Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Green New England? Regional Implementation Of Grant-Based Provisions Of The Inflation Reduction Act In The Northeastern U.S., Samuel Cooper

Sustainability and Social Justice

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has been described as “the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history,” totaling some $370 billion in tax credits and federal grants for everything from residential solar panels to urban forestry. As the first of its size in U.S. climate policy, the IRA has been a subject of study and debate since its introduction, but it is only in this past year that funding reporting data has become available. This thesis utilizes this federal data to produce a novel analysis of IRA implementation at the …

Geomorphology Of Tidal Wetlands: Impacts Of Extreme And Annual Flood Events To Salt Marsh And Mangrove Systems, Frances R. Griswold

Doctoral Dissertations

Tidal wetlands are vital for buffering coastal settings from the threats of accelerated sea level rise and storms. Understanding the factors that are most influential for the maintenance and recovery of tidal wetlands after extreme events compounded by future accelerated sea level rise is of the utmost importance, yet this knowledge is not well established. Two tidal wetland schemas investigated in this dissertation are mangrove systems in Vieques, Puerto Rico (including robust lagoonal-mangrove forest systems and fringing mangrove forests), and salt marshes in New England. While the climatic forcings, vegetation type, and locations are vastly different for these two tidal …

Imaginaries Of The Great Outdoors: Comparing Facebook Postings Across Resource Places, Frances Hoag

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Communication across agencies, interested audiences, and the public is central to resource management. While social media expands agencies’ communication options, it also may present opportunities for constructing and presenting “imaginaries” – collectively imagined discourses that that shape understandings of place and influence the world views of followers. Imaginaries are “socially constructed, taken-for-granted meanings about reality that make everyday social and cultural practices seem obvious and sensible to people” (Stokowski et al., 2021). Extending prior research, we sought to understand whether/how resource management agencies used social media to construct and deploy imaginaries. Data were collected during 2021-2022 from resource management agencies …

Environmental And Societal Impacts In New England Following A Potential Yellowstone Eruption, Serena L. Butler

Honors Theses and Capstones

Yellowstone National Park is famously known for its history of “super-volcano” eruptions. From the evidence of volcanic deposits, scientists know that the ash cloud that erupted from Yellowstone covered most of the western U.S. states, but until recently, models have not shown the ash could also have reached eastern states. The scope of this investigation is to determine what would happen to New England if Yellowstone were to erupt today in terms of health, agriculture, transportation, relocation, economy, and climate. In order to do so, three significant eruptions during human history are considered as case studies in order to compare …

The Impact Of Climate Change: An In-Depth Analysis Of Warming Ocean Water Temperatures And The Effects On Maine’S Lobstering Industry And Subsequent Effect On The State Economy, Bryce Nitchman

Honors College

The effects of climate change are often not visible to the human eye and can, therefore, be hard to detect. As society has progressed since the industrial revolution, the effects of climate change are omnipresent in global, regional, and local air and water temperatures. This research aims to highlight the correlation between the effects of climate change on potentially rising ocean water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, and the possible resulting adverse impacts on Maine’s lobster industry and state economy. I will be using data compiled over the last several decades from the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute …

Factors Influencing Carbon Stocks And Accumulation Rates In Eelgrass Meadows Across New England, Usa, A. B. Novak, M. C. Pelletier, P. Colarusso, J. Simpson, M. N. Gutierrez, A. Arias-Ortiz, M. Charpentier, Pere Masque, P. Vella

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Increasing the protection of coastal vegetated ecosystems has been suggested as one strategy to compensate for increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere as the capacity of these habitats to sequester and store carbon exceeds that of terrestrial habitats. Seagrasses are a group of foundation species that grow in shallow coastal and estuarine systems and have an exceptional ability to sequester and store large quantities of carbon in biomass and, particularly, in sediments. However, carbon stocks (Corg stocks) and carbon accumulation rates (Corg accumulation) in seagrass meadows are highly variable both spatially and temporally, making it difficult to extrapolate this …

Predicting Wildlife Distributions And Resilience Under Alternative Futures, Schuyler Pearman-Gillman

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In the northeastern United States, population expansion, climate change, land use, and land-use change all pose serious concerns for wildlife. Understanding the impacts of climate and land-use change on species distributions can help inform conservation decisions. Unfortunately, empirical data on distributions are limited for many wildlife species, making conservation planning challenging. This dissertation focuses on the use of expert opinion data for modeling wildlife distributions and evaluating the impacts of future climate and land-use changes. First, I implemented expert elicitation techniques to collect wildlife occurrence data for harvested species (n = 10) in the New England region. I then used …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Julia Wyman's Post: The Threat Of Marine Debris 12-13-2016, Julia Wyman

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Stone Walls Of New York And New England, John W. Delano Phd

