Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Open Access Articles

Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The goals of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and legally feasible option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed MAR harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services modeling; and …

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Low Offspring Survival In Mountain Pine Beetle Infesting The Resistant Great Basin Bristlecone Pine Supports The Preference-Performance Hypothesis, Erika L. Eidson, Karen E. Mock, Barbara J. Bentz

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The preference-performance hypothesis states that ovipositing phytophagous insects will select host plants that are well-suited for their offspring and avoid host plants that do not support offspring performance (survival, development and fitness). The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), a native insect herbivore in western North America, can successfully attack and reproduce in most species of Pinus throughout its native range. However, mountain pine beetles avoid attacking Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), despite recent climate-driven increases in mountain pine beetle populations at the high elevations where Great Basin bristlecone pine grows. Low preference for a potential …

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Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The aims of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and legally feasible option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed MAR harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services modeling; and …

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Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The aims of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and permittable option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services …

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Climate Forcings On Groundwater Variations In Utah And The Great Basin, Kirsti A. Hakala

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Groundwater levels over northern Utah have undergone a declining trend since the 1960’s. This trend has made apparent the need to understand the relationship between climate and groundwater resources. Such necessary information is already in dire need in places such as California. At the close of 2013, California had experienced its driest year in recorded history, with severe drought continuing for the foreseeable future. Utah is the second driest state in the U.S., and therefore has been paying close attention to California’s current water crises. Water resource projections may prove to be one of the most vital pieces of information …

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Tree-Ring Reconstruction Of The Level Of Great Salt Lake, Usa, R. Justin Derose, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Brendan M. Buckley, Matthew F. Bekker

Wasatch Dendroclimatology Research

Utah’s Great Salt Lake (GSL) is a closed-basin remnant of the larger Pleistocene-age Lake Bonneville. The modern instrumental record of the GSL-level (i.e. elevation) change is strongly modulated by Pacific Ocean coupled ocean/atmospheric oscillations at low frequency, and therefore reflects the decadalscale wet/dry cycles that characterize the region. A within-basin network of seven tree-ring chronologies was developed to reconstruct the GSL water year (September–August) level, based upon the instrumental record of GSL level from 1876 to 2005. The result was a 576-year reconstruction of the GSL level that extends from 1429 to 2005; all calibration-verification tests commonly used in dendroclimatology …

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Multi-Decadal Drought Cycles In The Great Basin Recorded By The Great Salt Lake: Modulation From A Transition-Phase Teleconnection, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Robert R. Gillies, Thomas Reichler

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

This study investigates the meteorological conditions associated with multidecadal drought cycles as revealed by lake level fluctuation of the Great Salt Lake (GSL). The analysis combined instrumental, proxy, and simulation datasets, including the Twentieth Century Reanalysis version 2, the North American Drought Atlas, and a 2000-yr control simulation of the GFDL Coupled Model, version 2.1 (CM2.1). Statistical evidence from the spectral coherence analysis points to a phase shift amounting to 6–9 yr between the wet–dry cycles in the Great Basin and the warm–cool phases of the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO). Diagnoses of the sea surface temperature and atmospheric …

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Guide To Stakeholder Groups For Great Basin Sagebrush Steppe Restoration, Scott Hoffmann, Mark W. Brunson, Summer Olsen

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

As efforts are made to restore the health and functioning of sagebrush ecosystems within the Great Basin, various stakeholder interest groups have the potential to offer partnerships as well as adversarial involvement with land managers tasked with restoration. Given that greater than 60% of the Great Basin is publicly owned and managed by the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies, it is critical for those working in restoration to understand the views held by key stakeholder groups that may enhance or impair such efforts (Brunson and Peterson 2007). Gaining knowledge about and familiarity with those interest groups active …

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A Route For The Overland Stage, Jesse G. Petersen

All USU Press Publications

The 1859 exploration of the Great Basin by army topographical engineer James Simpson opened up one of the West's most important transportation and communication corridors, a vital link between the Pacific Coast and the rest of the nation. It became the route of the Pony Express and the Overland Mail and Stage, the line of the Pacific telegraph, a major wagon road for freighters and emigrants, and, later, the first transcontinental auto road, the Lincoln Highway, now Highway 50. No one has accurately tracked or mapped Simpson's original route, until now. Jesse Petersen shows in words, maps, and photos exactly …

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A Macroterrain Landtype Association Classification Model For The Great Basin, Frank L. Dougher

