Sustainability Commons^™

How Megatooth Sharks Ruled And Fell: Evidence From Stable Isotopes In Bioapatite, Michael Griffiths

Sustainability Seminar Series

The evolution and extinction of megatooth sharks, especially Otodus megalodon, have long puzzled scientists. A growing body of evidence suggests that the evolution of gigantism in these sharks, perhaps driven by their ability to thermoregulate, played a crucial role in their ecological success and response to environmental changes. Yet, until recently, the question of whether O. megalodon was ectothermic or endothermic was based solely on nonempirical inferences. In this presentation, Dr. Griffiths will present new research that involves the geochemical analysis of both modern and fossil shark teeth to shed light on O. megalodon's thermoregulation, revealing it maintained a warmer …

Complex Impacts Of Wars On Global Sustainable Development In A Metacoupled World, Qutu Jiang, Zhenci Xu, Yuanzheng Cui, Jianguo Liu

I-GUIDE Forum

Wars and armed conflicts have had profound impacts on local and global sustainable development in an interconnected world. However, evidence on the impacts of wars is fragmented and little attention has been paid to the impacts on the 17 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a unifying framework for achieving global sustainable development. This perspective synthesizes the scattered information to provide a holistic analysis and highlight the applications of remote sensing in assessing the impacts of wars on global sustainable development in a metacoupling world. Wars have complex impacts on all 17 SDGs, which cascade beyond conflict zones and spillover to …

Cross-Scale Urban Land Cover Mapping: Empowering Classification Through Transfer Learning And Deep Learning Integration, Zhe Wang, Chao Fan, Xian Min, Shoukun Sun, Xiaogang Ma, Xiang Que

I-GUIDE Forum

Urban land cover mapping is essential for effective urban planning and resource management. Thanks to its ability to extract intricate features from urban datasets, deep learning has emerged as a powerful technique for urban classification. The U-net architecture has achieved state-of-the-art land cover classification performance, highlighting its potential for mapping urban trees at different spatial scales. However, deep learning approaches often require large, labeled datasets, which are challenging to acquire for specific urban contexts. Transfer learning addresses this limitation by leveraging pre-trained deep learning models on extensive datasets and adapting them to smaller urban datasets with limited labeled samples. Transfer …

Curriculum Design Of Artificial Intelligence And Sustainability In Secondary School, Jinyi Cai, Mei-Po Kwan, Chunyu Hou, Dong Liu, Yeung Yam

I-GUIDE Forum

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing numerous sectors with its transformative power, while at the same time, there is an increasing sense of urgency to address sustainability challenges. Despite the significance of both areas, secondary school curriculums still lack comprehensive integration of AI and sustainability education. This paper presents a curriculum designed to bridge this gap. The curriculum integrates progressive objectives, computational thinking competencies and system thinking components across five modules—awareness, knowledge, interaction, empowerment and ethics—to cater to varying learner levels. System thinking components help students understand sustainability in a holistic manner. Computational thinking competencies aim to cultivate computational thinkers to guide …

The Medieval Climate Anomaly: Drought And Societal Collapse, T. Elliott Arnold

Sustainability Research & Practice Seminar Presentations

Sustainability Research & Practice Seminar on "The Medieval Climate Anomaly: Drought and Societal Collapse" by Professor (Thomas) Elliott Arnold, Department of Earth & Space Sciences, West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Wave Energy: Perspective On Applications, Technologies, And Challenges, Muhammad Hajj

Sustainability Seminar Series

In comparison to solar and wind energy, wave energy is more predictable, and incessant with a global potential of the order of tens of thousands of terawatt-hours per year. Yet, from a readiness perspective, there has not been a prevailing design for wave energy converters for many reasons. Developing the technology requires design of components including the prime mover, foundation or mooring, power take-off, and control systems. In this talk, advances made towards realizing electric power from wave energy will be discussed. A summary of an effort supported by the US Department of Energy and led by researchers at Stevens …

