Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Umphlett Qci June 2018, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature Anomalies

Precipitation Anomalies

Water Resources

Agriculture

Temperature

Precipitation

Investigating Environmental Migration And Other Rural Drought Adaptation Strategies In Baja California Sur, Mexico, Melissa Haeffner, Jacopo A. Baggio, Kathleen Galvin

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper explores the relationship between specific household traits (region of residence, head of household occupation, financial diversity, female level of education, land and animal ownership, social capital, and climate perception) and choice of specific adaptation strategies used by households in two sites in Baja California Sur, Mexico, during a severe drought from 2006 to 2012 using survey data and key informant interviews. We analyzed the co-occurrence of household traits adopting different drought adaptation strategies, then applied Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to examine the relationship between traits and strategies and integrated interview data to understand how rancheros perceive associations. We …

Life Cycle Assessment Of Four Different Sweaters, Sarah Nolimal

DePaul Discoveries

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodological tool to describe the impacts of a product over its lifetime, from ‘cradle to grave.’ Despite increased employment of LCA, textile LCA studies are often private, outdated, not transparent, or lack accurate data. Further, we know of no LCA study specific to sweaters. This screening LCA combines published literature and data from OpenLCA databases (Ecoinvent 3.3 and GaBi Professional) to conduct a comparative LCA for four sweaters. To determine the composition of these sweaters, we massed and assessed the material composition of 117 sweaters in October 2015. Based on results, our study compares …

Functions Of Ecosystems: Stream Metabolism As An Efficient And Effective Means To Gage The Health And Understand The Interworking Of Urban Streams In A Watershed Of Rock Island, Il, Ryan Johnson, Dr. Kevin Geedey

Celebration of Learning

Stream metabolism is a critical functional measure of stream health that integrates physical parameters like slope and discharge, with ecosystem functions like photosynthesis and respiration. Stream metabolism is widely studied; however, urban stream metabolism remains poorly understood. Stream metabolism was measured for five streams ranging from 1^st to 5^th orders from October 11^th to October 18^th 2017 and four streams ranging from 1^st to 4^th order from October 22^nd to 25^th 2017 located within an approximately 9.3 square kilometer watershed of Rock Island, IL that has an urban to suburban type of …

A Quantitative Analysis Of The Effects Of Urbanization, Mesophication And Prescribed Burns On Oak Woodlands In The Chicago Metropolitan Area, Chad Populorum

Celebration of Learning

Urban expansion has had devastating impacts on forest ecosystems, especially within the past century. Human attempts to dominate nature have diminished natural disturbance regimes, which have maintained the biodiversity and historic composition of these ecosystems. Fires have been a prominent force in maintaining the structure of oak, hickory and other heliophytic (sun loving and fire-adapted) forest systems. Human induced fire suppression has led to mesophication across North America. Mesophication is the transition from drier conditions with open canopies to wetter conditions with closed canopies. These new conditions decrease the survival rates of these important species and begin to favor mesophytic …

Smap Soil Moisture Change As An Indicator Of Drought Conditions, Rajasekaran Eswar, Narendra N. Das, Calvin Christian Poulsen, Ali Behrangi, John Swigart, Mark D. Svoboda, Dara Entekhabi, Simon Yueh, Bradley Doorn, Jared Entin

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Soil moisture is considered a key variable in drought analysis. The soil moisture dynamics given by the change in soil moisture between two time periods can provide information on the intensification or improvement of drought conditions. The aim of this work is to analyze how the soil moisture dynamics respond to changes in drought conditions over multiple time intervals. The change in soil moisture estimated from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite observations was compared with the United States Drought Monitor (USDM) and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) over the contiguous United States (CONUS). The results indicated that the …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Environmental Assessment Of Road Brining And Injection Wells For Disposal Of Oil And Gas Liquid Waste, Marissa Madia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dramatic increase in oil and gas drilling operations in Pennsylvania over the last decade has presented a challenge for their wastewater disposal (e.g., flowback, produced water). Currently, these fluids are treated in permitted brine treatment plants or exported out of state to deep injection well facilities. In Pennsylvania, road brining for dust control is permitted for conventional well brines, and permits for three injection wells for unconventional brines are pending. This study focused on water quality impacts due to road brining in Farmington Township (45 samples) and ground and surface water in Grant Township (41 samples) prior to the …

