Environmental Monitoring Commons^™

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 …

Assessment Of Soil Protein And Refractory Soil Organic Matter Across Two Chronosequences Of Newly Developing Marshes In Coastal Louisiana, Usa, Stuart Alexander Mcclellan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The impacts of sea-level rise and hydrologic manipulation are threatening the stability of coastal marshes throughout the world, thereby increasing the potential for re-mineralization of soil organic matter (SOM) in these systems. Such threats have prompted marsh restoration efforts, particularly in coastal Louisiana, yet it is unclear how the slowly decomposing (refractory) and quickly decomposing (labile) fractions of SOM may be differentially affected by different approaches to marsh restoration. Additionally, otherwise labile compounds may accumulate in the soil via a range of protective mechanisms, including rapid burial and association with organic compounds that are thought to enhance soil aggregation, such …

Homestead National Monument Of America, Acoustic Monitoring Report, 2017, Emma Brown

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

This report presents acoustical data gathered by Student Conservation Association interns and the Natural Resource Specialist at Homestead National Monument of America in 2017. Data were collected at one site to provide park managers with information about the acoustical environment, sources of noise, and the existing ambient sound levels within the monument. This deployment also captured acoustic conditions during the total solar eclipse on 8/21/2017. (Results of the eclipse monitoring effort are provided in Appendix B.)

In this deployment, sound pressure level (SPL) was measured continuously every second by a calibrated sound level meter. Other equipment included an …

Homestead National Monument Of America, Acoustic Monitoring, 2011-2012

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

This report presents acoustical data gathered by Student Conservation Association interns and the Natural Resource Specialist at Homestead National Monument of America in 2011 and 2012. Data were collected at four sites to provide park managers with information on the acoustical environment, sources of noise, and the existing ambient sound levels within the monument. The data will also inform the park managers with information regarding the potential impact of traffic on Highway 4.

Monitoring occurred at each site during two different seasons (except HOME002) in order to document seasonal variations. In each deployment, sound pressure level (SPL) was …

Urban Heat In Tropical Kuala Lumpur: Microclimate, Outdoor Thermal Comfort And Mitigation By Land-Cover Modification, Chng Saun Fong

Student Works (2020-2029)

Urban heat island (UHI) is an urban warming phenomenon characterized by steep urban-rural temperature difference. Rapid land-use change in the urbanization process has introduced urban morphologies with impermeable surfaces and materials which causes higher heat retention in city centres. The emergence of urban hotspots is a growing concern due to the impact on the urban microclimate and human population. The comprehension of the multi-dimensional impact of UHI has become imperative to ensure good urban liveability especially in tropical cities where it is hot and humid annually. Hence, this study aims to explore the complex nexus of urban heat in terms …

Perspectives Of Global Warming, Diomaris Padilla Dr.

Open Educational Resources

This course is designed to foster an interest in global environmental issues by informing the student of both the anthropogenic and natural causes for climate change. While focusing on the scientific aspects of climate change, a broader study will include issues pertaining to global policy and economics in order to engage the student in public policy debates.

Anoxic Conditions Maintained High Phosphorus Sorption In Humid Tropical Forest Soils, Yang Lin, Avner Gross, Christine S. O'Connell, Whendee L. Silver

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The strong phosphorus (P) sorption capacity of iron (Fe) and aluminum (Al) minerals in highly weathered, acidic soils of humid tropical forests is generally assumed to be an important driver of P limitation to plants and microbial activity in these ecosystems. Humid tropical forest soils often experience fluctuating redox conditions that reduce Fe and raise pH. It is commonly thought that Fe reduction generally decreases the capacity and strength of P sorption. Here we examined the effects of 14 d oxic and anoxic incubations on soil P sorption dynamics in humid tropical forest soils from Puerto Rico. Contrary to the …

Remote Sensing Monitoring Of Vegetation Dynamic Changes After Fire In The Greater Hinggan Mountain Area: The Algorithm And Application For Eliminating Phenological Impacts, Zhibin Huang, Chunxiang Cao, Wei Chen, Min Xu, Yongfeng Dang, Ramesh P. Singh, Barjeece Bashir, Bo Xie, Xiaojuan Lin

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Fires are frequent in boreal forests affecting forest areas. The detection of forest disturbances and the monitoring of forest restoration are critical for forest management. Vegetation phenology information in remote sensing images may interfere with the monitoring of vegetation restoration, but little research has been done on this issue. Remote sensing and the geographic information system (GIS) have emerged as important tools in providing valuable information about vegetation phenology. Based on the MODIS and Landsat time-series images acquired from 2000 to 2018, this study uses the spatio-temporal data fusion method to construct reflectance images of vegetation with a relatively consistent …

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, …

Use Of Otolith Chemistry To Assess Recruitment And Habitat Use Of A White Bass Fishery In A Nebraska Reservoir, Matthew A. Perrion, Mark A. Kaemingk, Keith D. Koupal, Casey W. Schoenebeck, Nate A. Bickford