The Effectiveness Of Environmental Technologies In Combating Climate Change: A Cross-National Analysis, Jamie Sommer

Sustainability Seminar Series

Are our technologies helping reduce environmental issues, or just allowing people to pollute more efficiently? What factors influence the ability of technologies to reduce environmental damage? In this presentation, Dr. Sommer will explain new research that links environment-related technologies to decreases in CO2 emissions in nations with lower levels corruption compared to nations with higher levels of corruption. Her findings suggest that the state can promote and support all of the pro-environmental technologies it wants, but if it has issues with corruption those solutions may not have any impact on reducing CO2 emissions.

The Experience Of Awe In Nature And Its Implications For Sustainability, Ella Shriner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Awe is a complex emotion and a relatively new field of psychological study. Previous studies have looked at the benefits of spending time in nature including spurring environmental action, and how awe is felt in nature. In this study, I investigate the connection between these two ideas by addressing the questions of how Awe is experienced in the Northern Rivers region of Australia, and whether small and big moments of awe motivate people to take environmental action and connect them to their community and the natural world. For this study, I conducted 15 interviews, collected 51 surveys, and personally explored …

Portugal To New Mexico: Investigating The Applicability Of Syntropic Agriculture To A Semi-Arid Continental Climate, Arielle Nathan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Conventional industrial agriculture has numerous detrimental effects on the environment including high carbon emissions, pollution and overconsumption of water, soil degradation, and reduction of biodiversity (FAO, 2018). Large-scale alternatives are needed to combat these negative consequences and provide climate solutions. Syntropic Agriculture is a promising farming alternative especially in arid systems subject to degraded soils and desertification. New Mexico is a semi-arid continental climate in a prolonged period of drought and predicted to experience worsening agricultural conditions due to desertification, wildfire intensification, and exacerbated water scarcity. In an area with similar agricultural challenges, a project in Mértola, Portugal (Terra Sintrópica) …

Challenges Of Embedding Sustainability In Organizational Culture, Jyro B. Triviño

Leadership and Strategy Faculty Publications

Advocating for robust, aggressive, and advanced sustainability is a direction that is ideal yet challenging. It means not only decreasing additional harm to the environment but, at the same time, objectively using renewable energy flow. Embedding sustainability as part of organizational culture appears to be a daunting task. Not all enterprise managers comprehensively understand the phenomenon, which entails proper awareness of its benefits and consequences. This qualitative study focuses on Philippine business enterprises' ability to embed a regenerative sustainable culture. It includes salient insights from five Philippine medium-sized enterprise owners who were also acting as managers. It shows that the …

Water Wise Landscape Practices: A Case Study For The City Of Gering, Christina E. Land

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

This professional project is founded on my education, experiences, and networks. I have had the opportunity to use what I have learned thus far and be challenged to look at public planning from a different perspective. In partnership with the City of Gering I was able to get knee deep in the facility planning of the city owned property which is home to the Community Ever Green House. The project reviews how the property is integrated into the community and the impact it has. Then, identifies opportunities to improve overall functionality with a closer look at addressing hazard mitigation using …

A Case Study Of Sustainable Development At The Penonomé Wind Farms, A Cdm Registered Project In Coclé, John Matuszewski

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Penonomé wind projects fit into a long history of previous internationally financed development projects in Panama, including those from the Clean Development Mechanism. A moderate level of research has been conducted on other Clean Development Mechanism projects, but despite contributing to 5% of Panama’s energy needs and constituting the largest wind park in Central America, the Penonomé wind farms remain little researched. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with relevant people associated with the project or with relevant information to gain more information about the case study. Using the information processed from these reviews and information from publicly available resources, the …

Assessing The Performance Of Agricultural Systems In The Inland And Coastal Regions Of Northern Portugal Using Indicators: Establishing The Foundation Towards Better Agricultural Practices, Genevieve Gehlken

