Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Long-Term Analysis Of Pm2.5 Elemental Composition And Source Contributions In Coastal Urban Environments Of Corpus Christi And Houston In Texas, Sai Deepak Pinakana, Jeremy A. Sarnat, Amit U. Raysoni

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Long-term assessments of fine particulate matter play a key role in identifying persistent and emerging emission contributors. Coastal urban areas are highly susceptible to transboundary dust and wildfire events in addition to local pollution sources. Multi-decadal assessments in these regions using chemical speciation data could offer insights into major pollutant sources and their trends. This study utilizes nearly two decades of PM2.5 elemental composition data at two major coastal cities in Texas: Houston and Corpus Christi. Fourteen trace elements were analyzed to characterize the seasonal variability and long-term source evolution using a combination of Spearman’s correlation analysis, principal component analysis, …

Broadening The Community Of Nudibranch Enthusiasts Through Multilingual Educational Programming To Increase Climate Advocacy Engagement, Richelle Li Tanner, Cintya Felix Mendivil, Ashley Lam, Lorena Muñoz, Micah Kim, Elena G. Morales Poot, Gabrielle Keeler-May

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Environmental literacy and advocacy for environmental protections are essential components of responsible stewardship. For coastal communities, stewardship requires knowledge of ocean processes and the biological communities living within these ecosystems. While many studies highlight difficulties in engaging American audiences in environmental concern and stewardship due to hyper-individualistic societal values, tidepooling is one recreational pathway to coastal community engagement that strengthens sense of place, and therefore, responsibility to protect natural resources. We sought to broaden the tidepooling community to include more diverse voices through a participatory science program with inland city-dwelling, multilingual, and non-English speaking adults. Using nudibranchs as an environmental …

Noogoora Burr And Its Control, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Biosecurity factsheets

Noogoora burr, also known as cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium), is a declared pest in Western Australia (WA). This factsheet describes the nature of the plant with links to requirements that land owners/occupiers must adhere to and control methods.

Native to western United States of America. Locally abundant in parts of the Kimberley, especially near water courses. Occasionally found in the South West region of WA.

Paper Wasp Species Polistes Fuscatus (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) Tracks Urban Lead (Pb) Levels More Than Polistes Dominula, Lindsey R. Kemmerling, Anna L. Lovat, Allison A. Hanka, Emilie C. Snell-Rood

The Great Lakes Entomologist

Lead (Pb) is a persistent, toxic pollutant with widespread but inequitably distributed impacts, especially for humans in urban areas. The impacts of lead pollution on other organisms is largely unknown, even as they commonly experience exposure to lead alongside humans. We tested hypotheses regarding the lead concentrations of paper wasps across a gradient of pollution relative to soil and human lead levels, and correlations with wasp body condition. We collected two species of paper wasp across an urban gradient of lead pollution: Polistes fuscatus (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), native to our study location, and Polistes dominula (Christ), nonnative to our study …

Influence Of Transboundary Wildfire Smoke On Fine Particulate Matter Concentrations At South Texas Border Schools, Sai Deepak Pinakana, Kabir Bahadur Shah, Owen Temby, Dawid K. Wladyka, Juan L. Gonzalez, Md Saydur Rahman, Katarzyna Sepielak, Amit U. Raysoni

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Exposure to air pollutants in indoor and outdoor school environments poses significant health risks to children due to their heightened vulnerability. Increasing wildfire frequency has intensified transboundary smoke transport, with border communities among the first to experience associated air quality impacts. While the impacts of wildfires on air quality are increasingly recognized through satellite observations and modeling, ground-based observations remain scarce in under-monitored regions. Low-cost air sensors were deployed across schools in the Roma and Rio Grande City areas of Starr County, along the U.S.–Mexico border, for 146-days from November 2023 to April 2024. The raw sensor measurements were corrected …

Understanding And Predicting Precipitation Characteristics In The United States Through Machine Learning, Numerical Modeling And Measurements, Cody Luther Ratterman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Precipitation is one of the most important yet uncertain variables in the climate system. It varies dramatically in terms of timing, accumulation, rate, and phase, depending on location, season, circulation patterns, and atmospheric conditions. Precipitation forecasts, especially snowfall, are essential to supporting drought mitigation and water management in the Intermountain West. Because rainfall and snowfall lead to opposite effects on snowpack, accurately partitioning rain and snow is important to estimate snowpack levels, winter recreation, mountain ecosystems and runoff. The research findings in this dissertation have advanced the understanding and prediction of precipitation and snowpack in the U.S. by addressing the …

