Environmental Sciences Commons^™

Meet Me In The Middle: A Scoping Review On Understanding Adolescent Needs In Climate Communication, Gwendolyn Monica Hoff Anderson

Master's Projects and Capstones

The greatest effects of climate change are likely to be felt by youth. Young people are disproportionately affected by climate change due to their critical developmental stage and lack of power, and they experience both higher severity and prevalence of mental health issues related to climate change. Strong emotions have long been recognized as potential catalysts for action, or they may lead to paralyzing feelings of being overwhelmed. Climate communication is a critical tool to spark climate concern and encourage action. Activism, in turn, may help youth manage their anxiety about climate change. This scoping review examines emerging evidence on …

Subterraneans: A Regional Earth Dwelling For Comfort And Beauty, Isaak Benchoff

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Subterraneans is a study of an affordable, self-sufficient, sustainable, and dignified housing prototype for the region of Northwest Arkansas. It is a design process investigation based on the ideas of turning a local, sustainable material into affordable homes that can be built within a community of people sharing land and resources. The homes would utilize as many natural materials as possible to minimize the impact on the Earth and the cost to the owners.

Research looked at many different vernacular building precedents as well as the work done by contemporary design firms in the area of economical, low-impact, and passively …

Soil Health And Remediation For Urban Gardens In Utah, Melissa Chilinski

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

Urban environments are at an increased risk of soil contamination and poor soil health due to anthropogenic causes. As healthy farmland is developed, new urban farmers and gardeners are often left growing food on unwanted land with unknown histories of previous use. Varied research and methods for obtaining healthy soils can cause new growers to make decisions that negatively impact soil health and fertility, or on the other hand, conflicting information can cause individuals to become unnecessarily fearful of common soil contaminants and their effect on human health. Common soil contaminants, like trace metals (often referred to as heavy metals) …

Practical Improvements For Pivot And Surface Irrigation, Jonathan A. Holt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Irrigation is critical to meeting global food and fiber demands. Optimizing agricultural irrigation may help sustain production levels, while reducing its demand for water. This research evaluated precision sprinklers and drip irrigation for pivots, five pivot track mitigation tools, three scientific irrigation scheduling (SIS) methods, sensors for surface irrigation cutoff, and automating surface systems to implement surge irrigation. With pivots and surface irrigation being the most common methods for irrigation in the West, small improvements from these tools could result in significant water savings.

Low energy precision application (LEPA) sprinklers and mobile drip irrigation (MDI) were tested on two pivots. …

Opportunities And Challenges For Cooperative Extension Becoming A Major Actor In Climate Change Mitigation And Adaptation, Dakoeta R. Pinto

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Addressing climate change in the United States is an increasingly complex issue that requires social and technological changes throughout the country, which the Cooperative Extension System (Extension) can influence. Based at land-grant universities, their goals are to bring relevant science and innovation to the people of the United States. For a successful low-carbon transition, there are certain elements of society that must be influenced by innovators like Extension. Extension’s historical roots in agriculture prevail today with most of their programming focusing on this sector. However, there is a movement within Extension to expand their programmatic efforts to address more contemporary …

Getting The Dirt On Phosphorus Pollution In Mountain Lakes: Are Rising Soil Temperatures Contributing To Eutrophication In Mountain Watersheds?, Gordon O. Gianniny

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mountain watersheds provide a critical supply of clean water to millions of people around the world. In recent years, evidence of a concerning trend has emerged in these watersheds: rising phosphorus (P) concentrations. P often acts as the limiting nutrient in mountain lake ecosystems, so increasing P availability in mountain lakes and streams has the potential to drastically increase algal growth in these systems. In extreme cases, increasing mountain lake P concentrations may even cause harmful algal blooms that degrade downstream water quality. While the implications of rising P concentrations in mountain lakes are serious, the cause driving this widespread …

Regeneration Of Quaking Aspen And Understory Vegetation Change After Fire Risk Reduction Treatment, Allison M. Trudgeon

