Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Calibrating Human Attention As Indicator: Monitoring #Drought In The Twittersphere, Kelly Smith, Andrew Tyre, Zhenghong Tang, Michael Hayes, Adnan Akyuz

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

State climatologists and other expert drought observers have speculated about the value of monitoring Twitter for #drought and related hashtags. This study statistically examines the relationships between the rate of tweeting using #drought and related hashtags, within states, accounting for drought status and news coverage of drought. We collected and geolocated tweets, 2017–18, and used regression analysis and a diversity statistic to explain expected and identify unexpected volumes of tweets. This provides a quantifiable means to detect state-weeks with a volume of tweets that exceeds the upper limit of the prediction interval. To filter out instances where a high volume …

Droughtscape, Fall 2020, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

DroughtScape, Fall 2020

Trend Of Thornthwaite's Aridity Index (Ai) At Atakpame (Togo), Komlan Koudahe

International Programs

Drought can severely affect agricultural production potential, destroying the local economy and creating famine. Data were collected (1990 to 2014) from the Meteorological Department of Togo. Reference evapotranspiration (ETo) varied with two peaks obtained on March 28 (5.84mm) and on November 17 (4.87mm). There was water deficit in all years except 2005 and 2007. Also, there was non-significant increasing trend of aridity index (AI). Specific actions should target efficient water management in Atakpame.

Development And Performance Assessment Of An Integrated Vermifiltration Based Treatment System For The Treatment Of Feedlot Runoff, Rajneesh Singh, Matteo D'Alessio, Yulie Meneses, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt, Brian Woodbury, Chittaranjan Ray

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

The objective of this study was to treat feedlot runoff by developing an ecologically sustainable, affordable, and resilient treatment system having a relatively long life span. Three horizontal flow soil biofilters were utilized in this study: 1) without earthworms and plants (Biofilter (BF)), 2) with earthworms only (Vermifilter (VF)), and 3) with earthworms and plants (Macrophyte Assisted Vermifilter (MAVF)). The experiments were conducted with a hydraulic retention time of four days using Lumbricus terestrris earthworms and Carex frankii wetland plants. The average COD removal from the BF, VF, and MAVF were 23.2–30.4%, 61.4–69.1%, and 68.3–78.1%, respectively. Average TN removal efficiencies …

Using Climate To Explain And Predict West Nile Virus Risk In Nebraska, Kelly Helm Smith, Andrew J. Tyre, Jeff Hamik, Michael J. Hayes, Yuzhen Zhou, Li Dai

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

We used monthly precipitation and temperature data to give early warning of years with higher West Nile Virus (WNV) risk in Nebraska. We used generalized additive models with a negative binomial distribution and smoothing curves to identify combinations of extremes and timing that had the most influence, experimenting with all combinations of temperature and drought data, lagged by 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months. We fit models on data from 2002 through 2011, used Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) to select the best‐fitting model, and used 2012 as out‐of‐sample data for prediction, and repeated this process for each successive year, …

The Post-Wildfire Impact Of Burn Severity And Age On Black Carbon Snow Deposition And Implications For Snow Water Resources, Cascade Range, Washington, Ted M. Uecker, Susan D. Kaspari, Keith N. Musselman, S. Mckenzie Skiles

Geological Sciences Faculty Scholarship

Wildfires in the snow zone affect ablation by removing forest canopy, which enhances surface solar irradiance, and depositing light absorbing particles [LAPs, such as black carbon (BC)] on the snowpack, reducing snow albedo. How variations in BC deposition affects post-wildfire snowmelt timing is poorly known and highly relevant to water resources. We present a field-based analysis of BC variability across five sites of varying burn age and burn severity in the Cascade Range, Washington State, United States. Single particle soot photometer (SP2) analyses of BC snow concentrations were used to assess the impact of BC on snow albedo, and radiative …

