Sustainability Commons^™

Weaving Traditional Indigenous Knowledge And Western Science To Address Pressing Environmental Issues In The Navajo Nation, Abhishek Roychowdhury

Sustainability Seminar Series

The largest Native American tribe in the U.S., the Navajo Nation, faces a humanitarian crisis due to lack of access to clean and safe water resources. Although access to clean water is not a privilege but it is a human right, thirty percent of Navajo residents do not have access to clean running water. Native American households are 19 times more likely than other U.S. households to live without running water. Solutions to water infrastructure that can address this gap are complicated in the arid Southwest where poor groundwater quality, including high salinity, microbial contaminants and metal contaminants, limit available …

Mixing Regimes In A Cluster Of Seven Maar Lakes In Tropical Monsoon Asia, Milette U. Mendoza, Jaydan I. Aguilar, Karol Sophia Agape R. Padilla, Rey Donne S. Papa, Noboru Okuda

Environmental Science Faculty Publications

The 7 maar lakes of San Pablo are a cluster of small volcanic lakes on Luzon Island; Philippines. These lakes; which are heavily utilized for aquaculture and ecotourism; usually experience fish kills that coincide with the northeast monsoon (NEM). This study explores limnophysical processes; particularly mixing regimes; in the lakes in relation to prevailing monsoons. We monitored monthly vertical and seasonal profiles of water temperature; salinity; conductivity; and dissolved oxygen from October 2016 to December 2018. Three types of mixing regimes were observed among the lakes; which have similar surface areas but different depths: polymixis in the shallowest; warm monomixis …

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.

Deficit Irrigation Management For Irrigated Corn In Nebraska: Economically Viable?, Lia Nogueira, Cory Walters, Emily O'Donnell, E. Wesley F. Peterson, Suat Irmak

Cornhusker Economics

In this study we determine the economic value of deficit irrigation management using both technological and methodological advancements. The use of soil moisture probes represents the technological improvement. We provide improvements in the methodology as follows. Regarding data, we employ a field-size study, instead of plots, where the irrigation decision is determined by the moisture level in the soil measured through a soil moisture probe. Regarding the understanding of the yield response to water, although we examine the commonly used quadratic function, we improve upon this specification by also examining an alternative response function, the linear response stochastic plateau. Our …

Comparative Analysis Of Implementing Solar Energy In South Carolina, Paige Huntzberry, Jo Whitney

Undergraduate Research Competition

Solar energy is becoming an increasingly popular method of providing energy to homes and businesses all over the world. Converting to solar energy is a huge step in reducing our carbon footprint, a driving force of global climate change. While this type of energy production provides an eco-friendly approach to power, requiring minimal maintenance and virtually no additional infrastructure, many are still opposed to the implementation due to financial reservations. The aim of this project is to design a solar array for installation on a building at the Medical University of South Carolina, providing a cost effective and practical approach …

The Sustainability Of Industrial Hemp: A Literature Review Of Its Economic, Environmental, And Social Sustainability, Gurinder Kaur, Ron Kander

School of Design and Engineering Papers

Industrial hemp is a versatile, sustainable plant with several applications of its various forms, including fiber obtained from hemp stalks, food obtained from hemp seeds, and oil obtained from hemp flowers and seeds. Industrial hemp has the potential to offer a solution to the crisis of climate change, since it is a viable energy source that satisfies the three pillars of sustainability, namely economy, environment, and society. Although industrial hemp has been growing as an agricultural commodity in different parts of the world for decades, its production was banned until recently in the U.S. because of its association with marijuana. …

Forecasting Winners And Losers Of Climate Change: Insights From The Interactions Between Organisms And Their Microclimates, Michael Sears

Sustainability Seminar Series

Meaningful forecasts of the responses of organisms to climate require an explicit understanding of how organismal behavior and physiology are affected by environmental heterogeneity. Such predictions are complicated because physiology and behavior vary over different time scales, vary across different life stages, and do not operate in isolation of one another. In this talk, I review case studies from my lab to highlight progress that has been made along these fronts and provide generalizations that might be made to other systems, particularly in the context of predicting responses to climate change.

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

Air Quality Analysis With Sensors, Satellites, And Models, Carl Malings

Sustainability Seminar Series

Poor air quality is a major global public health concern, which is only projected to get worse in coming years. A comprehensive understanding of current and potential future air quality and its key drivers spanning from local to global scales is needed to tackle this important problem. This presentation will outline the sources of information that we use to understand air quality (e.g., ground-based measurements, satellites, and models), their strengths and limitations, and how they are being used together to give us a better picture of air quality locally and globally.

Police Department And Cities Economies, Clayton Davis

Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

No abstract provided.

