Natural Resources and Conservation Commons^™

Droughtscape, Spring 2011, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

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Forecasters Say Dryness in TX and SW to Continue

Drought Planning, The Game: Coming Soon

Ding Takes New Post

South and Southwest Lose Crops, Fight Fires

Drought Monitor Authors Review Enhanced GIS Tools and New Processes

Review Of The River Returns: An Environmental History Of The Bow. By Christopher Armstrong, Matthew Evenden, And H.V. Nelles., Ted Binnema, David Vogt

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This book should be read more as a collection of essays on a wide variety of topics related to the Bow River than as a monograph. Each of its thirteen chapters examines an aspect of the history of human interactions with the river, ranging from ranching, forestry, hydroelectricity, and irrigation to urban sanitation, recreational fishing, flooding, and park building. The Bow River is amenable to a discussion of such diverse themes. Its headwaters are among the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains in Banff National Park, but it also flows through the ranching country of the foothills, the major urban center …

Review Of The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide To Prairie Restoration In The Upper Midwest. By Daryl Smith, Dave Williams, Greg Houseal, And Kirk Henderson., Gerry Steinauer

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Tallgrass prairie restoration in the Upper Midwest is the focus of this guide. Its geographic area of coverage includes the eastern fifth of South Dakota and Nebraska and northeast Kansas, a region some ascribe to the eastern Great Plains. Two types of prairie restoration are dealt with: prairie reconstruction, which the authors define as creating prairie from scratch on sites where prairie plants no longer exist; and prairie remnant restoration, defined as upgrading degraded existing prairies. The book comprises five sections: "Reconstruction Planning," "Implementing Reconstruction," "Prairie Restoration and Management," "Special Cases," and "Native Seed Production." There are 16 chapters, each …

Stochastic Hybrid Embodied Co2-Eq Analysis: An Application To The Irish Apartment Building Sector, Adolf Acquaye, Aidan Duffy, Biswajit Basu

Articles

Although embodiedCO2-eq analysis has seen recent developments as evident in the establishment of the ISO14040 and 14044 LCA standards, it is recognized that due to weaknesses in gathering data on product-related emissions,embodiedCO2-eq values are probabilistic. This paper presents a stochastic analysis of hybrid embodied CO2-eq in buildings to account for this weakness in traditional methods and, by way of example, applies it to an Irish construction-sector case study. Using seven apartment buildings, 70,000 results are simulated with Monte Carlo analysis and used to derive probabilistic and cumulative embodied CO2-eq intensity distributions for apartment buildings in Ireland. A Wakeby distribution with …

Why Do Some Nations Have More Renewable Energy Policies?, Melissa Dahl

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Some nations have considerably more renewable energy policies than others and this research is attempting to discover why. Renewable energy use is quickly growing in our world and has become a major topic in today’s politics. Existing literature suggests various theories as to why some nations have more renewable energy policies than others. I test these theories with data from two major data sources; REN21, the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, and the International Energy Agency. I anticipate that nations with a larger number of effective political parties, higher GDPs, and larger population would have more renewable …

Optimizing Private Land Conservation And Public Land Use Planning/Regulation, Bradford S. Gentry, J. Daniel Oppenheimer, Randal A. Strobo

Yale School of the Environment Publications Series

Report of the 2010 Berkley Workshop

Held at the Pocantico Conference Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund - July 2010

Are Western Australian Waters The Least Productive Waters For Finfish Across Two Oceans? A Review With A Focus On Finfish Resources In The Kimberley Region And North Coast Bioregion, B. W. Molony, S. J. Newman, L. Loll, R C J Lenanton, B. Wise

Fisheries Research Articles

The marine ecosystems of Western Australia, including those in the Kimberley, are classified as being of moderate to low productivity. This is primarily a consequence of the influence of the Leeuwin Current, the eastern boundary current that flows poleward delivering warm, low nutrient waters, and only sporadic short-term upwelling events to shelf habitats off the Western Australian coast. This, coupled with little riverine inflow from old weathered terrestrial systems, results in low levels of primary and secondary production in habitats along most of the coast. The consequence is that finfish fisheries in the Kimberley and throughout the State typically land …

