Environmental Monitoring Commons^™

Hydrological Effects And Groundwater Fluctuations In Interdunal Environments In The Nebraska Sandhills, David Gosselin, Venkataramana Sridhar, F. Edwin Harvey, James Goeke

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Nine years of groundwater monitoring data has documented the important influence that topographic relief and location in the groundwater flow system have on the hydrologic function of interdunal valleys. The western "wet" valley at the Gudmundsen Sandhills Laboratory in central Nebraska, which is a net discharge area, is more strongly buffered from the effects of annual-scale climatic variability than the eastern "dry" valley. The east valley is generally an area of net recharge and as such is more responsive to climatic variability. This study employed a simple water balance approach to estimate evapotranspiration (ET) from water level measurements in the …

Unlv Magazine, Carol C. Harter, Joe Cockrell, Tony Allen, Regina Bacolas, Lori Bachand, Jennifer Lawson, Bret C. Birdsong, Steve Parker, Erin O'Donnell, Jennifer Robison

UNLV Magazine

No abstract provided.

Cooperative Conservation: Increasing Capacity Through Community Partnerships -- Interagency Volunteer Program & Cooperative Conservation Program: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending March 31, 2006, Margaret N. Rees

Get Outdoors Nevada

• Interagency volunteer database now contains 2,211 records, reflecting 404 new volunteer records this quarter, a 22% increase over last quarter.
• Website activity decreased, recording an average of 35,798 hits per month, with an average of 3,337 pages viewed per month.
• Volunteer events were successfully executed in Sloan Canyon NCA, Spring Mountains NRA, and Lake Mead NRA.
• Interagency training was delivered to 70 volunteers.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Sensitive Wildlife Species Monitoring And Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending March 31, 2006, Margaret N. Rees

Wildlife Monitoring

• Research Assistant Professor hired to oversee NPS wildlife monitoring programs and serve as overall program coordinator for UNLV monitoring programs at Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
• Final report completed for 2004-2005 desert tortoise monitoring project.
• Final report completed for 2004-2005 relict leopard frog management.
• Recommendations for vegetation management research to improve relict leopard frog habitats at North Shore springs made to NPS Management Team
• Breeding surveys for relict leopard frog and egg collections for head-starting program completed.
• Final report completed of 2004-2005 monitoring efforts on peregrine falcons.
• Final report completed on 2004-2005 bald eagle monitoring.
• Bald eagle survey for 2006 …

Comparative Analysis Of Biosurveillance Methodologies, David M. Kempisty

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to compare two different biosurveillance methodologies: BioWatch and "A Hot Idea". BioWatch is fielded and operating in major US cities today. Air samples are collected on filter paper and analyzed for the presence of harmful biological agents. "A Hot Idea" is an evolving methodology using the human body's immune response to identify the onset of infection from a harmful pathogen. Detecting a temperature increase, using infrared thermographers, in a statistically significant portion of population would allow earlier identification of a biological release, accelerating initiation of response actions. A selected population including policemen, firemen, and …

Validation Of Methods To Measure Mass Flux Of A Groundwater Contaminant, Hyouk Yoon

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, flux measurements obtained using two methods are compared with known mass fluxes in a meso-scale three-dimensional artificial aquifer. One method, the tandem recirculating well (TRW) method, is applied using two different techniques. One technique is simple and inexpensive, only requiring measurement of heads, while the second technique requires conducting a tracer test. The second method, the integrated pump test (IPT) method, requires use of one or more pumping and observation wells in various configurations. The results of the experiments in the artificial aquifer show that the most expensive technique, the TRW method using tracers, provides the most …

Hydrographic Observations During The 2002 Ioc Contaminant Baseline Survey In The Western Pacific Ocean, C. I. Measures, Greg A. Cutter, W. M. Landing, R. T. Powell

OES Faculty Publications

The 2002 IOC Contaminant Baseline Survey in the western Pacific Ocean was the fourth in a series of cruises intended to establish the contemporary concentrations of trace elements and other materials in the major water masses of the ocean and to illuminate the pathways by which materials delivered to the surface ocean are incorporated in the subsurface waters. The expedition occupied 9 vertical profile stations encompassing the subtropical and subarctic gyre of the western North Pacific. In addition, underway surface water samples were collected during transits between the stations. This paper uses the temperature, salinity, nutrient, oxygen, and chlorophyll data …