Drought And Diet Breadth: Does Insect Specialization Influence Herbivory When Plants Are Under Stress?, Jakob Palmer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Climate change will alter precipitation worldwide, causing more frequent and severe drought events worldwide. Drought affects many ecological processes, including plant-herbivore interactions, which are critical to biodiversity and ecosystem health. A variety of plant characteristics can influence herbivory – such as how hairy, nutritious, or toxic a leaf is – and drought has been shown to alter many of these traits. Unique characteristics of herbivore species are also important: herbivores can either feed on a variety of plants (generalists) or a group of closely related plants (specialists). Specialists can cope with traits of the plants they eat, while generalists are …

Land Condition Standards For The Western Australian Nullarbor Pastoral Region, Peter-Jon A. Waddell, Wayne J. Fletcher

Natural resources published reports

This report outlines the quantitative land condition standards that define acceptable pastoral land condition for the Western Australian part of the Nullarbor, to meet the regulatory requirements of the Land Administration Act 1997 and the Soil and Land Conservation Act 1945.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development is developing regional-level pastoral land condition standards for Western Australia as a critical component of the Framework for sustainable pastoral management – revised edition (Fletcher 2022), the purpose of which is to address the Office of the Auditor General’s recommendations to improve the management of pastoral lands in WA …

Resource Assessment Report 9: South Coast Crustacean Resource 2045-25 Assessment, Emma-Jade Tuffley, Simon De Lestang

Resource Assessment Reports

The South Coast Crustacean Resource (SCCR) comprises southern rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii), western rock lobster (Panulirus cygnus), crystal crab (Chaceon albus), giant crab (Pseudocarcinus gigas), and champagne crab (Hypothalassia acerba). The resource is accessed primarily by the South Coast Crustacean Managed Fishery (SCCMF), which operates between Augusta in the west and the South Australian border in the east. Since the 2022–23 season, the SCCMF has been managed under an Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) system with Total Allowable Commercial Catches (TACs) set for four quota zones. Recreational fishing retains a small quantity of rock lobster only.

During the 2024–25 fishing season, …

Fish Tissue Digestion And Microplastic Polymer Identification Protocol Using Open-Source Ftir Database, Shawn L. Kissinger, Vick-Ariel Privert, Jason Bystriansky, Kyle A. Grice

DePaul Discoveries

Microplastic (MP) contamination in aquatic ecosystems poses significant concerns for environmental and public health, as seafood represents a critical food source worldwide. Despite increasing evidence of MP presence in marine organisms, efficient and accessible detection methods remain essential for characterizing contamination patterns and informing regulatory frameworks. This study extracted MPs from brain, gill, intestine, liver, and muscle tissues of gilt-head bream (Sparus aurata) and European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), two commercially important species from the Gulf of Cádiz, Spain, using a NaOH–HNO₃ chemical digestion protocol. Isolated particles were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, with …

Clearing The Air: Tracking Spatial And Temporal Pm2.5 Variability Along A Biking Transect In Chicago, Beau R. Rass

DePaul Discoveries

Fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) poses significant risks to human health and disproportionately affects marginalized communities in urban environments (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021; Tessum et al., 2021). Using low-cost mobile sensors, this study explored spatiotemporal PM₂.₅ concentration patterns along a north–south transect of Halsted Street in Chicago. A 2B Technologies Portable Aerosol Monitor (PAM) mounted on a bicycle was used to continuously record PM₂.₅ concentrations with associated GPS coordinates at approximately two-second intervals during 16 sampling events between 08-12-2025 and 10-05-2025. PM₂.₅ concentrations did not differ significantly among the South Side, West Loop, and North Side regions, contrary to the …

Evaluating Soil Health And Crop Yield In Louisiana Agricultural Systems: Impacts Of Best Management Practices And Prediction Models, Hector J. Mendoza Lagos

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The adoption of conservation management practices is critical for improving soil health, enhancing nutrient use efficiency, and sustaining crop productivity in row crop systems in Louisiana. This study evaluated the role of conservation agronomic practices, soil biochemical indicators, and machine learning predictive models to improve soil nutrient dynamics, soil health indicators, microbial communities (MC), and crop productivity on a corn (Zea mays L.) research plot scale and in a commercial forty-hectare cotton (Gassypium hirsutum L.)-corn-soybean (Glycine max L.) rotation system in northeast Louisiana. The objectives of the study were to evaluate soil nutrient dynamics and MCs under …

