Environmental Monitoring Commons^™

Soil Moisture Monitoring Using Remote Sensing Data And A Stepwise-Cluster Prediction Model: The Case Of Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, Getachew Ayehu, Tsegaye Tadesse, Berhan Gessesse, Yibeltal Yigrem

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

In this study, a residual soil moisture prediction model was developed using the stepwise cluster analysis (SCA) and model prediction approach in the Upper Blue Nile basin. The SCA has the advantage of capturing the nonlinear relationships between remote sensing variables and volumetric soil moisture. The principle of SCA is to generate a set of prediction cluster trees based on a series of cutting and merging process according to a given statistical criterion. The proposed model incorporates the combinations of dual-polarized Sentinel-1 SAR data, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and digital elevation model as input parameters. In this regard, two …

Socioecological Determinants Of Drought Impacts And Coping Strategies For Ranching Operations In The Great Plains, Tonya Haigh, Walter H. Schacht, Cody L. Knutson, Alexander J. Smart, Jerry Volesky, Craig R. Allen, Michael Hayes, Mark E. Burbach

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

In Great Plains rangelands, drought is a recurring disturbance. Ranchers in this region expect to encounter drought but may not be adequately prepared for it. Efforts to encourage drought preparednesswould benefit froma better understanding of the conditions under which managers make decisions to minimize the impacts of drought.We tested the direct andmoderating roles of the drought hazard and the social-ecological context on drought impacts and response. This study was conducted with ranchers in western and central South Dakota and Nebraska following the drought that began in 2012. We surveyed ranchers regarding the effects of the drought and their responses and …

Twenty-Three Unsolved Problems In Hydrology (Uph) – A Community Perspective, Günter Blöschl, Christopher M. U. Neale, A Cast Of Thousands

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through online media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focused …

Impact Of The Application Of Domestic Wastewater By Subsurface Drip Irrigation On The Soil Solution In Sugarcane Cultivation, Aline Azevedo Nazário, Ivo Zution Gonçalves, Eduardo Augusto Agnellos Barbosa, Leonardo Nazário Silva Dos Santos, Daniel Rodrigues Cavalcante Feitosa, Edson Eiji Matsura

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The agricultural use of domestic sewage is a viable alternative for recycling nutrients; however, there is concern regarding the impact of its use due to the concentration of chemical elements present in this type of effluent. The use of principal component analysis determines the existence or lack of anomalous samples and the relations between measured variables and their relative contribution among samples that help in monitoring the impact of the use of effluents on soil chemical components. Thus, the objective of this work was to identify nutrient ions present in the soil solution during the first ratoon sugarcane irrigated with …

Public Attitudes About Private Forest Management And Government Involvement In The Southeastern United States, Melissa M. Kreye, Renata Rimsaite, Damian C. Adams

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

In the southern United States the country’s top wood-producing region, factors such as intergenerational land transfer and population spillover from urban areas have resulted in forestland conversion and reduced production of critical ecosystem services associated with forest systems (e.g., timber, clean water supply, wildlife habitat). Public attitudes, which drive forestland policy prescriptions, may also be evolving due to the way people experience and perceive forests (e.g., recreation), and think about the role of government in private forest decisions. These changes have significant implications for forestland management and the forest-based economy, both locally and globally. We present the results of a …

Mapping Regional Turbulent Heat Fluxes Via Assimilation Of Modis Land Surface Temperature Data Into An Ensemble Kalman Smoother Framework, Xinlei He, Tongren Xu, Sayed M. Bateni, Christopher M. U. Neale, Shaomin Liu, Thomas Auligne, Kaicun Wang, Shoudong Zhu

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Estimation of turbulent heat fluxes via variational data assimilation (VDA) approaches has been the subject of several studies. The VDA approaches need an adjoint model that is difficult to derive. In this study, remotely sensed land surface temperature (LST) data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are assimilated into the heat diffusion equation within an ensemble Kalman smoother (EnKS) approach to estimate turbulent heat fluxes. The EnKS approach is tested in the Heihe River Basin (HRB) in northwest China. The results show that the EnKS approach can estimate turbulent heat fluxes by assimilating low temporal resolution LST data from …

Agricultural Water Transfers In The Western United States, Richael Young, Nicholas Brozovic

