Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Story Of Data Won, Data Lost And Data Re-Found: The Realities Of Ecological Data Preservation, Alison Specht

DataONE Sociocultural and Usability & Assessment Working Groups

This paper discusses the process of retrieval and updating legacy data to allow on-line discovery and delivery. There are many pitfalls of institutional and non-institutional ecological data conservation over the long term. Interruptions to custodianship, old media, lost knowledge and the continuous evolution of species names makes resurrection of old data challenging. We caution against technological arrogance and emphasise the importance of international standards.

We use a case study of a compiled set of continent-wide vegetation survey data for which, although the analyses had been published, the raw data had not. In the original study, publications containing plot data collected …

Spatial Analysis Of Mountaintop Mining's Impact On Water Quality, Samantha Cahill

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

Mountaintop coal mining (MTM) has been shown to have negative effects on both biological communities and water quality downstream of mining. Impacts of MTM can still be seen decades after the mining has ended, leading to the conclusion that the cumulative effects of mining last decades after the mining has ended. Here, I aim to analyze the effects of MTM on both water quality and benthic macroinvertebrates in streams of the Southern Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky. I combine a remotely sensed mining landcover product with data on water quality parameters and stream macroinvertebrate communities from state and federal monitoring programs …