Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Bottom-Up Adaptive Management And Stakeholder Participation For Clean Water And Healthy Soils In A Complex Social-Ecological System, Sarah Coleman

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Protection of water resources in a changing climate depends on bottom-up stewardship and adaptive management. From the ground up, a vital component is maintaining soil ecosystem services that regulate water, recycle nutrients, sequester carbon, provide food, and other benefits. Interacting spatial, social, and physical factors determine agricultural and stormwater management, and their impact on water. This dissertation explores these dimensions within a complex social-ecological system. The first chapter evaluates a participatory process to elicit solutions to complex environmental problems across science, policy, and practice. The second chapter studies on-farm soil assessment and its role in informing management decisions and supporting …

Applying Bayesian Belief Network To Understand Public Perception On Green Stormwater Infrastructures In Vermont, Qing Ren

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Decisions of adopting best management practices made on residential properties play an important role in reduction of nutrient loading from non-point sources into Lake Champlain and other waterbodies in Vermont. In this study, we use Bayesian belief network (BBN) to analyze a 2015 survey dataset about adoption of six types of green infrastructures (GSIs) in Vermont’s residential areas. Learning BBNs from physical probabilities of the variables provides a visually explicit approach to reveal the message delivered by the dataset. Using both unsupervised and supervised machine learning algorithms, we are able to generate networks that connect the variables of interest and …

Consumer Engagement With Efficient And Renewable Energy Technology: Case Studies On Smart Meter Utilization And Support For A Community Anaerobic Biodigester System In Vermont, Samantha Whitney Lewandowski

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Residential electricity consumption in the United States has many adverse impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions, dependence on fossil fuels, and costs. Efficient and renewable energy technologies have the potential to help mitigate some of these impacts, but appear to be under-utilized in the United States. One major barrier to expanding the deployment of these kinds of technologies and maximizing the benefits they can provide is a lack of consumer engagement. The overall purpose of this thesis is to better understand the extent to which efficient and renewable energy technologies are being engaged with and what factors may influence such …

Land Use, Power, And Knowledge At The Northern Resource Frontier: Mining, Public Engagement, And Contentious Land Imaginaries In Bristol Bay And The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Jonathan Tollefson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The Donlin and Pebbles mines are two of the eight industrial-scale hard rock mines currently under the review of Alaska’s Large Mine Permitting program. Both projects promise to deliver profit and employment to their respective regions: Pebble to Bristol Bay in the southwest, and Donlin to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, just north of Pebble. Both projects would also produce exceptional quantities of waste and will require almost-unprecedented infrastructure development, potentially threatening the lives and subsistence livelihoods of the Alaska Native peoples in their respective regions. The Pebble project inspired international protest and led to the emergence of a powerful resistance coalition …

No Farm Is An Island: Pollinators And Pollination In Agricultural Landscapes, Charles C. Nicholson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Productive, resilient and sustainable agricultural systems are required to meet the immediate needs of a burgeoning human population, while avoiding ecosystem collapse. Agriculture provides food, fiber, fuels and other products for our current population of 7 billion and is still the major livelihood for 40% of people worldwide. By replacing natural habitat and employing chemical inputs, agriculture also negatively impacts biodiversity and impairs the provision of ecosystem services. This poses a challenge for agriculture as these impacted services are often those required for high yielding and high-quality crop production. Evidence is accumulating that agricultural management can safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem …

Pharmaceutical Waste In Vermont: Results From A Survey On Purchasing, Use & Disposal, Christine Hart

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Pharmaceutical waste is an emerging form of waste with significant impacts on the environment. This study reports the results of a state-wide phone survey on pharmaceutical purchasing, use and disposal behavior among Vermont residents (n = 421). The objectives of this study were: 1) to compare the demographic nature of populations who purchase and use medicaton to those associated with leftover medication, and 2) to evaluate the impact of disposal behavior in Vermont and to recommend strategies to minimize pollution. The findings of this study showed that approximately 93% of survey participants reported purchasing of medication, 60% reported leftover medication …

Conservation Of Ecosystem Services And Biodiversity In Vermont, Usa, Keri B. Watson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Supporting a growing human population while avoiding biodiversity loss is a central challenge towards a sustainable future. Ecosystem services are benefits that people derive from nature. People have drastically altered the earth’s land surface in the pursuit of those ecosystem services that have been ascribed market value, while at the same time eroding biodiversity and non-market ecosystem services. The science required to inform a more balanced vision for land-cover change in the future is rapidly developing, but critical questions remain unanswered regarding how to quantify ecosystem services and ascribe value to them, and how to coordinate efforts to safeguard multiple …