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Irrigation for agricultural production represents the largest consumptive use of water in the western United States. Understanding the ways in which agricultural producers respond to physical and institutional water scarcity is therefore key to managing water risk. One of the important risk management tools available to agricultural producers is the ability to transfer water across space and time. Water transfers range from very informal handshake agreements between neighbors to very formal transfers of real property across large distances with mandatory state and federal reporting. Given the range of potential water transfer mechanisms, there are significant knowledge gaps on the variety, …

2019 Nebraska Water Productivity Report, Mesfin Mekonnen, Christopher Michael Usher Neale, Chittaranjan Ray, Galen E. Erickson, Adam Liska, Haishun Yang, Thiago L. Romanelli, Arjen Y. Hoekstra

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Nebraska’s agricultural production is diverse and vast, ranking the state fourth in total value of agricultural products in the U.S. The state is a national leader in terms of agricultural production: it is the third largest producer of corn and second largest in cattle production. Nebraska is also the second largest producer of ethanol and distillers’ grains. The production and use of these three commodities are highly interlinked. Corn is a major input in livestock feed and the ethanol industry. Ethanol plants then produce distillers’ grains as a co-product that is also used as livestock feed, thus forming what the …

2018 Kentucky River Watershed Watch: Annual Report, Malissa Mcalister

Kentucky River Watershed Watch

No abstract provided.

Role Of Sea Surface Temperatures In Forcing Circulation Anomalies Driving U.S. Great Plains Pluvial Years, Paul X. Flanagan, Jeffrey B. Basara, Jason C. Furtado, Elinor R. Martin, Xiangming Xiao

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

In the U.S. Great Plains (GP), diagnosing precipitation variability is key in developing an understanding of the present and future availability of water in the region. Building on previous work investigating U.S. GP pluvial years, this study usesERAtwentieth century (ERA-20C) reanalysis data to investigate key circulation anomalies driving GP precipitation anomalies during a subset of GP pluvial years (called in this paper Pattern pluvial years). With previous research showing links between tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies and GP climate variability, this study diagnoses the key circulation anomalies through an analysis of SSTs and their influence on the atmosphere. …

Mapping The Spatial-Temporal Dynamics Of Vegetation Response Lag To Drought In A Semi-Arid Region, Li Hua, Huidong Wang, Haigang Sui, Brian Wardlow, Michael Hayes, Jianxun Wang

Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies: Publications

Drought, as an extreme climate event, affects the ecological environment for vegetation and agricultural production. Studies of the vegetative response to drought are paramount to providing scientific information for drought risk mitigation. In this paper, the spatial-temporal pattern of drought and the response lag of vegetation in Nebraska were analyzed from 2000 to 2015. Based on the long-term Daymet data set, the standard precipitation index (SPI) was computed to identify precipitation anomalies, and the Gaussian function was applied to obtain temperature anomalies. Vegetation anomaly was identified by dynamic time warping technique using a remote sensing Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) …

Monitoring Spatial And Temporal Variabilities Of Gross Primary Production Using Maiac Modis Data, Marcos Fernandez-Martinez, Rong Yu, John Gamon, Gabriel Hmimina, Iolanda Filella, Manuela Balzarolo, Benjamin Stocker, Josep Penuelas

Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies: Publications

Remotely sensed vegetation indices (RSVIs) can be used to efficiently estimate terrestrial primary productivity across space and time. Terrestrial productivity, however, has many facets (e.g., spatial and temporal variability, including seasonality, interannual variability, and trends), and different vegetation indices may not be equally good at predicting them. Their accuracy in monitoring productivity has been mostly tested in single-ecosystem studies, but their performance in different ecosystems distributed over large areas still needs to be fully explored. To fill this gap, we identified the facets of terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) that could be monitored using RSVIs. We compared the temporal and …

Estimating The Use Of Public Lands: Integrated Modeling Of Open Populations With Convolution Likelihood Ecological Abundance Regression, Lutz F. Gruber, Erica F. Stuber, Joseph J. Fontaine

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

We present an integrated open population model where the population dynamics are defined by a differential equation, and the related statistical model utilizes a Poisson binomial convolution likelihood. Key advantages of the proposed approach over existing open population models include the flexibility to predict related, but unobserved quantities such as total immigration or emigration over a specified time period, and more computationally efficient posterior simulation by elimination of the need to explicitly simulate latent immigration and emigration. The viability of the proposed method is shown in an in-depth analysis of outdoor recreation participation on public lands, where the surveyed populations …