Tissue-Specific Heavy Metal Accumulation And Sediment–Mangrove Dynamics In Port Everglades, Florida, Dimitrios Giarikos, Amy Hirons, Jason Gershman, Sophie Welch

SECLER Data

Coastal wetlands near industrialized waterways face increasing heavy metal contamination, yet the role of mangroves as biogeochemical buffers remains poorly understood. This study quantified 16 heavy metals in sediments and red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) tissues (roots, branches, and leaves) across four sites near Port Everglades, Florida, examining tissue-specific partitioning, contamination patterns, and sediment-to-plant transfer. The South Turning Basin (STB) was the principal contamination hotspot, with geometric mean (GM) concentrations of arsenic (As; 27.8 µg/g) and zinc (Zn; 203 µg/g) exceeding threshold effect levels, while Cu exceeded its probable effect level (PEL; 193 µg/g). Mercury (Hg) exceeded its PEL …

2026 Workshop On Bridging The Gaps: Tackling Microplastics And Nanoplastics Challenges In Coastal Ecosystems, Shenghua Wu, Kaushik Venkiteshwaran, Melike Dizbay-Onat, Alexandra Stenson, Jinhui Wang, Tina Miller-Way, Ebenezer Nyadjro, Bhuvnesh Bharti, John Weinstein, Yi Bao, Shihui Shen, Valerie Longa, Shenghua Zha, John Cleary, Marty Lind

Workshops

This report presents the findings from the 2026 Workshop on Tackling Microplastics and Nanoplastics (MNPs) in Coastal Ecosystems, which took place in Mobile, Alabama. More than 140 experts from universities, government, industry, and community organizations gathered to address the increasing issue of MNPs in coastal regions.

Ecological Responses To Living Shoreline Restoration, Aaron S. Bland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Coastal built communities and natural coastal ecosystems face similar and interrelated hazards: shoreline sediment erosion, shoreline retreat, and worsening storms, each of which is exacerbated by relative sea level rise. Living shorelines are coastal defense projects that incorporate natural habitats to provide more sustainable shoreline defense and improve the coastal ecosystem. Living shorelines have been widely adopted, but their performance has been highly variable, and the mechanisms of project success and failure are unclear. The overarching goal of this dissertation was to better understand the ecosystem responses to coastal restoration, focusing on the primary habitats of coastal salt marsh and …

Enhancing Walleye (Ogaa) Recruitment: Evaluating Assisted Reproduction As A Mitigation Strategy, Douglass Keiser

Biology Graduate Theses

Over the past several decades, cold- and cool-water fish populations across the Upper Midwest, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, have shown troubling signs of decline. Among the most affected is the walleye/Ogaa (Sander vitreus), a species deeply embedded in the ecological balance, cultural identity, and economic vitality of the region, and central to the lifeways, treaty-reserved rights, and resource stewardship of Tribal Nations, including Ojibwe communities across the Upper Midwest. Despite ongoing stocking efforts and harvest regulations, many lake systems have experienced persistent declines in natural recruitment, prompting resource agencies to investigate the underlying causes. One such system is …

Brown Pelican (Pelecanus Occidentalis) Groundings On A Four-Lane Divided Highway In South Texas: A Comparative Study Using Citizen Science, Bradley Evan Beer, Kevin W. Ryer, Md. Saydur Rahman, John H. Young Jr., Richard J. Kline

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences Faculty Publications

The population of the once-endangered brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) has increased over the past several decades and is now considered fully recovered. However, in south Texas, the combined effects of weather patterns, transportation infrastructure, and brown pelican biology have led to road mortalities on State Highway 48 (SH 48) at the Carl “Joe” Gayman Bridge. To mitigate these mortalities, the Texas Department of Transportation modified traffic barriers on SH 48. We aimed to examine the effect of the barrier change and determine which weather variables influence brown pelican groundings on SH 48. Citizen scientists monitored sections of SH …

Interspecific Overlap In Seabird Diet Throughout The Breeding Season, Alexis V. Berkey

Student Publications

Seabirds are central-place foragers that breed in multi-species colonies, providing an opportunity to study species coexistence. I quantified interspecific competition among four seabird species (common terns Sterna hirundo, Arctic terns Sterna paradisaea, Atlantic puffins Fratercula arctica, black guillemots Cepphus grylle) breeding in the Gulf of Maine in 2022, 2024, and 2025. I hypothesized that, throughout the breeding season, 1) seabird diet would change and 2) interspecific overlap in diet would increase. I compared diets across species and time using direct observation of prey feeds and stable isotope values of seabird egg membranes and blood, which provide …

