Environmental Studies Commons^™

On The Wire, Sarah F. Lumba

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

“On the Wire” is a work of creative non-fiction that weaves together a local myth and actual events to describe the devastating effects of Typhoon Ketsana, which struck Marikina, a small but progressive city in the Philippines, on September 2009. It explores how colonial subjugation has erased a people’s memory of their collective soul and has severed their strong ties to the land, thus putting the lives of future generations in jeopardy.

Poetry Of Roe 8, Nandi Chinna

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Poetry of Roe 8

The occasion for the writing of these poems was activism surrounding the controversial highway known as the Roe 8 extension in the areas of Cockburn and Fremantle in Western Australia. Planned in the 1950s, Roe 8 is contentious for a number of reasons, including extraordinary political deals over funding, undue process regarding environmental reporting, lack of a business case, inadequate noise and traffic modelling, erasure of Indigenous heritage sites, and clearing of the sensitive Beeliar wetlands and Coolbellup banksia woodlands which were designated a Threatened Ecological Community in 2016. During the summer of 2016/2017 contractors started …

Review Of Thinking Continental: Writing The Planet One Place At A Time, John Charles Ryan Dr

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Review of Thinking Continental: Writing the Planet One Place at a Time (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2017) edited by Tom Lynch, Susan Naramore Maher, Drucilla Wall and O. Alan Weltzien

Darwin’S Landscapes (And Seascapes), Patrick H. Armstrong

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Charles Darwin, particularly in his early writings, had a strong appreciation of landscape. He describes scenery that he regarded as attractive and spectacular in his writings from the Beagle period with considerable perception. Through much of his career, he integrated ideas and facts from different sources supremely well; thus understanding that a landscape was a product of the rocks, the processes they had undergone, vegetation, animal life, and human activities. Another component in the development of his appreciation of landscape – or ‘scenery’ as he usually identified it – was his quite strong aesthetic sense which existed from his teenage …

Saturn/Cronus-11, Joel Weishaus

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

“Saturn/Cronus-11” is from a Cosmography, an in-progress project of Literary Digital Art that invokes the gods of seven planets in our celestial neighborhood; plus The Sun, The Moon; and Incognita. It includes my trope of invagination: fragments exhumed from the authored corpus and transplanted into the body of a living text, which, along with superimposed images and animations, advances us toward a more magnanimous, transdisciplinary sphere. The project also includes notes.

A Naturalist’S Guide To The Great Plains, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

This book documents nearly 500 US and Canadian locations where wildlife refuges, nature preserves, and similar properties protect natural sites that lie within the North American Great Plains, from Canada’s Prairie Provinces to the Texas-Mexico border. Information on site location, size, biological diversity, and the presence of especially rare or interesting flora and fauna are mentioned, as well as driving directions, mailing addresses, and phone numbers or internet addresses, as available. US federal sites include 11 national grasslands, 13 national parks, 16 national monuments, and more than 70 national wildlife refuges. State properties include nearly 100 state parks and wildlife …

Defining Extreme Events: A Cross-Disciplinary Review, Lauren E. Mcphillips, Heejun Chang, Mikhail Chester, Yaella Dipletri, Erin Friedman, Nancy B. Grimm, John S. Kominoski, Timon Mcphearson, Pablo Méndez-Lázaro, Emma J. Rosi, Javad Shafiei Shiva

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Extreme events are of interest worldwide given their potential for substantial impacts on social, ecological, and technical systems. Many climate-related extreme events are increasing in frequency and/or magnitude due to anthropogenic climate change, and there is increased potential for impacts due to the location of urbanization and the expansion of urban centers and infrastructures. Many disciplines are engaged in research and management of these events. However, a lack of coherence exists in what constitutes and defines an extreme event across these fields, which impedes our ability to holistically understand and manage these events. Here, we review 10 years of academic …

Athabasca River Glacial Melt Global Warming Blues, Gene Hyde

The Goose

“Athabasca River Glacial Melt Global Warming Blues” is a poem and photograph by Gene Hyde, a writer, photographer, and archivist living in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. This is part of his PhotoEpigraphic51 series that combines a photograph, an epigraph, and a 51 syllable, three haiku verse structure. The photograph was taken in September 2017 along the Athabasca River in Jasper National Park.

