Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Improving The Accuracy Of Cosmic-Ray Neutron Probe Estimate Of Soil Water Content Using Multiple Detectors And Remote Sensing Estimates Of Vegetation, Xiaochen Dong

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The recently developed Cosmic-ray Neutron Probe (CRNP) for estimating soil water content (SWC) fills a critical measurement gap between point scale methods and large scale measurements collected from remote sensing. CRNP works by measuring the change in low-energy neutron intensity over time. However, the accuracy of CRNP to measure SWC is well known to be affected by other hydrogen sources (e.g. soil organic content, atmospheric water vapor, vegetation and surface water). This study focuses on the influence of rapidly growing vegetation in agricultural fields on the accuracy of the CRNP method. Here we use data from three long-term CRNP study …

Assessing Relationships Between Angling Effort And Larval Trematodes In Small Bluegill, Alexis Park

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

I wanted to determine if catch-and-release angling increased larval trematodes in small (50-160 mm) bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus). I used angling effort as a proxy for amount of catch-and-release angling. I assumed bluegill assessed, due to their size and age, experienced catch-and-release events. I assessed larval trematode intensity, black spot (Crassiphiala bulboglossa), and white grub (Posthodiplostomum minimum centrarchi), in 750 bluegill. The first objective was to quantify the association between angling effort and reservoir area. Angling effort and reservoir area were positively correlated. The second objective was to determine if angling effort, reservoir area, bluegill …

Umphlett Qci Dec 2017, Natalie A. Umphlett

HPRCC Personnel Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Drought

Drought Continues to Cause Impacts

Large Butterfly Migration Across the Plains

High Winds Down Corn Across Nebraska

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

Soil Moisture Conditions

Applying Topographic Classification, Based On The Hydrological Process, To Design Habitat Linkages For Climate Change, Yongwon Mo, Dong Kun Lee, Keunyea Song, Ho Gul Kim, Soo Jin Park

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The use of biodiversity surrogates has been discussed in the context of designing habitat linkages to support the migration of species affected by climate change. Topography has been proposed as a useful surrogate in the coarse-filter approach, as the hydrological process caused by topography such as erosion and accumulation is the basis of ecological processes. However, some studies that have designed topographic linkages as habitat linkages, so far have focused much on the shape of the topography (morphometric topographic classification) with little emphasis on the hydrological processes (generic topographic classification) to find such topographic linkages. We aimed to understand whether …

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- October 2017, Natalie Umphlett, Warren Pettee, Crystal J. Stiles

HPRCC Newsletter

Inside this issue:

Message from the interim director........................................1

Staff spotlight...........................1

Tribal engagement.................2

Product highlights..................3

Update on regional climate conditions..................................4

ENSO tool...................................4

Wind River project..................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Water Current, Volume 49, No. 4, Fall 2017

Water Current Newsletter

2018 Water Tour Heads West to Wyoming

Spring water seminar lectures will Key on “Advances in Irrigation Management”

Droughtscape- Fall 2017, National Drought Mitigation Center

Droughtscape, Quarterly Newsletter of NDMC, 2007-

CONTENTS

Drought worsens in northern Great Plains............. 2

Drought takes toll on ag, livestock................ 4

Study examines ag advisors’ views on climate change............... 5

New drought definition could lead to better preparation.............. 6

McCook takes big steps toward drought readiness.............8

Group hopes to map drought planning process for Korea............9

South African researcher working to forecast drought.................. 10

Cultivating drought preparedness in South Africa.............. 12

Introductory Biology Students’ Use Of Enhanced Answer Keys And Reflection Questions To Engage In Metacognition And Enhance Understanding, Jaime L. Sabel, Joseph T. Dauer, Cory T. Forbes

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Providing feedback to students as they learn to integrate individual concepts into complex systems is an important way to help them to develop robust understanding, but it is challenging in large, undergraduate classes for instructors to provide feedback that is frequent and directed enough to help individual students. Various scaffolds can be used to help students engage in self-regulated learning and generate internal feedback to improve their learning. This study examined the use of enhanced answer keys with added reflection questions and instruction as scaffolds for engaging undergraduate students in self-regulated learning within an introductory biology course. Study findings show …

Physical Water Scarcity Metrics For Monitoring Progress Towards Sdg Target 6.4: An Evaluation Of Indicator 6.4.2 “Level Of Water Stress”, D. Vanhama, A. Y. Hoekstra, Y. Wada, F. Bouraoui, A. De Roo, Mesfin Mekonnen, W. J. Van De Bund, O. Batelaan, P. Pavelic, W. G.M. Bastiaanssen, M. Kummu, J. Rockström, J. Liu, B. Bisselink, P. Ronco, A. Pistocchi, G. Bidoglio