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study conducts a comprehensive evaluation of agricultural systems in the distinct coastal and inland regions of Northern Portugal. Employing key indicators, including soil erosion, nitrogen surplus, irrigation practices, Agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and crop yield, the analysis reveals statistically significant disparities and unique challenges in each region. The coastal areas, marked by higher agricultural GDP, exhibit distinct economic dependencies on agriculture, while the inland regions face challenges related to water scarcity, soil erosion, and rural isolation. The looming threat of climate change adds complexity to these dynamics, further highlighting the need for region-specific, sustainable agricultural practices. In the …

Environment And Sustainability: October 2023, Environment And Sustainability, Office Of The President

Environment and Sustainability Archives

• Replacing diesel with biomass for boiler at AKUH Nairobi,

• Monthly Movie Hour starting from October

• Paper savings from ICT optimisations

• All-vegetarian catering menu

• Zero-waste beach cleanup drive

• Sustainable Events Training

• Launch of 2023 President’s Challenge for Climate Solutions

• And much more…

Considering Equity In Infrastructure Planning Processes And Outcomes For Coastal Resilience, Wie Yusuf, Marina Saitgalina, Tom Allen, Nicole S. Hutton, Jennifer L. Whytlaw, Joshua Behr

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Economic And Environmental Performance Of Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems: Resilience To Uncertainties And An Opportunity For Sustainable Intensification, Maroua Afi

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Integrated crop-livestock systems are promoted as an alternative for sustainable intensification of food production. They have the potential to offer enhanced input efficiency and maintain a diversified livelihood which plays an important role in building resilience of agricultural systems. This work aims to evaluate the technical efficiency of “Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems” (ICLS), “Specialized Livestock Systems” (SLS) and “Specialized Cropping Systems” (SCS) and to identify the determinants behind inefficiencies in these systems. It also aims to assess the resilience against climate variability and market fluctuations. The first chapter provides a comparative analysis and an overview of technical efficiency assessment of farming …

City Of Santa Fe's Offset Program: A Comprehensive Demand Analysis And Program Review, Francesca Shirley

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

In principle, Development Water Offset programs (offset programs) are designed to allow for urban growth without increasing water demand. Offset programs necessitate a reduction in existing water demand, typically achieved through plumbing retrofits, equal to the expected new demand, resulting in a net zero increase in water use. The City of Santa Fe (Santa Fe) has administered an offset program since 2002. The program banks water saved from its retrofit rebate programs. The banked water savings, known as Conservation Credits, can then be purchased by developers, and dedicated to new development projects. Under the water bank model, new demand has …

Críticas Contrahegemónicas De La Estrategia Nacional Del Litio: Hacia El Postextractivismo, Sarah Reyes

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En abril de 2023, el presidente chileno Gabriel Boric anunció su esperada Estrategia Nacional del Litio, diseñada para expandir la extracción de litio y desarrollar una cadena de valor productiva nacional a través de una estructura de asociación público-privada con mayor participación estatal. El plan ha sido objeto de diversas críticas y niveles de oposición por parte de la izquierda, comunidades indígenas y organizaciones ambientales. Basándose en la creciente literatura de ecología política y decolonial sobre la extracción de litio, junto con marcos teóricos de decrecimiento decolonial y postextractivismo, este documento sintetiza y analiza críticas de estos tres grupos (no …

Patrimonio Cultural, Arqueología, Medio Ambiente Y Economía: ¿Cómo Ha Afectado La Construcción Del Aeropuerto Internacional De Chinchero-Cusco A Las Comunidades Y La Tierra De Chinchero?, Sydney Berenson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La urbanización gubernamental ha sido un problema para las poblaciones indígenas, el medio ambiente y la protección del patrimonio cultural durante numerosos años en todo el Perú. Más recientemente, en la pequeña ciudad de Chinchero, ubicada a unos 30 kilómetros al noroeste de Cusco, se está construyendo un nuevo aeropuerto internacional, Aeropuerto Internacional de Chinchero-Cusco (AICC), para reemplazar el actual aeropuerto nacional de Cusco. Chinchero es un importante centro urbano que está conformado por 13 comunidades campesinas que participan en la industria agrícola de la región, además consta con una importante comunidad artesanal, ruinas arqueológicas precolombinas y una gran biodiversidad. …