Raptor Abundance And Occupancy In Urban Parks Within Metropolitan Landscapes, Mary- Esther Leblanc

Posters - 2026

Rapid urbanization is one of the most significant and accelerating drivers of global biodiversity change, reshaping wildlife communities by fragmenting habitat, altering prey availability, and introducing human disturbances. Despite these pressures, some wildlife species are attracted to and may even flourish in urban settings, primarily because urbanization creates an altered landscape that often unintentionally provides resources functioning as components of habitat. (Chiron et al., 2024) Raptors, as apex predators within avian food webs, offer a valuable lens through which to examine these dynamics. While raptor communities are broadly negatively impacted by urbanization, some species can thrive in urban areas. (Leveau …

Saved From The Brink Of Collapse: Evaluating The Success Of The Sussex Kelp Recovery Project, Keagan Farrell, Kelly Swyers, Adan Vasquez

Posters - 2026

Kelp forests are vital to ocean health, they provide habitat, food, and nursery grounds for a variety of marine species. These forests support fisheries, improve water quality, and help to protect coastlines (Eger et al. 2024). The Sussex Kelp Recovery Project is a marine conservation effort aimed at restoring their kelp forests along the Sussex coastline in southern England. This area lost up to 96% of its forests mainly due to the fishing practice trawling. Trawling is used to gather large amounts of fish, while dragging a net at the seafloor (Our history 2026). The main goal of the Sussex …

Long-Term Variability Of Air Quality And Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Rice Crop Burning In Punjab During 2012–2020, Harsimranjit Kaur Romana, Dericks Praise Shukla, Ramesh P. Singh

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Punjab, India's primary rice and wheat production hub, has witnessed rapid expansion of paddy cultivation over the past two decades, driven by minimum support price incentives, changes in government policies, alignment of sowing with the monsoon season and the adoption of high-yielding varieties. This transition has intensified groundwater extraction and shortened the fallow period between rabi and kharif crop seasons, reducing the window between rice harvesting and wheat sowing, leading to widespread open-field burning of rice residue and recurrent post-monsoon air-quality deterioration across the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Despite numerous short-term or single-pollutant assessments, a spatially resolved, multi-pollutant and multi-decadal evaluation linking …

To Hold Or Sell Breeding Cattle In The Rangelands, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Animal production and livestock factsheets

In a dry season where feed, water and finances are limited, removing less productive animals as soon as possible is a good option. This will free up feed for more productive animals and help preserve ground cover.

This page provides some of the information and a process for making decisions about holding or selling breeding cattle.

Fisheries Management Paper No. 311: West Coast Deep Sea Crustacean Resource Harvest Strategy, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Fisheries Management Papers

Harvest strategies for Western Australia’s (WA) aquatic resources are formal documents developed by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD, the Department) to support decision-making processes that ensure the outcomes are consistent with the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD; Fletcher 2002a) and Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM; Fletcher et al. 2012). Harvest strategies are a key component of all contemporary fishery management systems and a requirement for certification under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). The objectives of ESD are reflected in the objectives of the Fish Resources Management Act 1994 (FRMA).

This West Coast Deep Sea Crustacean …

Animal Taxa Threatened By Adverse Fire Regimes In Western Australia: A Synthesis And Outlook, Tim S. Doherty, Mark G. Allen, Karlene Bain, Stephen Beatty, Allan H. Burbidge, Renee A. Catullo, Sarah Comer, Ben Corey, Saul J. Cowen, Robert A. Davis, Martin A. Dziminski, J. Anthony Friend, Bruce Greatwich, Mark S. Harvey, Hannah Killian, Michael E. Klunzinger, Damian C. Lettoof, Nicola J. Mitchell, Melinda Moir, Harry A. Moore, David L. Morgan, Ian J. Radford, Michael J. Rix, Tom Vigilante, Adrian F. Wayne, Corey Whisson, Nicole Willers, Matthew R. Williams

Natural Resources Research Articles

Adverse fire regimes threaten biodiversity, potentially leading to population declines and increased extinction risk. Understanding how varying fire regimes affect threatened species is essential for effective ecosystem management, including in Western Australia where diverse ecosystems are exposed to wildfires, Indigenous burning, and prescribed fire. We compiled and synthesised data on the threat of adverse fire regimes to threatened animal taxa in Western Australia. Using a threat classification scheme, we ranked adverse fire regimes as having either no, low, medium, high, or unknown impact on each taxon. A total of 212 taxa were reviewed, 153 (72%) of which are considered fire-threatened: …

