Environmental Monitoring Commons^™

Draft Final Quarterly Operations And Maintenance Report Butte Treatment Lagoon System – Second Quarter 2024, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Caught On Camera: Evaluating Wood Duck (Aix Sponsa) Cavity Occurrence And Trapping Efficiency, Cindy L. Von Haugg

All Theses

Wood ducks (Aix sponsa) garner significant ecologic and economic importance as the second most harvested waterfowl species in two of the four migratory flyways in North America, but the accuracy of population monitoring, relative to other duck species, is stifled by the wood duck’s secretive nature and nesting habitat. As an alternate, population models would improve current assessments, but more data on the demographic vital rates of cavity-nesting wood ducks is needed. I aimed to help bridge this knowledge gap by developing a method to increase data collection efficiency, and with it, accomplish two objectives: 1) Calculate the relative abundance …

Piloting A Drain Gauge As A Method Of Measuring Runoff From Ecoroofs In Portland, Trinity Perrin

University Honors Theses

The following paper will be exploring a pilot methodology of a drain gauge system I built that’s used to calculate stormwater runoff from ecoroofs in Portland, Oregon. The drain gauge is a less studied technique for measuring ecoroof runoff, but holds high potential for developing better monitoring and management of ecoroofs within the city of Portland. What separates this stormwater runoff capturing device apart from other stormwater runoff calculation techniques is its adaptable design and simple installation. The drain weir can be placed in any roof drain that an ecoroof has been installed simply by placing it into a roof …

Final Quarterly Operations And Maintenance Report Butte Treatment Lagoon System – First Quarter 2022, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Final Quarterly Operations And Maintenance Report Butte Treatment Lagoon System – Second Quarter 2022, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Revised Draft Final Quarterly Operations And Maintenance Report Butte Treatment Lagoon System -Third Quarter 2022 (Dated November 16, 2023), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Drone-Based Topographic Monitoring Of The Doheny Beach Replenishment Project As An Alternative To Land-Based Monitoring, Miller Mccraw

CMC Senior Theses

The rising threat of coastal erosion to California’s beach ecosystems and economy has fueled a rise in coastal stabilization projects, including beach replenishment. This process’s potentially adverse impact on a beach’s topography and ecosystem makes post-replenishment monitoring essential for long-term coastline management. Drone-based monitoring presents itself as a faster, cheaper, and safer alternative to traditional post-replenishment monitoring but has little proof of concept as a practical substitute. This study used drone-based photogrammetry coupled with publicly available wave data to track elevation changes at Doheny and San Capistrano Beach after a beach replenishment project to both determine the beach’s resilience to …

Draft Final Butte Treatment Lagoons (Btl) Groundwater Treatment System Routine Operations, Maintenance, And Monitoring (Om&M) Plan, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Vegetation And Habitat Classification Of Created And Natural Brackish Marshes Via Unoccupied Aerial Systems And Potential Monitoring Applications, Seth T. Chapman

LSU Master's Theses

Louisiana’s coastal marshes are some of the most valuable natural, economic, and cultural state resources that however, have been severely deteriorating over the last century. Federal and state agencies have pooled billions of dollars into coastal restoration projects in Louisiana of which marsh creation is a primary focus. Traditional monitoring of created marshes involves in-situ vegetation sampling and aerial imagery from fixed-wing occupied aircraft, but these methods have limitations and/or can negatively impact sites. My thesis explores the use of Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS; i.e., drones) to classify vegetation and habitat in coastal marsh systems, compare habitat and vegetation cover …

Revised Draft Final Quarterly Operations And Maintenance Report Butte Treatment Lagoon System – Third Quarter 2022, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Revised Draft Final Quarterly Operations And Maintenance Report Butte Treatment Lagoon System – Second Quarter 2022, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Revised Draft Final Quarterly Operations And Maintenance Report Butte Treatment Lagoon System – First Quarter 2022, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Assessing Ecosystem Health Through Contaminants In The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, Nancy Torres

Theses

Although the Tijuana River Estuary (TRE) remains the largest, most-intact coastal wetland in Southern California, it has a history of major changes, much of this related to its location immediately north of the US / Mexico Border. One of the primary challenges is cross-border flows from the rapidly growing city of Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, and the delivery of wastewater, debris, and sediment to sensitive coastal wetland ecosystems. There is a need to more fully investigate these environmental changes to assess the ecosystem health of the Tijuana River Estuary over time, especially related to pollution impacts. This can inform an …

Monitoring Bull Kelp (Nereocystis Leutkeana) Remotely At High Resolutions, Hannah E. Joss

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Bull kelp (Nereocystis leutkeana) is a foundational seaweed in nearshore, marine systems, traditionally supporting economically important fisheries, extracting nutrients in its vicinity, and sequestering carbon and transporting it great distances to subsidize shallow and deep-sea environments. Bull kelp is also a culturally important species for some indigenous peoples along the northeastern Pacific coastline and provides a harvestable product with growing demand. Global trends in kelp distribution show patterns of decline, and the immense loss of northern California bull kelp forests in response to climatic changes have highlighted the need for alternative sources of kelp, both for the product …