Effects Of Predator Removal On Upland Nesting Ducks In North Dakota Grassland Fragments, Kristen D. Chodachek, Michael J. Chamberlain

The Prairie Naturalist

Low nest success rates in the Prairie Pothole Region are attributed mainly to changes in the predator community coupled with reductions in availability of suitable nesting cover. We evaluated effects of removal of mammalian predators on pair density and nest success of ducks nesting on 259 ha sites in northeastern North Dakota during 2001 and 2002. We monitored pair density and duck nests on 10 sites with removal and 10 sites without removal. Overall nest success for both years was greater on trapped (53.4%) than nontrapped sites (28.7%). Pair densities were not affected by predator removal, but did increase across …

Factors Contributing To Dust Emissions In Clark County, Nevada Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending January 15, 2006, Margaret N. Rees

Dust Emissions from Public Lands

• Task agreement formally executed November 1, 2005
• Search for post-doctoral scholar commenced November 17, 2005

Optimal Management Of Groundwater Over Space And Time, Nicholas Brozovic, David L. Sunding, David Zilberman

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

For nearly half a century, groundwater has been portrayed in the economic literature as a typical common property resource. Numerous studies of groundwater extraction have analyzed the externalities imposed by users on each other. A large body of work offers clear prescriptions in the form of optimal policy instruments, and a similarly large body of work advocates the needlessness of any centralized intervention. Yet existing theoretical models of groundwater extraction implicitly make two strong assumptions about the underlying behavior of the resource. First, the spatial distribution of resource users is assumed to be irrelevant. Second, path-independence of the resource is …

Determining Biogeochemical Assemblages On The Stony River, Grant County, Wv, Using Fuzzy C-Means And K-Nearest Neighbors Clustering, M. Joseph Hughes

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Periphyton assemblages were assessed on the Stony River, a high-gradient stream in the Potomac drainage of Grant County, WV. Periphyton samples were collected from nine sites along the mainstem and in two tributaries. Chlorophyll-a, dry weight, taxonomic identifications, and bioaccumulated metals concentrations data were compiled. These data were related to water quality parameters measured at each site during the study. Fuzzy C-means and k-nearest neighbor clustering on the combined, normalized dataset produced similar results. Clustering separated species occurring in each tributary from each other and those dominating the mainstem. Nearly every bioaccumulated metal was associated with one of these tributary …

Facilitating The Development Of The Strawberry Industry In Western Australia, Dennis Phillips, Aileen Reid

Horticulture research reports

Horticulture Australia Project No. BS05001 Annual report 2005/06

This is the first of three annual reports for the Horticulture Australia project BS05001 — ‘Facilitating the development of the strawberry industry in Western Australia’. This project is managed by the Strawberry Growers Association of WA Inc. and the work is being done in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA). The project has been funded by voluntary contributions from the W.A. Strawberry Producers Committee, Toolangi Strawberry Runner Growers Co-operative and DAFWA with matching funding from Horticulture Australia Ltd (HAL). The project has been funded for three years, 2005, …

Terpenes And Carbohydrate Source Influence Rumen Fermentation, Digestibility, Intake, And Preference In Sheep, J. J. Villalba, F. D. Provenza, K. C. Olson

Green Canyon Environmental Research Area, Logan Utah

We hypothesized that toxins and nutrients in foods interact to influence foraging behavior by herbivores. Based on this hypothesis we predicted that 1) terpenes in big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) influence intake and preference in sheep for diets varying in sources of nonstructural (barley grain) and structural (sugar beet pulp) carbohydrates, and 2) these effects are due to the differential effects of terpenes on fermentation products and apparent digestibility of each class of carbohydrates. Lambs were fed 2 isoenergetic and isonitrogenous diets with varying proportions of the same ingredients (beet pulp- and barley grain-based diet) or offered a choice between the …

Evaluation Of The Sustainable Grazing On Saline Lands - Wa Producer Network : Influence On Practice Change And Decision-Making Capacity, Rebecca Heath, Jamie Bowyer, T M. Lacey

Resource management technical reports

No abstract provided.