Science, Advocacy, Policy, Planning: Tools For Advancing Transportation Equity, Garrett S. Mcallister

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

The theme of this portfolio is how different tools and approaches can be used for advancing transportation equity. Broadly defined, transportation equity is about fairness in transportation. There are a number of ways this fairness can be assessed. The most common way to assess transportation equity is by looking at the fairness of outcomes, distributed geographically, socially, or even by mode of transportation. Equity can also be defined by the fairness of processes. The first half of the portfolio illustrates some of the problems with the current transportation system and how it is unhealthy (Piece 1) and unjust (Piece 2). …

Ecological Neighborhoods As A Framework For Umbrella Species Selection, Erica F. Stuber, Joseph J. Fontaine

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Umbrella species are typically chosen because they are expected to confer protection for other species assumed to have similar ecological requirements. Despite its popularity and substantial history, the value of the umbrella species concept has come into question because umbrella species chosen using heuristic methods, such as body or home range size, are not acting as adequate proxies for the metrics of interest: species richness or population abundance in a multi-species community for which protection is sought. How species associate with habitat across ecological scales has important implications for understanding population size and species richness, and therefore may be a …

Fine Grained Compositional Analysis Of Port Everglades Inlet Microbiome Using High Throughput Dna Sequencing, Lauren M. O'Connell, Song Gao, Donald S. Mccorquodale Jr., Jay M. Fleisher, Jose Lopez

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Background

Similar to natural rivers, manmade inlets connect inland runoff to the ocean. Port Everglades Inlet (PEI) is a busy cargo and cruise ship port in South Florida, which can act as a source of pollution to surrounding beaches and offshore coral reefs. Understanding the composition and fluctuations of bacterioplankton communities (“microbiomes”) in major port inlets is important due to potential impacts on surrounding environments. We hypothesize seasonal microbial fluctuations, which were profiled by high throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and analysis.

Methods & Results

Surface water samples were collected every week for one year. A total of four samples …

Adam J. Liska: Curriculum Vitae, Adam Liska

Adam Liska Papers

Associate Professor, George Dempster Smith Chair of Industrial Ecology, Departments of Biological Systems Engineering and Agronomy & Horticulture, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 236 L.W. Chase Hall, Lincoln, NE 68583-0726, Ph: (402) 472-8744, e-mail: [email protected]

Ph.D. 2003 Biology (magna cum laude), Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology & Genetics, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

Investigating Initial Interactions Between Silver Nanoparticles And Wastewater, Casey Gibson

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The use of nanoparticles (NPs) has increased exponentially in the last 15-20 years, especially in the consumer market. NPs are currently found in over 1800 commercial products, including cosmetics, clothing, packaging, and toys. As a result, NPs can enter the environment via wastewater (WW) streams, leading to new challenges in WW treatment. This study focuses on the initial fate of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in WW. The AgNP interaction including aggregation and dissolution in both synthetic and real WW were studied. Real WW was collected from the primary-clarifier, secondary-clarifier, and effluent WW streams at two local WW treatment plants (Westside and …

Comparative Analysis Of Survival And Decay Of Fecal Indicator Bacteria In Bovine Feces And Freshwater Microcosms, Reem Tariq

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Agricultural runoff can carry FIB that can pollute surface waters through the soil matrix. This study was designed to inspect the impact of temperature and matrix on the survival of FIB. The FIB were routinely enumerated over an 18-day period from fecal samples and freshwater microcosms maintained at 4oC, 22oC, and 35oC. It was found that the FIB studied underwent a primary growth of up to 1-log10 to 3-log10, highlighting the weakness of conventional FIB as indicators of pathogen contamination. The concentrations of FIB in the water phase were found to be significantly greater than those observed in the fecal …

Soil Organic Carbon And Mineralization Rates At The Woolsey Wet Prairie Mitigation Site In Fayetteville, Arkansas, Zachary Tipton

