Environmental Health and Protection Commons^™

Multidimensional Investigation Of Tennessee’S Urban Forest, Jillian L. Gorrell

Doctoral Dissertations

Preserving existing trees in urban areas and properly cultivating urban forest conservation and management opportunities is valuable to the ever-growing urban environment and necessary for creating optimal experiences and educational tools to meet the needs of increasing urban populations. This dissertation contains studies investigating several facets of the urban forest, including environmental effects of deforestation and urbanization, tree equity, and urban forest facility management and accessibility. Community education and outreach at arboreta about the importance of the tree canopy can help promote environmental stewardship. A digital questionnaire was electronically distributed to representatives of arboreta certified through the Tennessee Division of …

From Drones To Soil Cores: Comprehensive Ecological Assessments For Enhancing Conservation Management Of Urban Forested Natural Areas, Mia T. Wavrek

Masters Theses

Urban natural areas are vegetated areas within cities that exhibit characteristics of non-urban natural areas in that they have relatively high levels of self-regulation (low or no level of management) of natural ecosystem processes and exhibit high taxonomic, genetic, and structural diversity. When these areas take the form of urban parkland, they are often managed for their social benefits to urban residents, while their ecological potential remains underutilized. Growing interest in enhancing biodiversity conservation in cities has highlighted the importance of improving the ecological planning and management of urban natural areas, particularly forested natural areas. For the variety of agencies …

Investigating The Ecology And Behavior Of The Indiana Bat And Tri-Colored Bat During Fall Swarming And Spring Staging, Mallory E. Tate

Masters Theses

White-nose syndrome has devastated bat populations across North America since 2005. Due to declines in Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) and tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) populations across the eastern United States, management prescriptions need to consider all seasons of these species annual cycles. However, data is severely lacking on the two seasons surrounding winter hibernation. These include fall swarming, a time period when bats are mating and preparing for hibernation, and spring staging, when bats are emerging from hibernation and preparing for spring migration. Both periods are critical for successful reproduction and survival following white-nose syndrome infection. …

Reaping The Benefits Of Conservation Tillage: Implications Of Increased Soil Organic Matter And Aggregation In Surface Soils, Kenna Elizabeth Rewcastle

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Spatial Co-Variation Between Distance From Mining Activity And Water Chemistry On East Tennessee's Northern Cumberland Plateau, Bryan Benjamin Bozeman

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Towards Sustainable Development Of Nanomanufacturing, Sasikumar Ramdas Naidu

Doctoral Dissertations

"Sustainability" is a buzz word these days not just among regulatory agencies but even with corporations, as evident by the release of annual sustainability report by a large number of firms. Companies are starting to portray profit making along with corporate environmental responsibility.

Nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing which holds a lot of promise for development in a multitude of fields in science and engineering is the new kid on the block and carries a lot of apprehension due to public concern about their potential unwanted side effects that may result in the case of an untoward incident or lack of oversight. …

A Geospatial Based Decision Framework For Extending Marssim Regulatory Principles Into The Subsurface, Robert Nathan Stewart

Doctoral Dissertations

The Multi-Agency Radiological Site Survey Investigation Manual (MARSSIM) is a regulatory guidance document regarding compliance evaluation of radiologically contaminated soils and buildings (USNRC, 2000). Compliance is determined by comparing radiological measurements to established limits using a combination of hypothesis testing and scanning measurements. Scanning allows investigators to identify localized pockets of contamination missed during sampling and allows investigators to assess radiological exposure at different spatial scales. Scale is important in radiological dose assessment as regulatory limits can vary with the size of the contaminated area and sites are often evaluated at more than one scale (USNRC, 2000). Unfortunately, scanning is …

Wind Regimes In Complex Terrain Of The Great Valley Of Eastern Tennessee, Kevin Ray Birdwell

Doctoral Dissertations

This research was designed to provide an understanding of physical wind mechanisms within the complex terrain of the Great Valley of Eastern Tennessee to assess the impacts of regional air flow with regard to synoptic and mesoscale weather changes, wind direction shifts, and air quality. Meteorological data from 2008–2009 were analyzed from 13 meteorological sites along with associated upper level data. Up to 15 ancillary sites were used for reference. Two-step complete linkage and K-means cluster analyses, synoptic weather studies, and ambient meteorological comparisons were performed to generate hourly wind classifications. These wind regimes revealed seasonal variations of underlying physical …

Effects Of 2000-2050 Global Climate Change On Ozone And Particulate Matter Air Quality In The United States Using Models-3/Cmaq System, Yun-Fat Lam

Doctoral Dissertations

The Models-3/Community Multi-scale Air Quality modeling system (CMAQ), coupled with Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) atmospheric General Circulation Model (GCM), fifth Generation Mesoscale Model system (MM5), and Goddard Earth Observing System-CHEMistry (GEOS-Chem), was used to simulate atmospheric concentration of ozone and particulate matter over the continental United States 12-km and 36-km (CONUS) domains at year 2000 and year 2050. In the study, GISS GCM model outputs interfaced with MM5 were utilized to supply the current and future meteorological conditions for CMAQ. The conventional CMAQ profile initial and boundary conditions were replaced by time-varied and layer-varied GEOS-Chem outputs. The future …

Aquatic Habitat Mapping Within The Obed Wild And Scenic River For Threatened And Endangered Species Habitat Delineation, Joseph Ross Candlish

Masters Theses

There is a need to define a more efficient and accurate approach to aquatic habitat mapping. Traditional approaches have focused on intense biological/non-biological sampling and observation analysis within specific and restrained scales. Therefore, an underwater video mapping system (UVMS) has been developed in efforts to identify federally protected aquatic species’ habitats within the Obed Wild and Scenic River (OBRI). The UVMS kayak apparatus provides georeferenced video footage correlated with GPS (global positioning systems) for GIS (geographic information systems) mapping applications. Based on its fluvial and geomorphological trends, OBRI was dissected quantitatively and integrated into databases for species-specific GIS habitat queries. …