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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Energy In The Corn Belt: Is Maize Production Sustainable?, Matthew Bernau
Energy In The Corn Belt: Is Maize Production Sustainable?, Matthew Bernau
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Technological and scientific innovation has transformed agricultural production. Corn production methods changed from a sustainable, nutrient recycling production system to one reliant on imported fossil energy inputs. Located in the Western Corn Belt, Union County, South Dakota was chosen as the study area. Changes in production methods are represented by four technological epochs: 1) The Draft Horse Epoch, 1890-1920; 2) The Tractor Epoch, 1920-1950; 3) The Fertilizer Epoch, 1950-1980; and 4) The Biotechnology and Precision Agriculture Epoch, 1980-2010. The energy budget method was used to measure the energy sustainability of corn production. The findings show that the volume of corn …
Impacts Of Land Cover Changes On Ecosystem Services Delivery In The Black Hills Ecoregion From 1950 To 2010, Suzanne Cotillon
Impacts Of Land Cover Changes On Ecosystem Services Delivery In The Black Hills Ecoregion From 1950 To 2010, Suzanne Cotillon
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Environmental degradation generated by land use choices and human activities is the first driver of change in the provision of ecosystem goods and services. One of the challenges in ecosystem services research is to evaluate the contribution of each land cover unit to ecosystem services delivery while considering multiple services. In this thesis, I develop a framework to assess the capacity of many land covers to independently produce ecosystem services (i.e., potential production) and the capacity of the whole landscape to deliver multiple services to the population (i.e., potential supply). In the first part, this methodology is used to report …
Sagebrush Ecosystem Characterization, Monitoring, And Forecasting With Remote Sensing: Quantifying Future Climate And Wildlife Habitat Change, Collin G. Homer
Sagebrush Ecosystem Characterization, Monitoring, And Forecasting With Remote Sensing: Quantifying Future Climate And Wildlife Habitat Change, Collin G. Homer
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems constitute the largest single North American shrub ecosystem and provide vital ecological, hydrological, biological, agricultural, and recreational ecosystem services. Disturbances continue to alter this ecosystem, with climate change possibly representing the greatest future disturbance risk. Improved ways to characterize and monitor gradual change in this ecosystem are vital to its future management. A new remote sensing sagebrush characterization approach was developed in Wyoming which integrates three scales of remote sensing to derive four primary continuous field components (bare ground, herbaceousness, litter, and shrub), and four secondary components (sagebrush, big sagebrush, Wyoming sagebrush, and shrub …