Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Odu Sea Level Rise Initiative Featured In Premier Higher Education Publication, Public Affairs & News Bureau, Old Dominion University

News Items

No abstract provided.

Variation In Coral Recruitment And Juvenile Distribution Along The Southeast Florida Reef Tract, Leah M. Harper

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Coral recruitment in Southeast Florida is being outpaced by mortality, resulting in population declines in many species. Identifying the coral species most likely to recruit and survive on Southeast Florida reefs and evaluating spatial variation in recruitment and survivorship is crucial for managing decreasing coral populations. This study focuses on 12 sites in Broward and Miami-Dade counties that have served as long-term stations for monitoring adult coral cover and demographics. At each site, thirty-two 225cm² grooved terracotta settlement tiles were attached to the substrate in winter of 2015 and retrieved in winter of 2016 to evaluate scleractinian and octocoral …

The Complexity Of Resilience, Cibele Matos Freire

Doctoral Dissertations

One focus area in data management research is to understand how changes in the data can affect the output of a view or standing query. Example applications are explaining query results and propagating updates through views. In this thesis we study the complexity of the Resilience problem, which is the problem of finding the minimum number of tuples that need to be deleted from the database in order to change the result of a query. We will see that resilience is closely related to the well-studied problems of deletion propagation and causal responsibility, and that analyzing its complexity offers important …

Bleached! The Catastrophe Management Of Corals, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

Corals have recently emerged as both a sign and a measure of the imminent catastrophic future of life on earth and, as such, have become the focus of intense conservation management. Bleached! draws on in-depth interviews and participatory observations with coral scientists and managers to explore the management of the corals’ ecological catastrophe to come. The article starts by describing the unique life of corals, the importance of calculability in catastrophe management, and the coral scientists’ preoccupation with classifying, counting, and seeing in their attempt to comprehensibly monitor corals and anticipate their decline. Algorithmic models and elaborate temporal analyses are …

Odu Researcher: Hampton Roads A Poster-Child For Sea Level Rise Threat, Public Affairs & News Bureau, Old Dominion University

News Items

No abstract provided.

The Global Energy Crisis, Katie Calhoun

Facing the Future Lessons

The world is at an energy tipping point. Countries and communities can choose to be proactive or wait and be reactive, however it is much less costly to do the former. In this project, high school environmental science students will examine the current energy use and concerns in a named country or community, analyze the pros and cons of the current energy situation and how it effects the social, economic and environmental aspects of the culture, then create a more sustainable, resilient plan for that country.

Responses Of Agroecosystems To Climate Change: Specifics Of Resilience In The Mid-Latitude Region, Menas Kafatos, Seung Hee Kim, Chul-Hee Lim, Jinwon Kim, Woo-Kyun Lee

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

This study examines the productivity and resilience of agroecosystems in the Korean Peninsula. Having learned valuable lessons from a Chapman University project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture which concentrated on the semi-arid region of southwestern United States, our joint Korea—Chapman University team has applied similar methodologies to the Korean Peninsula, which is itself an interesting study case in the mid-latitude region. In particular, the Korean Peninsula has unique agricultural environments due to differences in political and socioeconomic systems between South Korea and North Korea. Specifically, North Korea has been suffering from food shortages due to natural disasters, …

Hampton Roads Residents’ Perceptions Of Sea Level Rise And Flooding Adaptation, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Carol Considine, Burton St. John Iii, Michelle Covi, J. Gail Nicula, Pragati Rawat, Kaitlin Giles

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Comparing Sea Level Rise Adaptation Strategies In San Diego: An Application Of The Noaa Economic Framework, Nexus Planning & Research

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

Coastal communities in San Diego County face ever-increasing risks from sea level rise, coastal storm events, flooding, and beach erosion. The potential hazards to this vital, vibrant 70-mile stretch of California coastline compel city planners and decision-makers to develop coastal resilience initiatives by conducting vulnerability assessments and considering potential adaptation strategies.