High Spatiotemporal Resolution Monitoring Of Crop Water Stress Across The Contiguous United States Using Harmonized Landsat And Sentinel-2 Data, Na Chen, Yanlei Feng, Na Wang, Jevan Yu, Mohammad Reza Alizadeh, Yifeng Cui, Ning Ye, Wenzhe Jiao, Joshua B. Fisher, César Terrer

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Accurate and timely monitoring of crop water stress is essential for efficient agricultural water management, ultimately maintaining and improving crop productivity. While Landsat has been used for this purpose, its temporal resolution hampers timely detection of crop water stress. The recently released Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 Version 2.0 dataset, which enables a higher-frequency time series of satellite observations (2–3 days, 30 m), offers a promising solution to this challenge. However, its potential for crop stress monitoring remained unexplored. In this study, we utilized 923 HLS satellite tiles to assess crop water stress across the contiguous United States (CONUS). Crop water …

When Words Flow Like Water: How The Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline Environmental Impact Statement Failed To Prevent Hydrogeologic Harm In Minnesota, Carly Gutzmann

Journal of Earth and Life Science

For the aquifers of Minnesota, the environmental impact statement (EIS) was a promise of protection that never left the page. An environmental impact statement is meant to be an aid in the decision making process in order to ensure that projects consider potential environmental harms that may occur. However, they are often used instead as another regulatory box to check, rather than as active considerations when planning. As such, a project plan can be flawed from the start—if project developers only consider environmental impacts after they have already put considerable time, effort, and funding into their project as-is, they may …

Chesapeake Bay Water Clarity: Challenges And Successes, Jessica S. Turner, Carl T. Friedrichs, David B. Parrish, Kelsey A. Fall

OES Faculty Publications

The Chesapeake Bay is a large estuarine system spanning multiple jurisdictions and serves as a model for estuarine health worldwide. Historically, nutrient loading degraded water quality, prompting the need for regulation. Water clarity, one component of water quality, is vital for benthic communities and serves as a key indicator of overall ecosystem health. Here, physical resuspension and salinity gradients, nutrient and sediment inputs, production of organic detritus by phytoplankton, and benthic communities all interact to drive clarity patterns, with high spatial variability. Trends over the last 50 years show improvement, though with a temporary increase in organic detritus in response …

Impacts Of Native And Nonnative Plant Species On Avian Community Diversity, Matty John Mackay, Steven Van Dang, Brandon Lee Corn

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Avian communities play an essential role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem dynamic by regulating insect populations, assisting in plant pollination, and seed dispersal. These contribute to the overall health of natural ecosystems and mitigate ecological disruptions that would arise in their absence. However, the introduction of non-native invasive plant species can interrupt the balance avian communities bring to ecosystems by reducing availability of food sources, altering habitat structures, increasing competition among individuals, and disrupting ecological relationships through rapid invasion of ecological spaces. Point count observations of birds at Shelby Bottoms Park, Nashville, Tennessee in areas dominated by non-native privet and …

Relationships Between Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities And Environmental Conditions In Headwater Tributaries Of The Pend Oreille Lake Watershed, Idaho, Devlin Mee

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Benthic macroinvertebrates are widely used indicators of stream condition, and their communities respond to thermal and land-use conditions in headwater streams. This study characterized macroinvertebrate biomass, community composition, and diversity across forested headwater tributaries of the Pend Oreille lake watershed in northern Idaho, and examined their relationships with summer temperature, land development, and road proximity. Samples from thirteen streams collected in 2024 were identified to genus, measured, and converted to estimated biomass using published length–mass regressions; ten streams had recovered temperature loggers. Because environmental variables were characterized once per stream, all analyses were conducted at the stream level.

Estimated total …

Detecting Prescribed Fire, Haying And Grazing Events Via Remote Sensing To Create Grassland Disturbance Landcovers For The Ring-Necked Pheasant (Phasianus Colchicus), Megan Amy Baldissara

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation developed disturbance detection models to fulfill the need for remote sensing landcover products describing grassland structure. The use of landcover products derived from remote sensing is increasing over time in pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) research. Such landcover, however, does not provide relevant pheasant structural habitat information (Chapter 1). Pheasants require tall, high-density grassland for nesting, tall grassland with medium density for brood rearing, and tall grassland for wintering. Time since disturbance can serve as a proxy for structure, as it shapes vegetation by removing biomass and resetting succession. Disturbance is easier to detect than structure with current …