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) is a keystone species that, when coexisting with conifers (i.e., seral aspen), often undergoes stand-replacing disturbances to sustain long term vigor. Historically, mixed-to-high severity fire reduced fuels and regenerated aspen, but such disturbances have become less common in recent decades. This has often led to high fuel loading, and many seral aspen stands are at now risk of an unpredictable, high-severity fire, posing a threat to development in the wildland-urban-interface. The lack of a commercial market for aspen, and the risk of conducting prescribed fire, means there are few alternate management options. This has …

Cross-Boundary Stewardship In Protected Area Centered Ecosystems: Perceptions Of Success And Characteristics Of Cooperative Engagement, Ryan D. Tarver

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The legal boundaries of protected areas, such as national parks are established and enforced by humans. Therefore, jurisdictional boundaries are ultimately have human meaning but not necessarily ecological relevance as natural phenomena such as watersheds and wildlife habitat often extend beyond a jurisdictional boundary. When considering the extent of natural system, we find that protected areas only make up part of a given ecosystem. The result is a large expanse of lands that fall under a various ownership types that include both publicly and privately designated tracts of land. This presents a management challenge when attempting to manage at the …

Utilizing Macroinvertebrate Communities And Chloride Levels To Evaluate Water Quality In Three Streams Near Winona, Minnesota, Amelia Engman, Izabella Setla

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Certain water quality and chloride levels are ideal for specific macroinvertebrate species. This study evaluates the water quality of three streams in and around Winona, Minnesota, using the macroinvertebrate communities present and chloride levels as indicators. Three upstream samples were taken and thoroughly examined at three different locations: Garvin Brook, Gilmore Creek, and Pleasant Valley Creek. During the snowmelt season, four sets of upstream and one set of downstream water samples were taken from each. The samples were analyzed using a Vernier chloride ion-selective electrode. The Izaak Walton League of America's Save Our Streams invertebrate classification system was used to …

Silicon In Renewable Power Generation And Storage: Decarbonizing The Grid And Automobile Transport, Kurt W. Kolasinski

Sustainability Research & Practice Seminar Presentations

Professor Kurt Kolasinski, Chemistry - Silicon in renewable power generation and storage: Decarbonizing the grid and automobile transport.

Differences In Pathogenesis-Related Protein Expression And Polyphenolic Compound Accumulation Reveal Insights Into Tomato-Pythium Aphanidermatum Interaction, Seham A. Soliman, Abdulaziz A. Al-Askar, Sherien Sobhy, Marwa A. Samy, Esraa Hamdy, Omaima A. Sharaf, Yiming Su, Said I. Behiry, Ahmed Abdelkhalek

Publications

Plant diseases significantly reduce crop yields, threatening food security and agricultural sustainability. Fungi are the most destructive type of phytopathogen, and they are responsible for major yield losses in some of the most crucial crops grown across the world. In this study, a fungus isolate was detected from infected tomato plants and molecularly identified as Pythium aphanidermatum (GenBank accession number MW725032). This fungus caused damping-off disease and was shown to be pathogenic. Moreover, the expression of five pathogenesis-related genes, namely PR-1, PR-2, PR-3, PR-4, and PR-5, was quantitatively evaluated under the inoculation of tomato with …

Evaluating Change In Representation And Coordination In Collaborative Governance Over Time: A Study Of Environmental Justice Councils, Saba Siddiki, Graham Ambrose, Davor Mondom

Center for Policy Design and Governance

The brief provides a summary of "Evaluating Change in Representation and Coordination in Collaborative Governance Over Time: A Study of

Environmental Justice Councils," co-authored by Saba Siddiki and Graham Ambrose and published in the journal Environmental Management.