Oscars Vs. Ozone: The Motion Picture Industry’S Impact On Climate Change And What They Are Doing About It, Alexis J. Simpson

Senior Theses

This thesis focuses on demonstrating that the motion picture industry, which includes film and television production (and thus will also be called ‘the film and television industry’), has notably contributed to the global effects of climate change. Such contributions can stem from the industry’s emissions and waste, with examples including travel for cast and crew, energy use for production equipment (some of which run on diesel), and disposable physical sets and costumes. The intention here is to give an accurate picture of current production practices and share examples of progress in the industry that are combating the negative impacts of …

Lithium Extraction From Aqueous Solution Using Magnesium Doped Lithium Ion-Sieve Composite, Ujjwal Pokharel

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This study focused on the development of a magnesium doped ion-sieve composite to extract lithium from an aqueous solution using adsorption process. The extraction process will provide a sustainable alternative to the currently practiced solar evaporation/concentration method which is very slow (takes 24 months) and water intensive. Currently, most of the lithium in the world comes from the mining of lithium or from the evaporative extraction process from the brine. Additionally, the Salton Sea area geothermal brines are recognized as potentially important domestic sources of lithium. Lithium concentration in geothermal brines from the Salton Sea area is reported to be …

Open-Cast Mining Deformations Monitoring Using Sentinel-1 Sar Data (Sbas Technique), Mahvash Naddaf Sangani, Seyed Reza Hosseinzadeh, José Francisco Martín Duque, Mahnaz Jahadi Toroghi, Kapil Kumar Malik

Journal of Sustainable Mining

Land surface deformation created by mining activities can have negative impacts on the environment. Measuring them can be a tool for managing the environmental impacts of mining. Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry is a remote sensing method for measuring deformations. The main aim of this research is to investigate the deformation phenomenon on a region scale and extend our understanding of it to all mining deformation areas across the country. This paper used Small Baseline Subset Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technology to obtain deformations information in the Sangan mine based on mining activities. We used 48 scenes of Single Look Complex(SLC) …

Numerical Modelling Of Uniaxial Compressive Strength Laboratory Tests, Phu Minh Vuong Nguyen, Andrzej Walentek, Petr Waclawik, Kamil Soucek, Michał Antoniuk

Journal of Sustainable Mining

In the last decades, numerical modelling has been widely used to simulate rock mass behaviour in geo-engineering issues. The only disadvantage of numerical modelling is the reliability of required input data (e.g. mechanical parameters), which is not always fully provided due to the complexity of rock mass, project budget, available test methods or human errors. On the other hand, it was proven in many cases that numerical modelling is a helpful tool for solving such complex problems, especially when coupled with the results of laboratory and in-situ tests. This paper presents an attempt to determine the proper numerical constitutive model …

Self-Organization For Community Resilience In An Invisible Agricultural Community, Anna Erwin, Chelsea A. Silva, Zhao Ma

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

This study investigates how self-organizing efforts by residents of informal settlements, primarily migrant and informal farmworkers, shape community resilience in Majes, a water-scarce irrigation district in the Atacama Desert of Peru. We collected 45 semi-structured interviews with residents and authorities in Majes and analyzed findings through a framework of self-organizing. Analyses revealed that self-organizing by residents of informal settlements incorporated the three components of White’s theory of Community Agency and Community Resilience, which contends that marginalized communities increase resilience by fostering a commons praxis, practicing a prefigurative politics, and developing opportunities for economic autonomy. We also found …

