Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Utility Data Comparison Of Fy16, Fy17, And Fy 18 Quarter One And Quarter Two Data, Campus Sustainability Office

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

FY16, FY17, & FY18 Q1 and Q2 EUI Comparison

Psu Green Building Internship Final Report, 2018: Karl Miller Center Post-Occupancy Study, Omar Abu Sulaiman, Jocelyn Reynolds

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

In this report, both occupant comfort perception-based data, collected via surveys, and building performance-based data, collected via sensors, are utilized to conduct a post-occupancy evaluation of Portland State University’s (PSU) new Karl Miller Center (KMC), formerly known as the School of Business Administration. The KMC was completed in September 2017 and is on track to earn LEED Platinum certification, primarily for the passive ventilation strategies incorporated into its design. The environmental factors studied in this report are air and concrete slab temperatures, CO2 levels, and airflow. The personal factors studied in this report are clothing levels (clo), gender identity, thermal …

Drought And Land-Cover Conditions In The Great Plains, Heather Tollerud, Jesslyn Brown, Thomas Loveland, Rezaul Mahmood, Norman Bliss

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Land–atmosphere interactions play a critical role in the Earth system, and a better understanding of these interactions could improve weather and climate models. The interaction among drought, vegetation productivity, and land cover is of particular significance. In a semiarid environment, such as the U.S. Great Plains, droughts can have a large influence on the productivity of agriculture and grasslands, with serious environmental and economic impacts. Here, we used the vegetation drought response index (VegDRI) drought indicator to investigate the response of vegetation to weather and climate for landcover types in the Great Plains in the United States from 1989 to …

Growth Rate And Hatch Date Of Age-0 Fishes On Leech Lake, Minnesota Before Zebra Mussel Establishment, Kayla Morey, Emily Larson

Journal of Earth and Life Science

The introduction of an invasive species to an ecosystem is considered a very severe environmental problem. Zebra Mussel veligers Dreissena polymorpha have recently been found in Leech Lake, Minnesota, and are likely going to have a large influence on this ecosystem. Zebra Mussels are filter-feeders that rely on phytoplankton and zooplankton as their main source of energy. A shift in populations of plankton due to Zebra Mussels may affect the growth rates of larval fish. Median hatch dates and growth rates were estimated from four age-0 fish species (Yellow Perch Perca flavescens, Walleye Sander vitreus, Smallmouth Bass Micropterus …

Thermal Tolerance Limits Of The Chinese Mystery Snail (Bellamya Chinensis): Implications For Management, Jessica L. Burnett, Kevin L. Pope, Alec Wong, Craig R. Allen, Danielle Haak, Bruce J. Stephen, Daniel R. Uden

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

The Chinese mystery snail, Bellamya chinensis (Gray, 1834) is a gastropod native to East Asia and is considered an invasive species in North America where its impacts on native species and ecosystems are not well understood. Scientific literature describing its biology and life history are sparse. Thermal tolerance limits, or the maximum and minimum temperature under which a species can survive, are key to identifying the potential geographical range of a species. The ability of managers to control invasive species is directly impacted by the thermal tolerance limits of a species. We attempted to identify the thermal tolerance limits of …

The Effect Of Size On Juvenile Green Sturgeon (Acipenser Medirostris) Behavior Near Water-Diversion Fish Screens, Jamilynn B. Poletto, Dennis E. Cocherell, Natalie Ho, Joseph J. Cech Jr., A. Peter Klimley, Nann A. Fangue

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Anthropogenic water management projects and facilities that alter the local and regional hydrology of riverine environments greatly influence the behavior, physiology, and survival of native fishes. To mitigate for losses of native fishes at these structures, many are outfitted with fish-exclusion screens to reduce entrainment. The effect of fish size and age on behavior near fish screens, however, is largely unknown. Therefore, we tested two size classes of juvenile green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris; small, early juveniles: 9.2 ± 0.2 cm fork length [FL], 6.9 ± 0.3 g; intermediate juveniles: 18.8 ± 0.2 cm FL, 36.9 ± 0.8 g) …