Applications And Challenges For Adaptive Management, Jamie E. Mcfadden

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Adaptive management is becoming an increasingly popular management-decision tool within the scientific community.  The application of adaptive management is appropriate for complicated natural-resources management problems high in uncertainty.  Two primary schools of thought have developed that may yield varying levels of success as they primarily differ in stakeholder involvement and model complexity.  I evaluated peer-reviewed literature that incorporated adaptive management to identify components of successful adaptive management plans and to make comparisons between the two schools of thought.  Identifying the elements of successful adaptive management is advantageous to natural-resources managers, such as those managing the Platte River, Nebraska.  The Platte …

Formation, Adsorption, And Degradation Of N-Nitrosoatrazine In Water And Soil, Hsin-Ro Wei

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The products of xenobiotic reactions in environmental mammalian systems may pose risks equal to or greater than parent compounds. Products of concern include nitrosamines, which can be carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic. Nitrosamines may form in soil, lake water, and sewage; they also can form in agricultural soils treated with agrichemicals containing amine moieties and nitrogen fertilizer. The nitrosamine-forming reaction of amines with nitrite is promoted at acidic pH. The widely used herbicide atrazine has secondary amine groups that can react with nitrite to form N-nitrosoatrazine (NNAT). The primary objective of this research was to characterize the formation, stability, and …

Ecology And Management Of Channel Catfish Ictalurus Punctatus And Flathead Catfish Pylodictis Olivaris Populations In The Missouri River, Ne, Cameron Wesley Goble

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus and flathead catfish Pylodictis olivaris are two of the most important freshwater recreational or commercial species in the United States. Catfish populations in the Missouri River are important resources to the people of Nebraska and surrounding states. The objective of my study was to determine the present status of catfish populations in the Missouri River, Nebraska. Specifically I evaluated population characteristics such as relative abundance, population size and density, size structure, condition, age structure, growth, and mortality. I used a stratified random sampling design and generalized linear mixed modeling approach to assess differences in population characteristics …

The Use And Misuse Of Wetlands In Kampala, Emily Gumm

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research examines the complex and inter related relationship between conservation and development of wetlands in Kampala. Development and conservation are two concepts that are often at odds with one another. However, in a natural resource rich country such as Uganda development is benefited by carefully considering the role of conservation. As a student of Sociology at Illinois Wesleyan University, the researcher is especially interested in the use and miss use of wetlands as well as the decision making process in building on wetlands.

This paper examines specifically Uganda's wetland policy and how it is currently being implemented, specifically in …

Nevada Interagency Volunteer Program: Helping Hands Across Public Lands – Phase Ii: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Covering January 1, 2011 To March 31, 2011, Margaret N. Rees

Get Outdoors Nevada

• The number of records in the volunteer database increased by 15.35% over the last quarter. The database now contains 7,537 records.
• The number of site visits increased 38.5% over the last quarter. Results show an average of 1,356 visits per month.
• The number of page views increased 29.15% over last month. Results show an average of 2,081 pages viewed per month.
• Get Outdoors Nevada supported 22 volunteer events in a variety of ways. These events utilized 692 volunteers whom contributed 2,930 combined hours of service.
• Four volunteer trainings have been completed; 72 volunteers attended the trainings.
• Volunteer Orientation Training Automation …

Limnological Assistance For Lake Mead National Recreation Area: Quarterly Report, Period Ending March 30, 2011, Margaret N. Rees

Limnological Studies

Project 1

• Technical assistance with the implementation of the Interagency Monitoring Action Plan (I-MAP) for Quagga Mussels is ongoing. During this quarter, analysis was completed for 13 juvenile/adult samples and analyses of the remaining samples are underway.
• Both research projects are well underway with 14 sample sets collected for Veliger abundance and settlement at different depths of Lake Mead and 12 samples collected for Growth of adult quagga mussels within Las Vegas Wash/Las Vegas Bay.

