Environmental Monitoring Commons^™

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

Vegetation Monitoring Presentations

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

Estimation Of Submarine Groundwater Discharge From Bulk Ground Electrical Conductivity Measurements, Thomas Stieglitz, John Rapaglia, Henry Bokuniewicz

Biology Faculty Publications

The utility of bulk ground conductivity (BGC) measurements in the estimation of submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) was investigated at four sites covering a range of hydrogeological settings, namely Cockburn Sound (Australia); Shelter Island (USA); Ubatuba Bay (Brazil) and Flic-en-Flac Bay (Mauritius). At each of the sites, BGC was surveyed in the intertidal zone, and seepage meters were used for direct measurements of SGD flow rates. In the presence of detectable salinity gradients in the sediment, a negative correlation between SGD and BGC was recorded. The correlation is site-specific and is dependent on both the type of sediment and the mixing …

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Sensitive Wildlife Species Monitoring And Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending December 31, 2007, Margaret N. Rees

Wildlife Monitoring

Project 1. Relict Leopard Frog Monitoring, Management, and Research

• Fall surveys completed at all natural and translocation sites.
• Coordination for a potential translocation site on BLM lands in the Gold Butte area ongoing – the aim is that this site will be ready for translocations in 2008.
• Coordination ongoing for evaluation of a translocation site on BLM lands in the Black Mountains, AZ – the plan is to complete compliance in 2008.
• Coordination and assistance provided to UNLV research efforts on habitat improvements at Blue Point, Rogers, and Pupfish Refuge springs.
• Relict Leopard Frog Conservation Team meeting held in December. …

Fisheries Research Report No. 168 - Sustainable Development Of Barramundi Cage Aquaculture At Lake Argyle., Brett Glencross, S. Percival, B. Jones, J Hughes

Fisheries Research Reports

Final FRDC report and KSRP report - Project 2003/026

A preliminary sensory evaluation study was conducted to confirm the presence of a taint issue. Prior to this the issue was reliant on purchaser feedback and was not verified independently. To examine the issue of flavour taint a series of barramundi samples were collected from Lake Argyle (purged and unpurged), wild (estuarine) and marine farmed barramundi were assessed. No significant differences in flavour attributes and/or acceptability attributes were detected between the wild and farmed barramundi, provided the barramundi was either marine-farmed or purged. However, it was determined that a clear “muddy” …

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

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

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

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

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

Publications and Research

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

Droughtscape, Fall 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Fall 2007 Outlook

Diverse Impacts Reported in Summer of 2007

Decadal Climate Cycles Hold Predictive Potential

Drought Experts Take Roadmap to Congress

NDMC Research Updates

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

Resource management technical reports

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

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Monitoring And Evaluation Of Sensitive Wildlife: Annual Progress Report, Period Ending September 30, 2007, Margaret N. Rees

Wildlife Monitoring

Project 1. Relict Leopard Frog Monitoring, Management, and Research

• Diurnal and nocturnal surveys completed at all natural and translocation sites during the spring – the most striking finding was the lack of frogs observed at Rogers Springs and lower Blue Point despite repeated survey efforts.
• Relict leopard frog annual translocation effort completed – a total of 1365 late stage tadpoles and 592 post-metamorphic frogs from the head-start facilities were released at existing translocation sites.
• Mark-recapture effort at Rogers Spring abandoned because of the lack of frogs; assistance provided for a mark-recapture study at upper Blue Point Spring.
• Potential translocation sites …

Land Cover Types Of The Las Vegas Wash, Nevada, Seth A. Shanahan, Dave Silverman, Art Ehrenberg

Publications (WR)

Vegetation type, extent, continuity, and structure are some of the most important factors that determine wildlife diversity and distribution. Other contributing factors that shape wildlife communities include disturbance, competition, climate, and water availability. Because vegetation communities in the southwestern U.S. gradate sharply along zones of soil moisture, wildlife are often restricted to specific vegetation types. Along the Las Vegas Wash (Wash), Nevada, more than 250 wildlife species have been documented to occur in distinct wetland, riparian, and upland vegetation types. Recent studies have investigated the diversity and distribution of amphibians, birds, fishes, mammals, and reptiles (Shanahan 2005, 2005a, Van Dooremolen …

Droughtscape, Summer 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Summer 07 Outlook

Hayes Named Director of NDMC

NDMC & UN Plan for Drought

Book Review: The Worst Hard Time

Drought Tools Workshops Underway

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

Benthic Biological Monitoring Program Of The Elizabeth River Watershed (2006), Daniel M. Dauer

Elizabeth River Reports

Executive Summary

Macrobenthic communities of the Elizabeth River watershed have been quantitatively sampled since summer 1999. This report presents the data from the eigth year of sampling in 2006. The three objectives of the Benthic Biological Monitoring Program of the Elizabeth River watershed are: (1) To characterize the health of the tidal waters of the Elizabeth River watershed as indicated by the structure of the benthic communities. (2) To conduct trend analyses on long-term data at 14 fixed-point stations to relate temporal trends in the benthic communities to changes in water and/or sediment quality. Trend analyses will be updated annually …