Resilience In Environmental Risk And Impact Assessment: Concepts And Measurement, David G. Angeler, Craig R. Allen, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Kevin L. Pope, Dirac L. Twidwell Jr, Micro Bunschuh

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Different resilience concepts have different assumptions about system dynamics, which has implications for resilience-based environmental risk and impact assessment. Engineering resilience (recovery) dominates in the risk assessment literature but this definition does not account for the possibility of ecosystems to exist in multiple regimes. In this paper we discuss resilience concepts and quantification methods. Specifically, we discuss when a system fails to show engineering resilience after disturbances, indicating a shift to a potentially undesired regime. We show quantification methods that can assess the stability of this new regime to inform managers about possibilities to transform the system to a more …

Agroecology For The Shrinking City, Dustin L. Herrmann, Wen-Ching Chuang, Kristen Schawrz, Timothy M. Bowles, Ahjond S. Garmestani, William D. Shuster, Tarsha Eason, Matthew E. Hopton, Craig R. Allen

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Many cities are experiencing long-term declines in population and economic activity. As a result, frameworks for urban sustainability need to address the unique challenges and opportunities of such shrinking cities. Shrinking, particularly in the U.S., has led to extensive vacant land. The abundance of vacant land reflects a loss of traditional urban amenities, economic opportunity, neighbors, businesses, and even basic city services and often occurs in neighborhoods with socially and economically vulnerable or underserved populations. However, vacant land also provides opportunities, including the space to invest in green infrastructure that can provide ecosystem services and support urban sustainability. Achieving desirable …

Droughtscape, Winter 2018, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

Year in review: Drought eased in California, developed in Northern Plains

Quarterly Summary: Drought creeps across the country

Annual impact summary: A year of wildfires

Quarterly impact summary: Drought expands in Texas, Colorado

Drought and water crisis book updated

U.S. Drought Monitor available in Spanish

Study shows cities step up when drought occurs

New staff at the NDMC

Drought Summit in photos

The Long Term Effect Of Agricultural, Vadose Zone And Climatic Factors On Nitrate Contamination In Nebraska’S Groundwater System, Pongpun Juntakut, Daniel D. Snow, Erin M.K. Haacker, Chittaranjan Ray

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

A four-decade dataset (1974–2013) of 107,823 nitrate samples in 25,993 wells from western and eastern parts of Nebraska was used to assess long-term trends of groundwater nitrate concentration and decadal changes in the extent of groundwater nitrate-contaminated areas (NO₃-N≥10 mg N/L) over the entire state. Spatial statistics and regressions were used to investigate the relationships between groundwater nitrate concentrations and several potential natural and anthropogenic factors, including soil drainage capacities, vadose zone characteristics, crop production areas, and irrigation systems. The results of this study show that there is no statistically significant trend in groundwater nitrate concentrations …

Does Collective Action Sequester Carbon? Evidence From The Nepal Community Forestry Program, Randall Bluffstone, Eswaran Somanathan, Prakash Jha, Harisharan Luintel, Rajesh Bista, Mike Toman, Naya Paudel, Bhim Adhikari

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Highlights

• Presumed open access forests have as little as 34% of those under collective action.

• No evidence that Community Forestry Programme forests store more carbon

.• Carbon from collective action not conditional on Community Forestry Programme.

The Coastal Monitor: Fall 2017/ Spring 2018, John T. Tanacredi Ph.D.

