Environmental Monitoring Commons^™

Greenhouse Gas Report For Western Australian Wild-Catch Fisheries And Aquaculture 2004-2025, Christophe D'Abbadie, Johnny Machon, Dipesh Maharjan, Mark Goninon, Pia Dobson, Jason How, Rodney Duffy Dr., Ainslie Denham, Shaye Carman, Trina Anderson

Climate Science Published Reports

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Western Australian wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture for the fiscal years (FY) 2004/05 to 2024/25. These industries represent important components of the Western Australian primary production sector, with distinct emissions profiles and trends.

Key Findings:

Emissions from wild-catch fisheries have declined significantly over time, from approximately 0.341 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO₂e) in FY 2004/05 to 0.136 Mt CO₂e in FY 2024/25, a reduction of approximately 60%.

Emissions from aquaculture in FY 2024/25 were approximately 0.350 Mt CO₂e, reflecting substantial industry growth from near-negligible levels in …

Assessing Forest Health And Small Mammals After A Limited Suppression Wildfire In Colville National Forest, Samantha J. Kennel

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

In the face of a wildfire crisis, there is a growing need to expand the pace and scale of forest treatments, including the strategic use of wildfire as a management tool. However, ecological outcomes remain uncertain in forests shaped by more than a century of fire suppression. The 2022 Thor Fire, a managed wildfire in the Colville National Forest, Washington, provides an opportunity to evaluate forest health in a relatively understudied system. Using a control–impact design, I established 100 monitoring plots in burned and adjacent unburned forests to assess how wildfire and fire severity influence forest structure, fuels, and tree …

Climate And Environmental Controls On Forest Soil Organic Matter Cycling, Genevieve Goebel

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Climate change factors act on the soil environment in complex ways, known to disturb soil organic carbon (C). Rising global temperatures and alterations to regional precipitation and nitrogen deposition regimes may contribute to the intensification of global change by accelerating the rate of biological decomposition and CO2 efflux to the atmosphere. The magnitude and endurance of the disturbance to soil organic C across landscapes and throughout time that climate change factors may pose to soil C cycling are not comprehensively understood. These knowledge gaps in our field make it challenging to anticipate how soil environments and the vast ecosystems that …

Analysis Of Δ¹¹B As A Seawater Ph Proxy: Comparing Ocean Circulation Inverse Model Output With Marine Calcifier Geochemistry, Jesse I. Dong

CMC Senior Theses

Increasing anthropogenic carbon flux into the oceans decreases seawater pH, alters dissolved inorganic carbon speciation, and reduces biogenic calcification. The marine calcifiers— specifically corals and coralline algae—incorporate elements from surrounding seawater into their carbonate structures, which preserve past records of ocean carbon chemistry. In particular, boron in biogenic carbonate is a potentially valuable proxy for historical ocean pH across human timescales. Within seawater, boron primarily exists as boric acid B(OH)3 and borate ions B(OH)4 - , where higher pH favors the formation of borate ions. Borate ions preferentially incorporate the heavier ¹¹B isotope over 10B. On the other hand, if …

Using Remote Sensing Technology To Develop A Framework For Improving Hydrologic Models, Marissa Cook

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

With increased storm intensity due to climate change and urbanization, flash flooding has become an increasingly significant issue globally and regionally. Although the factors influencing urban flash flooding are well-known, there is a growing need for technology to accurately and remotely predict the chance of a flash flood occurring from any given rain event to give people time to prepare. This study aims to use multispectral satellite imagery to provide a framework for improving near real-time flood predictions in an urban area of a high gradient, fourth order stream impacted by flooding. Specifically, we utilize satellite imagery to create the …

Effectiveness Of Walleye Stocking In Winter Kill Lakes, Tyler Haus

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Winter kill events, marked by extensive fish mortality due to hypoxic conditions under the ice, are a common phenomenon in shallow eutrophic lakes, especially in the northern lakes in the northern United States. These events can drastically alter fish communities and often result in the elimination of top predators. Though these lakes will typically slowly bounce back to what they were in a couple of years. This study evaluates the effectiveness of walleye, Sander vitreus, stocking in lakes after a winter kill. For this study, four known winter kill lakes that are consistently stocked with walleye were studied. Pre- …