Final Report: Turtle Creek Park, Auden Block, Juliette Chandler, Bethany Fitch, Haley Dickinson, Will Earley

Final Reports in ENST 411: Environmental Community Projects

During the Spring 2023 semester, we worked as a group with East Buffalo Township supervisors to develop plans for newly-acquired Turtle Creek Park. Specifically, our project centered on facilitating community engagement with Phase One of the restoration plan and helping the Supervisors lay a foundation for future phases of the park's revitalization. Our report details our work on mapping the park's trail system, identifying and mapping areas of poor drainage, and creating a series of interpretive signs for public education about the park, its natural history, and its ecology.

Graduate, 3rd Place: A Comparative Analysis Of Sustainability Report Communication In The Consumer Goods Industry, Nancy Ladeinde

2023 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

Sustainability reports are communicated in areas visible to stakeholders. One of such areas is corporate social responsibility. Sustainability reports have the function of image enhancement and trust building for organizations, particularly for those in the consumer goods industry. Advancing the research on corporate social responsibility, this study examines how consumer goods organizations communicate their sustainability/impact activities by comparing three large global organizations. The paper is premised on legitimacy and stakeholder theories and reviews the six ESG reports through content analysis. The comparative analysis of a two-year report of these organizations shows differences in patterns and language used in the ESG …

Our Possibilities With Medicinal Plants, Brianne Mack-Bingham

Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being

No abstract provided.

The Value Of Community Gardens In Georgetown County, Aaron Osborn

Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Aquifer Storage And Recovery (Asr) In Water Resource Management, Katelyn Zimmerman

Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

No abstract provided.

Fisheries Science Update - Gascoyne Demersal Scalefish Resource - April 2023, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Fisheries Science Updates

Key points: 2022 stock assessment outcomes:

• The Gascoyne Demersal Scalefish Resource (GDSR) comprises more than 60 species inhabiting Gascoyne oceanic waters (excluding inner Shark Bay), with pink snapper and goldband snapper recognised as the two indicator species.
• Oceanic pink snapper is five years into a 20-year recovery plan following a 2017 stock assessment that showed the stock was at severe risk.
• The GDSR oceanic pink snapper recovery plan is based on limiting the annual total fishing mortality of oceanic pink snapper to 100 tonnes (all sectors combined) and providing targeted protection for key spawning aggregations.
• The Department of Primary Industries …

Graduate, 2nd Place: Assessing The Knowledge, Attitude, And Everyday Life Practices Adopted Among Eastern Illinois University Students Towards Sustainability, Joel Holison

2023 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

The concept of sustainable development gained attention and came into focus with the publication of the Brundtland Report (Brundtland, 1987). later the Education for Sustainability (EfS) initiative was presented in 1997 through the “Thessaloniki Declaration” as a carrier of the common and single message (Knapp, 2000). Sustainable development is the way a country pursues its economic development that does not jeopardize the opportunity for future generations to achieve their development (Brundtland, 1987). Deforestation, land destruction, soil degradation, air and water pollution, and other types of environmental deterioration are paid in the name of economic progress. This detriment may outweigh the …

Sustainability Club, Brianna Bernhardt, Marissa Lindemann

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

An environmental and agricultural-based club focusing on sustainability. Results in a cleaner school environment, knowledge about various sustainable practices, art projects, and an appreciation of nature.

Consumers And Eco-Labels: A Quantitative Analysis Of The Effects Of Various Sustainability Certification Models On Consumer Opinions, William F. Joseph

Senior Theses

This research consists of an econometric analysis of the efficacy of a privatized sustainability certification model versus a proposed government-endorsed sustainability certification model within the United Sates market. Today, the widely accepted model of sustainability certification is constituted by a large market of private certifiers. By analyzing the effects of the current model and alongside the effects of a hypothetical government-endorsed system on consumer preferences for sustainably produced goods, the thesis aims to motivate further discussion into the possible benefit of adopting a government-sponsored sustainability certification system. In general, analysis of the data suggests much more promising and significant effects …

Evaluating The On-Site Impacts Of The Ambatovy Project Through The Lens Of Environmental Justice, Nick Karlik

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In Madagascar, sustainable development has been established and maintained by dominant foreign actors to reconcile neoliberalism with globalized conceptions of environmental protection. The Ambatovy mining and refining project has emerged as a prominent example of this developmental mode; Ambatovy is the largest economic enterprise in the history of the country and one of the largest and most productive mining operations in the world, generating billions of dollars in revenue for a country that remains among the poorest in the world while offsetting its impact on endemic biodiversity and forest habitat through conservation initiatives. At the same time, the evaluative framework …