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Managing fisheries that exhibit variable annual recruitment is challenging, and maintenance stockings are often prescribed to minimize interannual population variation. Maintenance stockings are costly and may not be necessary if sufficient natural recruitment is occurring. Therefore, developing tools and techniques that can collectively assess hatching origin and subsequent habitat use of individuals would be valuable. Herein, we aimed to assess the efficacy of otolith chemistry techniques to (1) determine whether there was evidence of natural recruitment within an annually stocked white bass population and (2) examine the potential to describe spatial reservoir use of these age-0 fish. A sample of …

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- January 2020, Natalie Umphlett, Rezaul Mamood, Paul Flanagan, Logan Winters, Kierstin Blomberg, Emilee Lachenmeier, Crystal J. Stiles

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

Inside this issue:

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

Staff spotlight...........................1

Year in review............................2

Updates on engagement and tools.....................................3

Observer awards......................3

Overview of regional climate conditions..................................4

AMS annual meeting.............5

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

Mitogenome Of Northern Long-Eared Bat, Sarah Gaughan, Kevin L. Pope, Jeremy A. White, Cliff Lemen, Patricia Freeman

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

The complete mitogenome of the northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) was determined to be 17,362 bp and contained 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes and one control region. The whole genome base composition was 33.8% GC. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that M. septentrionalis be positioned next to M. auriculus in the Nearctic subclade of the Myotis genus. This complete mitochondrial genome provides essential molecular markers for resolving phylogeny and future conservation efforts.

Use And Expenditures On Public Access Hunting Lands, Lyndsie S. Wszola, Lutz F. Gruber, Erica F. Stuber, Lindsey N. Messinger, Christopher J. Chizinski, Joseph J. Fontaine

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

The recreational and economic benefits of hunting on traditional permanent public lands are well-established. Increasingly popular “open fields” hunting access programs temporarily open private lands to public hunting through public-private partnerships. Open fields programs have the potential to create public hunting opportunities and economic development in rural communities, but the extent to which open fields programs compare to traditional public lands at providing benefits to hunters and rural communities has not yet been evaluated. We compared hunter use and expenditures on open fields lands and traditional public lands in Nebraska, USA. We used Convolution Likelihood Ecological Abundance Regression, a novel …

Exit Here: Strategies For Dealing With Aging Dams And Reservoirs, Henry H. Hansen, Emily Forzono, Alisha Grams, Lindsay Ohlman, Christine Ruskamp, Mark A. Pegg, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Aging infrastructure is prevalent throughout the world, but water control management structures, specifically dams, are of growing concern. Dams and their corresponding reservoirs have inherent, but separate, lifespans. The proportion of dams around the world that continue operation beyond their intended lifespans is growing at an alarming rate. Society will not only have to navigate the tradeoffs associated with the deterioration of services provided by reservoirs and dams, but also impending structural failures. Society is nearing a critical pinch point where we will have to decide how to deal with dams and reservoirs at scales that range from a single …

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

Arising: Hurricane (Superstorm) Sandy’S Impact On Design/Planning Professionals, Maxinne R. Leighton

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Standing by my bedroom window, looking out at the ocean, a huge wave comes and swallows up my building. Everything around me is gone, including me. I wake up. I am 13 years old and living in the Coney Island Houses on Surf Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. With ongoing anthropogenic changes to the natural environment such as sea level rise and intensifying storms, coastal communities, especially ones segregated by class and culture, are particularly vulnerable in this context that challenges a way of life, and in some instances, threatens that life's survival. This dissertation focuses specifically on what one massive …

Status Of The Western Australian Pastoral Rangelands 2020: Condition, Trend And Risk, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Natural resources published reports

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) reports annually on the condition, trend and risk of decline in vegetation condition of pastoral rangelands in Western Australia (WA). This report is based on the information available to the end of September 2020.

Vegetation condition reflects the effects of 3 main drivers: seasonal quality (the timeliness and amount of rainfall), grazing pressure and fire. Reported trend in vegetation condition was based on remotely sensed vegetation cover for the 3 or 4 most productive pasture types in each region and greenness data (how much vegetation grew). Based on these trend data, …

Enhancing Models And Measurements Of Traffic-Related Air Pollutants For Health Studies Using Dispersion Modeling And Bayesian Data Fusion, Stuart A. Batterman, Veronica J. Berrocal, Chad Milando, Owais Gilani, Saravanan Arunachalam, K. Max Zhang

Faculty Journal Articles

Research Report 202 describes a study led by Dr. Stuart Batterman at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and colleagues. The investigators evaluated the ability to predict traffic-related air pollution using a variety of methods and models, including a line source air pollution dispersion model and sophisticated spatiotemporal Bayesian data fusion methods. Exposure assessment for traffic-related air pollution is challenging because the pollutants are a complex mixture and vary greatly over space and time. Because extensive direct monitoring is difficult and expensive, a number of modeling approaches have been developed, but each model has its own limitations and errors.