Predicting The Percent Live Cover Of Corals: An In Situ Remote Sensing Approach, Deepak R. Mishra, Sunil Narumalani, Ronald Bahl, D. Rundquist, Merlin P. Lawson

Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies: Publications

Percent reflectance of corals is perhaps the most important remotely sensed data that can be related to their biophysical properties. Because most of the biophysical variables of corals (i.e., pigment content, live cover and algal overgrowth) are related to their reflectance spectra, the analysis and inversion of the spectra may provide an account of these variables. Our research was aimed at determining the relationship between the percent live cover and reflectance of corals. Two wavelength bands (405–425 nm, and 590–600 nm) were identified to establish the relationship. A linear relationship was observed, which showed higher correlation (R² = …

Natural Resource Management Issues In The Avon River Basin, Paul Galloway

Resource management technical reports

Analyses the risk of soil, land and water degradation within the Avon River Basin of Western Australia. Information is based on the interpretation of the characteristics of soils and landscapes within the Avon River basin. This report deals with 15 natural resource management issues and describes the extent of each issue, the impacts that each issue will have, management options that can be used to deal with each issue, and the effectiveness of each management option in dealing with the issues.

Satellite Image Based Classification Mapping For Spatially Analyzing West Virginia Corridor H Urban Development, Chandra L. Inglis-Smith

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The study area for this project is Corridor H, a designated Appalachian Development Highway located in Lewis, Upshur, Barbour Counties which are part of the Appalachian Plateau Province, and Randolph, Tucker, Grant and Hardy Counties which are Part of the Ridge and Valley Province in West Virginia. The region has a long history of occupation and a traditional economic structure consisting of mainly agriculture, timbering and coal mining. The final objective of the study was to perform change detection, using two Landsat datasets obtained from the USGS of the study area from 1987 and 2005 to determine if economic development, …

Zero Effluent Stretch Target (Zest), Orla O'Connor

Theses

The goals of this project were to assess the viability of avoiding water use and of “cascading” water uses, i.e. using outlet water from one process in another activity, possibly with some purification, including the upgrading of the final effluent stream for internal reuse. Water use has been inventoried at FMC Biopolymer, Cork. Avoidance and reduction measures were identified that could reduce water consumption from 49m /hr to 19 m /hr (a reduction in excess of 60%), with an annual saving in excess of €350,000. These projects were assessed for feasibility and implementation. Potential streams that could be subject to …

2006 Kentucky River Watershed Watch Sampling Results, Malissa Mcalister, Lindell Ormsbee

Kentucky River Watershed Watch

No abstract provided.

Summary Report 2005 Kentucky River Watershed Watch Data Collection Effort, L. Ormsbee, M. Mcalister

Kentucky River Watershed Watch

No abstract provided.

Chemical Analysis Of Fish Tissue: Kentucky Army National Guard Wendell H. Ford Western Kentucky Training Site, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, Steven E. Webb, James S. Dinger, Dennis H. Cumbie

Information Circular--KGS

Thirty-one analytes were measured in fish tissue taken from largemouth bass, catfish, and bluegill harvested from lakes and ponds in reclaimed and unreclaimed coal-mine spoil of Pennsylvanian age. The spoil area is approximately 7,756 acres created primarily from surface mining, and has been used in increasing intensity since 1969 as a training site by the Kentucky Army National Guard. Four fish were harvested for analysis from the area of unreclaimed spoil that resulted from mining prior to 1977, and 15 fish were harvested for analysis from the part of the training facility that was reclaimed by 1985. Twenty-six analytes had …

Assessing Water-Supply Potential Of Abandoned Underground Coal Mines In Eastern Kentucky, James S. Dinger, Dennis H. Cumbie, Bart Davidson

Report of Investigations--KGS

Use of water in abandoned underground coal mines for municipal, industrial, agricultural, or domestic water supplies is dependent upon the water quantity and quality. For either of these factors, the requirements of the user will play a role in what water quantity or quality is acceptable. This report provides analysis of field-derived water-quality and -quantity characteristics for six abandoned underground coal mines in the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field. In addition, some ancillary data from State regulatory agencies were used to help characterize water quality coming from the mines.

This study demonstrates that water quality in abandoned deep mines can be …

Ravensthorpe Area Catchment Appraisal 2006, A Massenbauer

Resource management technical reports

The Ravensthorpe area covers 861, 000 hectares. Ninety percent of the study area covered in this report falls within the Ravensthorpe Shire, Western Australia. This document aims to give the reader a starting point from which to further assess larger scale areas of the catchment for the purpose of planning to reverse and improve land degradation and sustainable farming in Western Australia.