Locating Provisioning Ecosystem Services In Urban Forests: Forageable Woody Species In New York City, Usa, Patrick T. Hurley, Marla R. Emery

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Scholarship on the ecosystem services provided by urban forests has focused on regulating and supporting services, with a growing body of research examining provisioning and cultural ecosystem services from farms and gardens in metropolitan areas. Using the case of New York, New York, USA, we propose a method to assess the supply of potential provisioning ecosystem services from species and spaces other than those explicitly designated for food production. We analyze the abundance and spatial distribution of trees and shrubs with known uses for food, medicine, craft, and other purposes across urban greenspace types. To do so, we created a …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring For Scotts Bluff National Monument, 2017 Data Report, Ryan Manuel

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

This report presents the results of vegetation monitoring efforts in 2017 at Scotts Bluff National Monument (SCBL) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN) and Northern Great Plains Fire Ecology Program (NGPFire).

During the seventh full year of field work, crew members from NGPN visited eight long-term monitoring plots on May 22-25, 2017 to collect data on the plant communities at SCBL. This is part of a long-term monitoring effort to better understand the condition of the vegetation at SCBL. NGPN staff captured data relating to species richness, herb-layer height, abundance of individual native and non-native …

Acoustic Surveys Of Bats At Northern Great Plains Parks And Preliminary Results From 2014-16, Daniel S. Licht

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

From 2014-16, the Northern Great Plains Inventory & Monitoring Network (Network)—in collaboration with the Midwest Regional Biologist—used acoustic methods to monitor bat populations at 12 Network parks. Six parks were monitored using the nascent North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) framework. Six other parks did not meet a priori criteria for inclusion in NABat so they were monitored using similar methods, but a non-systematic sampling frame.

Fifty-five NABat stations were established along with 62 non-NABat stations. Stations were typically monitored for 4-7 nights each year using equipment that records the echolocation calls of bats. Fourteen mobile survey routes …

Human Trafficking, Alyssa Noosbond

Global Issues in Public Health

Human trafficking is a major problem not just somewhere around the world but possibly in your own neighborhood. Human trafficking is a non-communicable disease that is caused by a person being in a vulnerable position whether they are in a foreign country, leaving a place of poverty, leaving for political reasons, or for an overall change to better their life. With human trafficking being a $150 billion industry, there are unfortunately 20.9 million victims with 26 percent being children, 55 percent of the people being trafficked are women and girls leaving 45 percent to be men and boys. Women and …

Paleoflood Hydrology And Basin Morphometric Characteristics Related To Flooding In The Colorado Front Range, Natalie Trivino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Flooding hazards are common in the Colorado Front Range due to the steep, complex terrain of the mountains where waters quickly spill out onto the most populated region of Colorado. This region has experienced numerous catastrophic floods, such as the 2013 Front Range Floods, the Fort Collins Flood of 1997, and the Big Thompson Canyon Flood of 1976 to name a few. The objective of this study was to analyze basin morphometric characteristics of several drainage basins throughout the Colorado Front Range South Platte River tributaries and determine how these characteristics relate to extreme flooding. This was done through three …

From Bison To Cattle: The Ecology Of The Southern Plains 1500-1750, Jenni Tifft-Ochoa

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Bison made their home on the Southern Plains for millennia. However, their migratory patterns began to shift in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. My research investigated what caused this drastic shift and how it had far reaching effects on the ecology of the Southern Plains. Using archives from two prominent Catholic priests, I began to piece together why the bison left the Southern Plains. Rather than focus on the Europeans as the main players, I instead focused on the Indigenous peoples, the animals, and the land as the centralized actors in this project. I discovered that the introduction …

Transitioning Montana To A Renewable Energy Future: The Social And Economic Impacts, Jacqueline O. Sussman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Montana is home to the second-largest coal-fired power plant in the West, the Colstrip Generating Station. The value and demand for coal both domestically and globally is quickly diminishing, while the renewable energy industries of wind and solar are booming. As utilities in the Northwest transition their investments from coal to renewable energy, Montana faces a critical decision on the future of its energy system that will impact the lives of generations of Montanans to come.