Atmospheric and Environmental Science Faculty Scholarship

Stone walls are an enduring testimony of the hard labors and work ethic of subsistence family farms on ~100-acre lots. Those lots had been defined by hardy teams of surveyors who used compasses and chains to define the magnetic directions and lengths of boundaries. Farmers cleared (‘improved’) large sections of their land of trees for the purpose of grazing animals and growing crops. As we venture into the deep woods today, we often encounter these forgotten stonewalls that reveal that others long ago were there. Modern airborne surveys using ‘Light Detection And Ranging’ (LiDAR) not only reveal the vast extent …

The Real Footprint Of Electric Vehicles, And What That Could Mean For Our Future, Krista Brown

Journal of Environmental and Resource Economics at Colby

This paper looks at the impact of electric vehicles on CO2 emissions specifically based on the type of electricity used in each New England state analyzed. The research looks at the question of whether or not emissions will in fact be lowered as electric cars start to take the majority of vehicles used instead of the conventional cars that take up a much larger percent of the motor vehicles used today. Taking into account the use of electricity and how many sources of electricity also release a substantial amount of emissions, we see how valid the public opinion of electric …

Bedrock Geologic Mapping And Structural Analysis Of The Western Half Of The Petersham Quadrangle, Central Massachusetts: Further Tests Of The Model For Middle To Late Paleozoic Ductile Transpression, Vertical Extrusion, And Lateral Escape In The Northern Appalachians, Lucas P. Rohrer

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Bedrock mapping, structural analysis, and geochronology reveal the distribution of lithologies and timing of metamorphism and deformation in the western half of the Petersham 7.5’ quadrangle, western Massachusetts. Underlying lithologies are: (from west to east) the Ordovician Monson granitic orthogneiss, Silurian Rangeley migmatitic paragneiss, and Late Devonian (357 Ma) Hardwick tonalitic orthogneiss. Their tightly folded contacts strike north to south. The 361 Ma, unfoliated, strike-parallel Nichewaug quartz-diorite (10-100 m wide) intrusion spans the map area within the Rangeley. Evidence for vertical and lateral extrusion/escape of the Monson orthogneiss, as observed in the Palmer MA area, is absent. Instead, petrofabrics (foliations …

Climate Change In Northern New Hampshire: Past, Present And Future, Cameron P. Wake, C. Keeley, Elizabeth A. Burakowski, Peter Wilkinson, Katharine Hayhoe, Anne Stoner, Julie Labrance

The Sustainability Institute Publications

EARTH’S CLIMATE CHANGES. It always has and always will. However, an extensive and growing body of scientific evidence indicates that human activities—including the burning of fossil fuel (coal, oil, and natural gas) for energy, clearing of forested lands for agriculture, and raising livestock—are now the primary force driving change in the Earth’s climate system. This report describes how the climate of northern New Hampshire has changed over the past century and how the future climate of the region will be affected by a warmer planet due to human activities.

Climate Change In Southern New Hampshire: Past, Present And Future, Cameron P. Wake, Elizabeth A. Burakowski, Peter Wilkinson, Katharine Hayhoe, Anne Stoner, C. Keeley, Julie Labranche

The Sustainability Institute Publications

EARTH’S CLIMATE CHANGES. It always has and always will. However, an extensive and growing body of scientific evidence indicates that human activities—including the burning of fossil fuel (coal, oil, and natural gas) for energy, clearing of forested lands for agriculture, and raising livestock—are now the primary force driving change in the Earth’s climate system. This report describes how the climate of southern New Hampshire has changed over the past century and how the future climate of the region will be affected by a warmer planet due to human activities.

Obesity Rates In Maine Exceed New England's Obesity Rate: A Look At Possible Contributing Factors, Susan Walker

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

The purpose of this study was to explore adult obesity data to: Compare Maine’s rates with other New England states and explore differences in Maine counties by looking at known risk factors.

Potential Future Dynamics Of Carbon Fluxes And Pools In New England Forests And Their Climatic Sensitivities: A Model-Based Study, Guoping Tang, Brian Beckage, Benjamin Smith

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Projections of terrestrial carbon (C) dynamics must account for interannual variation in ecosystem C exchange associated with climate change, increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, and species dynamics. We used a dynamic ecosystem model to (i) project the potential dynamics of C in New England forests under nine climate change scenarios (CCSs) for the 21st century and (ii) examine the sensitivity of potential C dynamics to changes in climate and atmospheric CO2 concentration. Our results indicated that forest net primary productivity (NPP) and soil heterotrophic respiration (RH) averaged 428 and 279 gC/m2/yr and New England forests sequestered CO 2 by 149 gC/m2/yr …

Modeling The Effects Of The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid On Carbon Storage In Northern New England Forests, Jeffrey John Krebs