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Target 6.4 of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) dealswith the reduction ofwater scarcity. To monitor progress towards this target, two indicators are used: Indicator 6.4.1 measuring water use efficiency and 6.4.2 measuring the level of water stress (WS). This paper aims to identify whether the currently proposed indicator 6.4.2 considers the different elements that need to be accounted for in a WS indicator.WS indicators compare water use with water availability.We identify seven essential elements: 1) both gross and net water abstraction (or withdrawal) provide important information to understand WS; 2) WS indicators need to incorporate environmental flow requirements …

Umphlett Qci Sept 2017, Natalie Umphlett

HPRCC Personnel Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Drought

Wildfires Impact Montana and Beyond

Kansas City, MO Area Flooding

Numerous Impacts to Agriculture

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook

Water Use In Irrigated Agriculture: An Approach To Water Productivity In Drip And Sprinkler Systems, Fernanda Lamede Ferreira De Jesus, Jéssica Garcia Nascimento, Rubens Duarte Coelho, Sergio Nascimento Duarte, Fernando Campos Mendonça

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Irrigation plays an important role in agriculture and the increase in the irrigated area and scarce water resources have encouraged the use of irrigation systems and management systems that increase the efficiency of water use. Thus, maximize water productivity has been one of the most important challenges in agriculture. The present study aimed to relate information on water productivity for two irrigation systems, drip and sprinkler systems, with the purpose of understanding the characteristics of these systems and contributing to the advancement of studies and research carried out in the area. Technological innovations aimed at reducing consumption and increasing water …

Understanding Cigarette Butt Littering Behavior On Public Beaches: A Case Study Of Jekyll Island, Georgia, Maranda R. Miller

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The world’s natural environment is degrading, and human behavior is a leading cause. Therefore, in order to address environmental problems it is important to understand the factors driving environmentally degrading behaviors and subsequently design behavioral interventions to alter undesirable behaviors.

One environmental issue of particular concern is toxins leeching from trash. Specifically, cigarette butts are of concern due to their prevalence in the environment. Cigarette butt discarding behavior is affected by personal attributes, but data regarding which personal attributes and how these affect discarding behavior is lacking. This thesis seeks to understand cigarette butt disposal on public beaches by exploring …

Mapping The Ecology Of Information: Hierarchical Habitat Selection By Nebraska Pheasant Hunters, Lyndsie Wszola

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Hunting regulations are assumed to moderate the effects of hunting consistently across a game population. A growing body of evidence suggests that hunter effort varies temporally and spatially, and that variation in effort at multiple spatial scales can affect game populations in unexpected ways. We set out to determine the causes of variation in hunting effort among ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) hunters at four spatial scales: among regions within the state of Nebraska, among sites within a given region, among access points at a given site, and among habitat patches within a site. At each scale, pheasant hunters used direct …

Soil Ecosystem Service Tradeoffs And Social-Ecological Resilience In The North Central Great Plains, Hannah E. Birge

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Humans seek to improve their wellbeing by altering ecological processes to maximize the output of specific ecosystem services, which often leave the system vulnerable to unintended and undesirable side effects. Ecosystem services emerge from complex interactions among ecological structures and processes occurring at multiple scales. The degree to which an ecosystem maintains a predictable range of structures and processes in the face of disturbance can be described as its resilience. The 1930s Dust Bowl of the North American Great Plains is an example of a system reconfiguration and loss of resilience that was ultimately driven by human optimization for a …

Geological Principles Illustrated In The Art Along The Antelope Valley Hiker/Biker Trail – The Big X (Salt Creek Roadway/Antelope Valley Parkway) South To Q Street, Robert Diffendal, Jr.

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

When the weather is good (and even sometimes when it isn’t) I occasionally walk around the periphery of the UNL city campus, often over the lunch hour, now that the trails and the sidewalks allow one to walk a complete circuit. The walk along Antelope Creek from the Big X to Q Street is beautiful. The designers of the project made nice art works on the floor of the creek and on the retaining walls on the valley sides that add to the beauty of nature.