This five-part report aims to aid in the discussion and decision-making process by reviewing the most up-to-date economic data on renewable energy; discussing the …

Evaluating Long-Term Trends In Vegetation And Management Intensity, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve 1995–2014, Sherry A. Leis, Lloyd W. Morrison

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

Inventory and Monitoring Networks of the National Park Service are charged with collecting and reporting data related to the status and trends of key natural resources. We have analyzed a suite of grazing data from 1995- 2016, fire history data from 1998-2015, and vegetation community data from 2002-2014 to better understand trends as they relate to management strategies at the preserve over time. We found that cattle stocking rates declined and fires became less frequent over the latter half of the record. Similarly, bare ground declined, woody species increased slightly, and the floristic quality index was relatively stable with …

The Dmz Responds, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Seo-Young Chu’s “The DMZ Responds” appeared in Telos 184 (Fall 2018), a special issue on Korea edited by Haerin Shin.

President Trump Tweets Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un On Nuclear Weapons: A Comparison With Climate Change, David E. Allen, Michael Mcaleer

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

A set of 125 tweets about North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un by President Trump from 2013 to 2018 are analysed by means of the data mining technique, sentiment analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the messages contained, the degree to which they differ, and their implications about President Trump's understanding and approach to international diplomacy. The results suggest a predominantly positive emotion in relation to tweets about North Korea, despite the use of questionable nicknames such as "Little Rocket Man". A comparison is made between the tweets on North Korea and climate change, madefrom …

Emotions Predict Policy Support: Why It Matters How People Feel About Climate Change, Susie Wang, Zoe Leviston

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Current research shows that emotions can motivate climate engagement and action, but precisely how has received scant attention. We propose that strong emotional responses to climate change result from perceiving one's “objects of care” as threatened by climate change, which motivates caring about climate change itself, and in turn predicts behaviour. In two studies, we find that climate scientists (N = 44) experience greater emotional intensity about climate change than do students (N = 94) and the general population (N = 205), and that patterns of emotional responses explain differences in support for climate change policy. Scientists tied their emotional …

Residential Solar In Washington State, Sam Pfeifer

All Master's Theses

Electricity generated through residential solar provides a low carbon source of electricity. However, diffusion of residential solar remains low across the United States. Growing this diffusion takes an understanding of localized uptake trends, which can focus policy and business efforts to help increase residential solar market penetration. This is the first research to investigate residential solar uptake in Washington State and to examine environmental education as a potential driver of residential solar uptake. Through a snapshot analysis which considers environmental, economic, education, and cultural variables the present research fills this gap. Triangulated results include mapping of variables, ordinary-least squares multiple …

Virunga: Guns, Gorillas, And The Construction Of Transnational Natures, Adriana Disilvestro

Honors Theses

The recent western media attention surrounding Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has brought up significant scholarly questions about the discursive portrayal of “ideal” Natures. In this thesis, I undertake a discursive analysis of western media materials about Virunga National Park in order to understand how ideas of Nature are transnationally constructed. In order to do this, undertake an analysis of the western oriented discursive material associated with three socio-political processes within the park: green militarization, gorilla trekking, and the ecotourist industry. Ultimately, I conclude that the discursive material portrays a highly spectacularized and commodified “ideal” nature, …

Volunteer Environmental Stewardship And Affective Labour In Philadelphia, Alec Foster

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

Recent research has critically evaluated the rapid growth of volunteer urban environmental stewardship. Framings of this phenomenon have largely focused upon environmentality and/or neoliberal environments, unfortunately often presenting a totalising picture of the state and/or market utilising power from above to create environmental subjects with limited agency available to local citizens. Based upon qualitative research with volunteer urban environmental stewards in Philadelphia, affective labour is proposed as an alternative explanation for participation. Stewards volunteered their time and labour due to the intense emotional attachments they formed with their neighbourhoods, neighbours, and nonhuman others in relationships of affective labour. Volunteer urban …

Zoning And Complementary Incentives To Protect Farmland: A Case For Missoula County, Kaitlin Mccafferty

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Urban sprawl reflects an inefficient use of land that diminishes both rural landscapes and quality of life turning farms, ranches and open space into siloed suburban communities. This results in less walkable cities with more traffic and air pollution, among other negative consequences. Farmland constitutes a particularly important resource that often faces degradation or loss due to sprawl. Higher quality agricultural soils are particularly desirable for development because they are flat and well-drained. Farmland is also important for urban communities concerning food security, environmental health, and economic well being. As American cities continue to grow, farmland around urban areas has …