Project 2

• Annual summary sheets are under development for the topics listed within the Limnological and Aquatic Resource Monitoring and Research Plan for Lakes Mead …

Native Grassland Management Guidelines For Nebraska's Wildlife Management Areas, Gerry Steinauer, Kent Pfeiffer, Jarren Kuipers

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission: White Papers, Conference Presentations, and Manuscripts

This document is one of a four part series produced by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to provide direction to managers of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) in Nebraska. Other documents in the series cover management of woodlands, wetlands, and converted habitats.

Prior to EuroAmerican settlement grasslands covered 98% of the Nebraska landscape and supported the majority of the state’s biodiversity. Since settlement, Nebraska’s native grasslands have suffered serious decline. For example, approximately 98% of eastern Nebraska’s tallgrass prairie has been lost to development. In central and western Nebraska grassland losses have been less dramatic though still substantial. Remnant grasslands …

Nir-Red Reflectance-Based Algorithms For Chlorophyll-A Estimation In Mesotrophic Inland And Coastal Waters: Lake Kinneret Case Study, Yosef Z. Yacobi, Wesley Moses, Semion Kaganovsky, Benayahu Sulimani, Bryan Leavitt, Anatoly A. Gitelson

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

A variety of models have been developed for estimating chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration in turbid and productive waters. All are based on optical information in a few spectral bands in the red and near-infra-red regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The wavelength locations in the models used were meticulously tuned to provide the highest sensitivity to the presence of Chl-a and minimal sensitivity to other constituents in water. But the caveat in these models is the need for recurrent parameterization and calibration due to changes in the biophysical characteristics of water based on the location and/or time of the year. In this …

Isolation By Distance Explains Genetic Structure Of Buggy Creek Virus, A Bird-Associated Arbovirus, Abinash Padhi, Amy T. Moore, Mary Bomberger Brown, Jerome E. Foster, Martin Pfeffer, Charles R. Brown

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Many of the arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) show extensive genetic variability and are widely distributed over large geographic areas. Understanding how virus genetic structure varies in space may yield insight into how these pathogens are adapted to and dispersed by different hosts or vectors, the relative importance of mutation, drift, or selection in generating genetic variability, and where and when epidemics or epizootics are most likely to occur. However, because most arboviruses tend to be sampled opportunistically and often cannot be isolated in large numbers at a given locale, surprisingly little is known about their spatial genetic structure on the local …

Regional Scale Monitoring Of Methane Production By Dairy Farm Ungulates; A Proposal To The National Science Foundation (Nsf) And The National Ecological Observatory Network (Neon, Inc.), Lindsey Anne Peterson

Biological Sciences

No abstract provided.

Factors Of Environmental Sustainability For Africa, Asia, And Latin America, Jacob Converse

Political Science Theses and Capstones

This study incorporates and analyzes several theories in regards to what causes countries to perform in an environmentally sustainable manner. This has been and is becoming an increasingly important and debated topic due to the ever increasing interest and concern about global environmental challenges. This issue has been examined through a variety of different lenses including economic, socio-political, and geographical perspectives and they have an assortment of results. One such existing finding suggests that the best way to improve a country’s environmental sustainability is to first focus on improving the gross domestic product which will eventually allow changes to take …

Factors Affecting Space Use Overlap By White-Tailed Deer In An Urban Landscape, W. David Walter, Jeff Beringer, Lonnie P. Hansen, Justin W. Fischer, Joshua J. Millspaugh, Kurt C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Variation in the size and overlap of space use by white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) has broad implications for managing deer–human conflicts and disease spread and transmission in urban landscapes. Understanding which factors affect overlap of home range by various segments (i.e., age, sex) of an urban deer population has implications to direct contact between deer on disease epidemiology. We assessed size of home range and overlap of space use using the volume of intersection index (VI) for deer in an urban landscape by sex, age, season, and time of day. We found mean space use was larger for …

Interview With Robert Costanza, Institute For Sustainable Solutions, 2011 (Audio), Robert Costanza

All Sustainability History Project Oral Histories

Interview of Dr. Robert Costanza by Noah Sharpsteen at Portland State University on February 22nd, 2011.

The interview index is available for download.