I am a geologist and wondered about some of the art and its meaning …

Loss Of Buffer Value Due To Aquifer Depletion: The Case Of High Plains Aquifer, Mani Rouhi Rad, Timothy Foster, Nicholas Brozovic

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Existing literature in economics and engineering do not realistically capture the effects of aquifer depletion on loss of profits from agricultural production. While the former literature ignores the physical characteristics of aquifer and the relationship between aquifer levels and groundwater availability, the latter strand of literature does not consider farmers' decisionmaking as a result of aquifer depletion. Misspecification of these relationships and their effect on irrigation decisions can result in misunderstanding the consequences of aquifer depletion and may provide ineffective policies. This paper provides a framework to study the effects of aquifer depletion on the profit of agricultural production. We …

The Future Of Earth Observation In Hydrology, Matthew F. Mccabe, Matthew Rodell, Douglas E. Alsdorf, Remko Uijlenhoet, Wolfgang Wagner, Arko Lucieer, Rasmus Houborg, Niko E. C. Verhoest, Trenton E. Franz, Jiancheng Shi, Huilin Gao, Eric F. Wood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

In just the past 5 years, the field of Earth observation has progressed beyond the offerings of conventional space-agency-based platforms to include a plethora of sensing opportunities afforded by CubeSats, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and smartphone technologies that are being embraced by both for-profit companies and individual researchers. Over the previous decades, space agency efforts have brought forth well-known and immensely useful satellites such as the Landsat series and the Gravity Research and Climate Experiment (GRACE) system, with costs typically of the order of 1 billion dollars per satellite and with concept-to-launch timelines of the order of 2 decades (for …

Scaling, Similarity, And The Fourth Paradigm For Hydrology, Chirsta D. Peters-Lidard, Martyn Clark, Luis Samaniego, Niko E. C. Verhoest, Tim Van Emmerik, Remko Uijlenhoet, Kevin Achieng, Trenton E. Franz, Ross Woods

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

In this synthesis paper addressing hydrologic scaling and similarity, we posit that roadblocks in the search for universal laws of hydrology are hindered by our focus on computational simulation (the third paradigm) and assert that it is time for hydrology to embrace a fourth paradigm of data intensive science. Advances in information-based hydrologic science, coupled with an explosion of hydrologic data and advances in parameter estimation and modeling, have laid the foundation for a data-driven framework for scrutinizing hydrological scaling and similarity hypotheses. We summarize important scaling and similarity concepts (hypotheses) that require testing; describe a mutual information framework for …

Trophic Dynamics Of Flathead Catfish In The Missouri River Bordering Nebraska, Dylan R. Turner

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding the trophic dynamics of large, riverine ecosystems is complex and requires knowledge from several inputs and outputs of the ecosystem. Most riverine ecosystems have been altered in some way whether through damming, channelizing, or diverting water. The Missouri River is not immune to these anthropogenic alterations. The river has dams throughout its middle portion and is channelized from Sioux City, Iowa to its confluence with the Mississippi River. Flathead Catfish pylodictus olivarius are one of the most ecologically harmful introduced species but little research has looked at the influence native populations of Flathead Catfish have on native prey populations …

Recreational Angler Site Choice And Behavior Within Midwestern Reservoirs, Brian S. Harmon

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Anglers are the dominant predator in most inland fisheries. Although anglers make decisions across multiple scales, most research targets larger spatial and temporal scales of angler behavior, and thus little is known regarding angler behavior within a fishing trip. Outcomes of within-trip behavior affect larger spatial and temporal scales and are thus important to the management of recreational fisheries. Bank angler site choice was recorded at four reservoirs in the Salt Valley system across the open-water season of 2016. Previous research indicated that angler distribution did not match the distribution of fish, so another approach was taken. Counts of anglers …

Water Current, Volume 49, No. 3, Summer 2017

Water Current Newsletter

New University competition is “Testing Ag Performance Solutions”

Summer brings research work, students, tours and farm shows

An Evaluation Of Emergent Macrophytes And Use Among Groups Of Aquatic Taxa, Kristopher J. Stahr, Mark A. Kaemingk

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Aquatic vegetation serves an important ecological role. Previous research on the interactions of macrophytes and aquatic organisms has focused primarily on submersed macrophytes due to their structural complexity and associated ecological impacts. However, the role of emergent vegetation is far less understood and often overlooked because they lack structural complexity. We evaluated 3 common emergent macrophytes and an open water habitat, and determined use among multiple aquatic taxa. Pelican Lake, Nebraska, USA, served as our study system because it is dominated by 3 emergent macrophytes: common cattail (Typha latifolia), softstem bulrush (Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani), and common reed …

Bat Community Composition And Monitoring For White-Nose Syndrome At First State National Historical Park, Delaware And Pennsylvania, Juliet Nagel, J. Edward Gates

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

In recent years, bats have faced increasingly deadly threats on multiple fronts. Cave-dwelling bats have been decimated by the emergence of a disease, white-nose syndrome (WNS), caused by a fungal pathogen, Pseudogymnoascus destructans; and tree bats are dying in large numbers at wind power facilities. First State National Historical Park (FRST) is a new national park unit located in northern Delaware and Pennsylvania. Prior to this study, little information was available on bat species and their activity and distribution within FRST. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted an inventory of bat species present at FRST. We used …