Nexus Planning & Research was tasked with providing a comparative benefit-cost analysis of coastal resilience strategies for participating cities in San Diego County, following the framework outlined in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) funded study, What Will Adaptation Cost? An Economic Framework for Coastal Community Infrastructure (NOAA, …

Proposed Legislation Seeks To Stimulate Investment In Coastal Resiliency, Jon Cawley

News Items

No abstract provided.

Extensions Of Task-Based Runtime For High Performance Dense Linear Algebra Applications, Chongxiao Cao

Doctoral Dissertations

On the road to exascale computing, the gap between hardware peak performance and application performance is increasing as system scale, chip density and inherent complexity of modern supercomputers are expanding. Even if we put aside the difficulty to express algorithmic parallelism and to efficiently execute applications at large scale, other open questions remain. The ever-growing scale of modern supercomputers induces a fast decline of the Mean Time To Failure. A generic, low-overhead, resilient extension becomes a desired aptitude for any programming paradigm. This dissertation addresses these two critical issues, designing an efficient unified linear algebra development environment using a task-based …

Operationalizing Resilience In The Face Of Water Conflict: Linking Social And Ecological Systems, Stephen Andrew Mcguire

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the possibility of linked surface-groundwater governance through the application of a social-ecological systems lens to the Lake Beulah Conflict over a high capacity well in Walworth County, Wisconsin. Potential adverse impacts the loss of Ca2+ rich groundwater would have on Lake Beulah’s water quality was modeled through an ex-ante assessment method using the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lake and reservoir model BATHTUB, the U.S. Geological Survey geochemical model PHREEQC and a Ca2+ mass balance equation. The utility of this information in a management setting was also analyzed. Reduction of Ca2+ through groundwater withdrawal revealed a eutrophication …

Plant Diversity Influences The Structure And Function Of A Restored Prairie And Its Responses To Added Disturbances, Rebecca Bevans

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

As global warming, human conversion of natural landscapes to agricultural uses, and widespread biodiversity losses continue to alter the ecosystems we depend on, an understanding of the relationship between ecosystem structure, composition, and function is needed to maintain valuable ecosystem states and their associated functions. Research testing the limits of an ecosystem’s ability to maintain essential structure and functioning under disturbance conditions can aid in this goal.

In this study, I measured the relationship between plant diversity, community structure and functional traits, and their responses to added disturbances. I added disturbances representing those either caused or intensified by human activity …

A Walk On The Wild Side: Disturbance Dynamics And The Conservation And Management Of European Mountain Forest Ecosystems, Dominik Kulakowski, Rupert Seidl, Jan Holeksa, Timo Kuuluvainen, Thomas A. Nagel, Momchil Panayotov, Miroslav Svoboda, Simon Thorn, Giorgio Vacchiano, Cathy Whitlock, Thomas Wohlgemuth, Peter Bebi

Geography

Mountain forests are among the most important ecosystems in Europe as they support numerous ecological, hydrological, climatic, social, and economic functions. They are unique relatively natural ecosystems consisting of long-lived species in an otherwise densely populated human landscape. Despite this, centuries of intensive forest management in many of these forests have eclipsed evidence of natural processes, especially the role of disturbances in long-term forest dynamics. Recent trends of land abandonment and establishment of protected forests have coincided with a growing interest in managing forests in more natural states. At the same time, the importance of past disturbances highlighted in an …

Tourism Business Resilience For Coastal Virginia Assessment Report, Lindsay E. Usher, Michelle Covi, Juita-Elena Wie Yusuf, Kaitlin Giles, Elizabeth Armistead Andrews, Angela King, Sashenka Brauer, Rebecca Ribley

Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency (CCRFR): Reports

This report summarizes the results of the Tourism Business Resilience Project conducted by the Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency and Virginia Sea Grant. This project was a joint effort by faculty and students from the Old Dominion University Resilience Collaborative and the Virginia Coastal Policy Center at the William & Mary Law School.