The Coastal Monitor

As I sat there in the Members Lounge at the Explorers Club; the world center for exploration, getting ready for our first Spring Saturday Science for Students @the EC lecture, I was putting together some notes on the accomplishments of our science students and CERCOM over the last few months since our last newsletter. Our visit to the Galapagos, a spectacular academic experience for our Molloy College students was at the top of my list! This was certainly not an epiphany but as I accumulated the items on this list, I was impressed not only with what we have conducted …

Chronic Effects Of Lead Exposure On Topsmelt Fish (Atherinops Affinis): Influence Of Salinity, Organism Age, And Relative Sensitivity To Other Marine Fish, Erik J. Reynolds, Tham C. Hoang, D. Scott Smith, Jasim M. Chowdhury

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of salinity and organism age on the chronic toxicity of waterborne lead (Pb) to Atherinops affinis and to compare the relative Pb sensitivity of A. affinis with other marine species. Chronic Pb exposure experiments were conducted in a water flow‐through testing system. Survival, standard length, dry weight, and tissue Pb concentration were measured and lethal concentrations (LC), effective concentrations (EC), and bioconcentration factor (BCF) were calculated. In general, increasing salinity and organism age decreased Pb toxicity. The LC50s for larval fish at 14 and 28 ppt salinity were 15.1 and …

Sustainability At Sit: A Look At The Past, A Plan For The Future, Taliesin Haugh

Capstone Collection

Climate change threatens our world and way of life. Intelligent development and investment could mitigate the worst threats of climate change, while simultaneously providing continuous growth for the global economy. The New Climate Economy proposes efforts to combat this ecological collapse that would result in $30 trillion in new annual economic growth by 2030. Stockholm Resilience Center agrees, giving a framework based on global ecological systems that calls for five critical tasks that can bring growth and stability: Renewable energy

Sustainable local food production

New development models, based on what has worked globally

Reduction of wealth inequity

Education, health, and …

Stars Annual Report, 2018, Campus Sustainability Office

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

The Campus Sustainability Office (CSO) compiles information from departments across campus annually to complete the STARS Report. The score is based on the number of points received across five categories: Academics, Engagement, Operations, and Planning & Administration, and Innovation & Leadership. PSU has maintained a Gold rating since the institution began reporting in 2011 and is within the top 40 of over 400 reporting institutions. This summary includes improvement opportunities to assist our efforts to eventually become a STARS Platinum institution. For more information on improvement opportunities please contact Amanda Wolf at [email protected]

Utility Summary Fiscal Year 2018, Campus Sustainability Office

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

Summary of energy use listed by building

Influence Of Recreational Activity On Water Quality Perceptions And Concerns In Utah: A Replicated Analysis, Matthew J. Barnett, Douglas Jackson-Smith, Melissa Haeffner

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Both social structural factors and direct sensory experiences can contribute to the development of environmental perceptions and concerns. We use two separate surveys of Utah adults to explore the association between sociodemographic characteristics and participation in recreational activities on water quality perceptions and concerns. We find that engaging in outdoor recreation is systematically associated with more positive water quality perceptions and higher levels of concern about impaired water quality. However, water quality perceptions appear to be shaped more by social characteristics (age, education, gender, race, religion, and income) and by generic measures of overall recreation behavior than by indicators of …

Agricultural Intensification In The Midwest: Impacts On Regional Surface Humidity, Andrew Hill

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

An overwhelming majority of anthropogenic climate change studies have placed emphasis on biogeochemical agents, chiefly carbon dioxide emissions, which operate on a global scale. Fewer studies focus on biophysical factors such as land use/ land cover which operate on a regional or local scale. The impact from biophysical factors will continue to be reinforced with a growing human population and expanding resource demands. Of these factors, agricultural land use represents one of the largest, most extensive, and vital land use allocations.

The U.S. Midwest, dominated by rain-fed corn and soybean agriculture, is a key agricultural region which is lacking in …

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- January 2018, Natalie Umphlett, Crystal J. Stiles

Prairie Post: Quarterly Newsletter of the High Plains Regional Climate Center

Inside this issue:

Message from the interim director........................................1

Weather photo of the quarter.................................................. 1

2017 - year in review..............2

2017 climate in the High Plains............................................3

Update on La Niña..................3

Update on regional climate conditions..................................4

Product Highlight....................4

HPRCC Turns 30........................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Report On The Condition Trend Of The Western Australian Pastoral Resource Base 2017, Andrew Watson, Philip Thomas

Natural resources published reports

This report has been prepared to satisfy the Commissioner for Soil and Land Conservation’s obligation under section 137 (2) of the Land Administration Act 1997 to report on the current condition of land under pastoral lease in Western Australia.

