Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Do Wind Turbines Affect Weather Conditions?: A Case Study In Indiana, Meghan F. Henschen, Brittany Herrholtz, Lacey Rhudy, Kathryn Demchak, Brian Doogs, Joshua Holland, Erik Larson, Johnny Martin, Matthew Rudkin

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Wind turbines are becoming increasingly widespread in the United States as the world looks for cleaner sources of energy. Scientists, policymakers, and citizens have strong opinions regarding the positive and negative effects of wind energy projects, and there is a great deal of misinformation about wind energy circulating on the Web and other media sources. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how the rotation of hundreds of turbines can influence local weather conditions within a wind farm and in the surrounding areas. This experiment measures temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, …

Slides: Smart Fallowing: New Strategies In Ag Forbearance, Bonnie Colby

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Presenter: Dr. Bonnie Colby, Department of Agriculture & Resource Economics, University of Arizona

34 slides

Filling The Gap: Commonsense Solutions For Meeting Front Range Water Needs: Executive Summary, Western Resource Advocates, Trout Unlimited, Colorado Environmental Coalition (U.S.)

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

8 pages.

"February 2011"

Presented by Drew Beckwith, Water Policy Manager, Western Resource Advocates, on June 10th at Clyde O. Martz Summer Conference 2011, Navigating the Future of the Colorado River Basin

Full report available at: http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/gap

Materials For Presentation: The Disappearing Colorado River, Lawrence J. Macdonnell

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

7 pages.

"Western Economics Forum, Fall 2010"

Detecting Spatiotemporal Changes Of Corn Developmental Stages In The U.S. Corn Belt Using Modis Wdrvi Data, Toshihiro Sakamoto, Brian D. Wardlow, Anatoly A. Gitelson

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The dates of crop developmental stages are important variables for many applications including assessment of the impact of abnormal weather on crop yield. Time-series 250-m vegetation-index (VI) data acquired from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) provide valuable information for monitoring the spatiotemporal changes of corn growth across large geographic areas. The goal of this study is to evaluate the performance of a new crop phenology detection method, namely, two-step filtering (TSF), for revealing the spatiotemporal pattern of specific corn developmental stages (early vegetative: V2.5; silking: R1; dent: R5; mature: R6) over an eight-year period (2001–2008) across Iowa, Illinois, and …

Farmers Motivations To Practice Sustainable Agriculture, Kimberly A. Floeser

Honors Theses

An increasing awareness of human and environmental health issues and the destruction of family farms and rural communities have caused a significant change in the way many farmers, consumers, and policy‐makers are thinking about and relating to food, the results of which can be seen largely in the growth of the organic and sustainable food industry. This paper attempts to examine and explain farmers’ attitudes towards sustainable agriculture, and their motivations to use sustainable methods of production. A survey was distributed to 533 farms that are members of the Northeast Organic Food Association of New York (NOFA‐NY). The data obtained …

Stability, Sustainability, And Catastrophe: Applying Resilience Thinking To U.S. Agriculture, Gigi M. Berardi, Rebekah Paci-Green, Bryant Hammond

Environmental Studies Faculty and Staff Publications

Resilience is closely related to notions of sustainability, but emphasizes unpredictable, dynamic environments. As conceptualized in engineering, hazards management, and ecology literature, part of resilience is adaptive capacity, the ability to react effectively to change over time in order to maintain a desirable system state. Agricultural policy has had the effect of undermining such adaptive capacity with its emphasis on stabilization. Using a resilience framework and Hurricane Katrina as an analogy, we suggest that the emphasis on stability and efficiency degrades agricultural system resilience in two ways: through reduced diversity in size and type of production, as well …

Land Change Variability And Human–Environment Dynamics In The United States Great Plains, Mark A. Drummond, Roger F. Auch, Krista A. Karstensen, Kristi L. Sayler, Janis L. Taylor, Thomas Loveland

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Land use and land cover changes have complex linkages to climate variability and change, biophysical resources, and socioeconomic driving forces. To assess these land change dynamics and their causes in the Great Plains, we compare and contrast contemporary changes across 16 ecoregions using Landsat satellite data and statistical analysis. Large-area change analysis of agricultural regions is often hampered by change detection error and the tendency for land conversions to occur at the local-scale. To facilitate a regional-scale analysis, a statistical sampling design of randomly selected 10 km × 10 km blocks is used to efficiently identify the types and rates …

Overcoming The Obstacles To Sustainability In Ghana, Ashley M. Scott

CMC Senior Theses

For several decades following its independence from Great Britain, Ghana’s policies continued to promote over-extraction of natural resources to the detriment of its economy and rural communities. Agricultural and forestry policy has gradually evolved to foster more sustainable and equitable practices, as in building partnerships with the private sector to fund infrastructure improvements. Policy has recently recognized the dire need to adopt agricultural practices and means of forest resource extraction that are compatible with ecological stewardship. However, many shortcomings are still apparent. Large logging operations completely disregard forestry regulations with impunity, whereas rural sustenance extractors are severely punished in the …