Coupling Dendrochronology And Remote Sensing Techniques To Assess The Biophysical Traits Of Juniperus Virginiana And Pinus Ponderosa Within Grassland Communities In The Semi-Arid Grasslands Of The Nebraska Sandhills, Reece Allen

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Woody species encroachment is occurring within the sandhills region in Nebraska, primarily driven by Juniperus virginiana and Pinus ponderosa, altering ecosystems and the services they provide. Effective, low cost, and cross-scale monitoring of woody species growth and performance is necessary for integrated grassland and forest management in the face of climate variability and change. In this study, we sought to establish a relationship between remote sensing-derived vegetation indices (VIs) and dendrochronological (raw and standardized tree ring width) measurements to assess the performance of encroaching woody J. virginiana and P. ponderosa located within the Nebraska National Forest in the sandhills. …

Multi-Sectoral Impact Assessment Of An Extreme African Dust Episode In The Eastern Mediterranean In March 2018, Alexandra Monteiro, Sara Basart, Stelios Kazadzis, Antonis Gkikas, Sophie Vandenbussche, Aurelio Tobias, Carla Gama, Carlos Pérez García-Pando, Enric Tarradellas, George Notas, Nick Middleton, Jonilda Kushta, Vassilis Amiridis, Kostas Lagouvardos, Panagiotis G. Kosmopoulos, Vasiliki Kotroni, Maria Kanakidou, Nikos Mihalopoulos, Nikos Kalivitis, Pavla Daggson-Waldhauserová, Hesham El-Askary, Klaus Sievers, T. Giannaros, Lucia Mona, Marcus Hirtl, Paul Skomorowski, Slobodan Nickovic, Athanasios Votsis, Timo H. Virtanen, Theodoros Christoudias, Biagio Di Mauro, Serena Trippetta, Stanislav Kutuzov, Outi Meinander

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In late March 2018, a large part of the Eastern Mediterranean experienced an extraordinary episode of African dust, one of the most intense in recent years, here referred to as the “Minoan Red” event. The episode mainly affected the Greek island of Crete, where the highest aerosol concentrations over the past 15 yeas were recorded, although impacts were also felt well beyond this core area. Our study fills a gap in dust research by assessing the multi-sectoral impacts of sand and dust storms and their socioeconomic implications. Specifically, we provide a multi-sectoral impact assessment of Crete during the occurrence of …

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Npl Site, Trec Inc., A Woodard And Curran Company

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

A Framework For Near-Real Time Monitoring Of Diversity Patterns Based On Indirect Remote Sensing, With An Application In The Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest, Andrea Paz, Thiago S. Silva, Ana C. Carnaval

Publications and Research

Monitoring biodiversity change is key to effective conservation policy. While it is difficult to establish in situ biodiversity monitoring programs at broad geographical scales, remote sensing advances allow for near-real time Earth observations that may help with this goal. We combine periodical and freely available remote sensing information describing temperature and precipitation with curated biological information from several groups of animals and plants in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest to design an indirect remote sensing framework that monitors potential loss and gain of biodiversity in near-real time. Using data from biological collections and information from repeated field inventories, we demonstrate that …

Lidar-Landsat Covariance For Predicting Canopy Fuels, Margaret D. Epstein

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Managing wildfires in the western United States is becoming increasingly complex. Visualizing and quantifying canopy structures allows fire managers to both plan for fire and track recovery. Light detecting and ranging, or LiDAR can measure forests in three dimensions, but has limited spatial and temporal coverage. LiDAR-Landsat covariance uses machine learning to fill in the spatial and temporal gaps of LiDAR coverage with supplemental Landsat imagery. However, in order to capture real forest dynamics, a model needs to be stable enough to detect long term trends, sensitive to episodic disturbance, and general enough to work on multiple landcovers. The purpose …

Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Approved 2021-2-22 Final Reclaimed Areas Maintenance And Monitoring Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp), Mike Mcanulty, Eric Hassler

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Bog Plant/Lichen Tissue Nitrogen And Sulfur Concentrations As Indicators Of Emissions From Oil Sands Development In Alberta, Canada, R. Kelman Wieder, Melanie A. Vile, Kimberli D. Scott, Cara M. Albright, James C. Quinn, Dale H. Vitt

Public Health Sciences Faculty Publications

Increasing gaseous emissions of nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) associated with oil sands development in northern Alberta (Canada) has led to changing regional wet and dry N and S deposition regimes. We assessed the potential for using bog plant/lichen tissue chemistry (N and S concentrations, C:N and C:S ratios, in 10 plant/lichen species) to monitor changing atmospheric N and S deposition through sampling at five bog sites, 3-6 times per growing season from 2009 to 2016. During this 8-year period, oil sands N emissions steadily increased, while S emissions steadily decreased. We examined the following: (1) whether each species showed …

Evaluating The Success Of Compensatory Wetland Mitigation In The California Coastal Zone, Tommy Alexander

Master's Projects and Capstones

Compensatory mitigation is a practice whereby a government agency requires the creation, restoration, enhancement, or preservation of ecological resources to offset unavoidable adverse impacts to environmentally sensitive habitat caused by some form of development. Compensatory wetland mitigation programs have slowed the rate of wetland loss in California and elsewhere, but they have largely failed to offset impacts with a sufficient amount of functional mitigation acreage. In California, more than 90% of the state’s historical wetlands have been drained, diked, filled, or dredged over the past 100 years. This report evaluates the success of compensatory wetland mitigation required by the California …

Establishing Pastoralist Monitoring Sites In The Grasslands: A Guide For Pastoralists, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development

All other publications

This guide is for lessees and station managers who wish to establish rangeland condition monitoring programs for their pastoral leases. The guide outlines the main principles to consider for establishing monitoring sites, and the collecting and recording data to monitor changes over time of rangeland condition within a grassland environment.