Sustainability Reporting At Higher Education Institutions, Robert Heilmayr

CMC Senior Theses

Multiple declarations, governmental and non-profit organizations and universities have issued a call for proper reporting of social and environmental impacts and initiatives within academia. Such reporting can increase awareness of environmental and social impacts, encourage development of sustainable policy and build a campus culture more committed to sustainability. Sustainability reporting at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has the added benefit of being a powerful teaching aid. This paper follows multiple lines of inquiry in order to determine whether HEIs are taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by sustainability reporting. The analysis evaluates the history of sustainability reporting at HEIs and compares …

An Analysis Of Internal Phosphorus Loading In White Lake, Alan Steinman, Mary Ogdahl

Scientific Technical Reports

An analysis of internal phosphorus loading in White Lake, MI was conducted during the summer, 2006. Sediment cores were removed from 4 sites in White Lake and incubated in the laboratory under aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions. Phosphorus flux from the sediments into the overlaying water column was measured over a 27-day period and compared to rates measured from sediment cores collected previously from Mona and Spring Lakes.

Internal phosphorus loading in White Lake sediments ranged from 1.55 to 7.78 mg TP/m2/d in anaerobic conditions and from -0.18 to 0.14 mg/m2/d in aerobic conditions. The negative value …

Diurnal Temperature Range Over The United States: A Satellite View, D. Sun, R. T. Pinker, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Diurnal temperature range (DTR) is an important climate change index. Information on this parameter comes primarily from sparse and unevenly distributed observations of shelter air temperature. In this study, five years of GOES- 8 based estimates of land surface temperature (LST) over the United States are used to evaluate DTR at high spatial resolution. The spatial and temporal patterns that emerged show a high degree of consistency with independent satellite estimates of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Specifically, the arid regions in the western and central U.S. have larger DTRs than the eastern United States or the northwest coast. …

2005 Diamond Lake Submersed Aquatic Vegetation Survey, Mark D. Sytsma, Mary Pfauth

Center for Lakes and Reservoirs Publications and Presentations

Diamond Lake is a large natural lake having a surface area of some 3214 acres (1300.7 hectares) and a maximum depth of 52 feet (15.8 meters). It is located within the Umpqua National Forest in the Southern Cascade Mountains of Oregon, at an elevation of over 5000 feet (>1524 meters). Diamond Lake is a high-use waterbody that supports angling, public campgrounds, recreational boating, swimming, and water skiing. The human activity associated with the lake has been a significant contributor to the economy of southern Oregon since the early part of the twentieth century.

Historically Diamond Lake was fishless but …

Detecting Hot Spots Of Mountain Pine Beetle Infestations In The Forests Of British Columbia: An Approach Using Local Spatial Autocorrelation, Rodrigo Tapia-Mcclung

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) is an endemic species in the forests of British Columbia that has become epidemic and reached infestation levels like never before. Different approaches have been taken in order to try and manage the forest and understand the processes affecting the behavior of mountain pine beetle. No single model has been entirely successful in unearthing the complexity of mountain pine beetle behavior. In this thesis, large spatial data sets of mountain pine beetle attacks, obtained from helicopter and ground surveys, and further adjusted for the incorporation of uncertainty, are studied using a spatial autocorrelation approach …

Seasonal Variability Of Carbon Dioxide Fluxes Over A Heterogeneous Low Tundra Ecosystem, Ronald P. Van Haarlem

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The seasonal carbon dioxide (CO2) budget and its associated environmental controlling parameters, soil moisture, soil temperature and depth to frost were investigated throughout the growing period during the summer of 2004. The study site is located within the low arctic tundra environment at Daring Lake, NWT (62⁰52’N, 111⁰35’W). The CO2 fluxes from an area of heterogeneous tundra composition were intensely monitored. The net seasonal CO2 budget was approximated to be 10.2 g C-CO2 m-2 for 100 days (DOY 159-259) of the 2004 snow-free study period. The CO2 flux dynamic was found to differ between 4 identified seasonal periods—melt, pre-green, green …

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Vegetation Monitoring And Management: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending December 31, 2005, Margaret N. Rees

Vegetation Monitoring

Executive Summary

• Required reports on sticky buckwheat (Eriogonum viscidulum) and threecorner milkvetch (Astragalus geyeri var. triquetrus) to be submitted through appropriate protocols by December 30, 2005
• Summary report on several other rare plants to be submitted through appropriate protocols by December 30, 2005
• Invasive perennial pepperweed (also called tall whitetop; Lepidium latifolium) documented and treated by Weed Sentry within Black Canyon, Lake Mojave