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are higher than ever recorded, surpassing 400 ppm in 2013, from a pre-industrial revolution level of around 280 ppm. Researchers have been looking at methods to mitigate high CO2 levels in the atmosphere, including promoting carbon sequestration in soils. Carbon sequestration is the process where CO2 is naturally or artificially transferred out of the atmosphere and stored in the ocean, plant biomass, soils, and geologic formations. Seemingly contradictory to the notion of carbon sequestration, is the use of fire as a management treatment for the restoration of native prairie grass ecosystems. Fire combusts plant biomass …

Plant Biodiversity In The Face Of Climate Change: What Will Become Of Coastal Endemic Species?, Nila Le

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

How will longitudinally constrained coastal flora fare in the face of rapid anthropogenic climate change and disturbance? Coastal communities pose a unique problem for climate change and its associated risks. Species that are concentrated along the coast are naturally vulnerable to the influence of harsh abiotic ecology, such as coastal erosion and high salt concentrations. In addition, analogous to montane species-habitat interactions, coastal communities may be “pushed” off the coast edge as a result of tracking preferred climate in the face of climate variability and sea level rise. This can be problematic for species that cannot disperse quickly enough to …

An Assessment Of Atmospheric And Meteorological Factors Regulating Red Sea Phytoplankton Growth, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Mohamed A. Qurban, Emmanouil Proestakis, Michael J. Garay, Olga V. Kalishnikova, Vassilis Amiridis, Antonis Gkikas, Eleni Marinou, Thomas Piechota, K. P. Manikandan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

This study considers the various factors that regulate nutrients supply in the Red Sea. Multi-sensor observation and reanalysis datasets are used to examine the relationships among dust deposition, sea surface temperature (SST), and wind speed, as they may contribute to anomalous phytoplankton blooms, through time-series and correlation analyses. A positive correlation was found at 0–3 months lag between chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) anomalies and dust anomalies over the Red Sea regions. Dust deposition process was further examined with dust aerosols’ vertical distribution using satellite lidar data. Conversely, a negative correlation was found at 0–3 months lag between SST anomalies …

2018 3rd Place: The Growth And Characterization Of Psychromonas Aquimarina, A New Model Organism For Climate Change, Carrie Carpenter, Catherine Santai

Harrisburg University Research Symposium (2018 & 2019)

Climate change is currently affecting the Earth and will only increase with time1. A change to the environment means that wildlife will need to adapt. Adaptation occurs when an organism changes physiologically or otherwise to permit continued growth in the environment in which it resides. Scientists do not completely understand adaptation mechanisms. Psychromonas aquimarinais a novel bacterium, with little known. This bacteria will first be characterized and studied before conducting temperature studies. Psychromonas aquimarina is a psychrophile, a bacterium able to survive in colder regions where most bacteria would not. P. aquimarinais an ideal bacterium to study because climate change …

Downscaling Africa’S Drought Forecasts Through Integration Of Indigenous And Scientific Drought Forecasts Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Muthoni Masinde, Mwanjele Mwagha, Tsegaye Tadesse

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

In the wake of increased drought occurrences being witnessed in Sub-Saharan Africa, more localized and contextualized drought mitigation strategies are on the agendas of many researchers and policy makers in the region. The integration of indigenous knowledge on droughts with seasonal climate forecasts is one such strategy. The main challenge facing this integration, however, is the formal representation of highly-structured and holistic indigenous knowledge. In this paper, we demonstrate how the use of fuzzy cognitive mapping can address this challenge. Indigenous knowledge on droughts from five communities was modeled and represented using fuzzy cognitive maps. Maps from one of these …

Assessing Land Deformation And Sea Encroachment In The Nile Delta, Egypt, Esayas Gebremichael

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Persistent scatterer interferometric analyses were conducted on a stack of 84 Envisat ASAR scenes spanning 7 years (2004 to 2010) over the entire Nile Delta of Egypt and surroundings to monitor the ongoing spatial and temporal land deformation, identify the factors controlling the deformation, and model the interplay between sea level rise and land subsidence to identify areas and populations threatened by sea encroachment by the end of the 21st century. Findings include: (1) general patterns of subsidence in the northern delta, near-steady (none) subsidence in the southern delta, separated by a previously mapped flexure zone undergoing uplift; (2) high …