Legacy And Current Pesticide Residues In Syr Darya, Kazakhstan: Contamination Status, Seasonal Variation And Preliminary Ecological Risk Assessment, Daniel D. Snow, P. Chakraborty, B. Uralbekov, B. Satybaldiev, J. Brett Sallach, L. M. Thornton Hampton, M. Jeffries, A. S. Kolok, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

The Syr Darya is one of two major rivers in Central Asia supplying critical fresh water to the Aral Sea. In spite of the river’s importance and agriculturally-intensive history, few studies have provided a modern evaluation of and the occurrence of pesticide residues potential effects to aquatic life. The primary goal of this investigation was to determine seasonal variations in ambient concentrations of modern and legacy pesticides in bottom sediment and water of the Syr Darya in Kazakhstan (KZ) downstream from an agriculturally-intensive watershed in Uzbekistan. Grab samples and passive samplers were used at five remote sampling stations during June …

Monitoring Residual Soil Moisture And Its Association To The Long-Term Variability Of Rainfall Over The Upper Blue Nile Basin In Ethiopia, Getachew Ayehu, Tsegaye Tadesse, Berhan Gessesse

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Monitoring soil moisture and its association with rainfall variability is important to comprehend the hydrological processes and to set proper agricultural water use management to maximize crop growth and productivity. In this study, the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative (ESA CCI) soil moisture product was applied to assess the dynamics of residual soil moisture in autumn (September to November) and its response to the long-term variability of rainfall in the Upper Blue Nile Basin (UBNB) of Ethiopia from 1992 to 2017. The basin was found to have autumn soil moisture (ASM) ranging from 0.09–0.38 m³/m³, …

Droughtscape, Summer 2020, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

DroughtScape, Summer 2020

Climate Change Impacts The Subsurface Transport Of Atrazine And Estrone Originating From Agricultural Production Activities, Renys Enrique Barrios, Simin Akbariyeh, Chuyang Liu, Khalid Muzamil Gani, Margarita T. Kovalchuk, Xu Li, Yusong Li, Daniel D. Snow, Zhenghong Tang, John Gates, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Climate change will impact soil properties such as soil moisture, organic carbon and temperature and changes in these properties will influence the sorption, biodegradation and leaching of trace organic contaminants to groundwater. In this study, we conducted a modeling case study to evaluate atrazine and estrone transport in the subsurface under current and future climate conditions at a field site in central Nebraska. According to the modeling results, in the future, enhanced evapotranspiration and increased average air temperature may cause drier soil conditions, which consequently reduces the biodegradation of atrazine and estrone in the water phase. On the other hand, …

Long-Term Ndvi And Recent Vegetation Cover Profiles Of Major Offshore Island Nesting Sites Of Sea Turtles In Saudi Waters Of The Northern Arabian Gulf, Rommel H. Maneja, Jeffrey D. Miller, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Ace Vincent B. Flandez, Joshua J. Dagoy, Joselito Francis A. Alcaria, Abdullajid U. Basali, Khaled A. Al-Abdulkader, Ronald A. Loughland, Mohamed A. Qurban

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Vegetation is an important ecological component of offshore islands in the Arabian Gulf (AG), which maintains long-term resilience of these islands. This is achieved by influencing sediment retention and moisture acquisition via condensation during periods of high humidity and by providing a variety of microhabitats for island fauna. The resilience of offshore islands’ ecosystems in the Saudi waters is important because they host the largest number of nesting hawksbill and green turtles in the AG. This study defines the characteristics and the long-term trends in vegetation cover of the offshore islands used by sea turtles as nesting grounds in the …

Combined Use Of Sentinel‐1 Sar And Landsat Sensors Products For Residual Soil Moisture Retrieval Over Agricultural Fields In The Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, Getachew Ayehu, Tsegaye Tadesse, Berhan Gessesse, Yibeltal Yigrem, Assefa M. Melesse