Identifying and ongoing monitoring of representative sites can be used to objectively assess the effect of livestock numbers, fire and seasonal conditions on the health of the perennial vegetation and soil. Importantly, monitoring can assist lessees demonstrate whether their current land management practices are appropriate for achieving acceptable rangeland condition.

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 …

Evaluation Of Relationship Between Lead-Dust Loading, Lead-Dust Concentration, And Total Dust Loading Metrics Across Multiple Data Sets, Charles Bevington

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Lead-dust monitoring studies report values as either lead-dust loadings µg/ft² or as lead-dust concentrations µg/g. It is rare for studies to report both metrics. When only lead-dust loading values are present, professionals require an approach to estimate lead-dust concentration values. A literature search identified five studies that contained raw data for both lead-dust loading and lead-dust concentration. An additional thirty-two studies had summary-statistics available for both lead-dust loading and lead-dust concentration. Studies with raw-data were used to develop an empirically-based loading to concentration statistical relationship. Raw data sets were critically evaluated to determine whether elimination or …

Using Groundwater Modeling To Assess Groundwater And Stream Connectivity In A River Restoration Application, John Joseph Lunzer

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Historic placer mining operations along the Middle Fork John Day River (MFJD) north of Galena, Oregon have left the MFJD channel straightened, incised and lacking in riverbed structure. This lack of riverbed structure makes this stretch of the MFJD poor habitat for trout and migrating salmon. In order to restore this stretch of the MFJD to better serve aquatic species, Inter-Fluve Inc. (IF), United States Forest Service (USFS) and The Freshwater Trust (TFT) will be performing restoration to both the MFJD channel as well as Bear Creek, a tributary of the MFJD. The proposed restoration work will consist of re-routing …

Development And Application Of Hydrological And Limnological Monitoring In Lake-Rich Landscapes Of Canada’S Subarctic National Parks, Hilary Emma White

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Arctic and subarctic environments are being adversely influenced by human-caused climate change across our entire planet. Canada’s northern freshwater ecosystems are influenced by a variety of environmental stressors and are particularly sensitive to climate change, since small shifts in climate have the potential to substantially alter their hydrological, limnological, and biogeochemical conditions. Some other indirect effects on northern freshwater landscapes are the expansion of vegetation as well as changes in wildlife and waterfowl populations and distribution. It is, therefore, critical to understand the observed and predicted influences of climate change and other environmental stressors on these northern freshwater environments dominant …

Persistence Of Stream Restoration With Large Wood, Redwood National And State Parks, California, Diedra L. Rodriguez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The conservation and recovery of anadromous salmonids (Oncorhynchus sp.) depend on stream restoration and protection of freshwater habitats. In-stream large wood dictates channel morphology, increases retention of terrestrial inputs such as organic matter, nutrients and sediment, and enhances the quality of fish habitat. Historic land use/land cover changes have resulted in aquatic systems devoid of large wood. Restoration by placement of large wood jams is intended to restore physical and biological processes. An important question for scientists and restoration managers, in addition to the initial effectiveness of restoration, is the persistence and fate of large wood installations. In this …

Water Quality Trends Following Anomalous Phosphorus Inputs To Grand Bay, Mississippi, Usa, Marcus W. Beck, Kimberly Cressman, Cher Griffin, Jane Caffrey

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) is a 7500 ha protected area in Jackson County, MS. In 2005, a levee breach at a fertilizer manufacturing facility released highly acidic and phosphate—rich wastewater into the reserve. A second spill occurred in September 2012 following Hurricane Isaac. We used orthophosphate (PO₄^3-) concentrations to categorize the 2 events, post— events, and non—impact periods between the 2 spills. We examined spatial and temporal patterns in nutrients, chlorophyll, pH, and other parameters within and between monitoring stations. After the first event, pH at the Bangs Lake water quality station decreased to …

Developing A Hydrological Monitoring Program For Ponds In Wapusk National Park, Manitoba, Using Water Isotope Tracers, Stephanie Roy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Northern lake-rich landscapes are vulnerable to increases in surface air temperatures and are changing in dynamic ways. Current meteorological records indicate that some of the greatest warming in the past century has occurred in the Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL). As the HBL is an extensive wetland consisting of hundreds of thousands of shallow lakes and ponds, it is difficult to anticipate the long-term implications that climate change will have on pond water balance. To develop and implement long-term monitoring of hydrological conditions, sampling of pond water isotope composition has occurred during the past six years in Wapusk National Park (WNP), …