Recovery And Resilience Of Urban Stream Metabolism Following Superstorm Sandy And Other Floods, Alexander J. Reisinger, Emma J. Rosi, Heather A. Bechtold, Thomas R. Doody, Sujay S. Kaushal, Peter M. Groffman

Publications and Research

Urban streams are exposed to multiple different stressors on a regular basis, with increased hydrological flashiness representing a common urban stream stressor. Stream metabolism, the coupled ecosystem functions of gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER), controls numerous other ecosystem functions and integrates multiple processes occurring within streams. We examined the effect of one large (Superstorm Sandy) and multiple small and moderately sized flood events in Baltimore, Maryland, to quantify the response and recovery of urban stream GPP and ER before and after floods of different magnitudes. We also compared GPP and ER before and after Superstorm Sandy to …

A Complex Systems Simulation Study For Increasing Adaptive-Capacity, Kadambari Ram

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Examination of empirical research confirmed that climate change is a complex problem of anthropological origin and revealed the need for a management framework to facilitate strategic decisions aimed at mitigating a rise in global temperatures of 2-°C linked to irresponsible and unsustainable business practices. The purpose of this simulation study was to develop a management framework of resilience, robustness, sustainability, and adaptive-capacity (RRSA) for organizations viewed as complex systems to address the current unsustainable state. As such, the evolutionary-RRSA prisoner's dilemma (PD) simulation was developed using an evolutionary game theory approach to agent based modeling and simulation, to generate data. …

Network Analysis Of A Regional Fishery: Implications For Management Of Natural Resources, And Recruitment And Retention Of Anglers, Dustin R. Martin, Daizaburo Shizuka, Christopher J. Chizinski, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Angler groups and water-body types interact to create a complex social-ecological system. Network analysis could inform detailed mechanistic models on, and provide managers better information about, basic patterns of fishing activity. Differences in behavior and reservoir selection among angler groups in a regional fishery, the Salt Valley fishery in southeastern Nebraska, USA, were assessed using a combination of cluster and network analyses. The four angler groups assessed ranged from less active, unskilled anglers (group One) to highly active, very skilled anglers (group Four). Reservoir use patterns and the resulting network communities of these four angler groups differed; the number of …

Adaptive Management Of Rangeland Systems, Craig R. Allen, David G. Angeler, Joseph J. Fontaine, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Noelle M. Chaine, Kevin L. Pope, Dirac L. Twidwell Jr.

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Adaptive management is an approach to natural resource management that uses structured learning to reduce uncertainties for the improvement of management over time. The origins of adaptive management are linked to ideas of resilience theory and complex systems. Rangeland management is particularly well suited for the application of adaptive management, having sufficient controllability and reducible uncertainties. Adaptive management applies the tools of structured decision making and requires monitoring, evaluation, and adjustment of management. Adaptive governance, involving sharing of power and knowledge among relevant stakeholders, is often required to address conflict situations. Natural resource laws and regulations can present a barrier …

Is Initial Post-Disturbance Regeneration Indicative Of Longer-Term Trajectories?, Nathan S. Gill, Daniel Jarvis, Thomas T. Veblen, Steward T.A. Pickett, Dominik Kulakowski

Geography

The ability to estimate and model future vegetation dynamics is a central focus of contemporary ecology and is essential for understanding future ecological trajectories. It is therefore critical to understand when the influence of initial post-disturbance regeneration versus stochastic processes dominates long-term post-disturbance ecological processes. Often, conclusions about post-disturbance dynamics are based upon initial regeneration in the years immediately after disturbances. However, the degree to which initial post-disturbance regeneration indicates longer-term trends is likely to be contingent on the types, intensities, and combinations of disturbances, as well as pre-disturbance ecosystem structure and composition. Our relatively limited understanding of why initial …

Facing Human Workload: The Resilient Ego: A Psychoanalytic Point Of View, Glauco Maria Genga, Maria Gabriella Pediconii

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The paper aims to show new connections among Human Factors, Human Workload and Resilience. We intend: 1) to highlight the role of subject in facing the human workload, inflected as demanding tasks and emergency situations; 2) to show how psychoanalysis can provide novel insights, not only into human errors, but also into human resilience. They have a common denominator, at least in part: the role of subjective contributions even in demanding situations. Human workload includes a work for satisfaction. We recall also the case study of US Airways Flight 1549 water landing (the so called “Miracle on the Hudson”), which …