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

The objective of this paper is to investigate the potential of sentinel‐1 SAR sensor products and the contribution of soil roughness parameters to estimate volumetric residual soil moisture (RSM) in the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin, Ethiopia. The backscatter contribution of crop residue water content was estimated using Landsat sensor product and the water cloud model (WCM). The surface roughness parameters were estimated from the Oh and Baghdadi models. A feed‐forward artificial neural network (ANN) method was tested for its potential to translate SAR backscattering and surface roughness input variables to RSM values. The model was trained for three inversion …

A Hydrometeorological Assessment Of The Historic 2019 Flood Of Nebraska, Iowa, And South Dakota, Paul Xavier Flanagan, Rezaul Mahmood, Natalie Umphlett, Erin M.K. Haacker, Chittaranjan Ray, Bill Sorensen, Martha Shulski, Crystal J. Stiles, David Pearson, Paul Fajman

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

During early 2019, a series of events set the stage for devastating floods in eastern Nebraska, western Iowa, and southeastern South Dakota. When the floodwaters hit, dams and levees failed, cutting off towns, while destroying roads, bridges, and rail lines, further exacerbating the crisis. Lives were lost and thousands of cattle were stranded. Estimates indicate that the cost of the flooding has topped $3 billion as of August 2019, with this number expected to rise.

After a warm and wet start to winter, eastern Nebraska, western Iowa, and southeastern South Dakota endured anomalously low temperatures and record-breaking snowfall. By March …

Geospatial Applications To Mitigate Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations From Impacting Surface Water Resources, Elias Rex

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) offer the ability to meet the rising demands of population growth by housing large amounts of livestock on relatively small areas of land, using medication to accelerate their maturation, and reusing waste products as fertilizers. However, there is a growing abundance of literature related to land use configurations and their effects on water resources, many of which highlight agriculture as a primary contributor of nutrients and fecal bacteria found in surrounding water resources. The purpose of this study is to advance the current knowledge surrounding CAFO land-use and its effect on tributaries within the Cape …

Storm Surges In The Bohai Sea: The Role Of Waves And Tides, Yuanyi Li, Huan Feng, Guillaume Vigouroux, Dekui Yuan, Guangyu Zhang, Xiaodi Ma, Kun Lei

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A storm surge is a complex phenomenon in which waves, tide and current interact. Even though wind is the predominant force driving the surge, waves and tidal phase are also important factors that influence the mass and momentum transport during the surge. Devastating storm surges often occur in the Bohai Sea, a semi-enclosed shallow sea in North China, due to extreme storms. However, the effects of waves on storm surges in the Bohai Sea have not been quantified and the mechanisms responsible for the higher surges that affect part of the Bohai Sea have not been thoroughly studied. In this …

Building Adaptive Capacity In Tribal Communities Of The Missouri River Basin To Manage Drought And Climate Extremes: A Case Study From The Wind River Indian Reservation, Crystal J. Stiles, Natalie Umphlett, Mitch Cottenoir

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Native American peoples of the Northern and Central Plains have long endured harsh climate conditions, such as floods and droughts, and they possess valuable traditional knowledges that have enhanced their resilience to these extreme events. However, in recent times, limited capacity to adapt to a rapidly changing climate combined with a lack of resources have increased tribes’ vulnerability to climate extremes and their associated impacts. In response, a number of projects have been developed to assist tribes with their self-identified climate- and drought-related needs, particularly in the context of on-reservation decision-making. In this case study, we present an engagement strategy …

Storm Sampling To Assess Inclement Weather Impacts On Water Quality In A Karst Watershed: Sinking Creek, Watauga Watershed, East Tennessee, Porcha Mccurdy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Escherichia coli changes in Sinking Creek, an impaired water body in the Watauga watershed of northeast Tennessee, were assessed during storm events using water samples collected with ISCO automated samplers during eight storms at two locations. Turbidity and electrical conductivity (EC) data loggers were deployed in the creek, and dissolved oxygen (DO) was measured in situ to test the stream’s water quality and reaction to inclement weather. Cotton fabric was deployed at both locations and sent to an external lab to test for the presence of Optical Brighteners (OB), which are indicators of residential wastewater. E. coli and turbidity at …