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Monitoring And Evaluation Of Sensitive Wildlife: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending June 30, 2007, Margaret N. Rees

Wildlife Monitoring

Project 1. Relict Leopard Frog Monitoring, Management, and Research

• Nocturnal surveys completed at all natural and translocation sites – the most striking finding was the lack of frogs observed at Rogers Springs and lower Blue Point despite repeated survey efforts.
• Relict leopard frog annual translocation effort completed – a total of 1957 tadpoles and juvenile frogs released at six translocation sites.
• Potential translocation sites within Gold Butte assessed during site visits in late March.
• Coordination and assistance provided to UNLV research efforts on habitat improvements at Blue Point and Rogers Springs, and with proposed FWS actions to construct a tadpole …

A Comprehensive Wetland Program For Fringing Salt Marshes In The York River, Maine, Pamela A. Morgan, Jeremy Miller, Christopher Cayce Dalton, Michele Dionne

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

The overall goal of this project was to assist the Town of York, Maine, in its efforts to monitor and protect the fringing salt marshes along the York River. In particular, the project focused on potential impacts to the marshes due to shoreline development pressures. Specific objectives included (1) gathering baseline data about the marshes (2) developing a set of indicators to be used in future monitoring, and (3) generating management recommendations.

Case Studies Of Urban And Rural Lakes In Minnesota, Lisa M. Becker

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Droughtscape, Spring 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

2007 Spring Drought Outlook & Winter Summary

VegDRI Expands to 15 States, Refines Views

DroughtScape

State Spotlight: Utah

International Panel Foresees Drought as Part of Climate Change

NIDIS Portal Advancing

Extensions Of Local Domains With Trivial Generic Fiber, William Heinzer, Christel Rotthaus, Sylvia Wiegand

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

We consider injective local maps from a local domain R to a local domain S such that the generic fiber of the inclusion map R -> S is trivial, that is P R (0) for every nonzero prime ideal P of S. We present several examples of injective local maps involving power series that have or fail to have this property. For an extension R -> S having this property, we give some results on the dimension of S; in some cases we show dim S = 2 and in some cases dim S = 1.

Dynamics Of A Eutrophic Lake (Wilgreen Lake, Madison County, Kentucky): A First Step In Cleansing A Lake System Impaired By Nutrient Loading, Erin C. Jolly, Walter S. Borowski

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Wilgreen Lake (Madison County, Kentucky) is a eutrophic lake formed by damming Taylor Fork, part of the Silver Creek watershed. The lake is listed “nutrient impaired” by the Commonwealth and the EPA, and it is likely that nutrient input from human activities is affecting water quality. Our study aims first to characterize the physical characteristics and water quality of the lake (2006), and then to determine the specific proportion of nutrient inputs (2007) to the lake with the ultimate aim of improving its water quality.

Research started in May 2006 with work occurring throughout the 2006 field season with the …

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Monitoring And Evaluation Of Sensitive Wildlife: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending March 31, 2007, Margaret N. Rees

Wildlife Monitoring

Project 1. Relict Leopard Frog Monitoring, Management, and Research

• Spring-time diurnal surveys for relict leopard frogs were conducted at all sites.
• Relict leopard frog annual translocation effort was initiated. Currently, 2,153 tadpoles are being reared at the Hill Top and Willow Beach Fish Hatchery facilities. Quagga mussels found at the hatchery might not be as problematic for this program as originally thought. Current prophylactic protocols for disease treatment in tadpoles and frogs are being evaluated for their ability to kill quagga mussel larvae.
• Coordination and monitoring was provided to EPMT crews conducting tamarisk control at relict leopard frog sites in …

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

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

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

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

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

Environmental Science and Geology Faculty Research Publications

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

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

Theses and Dissertations

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

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

Resource management technical reports

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

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

Resource management technical reports

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

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

Resource management technical reports

No abstract provided.

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

Resource management technical reports

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

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

Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies: Publications

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

Agricultural Climatology, Kenneth G. Hubbard

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

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

Droughtscape, Winter 2007, Kelly Smith

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

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

What Would You Like to See?

TX, OK, Plains, Southwest Hardest Hit in 2006

Climatologically Speaking, How Bad Was It?

State Spotlight: Arizona

Drought Decision-Support Tools Evolving

Climate-Induced Forest Dieback As An Emergent Global Phenomenon, Craig Allen, David D. Breshears

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

An organized oral session at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in San Jose, Calif., posed this question: Is climate-induced drought stress triggering increasing rates and unusual patterns of forest die-off at a global scale? Twenty-nine researchers representing five continents reported on patterns, mechanisms, and projections of forest mortality.