Neonicotinoid Bioaccumulation In Bluegill And Bullhead Within Lake Julia And Lake Zumwalde, Jake Stuber

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Brown Bullhead Ameiurus nebulosus, Yellow Bullhead Ameiurus natalis, and Bluegill Lepomis macrochirus are unique in their stark differences. Bullhead are scaleless bottom feeders that can tolerate high pollution and low O₂ conditions. In contrast, Bluegill are scaled, aggressive nesters and are less tolerant of high pollutants or low-oxygen conditions. Among these pollutants include a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids (hereafter referred to as neonics). Neonics are a class of insecticides primarily used within agriculture and pest management. Due to the effectiveness, application has escalated on a global scale. They have been well documented by many toxicology assessments. …

Forecasting Precipitation In Cuba Using Graph Based Deep Learning, Taufiqul Islam

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses

Daily precipitation forecasting remained a challenging problem in regions characterized by strong spatial heterogeneity, nonlinear atmospheric dynamics, and intermittent rainfall behavior. Cuba represented a particularly complex case due to the combined influence of tropical cyclones, easterly waves, mesoscale convective systems, and orographic effects, which produced highly variable rainfall patterns in both space and time. Conventional statistical and machine-learning models typically treated stations independently and therefore overlooked spatial dependencies that strongly influenced rainfall variability across the island.

This study developed a spatiotemporal deep-learning framework for daily precipitation forecasting across 40 spatial nodes in Cuba using data from 1979 to 2023. The …

Preliminary Analysis Of The Spatial Distribution Of Microplastics Along The Cuyahoga River, Northeast, Ohio, Ella Pitz

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Plastics are nearly ubiquitous throughout modern society, and when left in the natural environment, they degrade into microplastics. Microplastics are particles that range in diameter from 5 millimeters down to nanometers, and microplastics pose many potential environmental and health risks due to their small size and ease of ingestion. While the study of microplastics in the environment has become more common over the past ten years, microplastic concentrations remain unexplored in many regions throughout the country. Here I present a method for separating microplastics from organic matter and clastic sediment as well as preliminary measurements of microplastic concentrations in sediment …

Novel Methods For Environmental Fluoride Measurement, Cable Warren

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations

Fluoride analysis has been an important focus of analytical analysis for many years and will continue to be so going forward. Today, fluorinated compounds, specifically per/polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as “forever chemicals” have captured the moment and are the subject of vast research and regulation. Under this context, I have researched new methods of fluoride separation and concentration in complex media as well as a novel method of PFAS destruction and total organic fluorine analysis for screening of PFAS in aqueous samples. Through research and work on micro-scale detection methods, an understanding of the state of the art and …

Pipeline Corrosion And Relevant Microbial Influence, Renee E. Bamberger

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This study investigated the role of microbial activity and oxygen availability in the corrosion of carbon steel pipelines with a focus on microbially influenced corrosion (MIC). Sediment collected from Old Woman Creek, Ohio, was used to simulate natural soil conditions, and carbon steel coupons were incubated under four treatments: nonsterile oxic, nonsterile anoxic, autoclaved oxic, and autoclaved anoxic over 85 days. Corrosion was assessed through mass loss measurements and the analysis of pH, sulfate, chloride, and dissolved iron concentrations. The greatest mass loss was observed in autoclaved oxic conditions, contrary to the initial hypothesis that microbial activity would greatly enhance …

The Sub-Lethal Effects Of Trematode Parasites On The Migratory Behavior Of Lesser Scaup (Aythya Affinis), Scott Alan Herman

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The introduction of the invasive freshwater faucet snail (Bithynia tentaculata) and its associated parasites in the Upper Mississippi River and Great Lakes Region provides the opportunity to investigate how anthropogenic stressors impact the life history of lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) using the Mississippi Flyway. To understand the life histories and interactions between lesser scaup and faucet snails we examined historical records, research, and ecology textbooks. Our literature review identified critical knowledge gaps in lesser scaup literature surrounding population dynamics, reproduction, and migration. Specifically, the sub-lethal effects of invasive trematodes on the migratory behavior of lesser scaup in the Upper Mississippi …