Dr. …

Developing A Uas-Deployable Methane Sensor Using Low-Cost Modular Open-Source Components, Gavin Demali

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project aimed to develop a methane sensor for deployment on an unmanned aerial system (UAS), or drone, platform. This design is centered around low cost, commercially available modular hardware components and open source software libraries. Once successfully developed, this system was deployed at the Bath Nature Preserve in Bath Township, Summit County Ohio in order to detect any potential on site fugitive methane emissions in the vicinity of the oil and gas infrastructure present. The deliverables of this project (i.e. the data collected at BNP) will be given to the land managers there to better inform future management and …

Comparative Evaluation Of Machine Learning Models For Groundwater Quality Assessment, Shine Bedi, Ashok Samal, Chittaranjan Ray, Daniel D. Snow

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Contamination from pesticides and nitrate in groundwater is a significant threat to water quality in general and agriculturally intensive regions in particular. Three widely used machine learning models, namely, artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machines (SVM), and extreme gradient boosting (XGB), were evaluated for their efficacy in predicting contamination levels using sparse data with non-linear relationships. The predictive ability of the models was assessed using a dataset consisting of 303 wells across 12 Midwestern states in the USA. Multiple hydrogeologic, water quality, and land use features were chosen as the independent variables, and classes were based on measured concentration …

Sediment Production And Delivery From Timber Harvest Roads In Humboldt County, California, Chris P. Faubion

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Sediment delivery from unpaved actively-used and relatively un-trafficked forest roads are one of the most common sources of impairment to aquatic ecosystems. Hence the objectives of this study were to: 1) compare the variability in erosion rates from actively used and relatively un-trafficked timber harvest roads across multiple water years in Railroad Gulch; 2) identify segment scale controls on road surface erosion and road-to-stream connectivity; 3) develop storm-based and annual segment scale models to predict road sediment production and compare the accuracy of these models to WEPP: Road; and 4) estimate road-related sediment loads to streams.

Between 2014 and 2019 …

Impact Of Seismic Lines On The Hydrology Of Wetlands In The Discontinuous Permafrost Zone, Southwestern Northwest Territories, Angela Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Previous studies in the southern Northwest Territories have shown the underlying discontinuous permafrost is sensitive to disturbances such as the creation of seismic lines. Their creation has resulted in compaction topsoil and tree removal causing accelerated permafrost thaw. The loss of permafrost has caused seismic lines’ surface elevation to subside, which allows water to conjugate. This increases the soil moisture of a seismic line, which results in preferential thaw along the seismic line edges. Thaw along the edges over time has connected more previously isolated wetlands to seismic lines. This leads to more water entering, resulting in higher water levels …

Table A2c. Bpsou 2020 Wet Weather Water Quality Results - General Chemistry, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

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 …

Green Strategic Planning Approach For International Shipping Activities, Xiaofang Wu, Luoping Zhang, Huan Feng

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Sustainability is a long-term and ultimate goal for international shipping, although it is slowly making progress. The shipping perspective that moves away from “port-to-port” operations to “door-to-door” services also requires international shipping to take a long-term and holistic view instead of fragmented efforts. How to achieve the long-term sustainability goal becomes a key issue for door-to-door international shipping. Hence, green strategic planning for door-to-door international shipping was proposed with green development that puts forward the eco-centric point of view as its basic theory for sustainability. This study used a strategic decision-making approach, a so-called multi-dimensional decision-making (MDDM), coupled with the …

A Feasibility Study On The Application Of Tvdi On Accessing Wildfire Danger In The Korean Peninsula, Kwang Nyun Kim, Seung Hee Kim, Myoung Soo Won, Keun Chang Jang, Won Jun Choi, Yun Gon Lee

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Wildfire is a major natural disaster affecting socioeconomics and ecology. Remote sensing data have been widely used to estimate the wildfire danger with an advantage of higher spatial resolution. Among the several wildfire related indices using remote sensing data, Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI) assesses wildfire danger based on both Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST). Although TVDI has physical advantages by considering both weather and vegetation condition, previous studies have shown TVDI does not performed well compare to other wildfire related indices over the Korean Peninsula. In this study we have attempted multiple modification to …

On The Frontlines - The Fishermen Of Ibrahim Hyderi, Muhammad Haris Aslam Khan

MSJ Capstone Projects

Climate change has become a matter of recent debate for much of the world. According to a report published by a German watch, a non-governmental organization, in 2019, Pakistan among the five countries at severe risk of climate change disasters.

During the last two decades, Pakistan saw more than 141 extreme climatic catastrophes. Only in 2016, more than 566 people died due to these conditions.

A report published by Asian Development Bank in 2017 indicates Pakistan’s climate change profile. It states that more than 1,600 people have lost their lives in the super flood of 2010 alone. A loss of …

California Stream Condition Index (Csci) Score Analysis Of Streams Sampled From 1998 To 2017 In The San Francisco Bay Region, Jenna Rais

Master's Projects and Capstones

Human impacts to California’s streams have altered the state’s riparian and hydrological landscape. This is a critical issue with regard to natural resources, including ecosystem services such as water availability and water quality. Regulations have a limited amount of impact on the improvement of this landscape and can also become complicated by politics. Scientific advances have developed ways to quantify and describe the quality of streams, this includes the development of the California Stream Condition Index (CSCI) which is based on benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) population numbers and functions. This index allows scientists to not only score the quality of a …