Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Sampling Of Malodorous Compounds In Air Using Stir Bar Sorbtive Extraction, John H. Loughrin, Nanh Lovanh, Arturo I. Quintanar, Rezaul Mahmood

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Twisters, (poly)‐dimethylsiloxane‐coated magnetic stir bars, were used to measure compounds typical of swine manure malodor in air. In initial experiments, a time to achieve equilibrium was determined by preloading the stir bars with ten compounds with a range of volatilities and polarities and then monitoring their loss. The rate of loss was dependent on compound volatility, and the time for equilibrium to be attained varied widely, from 22 min for phenol to 210 min for skatole. To test whether the Twisters would respond linearly over a range of concentrations, the stir bars were placed in vented jars with solutions of …

Evaluation Of Modis Ndvi And Ndwi For Vegetation Drought Monitoring Using Oklahoma Mesonet Soil Moisture Data, Yingxin Gu, Eric Hunt, Brian Wardlow, Jeffrey B. Basara, Jesslyn F. Brown, James P. Verdin

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

The evaluation of the relationship between satellitederived vegetation indices (normalized difference vegetation index and normalized difference water index) and soil moisture improves our understanding of how these indices respond to soil moisture fluctuations. Soil moisture deficits are ultimately tied to drought stress on plants. The diverse terrain and climate of Oklahoma, the extensive soil moisture network of the Oklahoma Mesonet, and satellitederived indices from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) provided an opportunity to study correlations between soil moisture and vegetation indices over the 2002–2006 growing seasons. Results showed that the correlation between both indices and the fractional water index …

The Vegetation Drought Response Index (Vegdri): A New Integrated Approach For Monitoring Drought Stress In Vegetation, Jesslyn F. Brown, Brian D. Wardlow, Tsegaye Tadesse, Michael Hayes, Bradley C. Reed

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

The development of new tools that provide timely, detailed-spatial-resolution drought information is essential for improving drought preparedness and response. This paper presents a new method for monitoring drought-induced vegetation stress called the Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI). VegDRI integrates traditional climate-based drought indicators and satellite-derived vegetation index metrics with other biophysical information to produce a 1 km map of drought conditions that can be produced in near-real time. The initial VegDRI map results for a 2002 case study conducted across seven states in the north-central United States illustrates the utility of VegDRI for improved large-area drought monitoring.

Lead Concentration Of Soils In Sorby Hills Area Of Proposed M2 Irrigation Area, East Kimberley, Edward (Ted) Arnold Griffin, Noel R. Schoknecht, Ross Brennan, Jane Speijers, Dave Allen, Mike Freeman

Resource management technical reports

No abstract provided.

Droughtscape, Winter 2008, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Now Up & On-Line:

Winter 2008 Outlook and Oct.-Dec. ’07 Summary

NDMC Experts Serve as Resource for Media

Drought Hits Ag and Urban Interests in 2007

Climatological Summary of Drought in 2007

NDMC Welcomes Data Miner Bo Zhang

New Grant Awards

Using Biosolids To Enhance Phytoremediation Of Oil-Contaminated Soil, Heather N. Markway, Duane C. Wolf, Kaaron J. Davis, Edward E. Gbur

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

While the plant rhizosphere and associated microbial processes have been shown to amplify the degradation rate of chemical residues in soils, phytoremediation can be a slow process. The objective of this greenhouse study was to determine if the addition of biosolids as an organic soil amendment would enhance growth of plants in oil-contaminated soil and thus potentially increase effectiveness of phytoremediation. Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.) or sudangrass (Sorghum sudanense (Piper) Stapf (Piper)) was grown in a Captina silt loam (finesilty, siliceous, mesic Typic Fragiudults) contaminated with 5% crude oil (v/w) and amended with 24 g biosolids/kg soil. …

Setting Targets For Resource Condition In Narrakine Gully And Highbury Catchments, Leon Van Wyk, Gregory Paul Raper

Resource management technical reports

No abstract provided.