Macroinvertebrate Taxonomic And Functional Diversity In The Spokane River Watershed, Kaitlin L. Abell

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Changes in land use, such as agricultural expansion, have impacted stream systems by modifying discharge, substrate diversity, channel morphology, and nutrient inputs. The Spokane River Watershed is heavily impacted by human activity, including urban and agricultural development. Rehabilitation efforts are being organized to reintroduce Salmonidae species in the Spokane River Watershed. The first step of this reintroduction is to perform habitat studies to inform allocation of restoration efforts. As part of this effort, I performed benthic macroinvertebrate surveys throughout the watershed.

The objective of my research was to use the macroinvertebrate community as a biological indicator to determine which habitat …

Machine Learning-Based Spatio-Temporal Modeling Of Climate Dynamics And Desertification In The Sahara–Sahel Region, Stephen M. Tivenan

Theses and Dissertations

Arid climate classifications are threshold-dependent and easily interpretable mappings that are widely used in ecological, agricultural, and climate-related studies. These classifications inform scientific understanding, support policy and land management decisions, and provide an intuitive summary of environmental conditions. Despite their usefulness, traditional arid climate classifications often fail to quantify uncertainty, incorporate spatial context, or account for complex relationships among relevant environmental variables. Existing approaches to uncertainty assessment have largely relied on comparing classifications across multiple datasets or alternative formulas, but these methods generally overlook important spatial dependence and latent structure in the data.

This dissertation develops three machine learning-based statistical …

2024 Annual Operations And Maintenance Report - 2024 Bres Annual Summary Report For Work Completed In Quadrant 4, Butte-Silver Bow Department Of Reclamation And Environmental Services

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

2024 Annual Operations And Maintenance Report 2024 Bres Annual Summary Report For Work Completed In Quadrant 4, Butte-Silver Bow Department Of Reclamation And Environmental Services

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Remediation Impacts Metal Concentrations And Metal Tolerant Bacteria In Soils Of The Missouri Tri-State Mining District, Ophelia R. Pettington

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

After over 100 years of Zn and Pb mining in the Tri-State mining district (TSMD), former mines continue to be sources of metals. Metal contaminated soils can be remediated using plant-microbe interactions. Plants manipulate their microbiome and recruit microbes to increase metal tolerance. Remediating bacteria are site-specific and identifying native microbes can accelerate remediation efforts. Studies relating microbes and metal concentrations in remediated areas in the TSMD are scarce. I collected root and bulk zone soils associated with Andropogon virginicus from remediated and non-remediated sites in Webb City, MO. I used 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to evaluate the bacterial …

A Geospatial Assessment Of Groundwater Salinization In A Multi-Aquifer System: Durango, Mexico, Juan Lopez-Sierra

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Groundwater salinization poses a critical environmental concern for water resource sustainability in arid and semi-arid regions. This study evaluates spatial and temporal patterns of groundwater salinity across the state of Durango, Mexico, using total dissolved solids (TDS), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), as salinity indicators and nitrate-nitrogen (NO₃–N) as an anthropogenic indicator. Groundwater quality data were obtained from (CONAGUA), a Mexican water agency. To assess salinity variations with respect to time, while minimizing interannual sampling bias, two multi-year sampling periods were selected: 2012-2013, and 2020-2021. Final datasets consisted of 122 wells for 2012–2013 and 131 wells for 2020–2021. The wells were …

Final Annual Operations And Maintenance (O&M) Report: Butte Treatment Lagoon (Btl) System – 2023, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Swimming In Uncertainty: Filling Data Gaps And Providing An Educational Platform For Beach Water Quality At Tybee Island, Georgia, Lukas Roberson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

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Swimming in beaches water contaminated with high levels of bacteria can make you sick. Current monitoring at the public beaches on Tybee Island consists of weekly monitoring and enumeration of fecal indicator bacteria that takes 24 hours for results. If the number of bacteria exceed regulatory limits, a public health advisory is issued, and affected waters are retested until …