Earth Observation And Cloud Computing In Support Of Two Sustainable Development Goals For The River Nile Watershed Countries, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Venkat Lakshmi, Thomas Piechota, Daniele Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In September 2015, the members of United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with universal applicability of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets. The SDGs are consequential for the development of the countries in the Nile watershed, which are affected by water scarcity and experiencing rapid urbanization associated with population growth. Earth Observation (EO) has become an important tool to monitor the progress and implementation of specific SDG targets through its wide accessibility and global coverage. In addition, the advancement of algorithms and tools deployed in cloud computing platforms provide an equal opportunity to use EO …

Droughtscape, Spring 2020, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

DroughtScape, Spring 2020

Presence Of Glyphosate In First Order Streams Associated With Rainfall Events, Julie Platz

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Glyphosate is widely used in the United States and has recently been described as both mobile and persistent in soils and bodies of water. There is little research however, on the variability of glyphosate concentration in runoff based on different land use types. For this study an evaluation of samples from different land uses are used to assess glyphosate concentrations in first order streams during a runoff event. The intent was to compare three sites with a. known commercial applications, b. known lack of applications (organic), and c. assumed limited application of glyphosate. There was no significant difference in glyphosate …

Element Transport In A River-Lake Continuum Across Forest-Dominated Landscapes: A Case Study In Central Louisiana, Zhen Xu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Studying the biogeochemical connectivity between rivers and lakes can help us understand their ecological and environmental impacts within a drainage basin, which is especially true for forest watersheds that play a vital role in provisioning freshwater services to ecosystems and downstream communities. This dissertation research consists of three interconnected studies with the overarching goal of discerning the connectivity of elements in a river-lake continuum across forest-dominated landscapes. These studies utilized water samples and in situ measurements collected from the Little River-Catahoula Lake continuum in the subtropical Louisiana, USA at monthly intervals during 2015-2016 and 1978-2008 historical water quality, hydrological and …

Utilizing Objective Drought Severity Thresholds To Improve Drought Monitoring, Zachary T. Leasor, Steven M. Quiring, Mark D. Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Drought is a prominent climatic hazard in the south-central United States. Drought severity is frequently classified using the categories established by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM). This study evaluates whether the thresholds for the standardized precipitation index (SPI) used by the USDM accurately classify drought severity. This study uses the SPI based on PRISM precipitation data from 1900 to 2015 to evaluate drought severity in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The results show that the fixed SPI thresholds for the USDM drought categories may lead to a systematic underestimation of drought severity in arid regions. To address this issue, objective drought …

A Design For A Sustained Assessment Of Climate Forcing And Feedbacks Related To Land Use And Land Cover Change, Thomas Loveland, Rezaul Mahmood

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

L and use and land cover change (LULCC) plays an important role in the climate system. Many studies have documented the impacts of LULCC on local, regional, and global climate. The National Climate Assessment Report (Melillo et al. 2014) identifies LULCC as a “cross cutting” issue of future climate change studies. This report, and the previous U.S. Climate Change Science Program strategic plan (2003), noted that land use and land cover (LULC) and its feedback is an important source of uncertainty within the climate system (Melillo et al. 2014). As a result, the report calls for a better understanding of …

Swine Slurry Characteristics As Affected By Selected Additives And Disinfectants, Jon Duerschner, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt, Kent Eskridge, John E. Gilley, Xu Li, Amy M. Schmidt, Daniel D. Snow

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Current swine industry practice is to house animals in confinement facilities which capture and store feces and urine as slurry in pits below the production area. Additives and disinfectants may be introduced into the manure pits. This study was conducted to measure the effects of additives and disinfectants on temporal changes in swine slurry characteristics. Slurry from a commercial swine production facility in southeast Nebraska, USA was collected and transferred to 57 L reactors located within a greenhouse. Selected additives and disinfectants were added to the reactors and physical properties, chemical characteristics, and antibiotic concentrations were monitored for 40 days. …