Microscale Controls On Lead Speciation In Soils: A Framework For Sustainable Remediation, Grant Reeder

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The potential of a soil to immobilize heavy metal ions is dependent on the presence of adsorption sites, and the stability of metal species over the range of geochemical conditions present in the soil over time. Lead (Pb) is a cumulative toxin that is enriched in much of the urban pedosphere due to historical use of Pb-based paint and Pb-amended gasoline. Because in-situ remediation of Pb is possible if the bioavailable fraction can be rendered inert, understanding Pb-sorbent interactions is necessary to accurately and efficiently alter Pb speciation in soils. The objectives of this study are to 1) determine efficient …

Genetic And Demographic Consequences Of Lake And River Habitat Fragmentation On Fishes In Vermont, Peter T. Euclide

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Globally, habitat fragmentation has had a major impact on the conservation and management of many species and is one of the primary causes of species extinction. Habitat fragmentation is loosely defined as a process in which a continuous habitat is reduced to smaller, disconnected patches as the result of habitat loss, restriction of migration or the construction of barriers to movement. Aquatic systems are particularly vulnerable to habitat fragmentation, and today an estimated 48% of rivers are fragmented worldwide. My dissertation evaluates how habitat fragmentation has influenced the populations of four different species of fish in the Lake Champlain basin. …

Governing Environmental And Economic Flows In Regional Food Systems, Michael Bishop Wironen

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Globalization, specialization, and intensification have transformed the global food system, generating material flows and impacts that span multiple scales and levels, presenting novel governance challenges. Many argue for a transition toward a sustainable food system, although the scope and specific goals are fiercely contested. Theory and method is needed to evaluate competing normative claims and build legitimacy.

In this dissertation Vermont serves as a case study to investigate how environmental and economic flows impact regional governance, focusing on efforts to manage agricultural phosphorus to achieve water quality goals. A material flow account is developed to estimate phosphorus flows embedded in …

Ecological Stormwater Management: Analysis Of Design Components To Improve Understanding And Performance Of Stormwater Retention Ponds, Rebecca Tharp

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Stormwater runoff from developed land is a source of pollution and excessive flow to waterways. The most commonly employed practices for flow and volume control are stormwater ponds and basins (also referred to as detention and retention ponds). These structures can be effective at controlling peak discharge to water bodies by managing flow timing but are often ineffective at removing nutrients, particularly in dissolved forms. Pond morphology coupled with place-specific characteristics (like soil type and drainage area characteristics) may influence plant community composition in these water bodies. The interaction of physical, chemical, and biological elements in stormwater ponds may affect …

An Autothermal, Representative Scale Test Of Compost Heat Potential Using Geostatistical Analysis, William J. Mccune-Sanders

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Composting has been practiced for thousands of years as a way of stabilizing and recycling organic matter into useful soil amendments. Thermophilic compost releases significant amounts of heat at temperatures (~140 °F) that are useful for environmental heating or process water. This heat has been taken advantage of in various ways throughout history, but development of a widely adopted technology remains elusive.

The biggest barrier to adoption of compost heat recovery (CHR) systems is projecting accurate, attractive economic returns. The cost of transfer equipment is significant, and with variability in composting substrates and methods, it is difficult to predict the …

Cityscape Connections: National Park Service Relevance And Resilience In Urban Areas, Elizabeth Eleanor Perry

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The National Park Service (NPS) strives to embody U.S. democratic ideals, conserving our collective stories and scenery for their intrinsic value and the enjoyment of current and future generations. However, although these places are conserved for all, they are not enjoyed by all. As with other conservation agencies, the NPS finds itself increasingly concerned with building relevance with diverse potential stewards. In cities, where 80% of the U.S. population and 40% of the NPS portfolio is based, there is a prime opportunity to build relevance with large, diverse, and proximate audiences. Recognizing this opportunity, the NPS initiated its Urban Agenda …

Water Quality Performance And Greenhouse Gas Flux Dynamics From Compost-Amended Bioretention Systems & Potential Trade-Offs Between Phytoremediation And Water Quality Stemming From Compost Amendments, Paliza Shrestha

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Stormwater runoff from existing impervious surfaces needs to be managed to protect downstream waterbodies from hydrologic and water quality impacts associated with development. As urban expansion continues at a rapid pace, increasing impervious cover, and climate change yields more frequent extreme precipitation events, increasing the need for improved stormwater management. Although green infrastructure such as bioretention has been implemented in urban areas for stormwater quality improvements and volume reductions, these systems are seldom monitored to validate their performance. Herein, we evaluate flow attenuation, stormwater quality performance, and nutrient cycling from eight roadside bioretention cells in their third and fourth years …