Wasted Space, Ryan Martyn

Dissertations and Theses

This paper performs a spatial analysis of Portland, Oregon, with a focus on identifying and utilizing "wasted space," such as parking lots and vacant land, as strategic opportunities to enhance the completeness of the city. The planning concept of a "complete neighborhood" is defined as a locality that offers residents access to all essential aspects of daily life within a convenient walking distance. This notion encompasses elements, such as walkability, accessibility to essential services and amenities, sustainability, and equity. The objective of this study is to provide a more precise definition of the planning concept of a complete neighborhood and …

Sea-Level Rise And Thin Layer Placement: How They Affect Salt Marsh C And N Cycling, Charles Schutte

Sustainability Seminar Series

Around half of New Jersey’s salt marshes are not keeping pace with sea-level rise and face increasing inundation and salinity. How will this affect soil-based ecosystem services that these marshes provide, like nitrogen removal and carbon burial? In this presentation, Dr. Schutte will discuss how sea-level rise and other human-caused disturbances may interact to exacerbate marsh loss and share results about how one method to protect marshes from sea-level rise, thin later placement, affects soil nitrogen cycling process rates.

Multi-Criteria Analysis Of The Possibility Of Retrofitting The System Of Rainwater Drainage From Subsidence Basins In A Liquidated Mine, Andrzej Chmiela, Małgorzata Wysocka, Adam Smoliński

Journal of Sustainable Mining

Mine closure is the natural final stage of mining activity. The process of financing mine liquidation is complex and expensive. The many years of conducted hard coal extraction affect the surface height differences. Analyses of the shifts in hydrogeological conditions and water hazard states in mining plants led to legal regulation adaptations, primarily in terms of hydrogeological documentation preparation, and made it necessary to conduct work concerning new options for water hazard assessment and prevention. Current subjects of particular interest include shifts in terrain morphology and the water regime, resulting in periodic flooding and permanent flooding of the most depressed …

Virtual Impacts Of Food Consumption And Opportunities For Closing Resource Loops, Vikas Khanna

Sustainability Seminar Series

Food supply chains have become increasingly complex and characterized by large distances between production and consumption. The first part of this talk will describe an optimization based-model to track the US beef supply chain with a focus on quantifying virtual water and nitrogen impacts. The second part of this presentation will discuss a novel AnMBR (anaerobic membrane bioreactor) platform for resource recovery from animal wastewater streams. Life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of the AnMBR platform will be discussed with implications for circular economy.

Research On Three-Stage Automatic Hole Packer For Gas Extraction Drilling In Underground Coal Mine, Wang Qingfeng, Shi Shuhan, Xin Dezhong, Chen Hang, Zhang Shitao

Coal Geology & Exploration

In view of the requirements of hole sealing during gas extraction drilling in underground coal mine for manual packer installation and sealing material injection, as well as the low automation level of hole sealing technology, a three-stage automatic hole packer for gas extraction drilling in underground coal mine was developed, with the appearance similar to the drill pipe. The hole packer could be mechanized into the drilling hole by an automatic drilling machine, and realize the automatic injection of sealing material. Herein, the Mooney-Rivlin hyperelastic constitutive model was used to represent the strain energy function by the finite element analysis …

Intelligent Optimization And Control Technology For Drilling Process Of Coal Mine Tunnels, Yao Ningping, Wu Min, Chen Luefeng, Lu Chengda, Fan Haipeng, Zhang Youzhen, Li Wangnian, Yao Ke

Coal Geology & Exploration

The harsh environment for drilling construction of coal mine tunnel, complex coal seam structure and complicated operation procedures can cause low drilling efficiency and high drilling cost. For this reason, it is imperative to carry out studies on the optimization and control technology for the drilling process of coal mine tunnel. Herein, study was conducted from intelligent identification of lithology of coal-bearing formation, intelligent optimization of drilling parameters and their intelligent control, focusing on the key technology for control of drilling process of coal mine tunnel. First, in order to accurately determine the type of coal-bearing formation, an intelligent identification …