Measuring The Occurrence Of Antibiotics In Surface Water Adjacent To Cattle Grazing Areas Using Passive Samplers, Nasrin Naderi Beni, Daniel D. Snow, Elaine D. Berry, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Tiffany Messer, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

A wide variety of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals are used in livestock production systems and residues passed to the environment, often unmetabolized, after use and excretion. Antibiotic residuesmay be transported frommanure-treated soils via runoff and are also capable of reaching surface and groundwater systems through a variety of pathways. The occurrence and persistence of antibiotics in the environment is a concern due to the potential for ecological effects and proliferation of environmental antibiotic resistance in pathogenic organisms. In the present study, the occurrence and seasonal variation of 24 commonly-used veterinary antibiotics was evaluated in surface water adjacent to several livestock …

Critical Analysis Of The Value Of Drought Information And Impacts On Land Management And Public Health, Tingting Liu, Kelly Helm Smith, Richard Krop, Tonya Haigh, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

This paper reviews previous efforts to assign monetary value to climatic or meteorological information, such as public information on drought, climate, early warning systems, and weather forecast information. Methods and tools that have been explored to examine the benefits of climatic and meteorological information include the avoided cost, contingent valuation, choice experiments, benefit transfer, and descriptive approaches using surveys. The second part of this paper discusses specific considerations related to valuing drought information for public health and the Bureau of Land Management. We found a multitude of connections between drought and the land management and health sectors in the literature. …

Using Climate To Explain And Predict West Nile Virus Risk In Nebraska, Kelly Smith, Andrew Tyre, Jeff Hamik, Michael Hayes, Yuzhen Zhou, Li Dai

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

We used monthly precipitation and temperature data to give early warning of years with higher West Nile Virus (WNV) risk in Nebraska. We used generalized additive models with a negative binomial distribution and smoothing curves to identify combinations of extremes and timing that had the most influence, experimenting with all combinations of temperature and drought data, lagged by 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months. We fit models on data from 2002 through 2011, used Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) to select the best‐fitting model, and used 2012 as out‐of‐sample data for prediction, and repeated this process for each successive year, …

Applied Injected Air Into Subsurface Drip Irrigation: Plant Uptake Of Pharmaceuticals And Soil Microbial Communities, Matteo D'Alessio, Lisa M. Durso, Clinton Williams, Christopher A. Olson, Chittaranjan Ray, Ellen Paparozzi

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

The growing global food security crisis is complicated by the need for increased crop production with less arable land and limited water resources. Reuse of treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation is becoming more common, often paired with other conservation measures such as subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). Passively injecting air into SDI systems increases crop yields and overcomes root zone wetting issues. However, when used with treated irrigation water, contaminants in the water might be taken up by the crops. This paper investigates the impact of air-injected water containing caffeine, carbamazepine, and gemfibrozil on plant uptake and soil microbial communities in …

Droughtscape, Winter 2019, Cory Matteson

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

Contents

From the Director

4th quarter climate summary

2019 year in review summary

4th quarter drought impact summary

2019 drought impact summary

New form helps ‘see more’ drought

Landscape photographers invited to submit photos

Helping Central and South America planning

Database includes more drought planning

Reconstructing Hydrologic Conditions And Metals Supplied By The Peace River To The Peace-Athabasca Delta, Jelle André Faber

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD) in northern Alberta, Canada, is recognized internationally for its ecological, historical, and cultural significance. The delta is mostly within Wood Buffalo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. The construction of the WAC Bennett Dam (1967) and the Site C Dam (ongoing, 2024) on the Peace River, and expansion of the Alberta Oil Sands industry along the Athabasca River have raised concerns over water quantity and quality in the delta. When industry operations began, effective monitoring had not been implemented. Consequently, pre-industrial reference conditions are unknown and can …