40 Years On The International Flathead: An Assessment Of Transboundary River Governance, Jedd Sankar-Gorton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Global population growth, climate change, and industrialization, are putting extreme pressures on worldwide freshwater supplies (Cosens 2010). Of the global freshwater supplies, transboundary water sources play a crucial role in sustaining populations. Over 40% of humans on Earth rely on a transboundary river or lake for access to water, and 90% of the world’s population lives in countries that share bodies of water with at least one other country (UN 2008). Taken together, the motivations for improving governance of transboundary water systems have never been stronger. To meet the challenges associated with transboundary water governance, researchers working at multiple scales …

Analysis Of Land Use/Land Cover Change Impacts Upon Ecosystem Services In Montane Tropical Forest Of Rwanda: Forest Carbon Assessment And Redd+ Preparedness, Mcard Joseph Mlotha

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Changes in forest cover especially changes within tropical forests, affect global climate change, together with ecosystems and forest carbon. Forests play a key role in both carbon emission and carbon sequestration. Efforts to reduce emissions through reduced deforestation and degradation of forests have become a common discussion among scientists and politicians under the auspices of the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD Programme). This dissertation research assessed the impacts of land use land cover change upon ecosystem services from a protected area focusing on forest carbon distribution and vegetation mapping using remote sensing and …

Learning To Live With Wolves: Community-Based Conservation In The Blackfoot Valley Of Montana, Seth M. Wilson, Elizabeth H. Bradley, Gregory A. Neudecker

Human–Wildlife Interactions

We built on the existing capacity of a nongovernmental organization called the Blackfoot Challenge to proactively address wolf (Canis lupus)-livestock conflicts in the Blackfoot Valley of Montana. Beginning in 2007, wolves started rapidly recolonizing the valley, raising concerns among livestock producers. We built on an existing program to mitigate conflicts associated with an expanding grizzly bear population and worked within the community to build a similar program to reduce wolf conflicts using an integrative, multi-method approach. Efforts to engage the community included one-on-one meetings, workshops, field tours, and regular group meetings as well as opportunities to participate in …

A Summer At Azavea Working With Nonprofit Organizations: The Summer Of Maps Fellowship, Sarah Gates

Sustainability and Social Justice

This report details my experience as a Summer of Maps Fellow at Azavea during June 2017 to August 2017. As a Summer of Maps Fellow I worked with nonprofit organizations, the Fair Tech Collective and the World Resources Institute, on two geospatial analysis projects. For the Fair Tech Collective I analyzed data on refinery flaring pollution, air toxin concentrations, and sensitive receptor populations to produce a series of maps and infographics detailing the impacts of petrochemical pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the World Resources Institute I used data-driven methods to analyze conservation efforts in the Central African …

Greening The Gateway Cities: Summer Internship With The Clark University Human Environment Regional Observatory (Hero) And Massachusetts Department Of Conservation And Recreation (Dcr), Zhiwen Zhu

Sustainability and Social Justice

This report provides a detailed account of my internship experience with the Clark University Human-Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) and Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) in the summer of 2017. This internship concerns the urban tree health assessment in three ‘Greening the Gateway’ cities in Massachusetts. During the internship, I conducted tree survey field work, database management, mapping, tree survey data analysis and urban tree plantation benefits microclimate simulation. During the internship I worked with the professors and students at Clark University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the staff from Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Worcester Tree …

Moving Mountains : A Study Examining Long-Term Impacts Of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining On Mortality In The Appalachian Region Using Geographic Information Sciences Techniques., James Howard Kent Pugh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the last hundred years, the Appalachian region has been dominated by the coal industry. It has also been and currently is one of the unhealthiest regions in the United States. Recent scholarship has examined the relationship between coal mining and health and mortality rates in the Appalachian region. The first study incorporates air quality and pollution data to examine if coal mining counties have higher levels of pollution and if this pollution contributes to mortality disadvantage. In the second study, I construct a population-based coal-exposure measure to better evaluate the relationship between coal mining and health I find that …

Urban Foraging: A Ubiquitous Human Practice Overlooked By Urban Planners, Policy, And Research, Charlie M. Shackleton, Patrick T. Hurley, Annika C. Dahlberg, Marla R. Emery, Harini Nagendra

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Although hardly noticed or formally recognized, urban foraging by humans probably occurs in all urban settings around the world. We draw from research in India, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States to demonstrate the ubiquity and varied nature of urban foraging in different contexts. Across these different contexts, we distill seven themes that characterize and thereby advance thinking about research and the understanding of urban foraging. We show that it is widespread and occurs across a variety of urban spaces and places. The species used and the local practices vary between contexts, and are in constant flux as urban …