Comparison Of Total Mercury And Methylmercury Cycling At Five Sites Using The Small Watershed Approach, James B. Shanley, M. Alisa Mast, Donald H. Campbell, George R. Aiken, David P. Krabbenhoft, Randall J. Hunt, John F. Walker, Paul F. Schuster, Ann Chalmers, Brent T. Aulenbach, Norman E. Peters, Mark Marvin-Dipasquale, David W. Clow, Martin M. Shafer

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The small watershed approach is well-suited but underutilized in mercury research. We applied the small watershed approach to investigate total mercury (THg) and methylmercury (MeHg) dynamics in streamwater at the five diverse forested headwater catchments of the US Geological Survey Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budgets (WEBB) program. At all sites, baseflow THg was generally less than 1 ng L^-1 and MeHg was less than 0.2 ng L^-1. THg and MeHg concentrations increased with streamflow, so export was primarily episodic. At three sites, THg and MeHg concentration and export were dominated by the particulate fraction in association with …

Response Of Sahara Mustard (Brassica Tournefortii) To Water Addition And Soil Disturbance, Alexis Suazo, Jessica E. Spencer, Scott R. Abella

Vegetation Monitoring Presentations

Invasive exotic species can have a significant impact on the structure, function, and diversity of ecological communities. Sahara mustard (Brassica tournefortii) is one of the top exotic invasive species spreading through the southwestern deserts of North America. In arid environments, it is well documented that species abundance is sensitive to rainfall (Beatly 1974, Ernest et al. 2000). In the Mojave Desert, winter precipitation can trigger massive germination events (Beatly 1974). As a winter annual, Sahara mustard may have a positive response to winter precipitation by germinating, growing, and reproducing before native annuals, monopolizing soil moisture and nutrients, and potentially changing …

Fecal Microbe Distribution And Abundance Used As A Possible Proxy For Nutrient Source Identification In Eutrophic Wilgreen Lake, Madison County, Kentucky, Theresa A. Aguiar, Walter S. Borowski

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Wilgreen Lake is a eutrophic lake that has been listed on the EPA’s 303d list as nutrient impaired. Potential sources of this impairment are from humans, cattle manure and fertilizers. We suspect that the majority of nutrients originate from human sources. As a possible proxy for nutrient input, we test our hypothesis by examining fecal microbe distribution and abundance in the lake.

We took water samples at 19 sampling locations on 4 occasions. Sampling spanned 26 June to 15 August with the last 3 sampling events occurring at roughly two-week intervals. These samples were then processed using IDEXX methods, which …

An Update On Groundwater Conditions At The Site Of The York College Cuny Campus In Southeastern Queens County, New York City, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Stanley Schleifer, Zarine Ali, Edward A. Molteni

Publications and Research

The wells operated by the Jamaica Water Supply Company in Queens represent the only large scale utilization of groundwater for public water supply in New York City in recent years. These wells were shut down, for the most part, beginning in 1996. Since that time, water table elevations in the area, which had been drawn down by the withdrawal activity of the Jamaica Water Supply Company, have risen significantly causing some high groundwater problems, including flooding of basements. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP) has held public hearings on a contemplated resumption of ground water withdrawal in …

Droughtscape, Fall 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Fall 2007 Outlook

Diverse Impacts Reported in Summer of 2007

Decadal Climate Cycles Hold Predictive Potential

Drought Experts Take Roadmap to Congress

NDMC Research Updates

Soil Survey Of The Bettink Dairy Farm, Riverway Road, Northcliffe, Peter J. Tille, Tilwin Westrup

Resource management technical reports

This soil survey of the Bettink dairy farm in Northcliffe, Western Australia aimed to: provide detailed soil descriptions to add to information associated with the environment in which the dairy industry in Western Australia is located; collect soil samples at predetermined standard depths from documented farm locations for nutrient analysis; map soils with similar characteristics based on description and analysis.