Pastoral leases for livestock grazing cover 40% of the Western Australian rangelands (about 860 000 square kilometres). Data in this report is presented at the land conservation district (LCD) scale.

Rangeland condition is determined with regard to the presence of perennial pasture species that are productive and highly palatable to livestock, and soil condition. Although assessing rangeland condition by on-ground assessment …

Examining The Issue Of Compliance With Personal Protective Equipment Among Wastewater Workers Across The Southeast Region Of The United States, Tamara L. Wright

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Wastewater workers are exposed to different occupational hazards such as chemicals, gases, viruses, and bacteria. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is a significant factor that can reduce or increase the probability of an accident from hazardous exposures to chemicals and microbial contaminants. The purpose of this study was to identify wastewater worker’s beliefs and practices on wearing PPE and protections offered by PPE through the integration of the Health Belief Model (HBM). Participants were workers in the wastewater industry, which included wastewater operators, laboratory analysts, maintenance workers, wastewater collection workers, equipment operators, managers, and supervisors (n=272). The instrument was a self-administered …

Fate Of Methoprene In Temperate Salt Marsh Ditches Following Aerial Applications, David J. Tonjes, Anne E. Mcelroy, Robin K. Barnes, Dominick V. Ninivaggi, Walter Dawydiak, Gregory T. Greene, Bruce J. Brownawell

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Aerial applications of liquid methoprene are used in salt marshes to control mosquitoes by preventing adult emergence. Despite concern about toxicity to non-target organisms, little is known about environmental concentrations after applications, nor methoprene's persistence in salt marsh environments. Aqueous and sediment samples were collected from two marshes receiving weekly applications. Aqueous samples were collected as early as 30 minutes after applications and as long as nine days afterwards; sediment samples were taken within hours of application and as long as 19 days post-application. Use of time-of-flight liquid chromatography – mass spectral analysis allowed for ultra low detection limits (0.5 …

Presence And Potential Sources Of Pharmaceutical And Personal Care Product Chemicals In Messalonskee Lake, Alyssa T. Kullberg

Honors Theses

Pharmaceuticals and personal care product chemicals (PPCPs) represent a large group of contaminants that are mostly not regulated in surface or drinking water and whose presence and environmental and health impacts are poorly understood. We investigated the presence and potential sources of 18 PPCPs in Messalonskee Lake. We collected samples four times over the summer of 2017 at 13 sites around the lake. Samples were tested for PPCPs using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. We detected five out of the 18 PPCPs we tested for at the ng/L level: caffeine, 1,7-dimethylxanthine, acetaminophen, sulfachloropyridazine, and amphetamine. PPCPs showed a significant positive correlation …

Opportunities And Challenges For Big Data Ornithology, Frank A. La Sorte, Christopher A. Lepczyk, Jessica L. Burnett, Allen H. Hurlbert, Morgan W. Tingley, Benjamin Zuckerberg

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Recent advancements in information technology and data acquisition have created both new research opportunities and new challenges for using big data in ornithology. We provide an overview of the past, present, and future of big data in ornithology, and explore the rewards and risks associated with their application. Structured data resources (e.g., North American Breeding Bird Survey) continue to play an important role in advancing our understanding of bird population ecology, and the recent advent of semistructured (e.g., eBird) and unstructured (e.g., weather surveillance radar) big data resources has promoted the development of new empirical perspectives that are generating novel …

A Framework For Tracing Social–Ecological Trajectories And Traps In Intensive Agricultural Landscapes, Daniel R. Uden, Craig R. Allen, Francisco Munoz-Arriola, Gengxin Ou, Nancy Shank