The Future Of Recreational Fisheries: Advances In Science, Monitoring, Management, And Practice, Jacob W. Brownscombe, Kieran Hyder, Warren Potts, Kyle L. Wilson, Kevin L. Pope, Andy J. Danylchuk, Steven J. Cooke, Adrian Clarke, Robert Arlinghaus, John R. Post

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Recreational fisheries (RF) are complex social-ecological systems that play an important role in aquatic environments while generating significant social and economic benefits around the world. The nature of RF is diverse and rapidly evolving, including the participants, their priorities and behaviors, and the related ecological impacts and social and economic benefits. RF can lead to negative ecological impacts, particularly through overexploitation of fish populations and spread of non-native species and genotypes through stocking. Hence, careful management and monitoring of RF is essential to sustain these ecologically and socioeconomically important resources. This special issue on recreational fisheries contains diverse research, syntheses, …

Water For A Hungry World: Innovation In Water And Food Security: Proceedings Of The 2019 Water For Food Global Conference. Lincoln., Daugherty Water For Food Global Institute

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Administrative Materials

Welcome and Opening Remarks : Mike Boehm, Vice President and Vice Chancellor of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska ; Peter G. McCornick, Executive Director, Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska

How the Irrigation Industry is Driving the Future through Efficient Technologies. Speaker: Deborah Hamlin, CEO, Irrigation Association

Sustainable Solutions for Water and Food Security — Business Perspectives. Speaker: Mark Edge, Director of Collaborations for Developing Countries, Bayer

Value of Water. Speakers: Dustin Garrick, Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford ; …

Growing A Water And Food Secure Future: Annual Report Fy2019 (July 1, 2018 To June 30, 2019), Robert B. Daugherty Water For Food Global Institute

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Administrative Materials

Ensuring water and food security for our growing world is an audacious goal – exactly what Bob Daugherty sought to achieve by creating the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute (DWFI) at the University of Nebraska nearly 10 years ago. He, along with leaders and supporters within the University of Nebraska, the state and well beyond, understood that a collective and committed effort on wise water management was essential to producing enough food to feed the world while sustaining our valuable and limited water resources. For decades, many dedicated people around the world have striven to overcome the challenges of …

Nebraska Water Center Annual Report 2017-2018, The Nebraska Water Center

Nebraska Water Center: Administrative Materials

Contents

Introduction: Foreword • Director’s Letter by Chittaranjan Ray • Nebraska Water Center Overview and Timeline • Nebraska’s Top 10 Water Challenges

Research: Water Sciences Laboratory Overview • Nebraska Vadose Zone Program • Novel Nitrate Leaching Reduction • Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project (OWCAP) • Nebraska Water Productivity Report • USDA-NIFA Water End-User Grant • U.S. Geological Survey 104b Projects

Extension & Outreach: Bazile Groundwater Management Area • Platte River Basin Ecosystem Symposium • Testing Ag Performance Solutions (TAPS) • 2018 National Institutes for Water Resources Regional Symposium • Water Quality + Citizen Science • Nebraska Water and Natural Resources …

Characterizing Freshwater Phytoplankton Dynamics With Electro-Optical Remote Sensing, Michael Sayers

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Freshwater lakes are an important component contributing to ecosystem health and biodiversity on local, regional, and global scales. And while lakes only represent <5% of the global surface area, they are often very productive systems which contribute significantly to carbon cycling dynamics and freshwater fish production on a number of spatial scales. Due to the remote location and sheer size of some of these lakes it has proven difficult to adequately document changes in water quality. Significant challenges exist to adequately monitor water quality, and in particular phytoplankton dynamics, over large spatial and temporal scales using traditional in situ methods. Satellite electro-optical remote sensing offers a potential tool to provide better characterization of phytoplankton dynamics for a variety of freshwater systems. This work resulted in an approach to quantify global summer phytoplankton abundance using a newly developed remote sensing derived chlorophyll-a product. This product was also used in conjunction with a newly created carbon fixation model to assess global freshwater phytoplankton production which provided new insights into the role freshwater systems play in the …