Droughtscape, Summer 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Summer 07 Outlook

Hayes Named Director of NDMC

NDMC & UN Plan for Drought

Book Review: The Worst Hard Time

Drought Tools Workshops Underway

U.S. Drought Monitor Forum October 10-11, 2007 Portland, Oregon

Droughtscape, Spring 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

2007 Spring Drought Outlook & Winter Summary

VegDRI Expands to 15 States, Refines Views

DroughtScape

State Spotlight: Utah

International Panel Foresees Drought as Part of Climate Change

NIDIS Portal Advancing

Unlv Magazine, Grace Russell, Gian Galassi, Shane Bevell, Karyn S. Hollingsworth, Jennifer Lawson, Lori Bachand, Cate Weeks, Erin O'Donnell, Peter Starkweather

UNLV Magazine

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Results Of A Fecal Microbe Survey In An Eutrophic Lake, Wilgreen Lake, Madison County, Kentucky, Walter S. Borowski, Michael S. Albright

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Wilgreen Lake is a small (~14 mi²) eutrophic lake formed by damming several tributary streams to Silver Creek, Madison County, Kentucky. The lake receives runoff from industrial and urban areas (Richmond) that comprise ~10% of the total watershed area; most runoff is from cattle pasture or human developments encircling the lake. Present and past developments are on septic systems, and effluent from these systems is known qualitatively to seep into lake waters.

Our research group is currently conducting a study of the lake in order to identify major nutrient sources, and one possible tracer method is to quantitatively …

Residence Times And Temporal Variations Of 210Po In Aerosols And Precipitation From Southeastern Michigan, United States, Daphne Mcneary, Mark Baskaran

Environmental Science and Geology Faculty Research Publications

Daughter products of ²²²Rn (such as ²¹⁰Pb, half-life = 22.1 years, and ²¹⁰Po, half-life = 138 days) have been widely used as tracers to determine the removal rates of aerosols as well to obtain analog information on the behavior of other chemical species in the lower atmosphere. To establish the first data set on the depositional fluxes of ²¹⁰Po in bulk precipitation and concentrations in air samples from the midwestern United States, we measured the depositional fluxes of ²¹⁰Pb and ²¹⁰Po in the bulk (wet plus dry) and dry fallout by deploying a rain …

Stratification Of Southern Georgia Streams For Rapid Bioassessment Focusing On Differences In Structure And Function Of Black Water And Clear Water Streams, Salini Pradeep Pillai

Theses and Dissertations

As part of a rapid bioassessment project for the state of Georgia, relatively unimpaired reference streams and impaired sites were sampled for biological, chemical and physical parameters, and macroinvertebrates were identified. The metrics, biological, physical and chemical metrics, were selected using Ecological Data Application System Version 3.3.2k (EDAS). Discrimination efficiency and correlations were performed to determine the best metrics that separated impaired streams from reference streams and later on to form the index of stream water quality. Principal components analysis of the selected metrics showed that some of the blackwater reference streams and clearwater reference streams are randomly placed over …

Impact Of More Intensive Grazing On Nitrogen And Phosphorus In Shallow Aquifers Of The Southern Perth Basin, D L. Bennett, Patrick Donnelly, Peter J. Tille

Resource management technical reports

This study reports on the nutrient content, pH and salinity of groundwater samples collected from the watertable and within the Superficial and the upper Leederville Aquifers from the Southern Perth Basin, south of Pinjarra, Western Australia. Sampling was undertaken to determine the impact of intensification of broadscale grazing on groundwater nutrients in the area.

Boyup Brook - Upper Warren Area : Catchment Appraisal 2007/ Prepared By The South West Arm Region Appraisal Team., Henry Brockman

Resource management technical reports

The aim of this Resource Management Technical Report is to assess the current extent of salinity and other natural resource degradation issues in the Boyup Brook - Upper Warren area and provide landholders with the best current management options to address natural resource management issues and enhance sustainable agricultural production.

Potential Capture Of Surface Run-Off For Reliable Water Supplies In The 500-825 Mm Rainfall Zone Of South Western Australia, D L. Bennett, Peter J. Tille, Ned Stephenson, Tilwin Westrup

Resource management technical reports

No abstract provided.

West Midlands Region Catchment Appraisal 2007, Angela Stuart-Street, Northern Agricultural Region Catchment Appraisal Team

Resource management technical reports

Annual run-off likely to occur was calculated for farm-scale catchments within the 500-825 millimetre rainfall zone of the South West Catchment Council [Western Australia] area. When compared with historical flow measurements, this method was found to be accurate (or conservative) in 85% of all measured years, indicating its usefulness for predicting reliable annual flows.