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Charting trajectories toward sustainable agricultural development is an important goal at the food–energy–water–ecosystem services (FEWES) nexus of agricultural landscapes. Social–ecological adaptation and transformation are two broad strategies for adjusting and resetting the trajectories of productive FEWES nexuses toward sustainable futures. In some cases, financial incentives, technological innovations, and/or subsidies associated with the short-term optimization of a small number of resources create and strengthen unsustainable feedbacks between social and ecological entities at the FEWES nexus. These feedbacks form the basis of rigidity traps, which impede adaptation and transformation by locking FEWES nexuses into unsustainable trajectories characterized by control, stability, and efficiency, …

Quantifying Uncertainty And Trade-Offs In Resilience Assessments, Craig R. Allen, Hannah E. Birgé, David G. Angeler, Craig A. Arnold, Brian C. Chaffin, Daniel A. Decaro, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Lance Gunderson

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Several frameworks have been developed to assess the resilience of social-ecological systems, but most require substantial data inputs, time, and technical expertise. Stakeholders and practitioners often lack the resources for such intensive efforts. Furthermore, most end with problem framing and fail to explicitly address trade-offs and uncertainty. To remedy this gap, we developed a rapid survey assessment that compares the relative resilience of social-ecological systems with respect to a number of resilience properties. This approach generates large amounts of information relative to stakeholder inputs. We targeted four stakeholder categories: government (policy, regulation, management), end users (farmers, ranchers, landowners, industry), agency/public …

A Method To Detect Discontinuities In Census Data, Chris Barichievy, David G. Angeler, Tarsha Eason, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Kirsty L. Nash, Craig A. Stow, Shana Sundstrom, Craig R. Allen

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

The distribution of pattern across scales has predictive power in the analysis of complex systems. Discontinuity approaches remain a fruitful avenue of research in the quest for quantitative measures of resilience because discontinuity analysis provides an objective means of identifying scales in complex systems and facilitates delineation of hierarchical patterns in processes, structure, and resources. However, current discontinuity methods have been considered too subjective, too complicated and opaque, or have become computationally obsolete; given the ubiquity of discontinuities in ecological and other complex systems, a simple and transparent method for detection is needed. In this study, we present a method …

Effects Of Large-Scale Wetland Loss On Network Connectivity Of The Rainwater Basin, Nebraska, Bram H. F. Verheijen, Dana M. Varner, David A. Haukos

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Context The Rainwater Basin region in south-central Nebraska supports a complex network of spatiallyisolated wetlands that harbor diverse floral and faunal communities. Since European settlement, many wetlands have been lost from the network, which has increased distances among remaining wetlands. As a result, populations of wildlife species with limited dispersal capabilities may have become isolated and face greater local extinction risks.

Objectives We compared the pre-European settlement and current extent of the Rainwater Basin network to assess the effects of wetland losses on network connectivity for a range of maximum dispersal distances.

Methods We constructed network models for a range …

Synchrony - An Emergent Property Of Recreational Fisheries, Mark A. Kaemingk, Christopher J. Chizinski, Keith L. Hurley, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Bipartite Networks Improve Understanding Of Effects Of Waterbody Size And Angling Method On Angler–Fish Interactions, Christopher J . Chizinski, Dustin R. Martin, Daizaburo Shizuka, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Networks used to study interactions could provide insights to fisheries. We compiled data from 27 297 interviews of anglers across waterbodies that ranged in size from 1 to 12 113 ha. Catch rates of fish species among anglers grouped by species targeted generally differed between angling methods (bank or boat). We constructed angler–catch bipartite networks (angling method specific) between anglers and fish and measured several network metrics. There was considerable variation in networks among waterbodies, with multiple metrics influenced by waterbody size. Number of species-targeting angler groups and number of fish species caught increased with increasing waterbody size. Mean number …