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA, Adelges tsugae Annand) is an invasive insect that threatens to eradicate native eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carr.) across the eastern United States. In southern New England and southern Appalachian forests, HWA-induced hemlock mortality has impacted carbon (C) flux by altering stand age, litter composition, species composition, and coarse woody debris levels. However, no one has examined how total C storage and sequestration may be impacted by these changes. Further, while projections are that HWA will ultimately infest hemlock across its entire geographic range, the majority of studies have been limited to southern New …

Lake Site Assessments: Us Epa Time-New England Lakes, Sarah J. Nelson, Adam Baumann, Alesha Coffin, Ken Johnson, Catherine Schmitt, Kristin Strock

Forest Resources Faculty Scholarship

TIME (Temporally Integrated Monitoring of Ecosystems) is a statistically selected population of lakes in New Eng- land and the Hudson Valley (31 lakes) and the Adirondacks (43 lakes) that were selected from the original 1991 EMAP-SW (Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program–Surface Waters) population with acid neutralizing capacity less than 100 meq/L (Young & Stoddard 1996). Samples are taken annually, during a summer base-flow ‘index period’. This sampling strategy is used to reduce hydrologic impact on water chemistry and hence provide an assessment of trends in chemistry with the least number of samples (e.g., Stoddard et al. 2003).

The EMAP program …

Maxent Versus Maxlike: Empirical Comparisons With Ant Species Distributions, Matthew C. Fitzpatrick, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Aaron M. Ellison

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

MaxEnt is one of the most widely used tools in ecology, biogeography, and evolution for modeling and mapping species distributions using presence-only occurrence records and associated environmental covariates. Despite its popularity, the exponential model implemented by MaxEnt does not directly estimate occurrence probability, the natural quantity of interest when modeling species distributions. Instead, MaxEnt generates an index of relative habitat suitability. MaxLike, a newly introduced maximum-likelihood technique, has been shown to overcome the problem of directly estimating the probability of occurrence using presence-only data. However, the performance and relative merits of MaxEnt and MaxLike remain largely untested, especially when modeling …

Habitat Heterogeneity Concentrates Predators In The Seascape: Linking Intermediate-Scale Estuarine Habitat To Striped Bass Distribution, Cristina Kennedy

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Predators are key components of aquatic ecosystems and innovative approaches to understanding their spatial distribution are imperative for research, effective management, and conservation. Discontinuities, created by abrupt changes between two unlike entities, are irregularly-distributed, intermediate-scale features that can have a disproportionate effect on organismal distribution within the seascape. Here I use the discontinuity concept to relate the distribution of a predator, striped bass (Morone saxatilis), to physical features within Plum Island Estuary (PIE), MA. I mapped the distribution of 50 acoustically-tagged striped bass during four monthly surveys at 40 sites to evaluate if heterogeneity in physical features concentrated …

New England's Community Forests: Comparing A Regional Model To Iccas, Martha West Lyman, Cecilia Danks, Maureen Mcdonough

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

This paper examines the ways in which some forms of community forests in the northeastern United States could be considered Indigenous Peoples' and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs), based on the work conducted by the Community Forest Collaborative, a partnership of four non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the US. The Collaborative defined a Community Forest Model for northern New England, conducted research on the economic, social, community, and conservation values of the Community Forest Model and developed case studies on five community forest projects. Five key attributes of ICCAs were selected and used to compare with characteristics of the Collaborative's …

The Kennebec River: A Historic Maine Resource, Elise Begin

Historical Ecology Atlas of New England

The Kennebec River has been considered one of Maine’s most important resources for at least the past 6-8 thousand years; its basin is located in west central Maine and drains 5,893 square miles, an area that is approximately one-fifth the area of the state. The river originates at Moosehead lake and runs 170 miles to the Atlantic Ocean. The river can be divided into two basins: the upper basin, which spans from Moosehead Lake to Waterville; and the lower basin, which spans from Waterville to the ocean.

Before the arrival of Europeans in 1606, the Abenaki Indians controlled the entirety …

Maine Learns To Love Dairying, Erin Love

Historical Ecology Atlas of New England

The transition from subsistence to commercial farming is a defining trend in Maine dairying that continues today. Technological advances that often caused large landscape scale changes were catalysts in the division between small and large farmers. The industry developed in a relatively short time period—the last thirty years of the 19th century—but the characteristic divide between large and small farmers has continued to be exacerbated.