Enhancing The Detection And Classification Of Coral Reef And Associated Benthic Habitats: A Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Approach, Deepak R. Mishra, Sunil Narumalani, Donald Rundquist, Merlin P. Lawson, R. Perk

Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies: Publications

Coral reefs and associated benthic habitats are heterogeneous in nature. A remote sensor designed to discriminate these environments requires a high number of narrow, properly placed bands which are not currently available in existing satellite sensors. Optical hyperspectral sensors mounted on aerial platforms seem to be appropriate for overcoming the lack of both high spectral and spatial resolution of satellite sensors. This research presents results of an innovative coral reef application by such a sensor. Using hyperspectral Airborne Imaging Spectroradiometer for Applications (AISA) Eagle data, the approach presented solves the confounding influence of water column attenuation on substrate reflectance on …

Agricultural Climatology, Kenneth G. Hubbard

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

With the diversification of the U.S. economy over the past century, agriculture has changed. We can say the farm sizes have increased over time, the number of farmers and those employed in farming have decreased over time, and as the economy has grown the relative contribution of agriculture to the total economy has decreased due to growth in other sectors. The farm prices have not changed significantly over many years while costs for energy, machinery, and land have generally increased. The combination of these factors has generally narrowed the profit margin and the highest productivity will no longer ensure the …

Droughtscape, Winter 2007, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

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Policy Update: NIDIS is Law. What’s Next?

What Would You Like to See?

TX, OK, Plains, Southwest Hardest Hit in 2006

Climatologically Speaking, How Bad Was It?

State Spotlight: Arizona

Drought Decision-Support Tools Evolving

Farm Water For The North-Eastern And Eastern Wheatbelt Of Western Australia (Zones 2 And 5), Susan Murphy-White

Resource management technical reports

Large proportions of Western Australia's dryland farms suffer from water supply problems in the form of shortages, poor quality or combinations of these two factors ... A regional study for the North-eastern and Eastern Wheatbelt of Western Australia was undertaken. The base data used to develop water supply areas included soil type, landscape units, geology, hydrogeology, native vegetation and existing far water resource infrastructure.

Hydrologic Connectivity And The Contribution Of Stream Headwaters To Ecological Integrity At Regional Scales, Mary C. Freeman, Catherine M. Pringle, C. Rhett Jackson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Cumulatively, headwater streams contribute to maintaining hydrologic connectivity and ecosystem integrity at regional scales. Hydrologic connectivity is the water-mediated transport of matter, energy and organisms within or between elements of the hydrologic cycle. Headwater streams compose over two-thirds of total stream length in a typical river drainage and directly connect the upland and riparian landscape to the rest of the stream ecosystem. Altering headwater streams, e.g., by channelization, diversion through pipes, impoundment and burial, modifies fluxes between uplands and downstream river segments and eliminates distinctive habitats. The large-scale ecological effects of altering headwaters are amplified by land uses that alter …

Preliminary Results Of A Nutrient Source Study In Wilgreen Lake, Madison County, Kentucky, Walter S. Borowski, Erin C. Jolly

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Wilgreen Lake (Madison County, Kentucky) is an eutrophic lake formed by damming Taylor Fork, part of the Silver Creek watershed. Two principal tributaries drain urban areas of the city of Richmond, agricultural land typified by cattle grazing, and a high-density residential area using septic systems. The lake is “nutrient impaired,” so it is likely that anthropogenic nutrient loading is affecting water quality. Our study aims to first characterize the physical characteristics and water quality of the lake (2006), and then determine the specific proportion of nutrient inputs (2007) to the lake with the aim of remediating any possible degradation of …

Evidence Of An Active Enso And Pdq During The Mid-Holocene From A Costa Rican Speleothem, April D. Azouz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Although the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important source of inter-annual climate variability in the tropics, its Holocene history is poorly understood, particularly in Central America. A high resolution (-3.8 years/sample) paleoclimate record of Central American rainfall variability has been reconstructed from a U /Th-dated stalagmite (7890 to 6490 yrs B.P.) from Costa Rica to constrain the onset and variability of ENSO throughout the Holocene, and to determine its role in generating regional climate anomalies. I suggest drier conditions, forced by El Nino, are represented by higher 5180 values, and are correlative with higher 513C values, indicating that …