Sustainability Commons^™

Estimating Adaptation To Climate Change In Groundwater Irrigation, James Keeler

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding the adaptive capacity of irrigated agriculture, including to what extent producers adjust irrigation choices along the intensive and extensive margins, is vital to the development of accurate and holistic estimates of the impacts of climate change on agricultural production and the sustainability of water-related ecosystem services. This thesis proposes and implements a natural experiment using statistical matching methods to estimate how producers adjust groundwater extraction, irrigated crop acreage, and irrigation technology in response to long-term changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration. Results from groundwater irrigated fields in Kansas suggest that intensive and extensive margin water use adaptations are generally limited …

Including Farmer Irrigation Behavior In A Sociohydrological Modeling Framework With Application In North India, Jimmy O’Keeffe, Simon Moulds, Emma Bergin, Nick Brozovic, Ana Mijic, Wouter Buytaert

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Understanding water user behavior and its potential outcomes is important for the development of suitable water resource management options. Computational models are commonly used to assist water resource management decision making; however, while natural processes are increasingly well modeled, the inclusion of human behavior has lagged behind. Improved representation of irrigation water user behavior within models can provide more accurate and relevant information for irrigation management in the agricultural sector. This paper outlines a model that conceptualizes and proceduralizes observed farmer irrigation practices, highlighting impacts and interactions between the environment and behavior. It is developed using a bottom-up approach, informed …

Point-Of-Sale Specific Willingness To Pay For Quality-Differentiated Beef, Kar Ho Lim, Michael Vassalos, Michael R. Reed

Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

Despite the growing interest of producers and consumers toward grass-fed, local, and organic beef, the supply chain for these products to reach consumers is not always clear-cut. Among the available options are direct-to-consumers and the conventional food supply chain. Although consumers may pay a premium for beef differentiated by quality attributes, the willingness to pay (WTP) difference across point-of-sales is unclear. In this study, we contrast the WTPs for conventional, grass-fed, local, and organic beef by brick-and-mortar supermarkets (B&Ms), farmers’ markets, and via online stores. We conduct a choice experiment with a nationwide online sample of American consumers. The findings …

Thing-Makers, Tool Freaks And Prototypers: How The Whole Earth Catalog’S Optimistic Message Reinvented The Environmental Movement In 1968, Andy Kirk

History Faculty Research

In the fall of 1968 a Stanford-trained biologist, organizer of the legendary Trips Festival and Merry Prankster named Stewart Brand published the first Whole Earth Catalog. Between 1968 and 1972, the Catalog reached millions of readers and won the National Book Award. The title and iconic cover image of this counterculture classic celebrated the first publicly released NASA photographs showing the whole planet Earth from space. These images profoundly changed the way humans thought about the environment. And the Catalog played an important role in that change.

Perils Of The Fungal Kingdom: Mycotoxins In Food And Feed, Adrianna Isobel Pribil

LSU Master's Theses

Humans and fungi have a complex relationship, especially in regards to the many fungal secondary metabolites that can be produced. When secondary metabolites are toxic to animals and humans they are defined as mycotoxins. Fungi can grow on crops pre-harvest and post-harvest, and have the potential to produce mycotoxins which occur regularly in animal feed and food for human consumption. In high doses, mycotoxins cause variety of problems that result in economic losses and extreme health issues. However, multiple mycotoxins will co-occur in nature and commonly occur in low doses. Thus chronic low daily doses of multiple mycotoxins overtime may …

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- July 2018, Natalie Umphlett, Emily Brown, Crystal J. Stiles

Prairie Post: Quarterly Newsletter of the High Plains Regional Climate Center

Inside this issue:

Message from the interim director........................................1

Staff spotlight...........................1

GRAINEX project......................2

Product highlights..................3

Update on regional climate conditions..................................4

GIS Portal....................................4

Regional news..........................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Sustainability Partnerships And Viticulture Management In California, Vicken Hillis, Mark Lubell, Matthew Hoffman

