venice.

While many of those stories have since been debunked, conservationists are providing legitimate reports of cleaner air and water, and wildlife reclaiming contested habitats.

With widespread closures of parks and conservation areas around the world, could this be an opportunity to transform the way we manage and use these protected environments?

Integrating National Ecological Observatory Network (Neon) Airborne Remote Sensing And In-Situ Data For Optimal Tree Species Classification, Victoria M. Scholl, Megan E. Cattau, Maxwell B. Joseph, Jennifer K. Balch

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

Accurately mapping tree species composition and diversity is a critical step towards spatially explicit and species-specific ecological understanding. The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a valuable source of open ecological data across the United States. Freely available NEON data include in-situ measurements of individual trees, including stem locations, species, and crown diameter, along with the NEON Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) airborne remote sensing imagery, including hyperspectral, multispectral, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data products. An important aspect of predicting species using remote sensing data is creating high-quality training sets for optimal classification purposes. Ultimately, manually creating training data …

Identifying Emergent Agent Types And Effective Practices For Portability, Scalability, And Intercomparison In Water Resource Agent-Based Models, Kendra E. Kaiser, Alejandro N. Flores, Vicken Hillis

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Modeling coupled social and biophysical dynamics of water resources systems is increasingly important due to population growth and changes in the water cycle driven by climate change. Models that explicitly represent these coupled dynamics are challenging to design and implement, particularly given the complicated and cross-scale nature of water governance. Agent-based models (ABMs) can capture human decision-making and nested social hierarchies, however, transferability is made difficult by location-specific details. A consistent description of water resources decision-makers (individuals, groups, agencies) would advance the rate of model development and increase synthesis across systems. Reviewing water resources ABMs, we propose eight agent types …

Unlikely Alliances And Their Implications For Resource Management In The American West, Vicken Hillis, Kate A. Berry, Briana Swette, Clare Aslan, Sheila Barry, Lauren M. Porensky

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

Collaborative, or participatory governance is an increasingly common means of addressing natural resource issues, especially in the American West where patchworks of public, private, and tribal interests characterize the region’s resources. In this context, unlikely alliances, or partnerships among diverse actors who have historically been at odds, have a growing potential to shape social and ecological outcomes, for better or worse. While these unlikely alliances have received greater attention in recent years, relatively little research has worked to synthesize the concept across diverse contexts and disciplines. Based on a review of the literature on unlikely alliances in natural resource governance, …

Operational Large-Area Land-Cover Mapping: An Ethiopia Case Study, Trevor Caughlin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Knowledge of land cover and land use nationally is a prerequisite of many studies on drivers of land change, impacts on climate, carbon storage and other ecosystem services, and allows for sufficient planning and management. Despite this, many regions globally do not have accurate and consistent coverage at the national scale. This is certainly true for Ethiopia. Large-area land-cover characterization (LALCC), at a national scale is thus an essential first step in many studies of land-cover change, and yet is itself problematic. Such LALCC based on remote-sensing image classification is associated with a spectrum of technical challenges such as data …

Incorporating Wildlife Connectivity Into Forest Plan Revision Under The United States Forest Service's 2012 Planning Rule, Matthew A. Williamson, Tyler G. Creech, Gunnar Carnwath, Beverly Dixon, Virginia Kelly

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

The United States Forest Service promulgated new planning regulations under the National Forest Management Act in 2012 (i.e., the Planning Rule). These new regulations include the first requirements in U.S. public land management history for National Forests to evaluate, protect, and/or restore ecological connectivity as they revise their land management plans. Data and resource limitations make single-species, functional connectivity analyses for the myriad species that occur within the 78 million ha the Forest Service manages implausible. We describe an approach that relies on freely available data and generic species, virtual species whose profile consists of ecological requirements designed to reflect …

A Systematic Review Of Participatory Scenario Planning To Envision Mountain Social-Ecological Systems Futures, Kelly A. Hopping

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mountain social-ecological systems (MtSES) provide crucial ecosystem services to over half of humanity. However, populations living in these highly varied regions are now confronted by global change. It is critical that they are able to anticipate change to strategically manage resources and avoid potential conflict. Yet, planning for sustainable, equitable transitions for the future is a daunting task, considering the range of uncertainties and the unique character of MtSES. Participatory scenario planning (PSP) can help MtSES communities by critically reflecting on a wider array of innovative pathways for adaptive transformation. Although the design of effective approaches has been widely discussed, …

Climate And Surging Of Donjek Glacier, Yukon, Canada, Ellyn M. Enderlin

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Links between climate and glacier surges are poorly understood but are required to enable prediction of surges and mitigation of associated hazards. Here, we investigate the role of snow accumulation, rain, and temperature on surge periodicity, area changes, and timing of surge initiation since the 1930s at Donjek Glacier, Yukon, Canada. Snow accumulation measured in three ice cores collected at Eclipse Icefield indicates that a cumulative accumulation of 15.5 ± 1.46 or 16.6 ± 2.0 m w.e. occurred in the ten to twelve years between each of its last eight surges, depending on ice motion spatiotemporal offset corrections. Although we …