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- July 2017, Natalie Umphlett, Bill Sorensen, Crystal J. Stiles

HPRCC Newsletter

Inside this issue:

Message from the interim director........................................1

Staff spotlight...........................1

Drought update.......................2

Update on regional climate conditions..................................2

Product highlights..................3

AWDN information.................4

Climate adaptation award announcement.........................4

Workshops update..................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Droughtscape- Summer 2017, National Drought Mitigation Center

Droughtscape, Quarterly Newsletter of NDMC, 2007-

CONTENTS

Drought policy write shops conclude in Caribbean...............2

Drought encroaches on Northern Plains in second quarter...........3

Impact tool racks up submissions in second quarter............. 4

Maps on new website highlight drought effects on ag industry.......... 6

Centers release new flash drought tool: QuickDRI........... 6

NDMC contributes to EU report on disaster risk management........... 8

Groups earn Climate Adaptation award for work with tribes............. 9

NDMC, ICPAC director talk collaboration on drought in Greater Horn of Africa......... 11

Up next in MENA: Drought vulnerability assessments........... 12

Mesonets: Mesoscale Weather And Climate Observations For The United States, Rezaul Mahmood, Ryan Boyles, Kevin Brinson, Christopher Fiebrich, Stuart Foster, Ken Hubbard, David Robinson, Jeff Andresen, Dan Leathers

HPRCC Personnel Publications

Mesoscale in situ meteorological observations are essential for better understanding and forecasting the weather and climate and to aid in decision-making by a myriad of stakeholder communities. They include, for example, state environmental and emergency management agencies, the commercial sector, media, agriculture, and the general public. Over the last three decades, a number of mesoscale weather and climate observation networks have become operational. These networks are known as mesonets. Most are operated by universities and receive different levels of funding. It is important to communicate the current status and critical roles the mesonets play. Most mesonets collect standard meteorological data …

Fish And Macroinvertebrate Response To Restored Off Channel Habitats On The Lower Platte River, Nebraska, Caleb Uerling

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Anthropogenic alterations to large rivers ranging from impoundments to levees have caused many rivers to no longer access the floodplain. The ecological integrity of floodplain rivers depends on the interaction between main-channel and floodplain habitats. Fish communities inhabiting floodplain habitats are often dictated by the type of habitat and conditions within that habitat. As restoration projects are undertaken it is imperative that managers understand how fish and macroinvertebrates respond to these events. We collected fish, macroinvertebrates, and habitat parameters on two restored floodplain habitats on the lower Platte River, Nebraska to answer questions about aquatic community response to floodplain restoration …

Umphlett Qci June 2017, Natalie Umphlett

HPRCC Personnel Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Snowpack and Streamflow

Historic Flooding in Missouri

Spring Conditions Impact Agriculture

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook

Evaluating The Impacts Of Farmers’ Behaviors On A Hypothetical Agricultural Water Market Based On Double Auction, Erhu Du, Ximing Cai, Barbara Minsker

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Agricultural water markets are considered effective instruments to mitigate the impacts of water scarcity and to increase crop production. However, previous studies have limited understanding of how farmers’ behaviors affect the performance of water markets. This study develops an agent-based model to explicitly incorporate farmers’ behaviors, namely irrigation behavior (represented by farmers’ sensitivity to soil water deficit k) and bidding behavior (represented by farmers’ rent seeking l and learning rate b), in a hypothetical water market based on a double auction. The model is applied to the Guadalupe River Basin in Texas to simulate a hypothetical agricultural water market under …

Transcriptomic Effects Of Dispersed Oil In A Non-Model Decapod Crustacean, Hernan Vázquez-Miranda, Brent P. Thoma, Juliet M. Wong, Darryl L. Felder, Keith A. Crandall, Heather D. Bracken-Grissom

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Background. Oil spills are major environmental disasters. Dispersants help control spills, as they emulsify oil into droplets to speed bioremediation. Although dispersant toxicity is controversial, the genetic consequences and damages of dispersed oil exposure are poorly understood. We used RNA-seq to measure gene expression of flatback mudcrabs (Eurypanopeus depressus, Decapoda, Brachyura, Panopeidae) exposed to dispersed oil. Methods. Our experimental design included two control types, oil-only, and oil-dispersant treatments with three replicates each. We prepared 100 base pair-ended libraries from total RNA and sequenced them in one Illumina HiSeq2000 lane. We assembled a reference transcriptome with all replicates per treatment, …