Influence Of Land Cover And Soil Moisture Based Brown Ocean Effect On An Extreme Rainfall Event From A Louisiana Gulf Coast Tropical System, Udaysankar S. Nair, Eric Rappin, Emily Foshee, Warren Smith, Roger A. Pielke Sr., Rezaul Mahmood, Jonathan L. Case, Clay B. Blankenship, Marshall Shepherd, Joseph A. Santanello, Dev Niyogi

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Extreme flooding over southern Louisiana in mid-August of 2016 resulted from an unusual tropical low that formed and intensified over land. We used numerical experiments to highlight the role of the ‘Brown Ocean’ effect (where saturated soils function similar to a warm ocean surface) on intensification and it’s modulation by land cover change. A numerical modeling experiment that successfully captured the flood event (control) was modified to alter moisture availability by converting wetlands to open water, wet croplands, and dry croplands. Storm evolution in the control experiment with wet antecedent soils most resembles tropical lows that form and intensify over …

The Total Solar Eclipse Of 2017: Meteorological Observations From A Statewide Mesonet And Atmospheric Profiling Systems, Rezaul Mahmood, Megan Schargorodski, Eric Rappin, Melissa Griffin, Patrick Collins, Kevin Knupp, Andrew Quilligan, Ryan Wade, Kevin Cary, Stuart Foster

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

A total solar eclipse traversed 37 the continental United States on August 21, 2017. It 38 was the first such event in 99 years and provided a rare opportunity to observe the atmospheric response from a variety of instrumented observational platforms. This paper discusses the high quality observations collected by the Kentucky Mesonet (www.kymesonet.org), a research-grade meteorological and climatological observation network consisting of 72 stations and measuring air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, and wind direction. The network samples the atmosphere, for most variables, every three seconds and then calculates and records observations every five minutes. During …

Irrigation Impacts On Minimum And Maximum Surface Moist Enthalpy In The Central Great Plains Of The Usa, Tianyi Zhang, Rezaul Mahmood, Xiaomao Lin, Roger A. Pielke Sr.

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Agricultural activities notably alter weather and climate including near-surface heat content. However, past research primarily focused on dry bulb temperature without considering the role of water vapor (dew point temperature) on surface air heat content. When using dry bulb temperature trends to assess these changes, for example, not including concurrent trends in absolute humidity can lead to errors in the actual rate of warming or cooling. Here we examined minimum and maximum surface moist enthalpy, which can be expressed as “equivalent temperature.” Using hourly climate data in the Central Great Plains (Nebraska and Kansas) from 1990 to 2014, the averages …

Enhancing Acis Maps: Increasing Usability Through A Gis Portal, Natalie Umphlett, Warren Pettee, Bill Sorensen, Crystal J. Stiles

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

The High Plains Regional Climate Center (HPRCC) is one of six NOAA Regional Climate Centers (RCCs) in the United States that aims to provide timely climate data and information to the public for cost-effective decision-making. As part of a three-tiered approach to climate services, the RCCs address needs on the national, regional, state, and local scales for a variety of sectors including agriculture, energy, natural resource management, research, transportation, and water resources. Working together, the RCCs develop and disseminate a wide range of valueadded climate products and services.

One of the HPRCC’s most popular products is the Applied Climate Information …

Conducting A Drought-Specific Thira (Threat And Hazard Identification And Risk Assessment): A Powerful Tool For Integrating All-Hazard Mitigation And Drought Planning Efforts To Increase Drought Mitigation Quality, Elliot Wickham, Deborah J. Bathke, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Tonya K. Bernadt, Denise Bulling, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Crystal J. Stiles, Nicole Wall

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

In the United States, drought is the second costliest natural disaster, which leads to the need for increased drought mitigation efforts over time. However, drought planning has lagged behind other hazard mitigation efforts, which is likely due to the lack of a national drought planning policy. Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requires all jurisdictions have a hazard mitigation plan (HMP) to receive pre-disaster mitigation funds, drought has only recently been a requirement in HMPs. In 2012, Nebraska witnessed its worse drought in recent history, which exposed the gaps in drought planning effectiveness at all jurisdictional levels. To address …

Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Nitrogen And Carbon Biogeochemistry In A Wetland-Stream Sequence, Patrick E. Hurley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Studies of aquatic ecosystems often segregate streams from the influential ponds, lakes, and wetland zones that act as important transitions between terrestrial and fluvial systems. Across the aquatic landscape, these zones interact to form linked ecosystems that function as discrete nutrient processing domains, shifting biogeochemical signals due to spatial and temporal variability in hydrologic and biologic controls. Using a mass-balance approach, we profiled nutrient dynamics along a 23-km wetland-stream sequence over three seasons. Hydrologic, morphologic, and biologic conditions, as well as landscape attributes, were quantified to determine potential controls on biogeochemical cycling in a tributary of the Upper Clark Fork …

Environmental Site Assessment And Hydrogeologic Impacts To Groundwater At St. Ignatius, Montana And Hanford, Washington, Ryan M. Carter

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The following Environmental Studies Master’s Portfolio is a compilation of works completed individually and with peers in order to fulfill requirements for the Master of Science degree. These works demonstrate range, depth, and the interdisciplinary nature of the course of study. As an undergraduate student at Eastern Washington University, I studied Environmental Science with a concentration in hydrogeology. I was interested in learning about the natural world and wanted to develop a deeper connection to it. Inevitably, I was exposed to courses that examined the causes and effects of hazardous waste site remediation, and this topic became my passion. The …

Age-0 Walleye Sander Vitreus Display Length-Dependent Diet Shift To Piscivory, Christopher S. Uphoff, Casey W. Schoenebeck, Keith D. Koupal, Kevin L. Pope, W. Wyatt Hoback

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

The ontogenetic diet shift to piscivory can be energetically beneficial for fish growth and allows larger, more energetically profitable prey to be consumed. A shift to piscivory may be easier for longer individuals within a cohort due to larger gape size, and an early shift is likely advantageous, potentially leading to increased growth rates and survival. Such length-dependent ontogenetic diet shifts may explain the intracohort variability in length that is common for age-0 walleye (Sander vitreus). The objectives of this study were to describe seasonal intracohort variability in length, identify the timing of the shift to piscivory and …

Ecosystem Size Predicts Social-Ecological Dynamics, Mark A. Kaemingk, Christopher J. Chizinski, Craig R. Allen, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Recreational fisheries are complex adaptive systems that are inherently difficult to manage because of heterogeneous user groups (consumptive vs. nonconsumptive) that use patchily distributed resources on the landscape (lakes, rivers, coastlines). There is a need to identify which system components can effectively predict and be used to manage nonlinear and cross-scale dynamics within these systems. We examine how ecosystem size or water body size can be used to explain complicated and elusive angler-resource dynamics in recreational fisheries. Water body size determined angler behavior among 48 Nebraska, U.S.A. water bodies during an 11- year study. Angler behavior was often unique and …

Droughtscape, Winter 2019, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

From the Director

Drought intensified in California and Nevada, eased elsewhere

Year in Review: Drought spread and intensified in the West; record precipitation in the East

Drought impact summary for 4th quarter 2018

Drought impact summary 2018

Five states began drought plan updates in 2018

New web-based form makes submitting drought observations easier

FEMA risk assessment process tailored for drought

Upcoming events

Improving Access To Clean Water In Rural Ecuador: The Connection Between Willingness To Pay And Population Health, Micalea Leaska

Capstone Collection

Climate change is affecting social and environmental determinants of health through access to safe drinking water, safely managed sanitation systems, and access to health care services and the ability for individuals to break free from unsuitable circumstances. Ecological disturbances such as those caused by climate change can cause a shift in host vectors or a change in habitat that results in a greater likelihood of the pathogen coming in contact with humans. Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services and their accessibility to populations can directly impact a community’s vulnerability to diseases and limiting factors to increase economic growth. If rural …

Decomposing A Watershed’S Nitrate Signal Using Spatial Sampling And Continuous Sensor Data, Evan Clare

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Watershed features, physiographic setting, geology, climate, and hydrologic processes combine to produce a time-variant nutrient concentration signal at the watershed outlet. Anthropogenic influences, such as increased agricultural pressures and urbanization, have increased overall nutrient loadings delivered to the fluvial network. The impact of such increased nutrient loadings on Kentucky’s drinking water remains a potential threat to the region.

By coupling spatial sampling of nitrate concentrations in surface water with contemporary nutrient and water quality sensor technology, a decomposition of the Upper South Elkhorn watershed’s nitrate signal and an estimation of source timing and loading in the watershed was completed. The …