Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Exploratory Data-Driven Models For Water Quality: A Case Study For Tampa Bay Water, Sandra Sekyere

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water, a crucial resource for sustaining life, covers approximately 70% of the earth's surface. Nonetheless, the quality of water is deteriorating rapidly due to the rapid growth of urban areas and industries, which is a worrying trend causing harm to human health and the ecosystem. Water quality forecasting has a key role in water resources management by enabling effective pollution control, ecosystem monitoring, and decision-making.

Previously, traditional statistical models were used to forecast water quality, but they were unable to examine the non-linear relationships between water quality parameters, and they assumed that all datasets were distributed normally. This study uses …

An Analysis Of The Oil Pollution Act Of 1990: Regulatory Calibration In Anticipation Of 21st Century Environmental Disasters, Jessica S. Thornton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After federal the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) was promulgated in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, it helped restructure the nation’s environmental response capabilities and modernize the commercial shipping industry to effectively decrease environmental shipping disasters. However, in the 33 years since OPA 90’s inception, the oil and gas industry has transformed, especially in the offshore realm, as industry adopts new drilling technologies to gain access to deeper and heretofore untapped maritime environments. Though there have been two catastrophic offshore drilling accidents since the turn of the 21st century, OPA 90 remains categorically unchanged, …