Modeling Spatial Distributions Of Tidal Marsh Blue Carbon Using Morphometric Parameters From Lidar, Bonnie Turek

Masters Theses

Tidal marshes serve as important “blue carbon” ecosystems that accrete large amounts of carbon with limited area. While much attention has been paid to the spatial variability of sedimentation within salt marshes, less work has been done to characterize spatial variability in marsh carbon density. Driven by tidal inundation, surface topography, and sediment supply, soil properties in marshes vary spatially with several parameters, including marsh platform elevation and proximity to the marsh edge and tidal creek network. We used lidar to extract these morphometric parameters from tidal marshes to map soil organic carbon (SOC) at the meter scale. Fixed volume …

What's In A Name? The Politics Of Commemoration From The Un-Naming Of The Alexander Graham Bell Dorm At Rit To The Samuel Schmucker Controversy At Wcu, Brent Ruswick

Sustainability Research & Practice Seminar Presentations

Professor Brent Ruswick, History - What's in a Name? The Politics of Commemoration from the un-naming of the Alexander Graham Bell dorm at RIT to the Samuel Schmucker controversy at WCU

Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys Molitrix Movements In The Lower Cumberland And Lower Tennessee River, Miranda Belanger

Scholars Week

Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix are an invasive species making up a large portion of the fish biomass in the lower portions of the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River. This species is expanding its range throughout the upper portions of these rivers, beginning with Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. Silver Carp rarely spawn in Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, but they can enter these reservoirs through the lock chamber. Thus, the bottleneck created by lock chambers can be used to control expansion of invasive Silver Carp. Although Silver Carp movement patterns have been studied in other portions of the Tennessee …

Mapping Cover Crop Usage In Calloway County, Kentucky, Kyle Klass

Scholars Week

Mapping Cover Crop Usage in Calloway County, Kentucky

Ever since man made the change from hunters and gatherers to an agrarian lifestyle, erosion has slowly removed hectares of once fertile soils from crop land worldwide. As populations increase so does the demand for food, which ultimately increases the amount of erosion caused by agricultural activities. Previous farming practices once deemed revolutionary such as monocropping, synthetic fertilizers, and conventional tilling have only expedited the erosion process by destroying the soil’s microbiome. Eroded soil eventually can make its way into rivers and lakes, decreasing the water quality with abnormally high levels of …

The Relative Effects Of Functional Diversity And Structural Complexity On Carbon Dynamics In Late-Successional, Northeastern Mixed Hardwood Forests, Samantha Myers

Masters Theses

Late-successional forests provide a unique opportunity to explore adaptive management approaches that mitigate atmospheric carbon dioxide levels through carbon storage while also enhancing ecological resilience to novel climate and disturbances. Typical benchmarks for adaptive forest management include species diversity and structural complexity, which are widely considered to increase ecosystem stability and productivity. However, the role of functional trait diversity (e.g., variation in leaf and stem traits) in driving forest productivity and ecosystem resilience remains underexplored. We leveraged existing continuous forest inventory (CFI) data and collected local functional trait observations from CFI plots within late-successional forests in western Massachusetts to explore …

Differential Toxicity Of Pm2.5 Components And Modified Health Effects Modeling: A Case Study In Nepal, Jeremy Brownholtz

Masters Theses

During the latter part of the 20^th century, a transition away from coal as a major energy source in developed countries was accompanied by a notable decrease in air pollution-related deaths in those countries. Currently the same phenomenon is being observed in developing nations like China and India. However, many areas that do still rely on coal for their energy production or industrial needs also reflect a gap in research on the effects of those specific processes on local populations. Located in Nepal at the foot of the Himalayan Plateau, Kathmandu represents one such location. The local economy of …

The Coastal Monitor: Vol. 10 No. 1, John Tanacredi Ph.D.

The Coastal Monitor

New Year’s Day has always been, for me, a time to reflect and project into the near future. Nature’s influence on us all certainly tops my listing with several environmental concerns. For example, the frequency and intensity of hurricanes to Long Island. A decade has passed since Superstorm Sandy re-opened the “Old Inlet” on Long Island which now has mostly naturally closed. So, the new year immediately prompts me to assess the previous year’s Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 system, with winds exceeding 150 mph, which had considerable impact in Florida, and then proceeded north resulting in over 2 inches …

How Much Noise Is Too Much For Southern Resident Killer Whales In The Salish Sea? The Case For A Carrying Capacity Study., Rob Williams, Cindy R. Elliser, Ginny Broadhurst

Institute Publications

Background and rationale for the need of a carrying capacity study that will provide the necessary data to understand what amount of vessel noise is acceptable, while at the same time allowing marine life to maintain healthy populations.