Bath, Maine: A City Of Ships, Taylor Witkin

Historical Ecology Atlas of New England

Known as Maine’s city of ships, Bath sits on the shores of the Kennebec River, about 15 miles from the Gulf of Maine and 40 miles up the coast from Portland. Though small in population, Bath’s impact on Maine, the rest of United States, and even on the world has been anything but small. Today Bath is known mostly for the Bath Iron Works, which supplies the US Navy with a large portion of its fleets, however, in Bath’s early days it built large, wooden yachts and schooners mostly for trade, not war. The next few pages will explore Bath’s …

The Happy Valley, Cassie Raker

Historical Ecology Atlas of New England

On the Connecticut River in Western Massachusetts, there exists the Happy Valley. Surrounded by the humble Holyoke Range, today you will find a bustling New England settlement dominated by local colleges and universities. But it was not always so. The picturesque Mount Holyoke and its accompanying hotel, known as the Summit House, have overlooked the area for hundreds of years, watching it change from forest to farmland to industry to the modern landscape it is today.

Bedrock Geology And Tectonic Evolution Of The Western Central Maine Zone, South Central Massachusetts, Thomas Bradley Walker

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Bedrock geology of the East Brookfield quadrangle (EBQ), based on new 1:24000 scale mapping, consists of an interfolded sequence of Rangeley Fm. and Paxton Fm. metasediments, intruded by Early Mississippian tonalitic to granitic orthogneisses and underlain in the western half by folded orthogneisses of unknown age. Pervasive flattening strains have created planar, generally NNE-SSW striking and consistent moderately west dipping foliations. Generally strike-parallel stretching lineations and boudinage structures, with rarer dip parallel stretching lineations, reflect extrusion of CMZ metasediments and orthogneisses with a flattening component. Mapping in the EBQ demonstrates that a transition between deformational mechanisms of the southern Central …

Estimating Potential Forest Npp, Biomass And Their Climatic Sensitivity In New England Using A Dynamic Ecosystem Model, Guoping Tang, Brian Beckage, Benjamin Smith, Paul A. Miller

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Accurate estimation of forest net primary productivity (NPP), biomass, and their sensitivity to changes in temperature and precipitation is important for understanding the fluxes and pools of terrestrial carbon resulting from anthropogenically driven climate change. The objectives of this study were to (1) estimate potential forest NPP and biomass for New England using a regional ecosystem model, (2) compare modeled forest NPP and biomass with other reported data for New England, and (3) examine the sensitivity of modeled forest NPP to historical climatic variation. We addressed these objectives using the regional ecosystem model LPJ-GUESS implemented with eight plant functional types …

Changes In Extreme Climate Indices For The Northeastern United States, 1870-2006, Paula J. Brown, Raymond S. Bradley, Frank T. Keimig

Raymond S Bradley

The northeastern United States is one of the most variable climates in the world, and how climate extremes are changing is critical to populations, industries, and the environment in this region.Along-term (1870–2005) temperature and precipitation dataset was compiled for the northeastern United States to assess how the climate has changed. Adjustments were made to daily temperatures to account for changes in mean, variance, and skewness resulting from inhomogeneities, but precipitation data were not adjusted. Trends in 17 temperature and 10 precipitation indices at 40 stations were evaluated over three time periods—1893–2005, 1893– 1950, and 1951–2005—and over 1870–2005 for a subset …

Land Conservation And Land Use In New England: Trends, Challenges & Opportunities, Amanda Loomis, Tom Devine, Andrea Small, Brittany Howard, Brett Richardson, Stephanie Dulac

Land Conservation

Sprawling development patterns accelerated across the New England landscape in the last three decades and consumed the region‘s forests, farms, and open spaces at an unprecedented rate. New England‘ers in all six states formed land trusts, supported statewide conservation organizations, and collaborated with state and federal partners to protect some of their most-prized recreation lands, wildlife habitats, and working lands. The current economic recession has slowed development pressures across the region and offers an opportunity to build on recent successes. The time is right to plan a coordinated New England conservation strategy that protects and links the region‘s natural assets. …

South Burlington, Vt: Mixed-Use Comes To O’Dell Parkway, Ryan Neale, Brett Richardson, Richard Barringer

Planning

The proposed redevelopment of an underutilized property along major travel routes in South Burlington presents possibilities for infill development. The City of South Burlington, the developer, neighbors, and a variety of public and nonprofit financial partners work together to create a mixed-use residential/commercial development to meet a variety of housing and community needs. The case study describes the obstacles overcome to make redevelopment possible through zoning and regulatory changes, negotiation with local residents over traffic and other concerns, support from state and local housing advocates, and political leadership; as well as the development’s application of smart growth principles.

Portland Me: Affordable Housing V. Open Space, Patrick Wright, Brett Richardson, Richard Barringer

Planning

Amid an acknowledged “affordable housing crisis”, a first-time developer approaches the City to release part of a tax-acquired property, promising a smart-growth development that would provide sorely needed starter homes for working families. The case highlights the complications of balancing competing interests in Portland ME. It shows where rational planning fails in the presence of strong neighborhood opposition, a disjointed city staff structure, and the absence of political will among City Councilors. It highlights the need for champions within local government when a project evokes competing interests. It demonstrates the extent to which “words matter” to policy outcomes, and who …