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Three Macroterrain Landtype Association classification models were developed to stratify and categorize Utah's West Desert. These models approached terrain segmentation using an energy-flow paradigm from erosional to transitional to depositional landscape. One model was developed as a slope-backed deterministic model that used slope-threshold limits to discriminate between Landtype Associations. A second model was developed as a stochastic, training-data driven supervised classification, using comparative t-values to classify the landscape to the most similar landtype class. The third model was a probabilistic algorithm, which classified the landscape to the most probable class based on multiple iterations of the stochastic model. These …

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Classification Of Great Basin Plant Communities Occuring On Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, Verl Emrick, Alison Hill

Elusive Documents

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A Management-Oriented Classification Of Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands Of The Great Basin, Neil E. West, Robin J. Tausch, Paul T. Tueller, United States Department Of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

Pinyon-juniper woodlands occupy about 18 percent (7.1 million ha, 17.6 million acres) of the land area of the Great Basin (Tueller and others 1979). The associated tree species are found over a wide range of environmental conditions extending from communities representative of the upper fringes of the Mohave Desert to communities found at the lower fringes of high mountain forests. Over this spatial and elevational range, communities associated with pinyon-juniper woodlands are highly variable, with complex distribution and compositional patterns. This variability is due to climatic changes occurring over the last 10,000 years and to variation in current environmental conditions …

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Conceptual Evaluation Of Regional Ground-Water Flow In The Carbonate-Rock Province Of The Great Basin, Nevada, Utah, And Adjacent States, United States Geological Survey

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

The carbonate-rock province of the Great Basin, mainly in eastern Nevada and western Utah, is characterized by thick sequences of carbonate rocks of Paleozoic age. These rocks overlie clastic and crystalline rocks of Cambrian and Precambrian age, respectively. Since the carbonate rocks were deposited, structural compression and extension, intrusive and volcanic episodes, and erosion have greatly modified their distribution and thickness, and a variety of younger rocks and deposits have been emplaced within and above them. The most notable present-day physiographic features in the area are associated with normal faults caused by tensional forces during Tertiary time: The faulting has …

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Kinematics Of Great Basin Intraplate Extension From Earthquake, Geodetic And Geologic Information, Paul Kendall Eddington

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

Strain rates assessed from brittle fracture, associated with earthquakes, and total brittle-ductile deformation measured from geodetic data have been compared to paleostrain from Quaternary geology for the intraplate Great Basin of the western United States. These data provide an assessment of the kinematics and mode of lithospheric extension that the western U.S. Cordillera has experienced in the last 5-10 million years. Strain and deformation rates were determined by the seismic moment tensor method using historic seismicity and fault plane solutions. By subdividing the Great Basin into areas of homogeneous strain it was possible to examine regional variations in the strain …

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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Low Offspring Survival In Mountain Pine Beetle Infesting The Resistant Great Basin Bristlecone Pine Supports The Preference-Performance Hypothesis, Erika L. Eidson, Karen E. Mock, Barbara J. Bentz

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Climate Forcings On Groundwater Variations In Utah And The Great Basin, Kirsti A. Hakala

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Tree-Ring Reconstruction Of The Level Of Great Salt Lake, Usa, R. Justin Derose, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Brendan M. Buckley, Matthew F. Bekker

Wasatch Dendroclimatology Research

Multi-Decadal Drought Cycles In The Great Basin Recorded By The Great Salt Lake: Modulation From A Transition-Phase Teleconnection, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Robert R. Gillies, Thomas Reichler

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Guide To Stakeholder Groups For Great Basin Sagebrush Steppe Restoration, Scott Hoffmann, Mark W. Brunson, Summer Olsen

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

A Route For The Overland Stage, Jesse G. Petersen

All USU Press Publications

A Macroterrain Landtype Association Classification Model For The Great Basin, Frank L. Dougher

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Classification Of Great Basin Plant Communities Occuring On Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, Verl Emrick, Alison Hill

Elusive Documents

A Management-Oriented Classification Of Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands Of The Great Basin, Neil E. West, Robin J. Tausch, Paul T. Tueller, United States Department Of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

Conceptual Evaluation Of Regional Ground-Water Flow In The Carbonate-Rock Province Of The Great Basin, Nevada, Utah, And Adjacent States, United States Geological Survey

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

Kinematics Of Great Basin Intraplate Extension From Earthquake, Geodetic And Geologic Information, Paul Kendall Eddington

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)