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

Agricultural regions in the United States are experimenting with sustainability partnerships that, among other goals, seek to improve growers' ability to manage their vineyards sustainably. In this paper, we analyze the association between winegrape grower participation in sustainability partnership activities and practice adoption in three winegrowing regions of California. Using data gathered from a survey of 822 winegrape growers, we find a positive association between participation and adoption of sustainable practices, which holds most strongly for practices in which the perceived private benefits outweigh the costs, and for growers with relatively dense social networks. We highlight the mechanisms by which …

"Waste Is Not Just Waste Anymore": Deconstructing The Relationship Between Sustainable Waste Prevention And Individual Socio-Demographic Characteristics (The Juxtaposition Of Ushongo Mtoni Village And Moshi Urban, Tanzania), Mahalia Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

I am going to tell you a story about humans — their lives, livelihoods, environments, and their individual relationships to sustainable waste prevention. As developing countries, such as Tanzania experience economic growth, waste overflow and proper waste disposal become even more arduous challenges. Thus, it is becoming increasingly important to explore sustainable solutions such as waste prevention. Through conducting semi-structured interviews in two distinctly unique locations, Moshi Urban of the Kilimanjaro Region and Ushongo Village on the coast of Tanga Region, Tanzania, I explored how levels of awareness and involvement in sustainable waste prevention practices, specifically reducing, reusing, and recycling, …

Waste Stream And Green Purchasing Analysis At Bonneville Lock And Dam, Alexander Bienko

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Portland District, has jurisdiction on three locks and four dams in the Columbia River basin. These sites "contribute to a water resource management system that provides flood risk management, power generation, water quality improvement, fish and wildlife habitat and recreation on the Columbia River and some of its tributaries". The Bonneville Lock and Dam (Bonneville Project) site lies on the Columbia River approximately 40 miles east from Portland, Oregon. Portions of the site have been declared a National Historic Landmark, from its origins in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program from …

Droughtscape, Summer 2018, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

From the director

Drought expands and intensifies

Dry down fuels fires

Tweeting #drought18

MOISST and NSMN

Caribbean planning progress

Drought observer network study

MENA teams report progress

NDMC global outreach

Climate hub workshop

On the horizon

Reorganizing School Lunch For A More Just And Sustainable Food System In The Us, Jennifer Gaddis, Amy K. Coplen

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Public school lunch programs in the United States are contested political terrains shaped by government agencies, civil society activists, and agri-food companies. The particular organization of these programs has consequences for public health, social justice, and ecological sustainability. This contribution draws on political economy, critical food studies, and feminist economics to analyze the US National School Lunch Program, one of the world's oldest and largest government-sponsored school lunch programs. It makes visible the social and environmental costs of the "heat-and-serve" economy, where widely used metrics consider only the speed and volume of service as productive work. This study demonstrates that …

Fisheries Bycatch Risk To Marine Megafauna Is Intensified In Lagrangian Coherent Structures, Kylie L. Scales, Elliot L. Hazen, Michael G. Jacox, Frederic Castruccio, Sara M. Maxwell, Rebecca L. Lewison, Steven J. Bograd

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Incidental catch of nontarget species (bycatch) is a major barrier to ecological and economic sustainability in marine capture fisheries. Key to mitigating bycatch is an understanding of the habitat requirements of target and nontarget species and the influence of heterogeneity and variability in the dynamic marine environment. While patterns of overlap among marine capture fisheries and habitats of a taxonomically diverse range of marine vertebrates have been reported, a mechanistic understanding of the real-time physical drivers of bycatch events is lacking. Moving from describing patterns toward understanding processes, we apply a Lagrangian analysis to a high-resolution ocean model output to …

Optimising A Plant (Red Flame Ivy) Microbial Fuel Cell, Ashley Chng

The International Student Science Fair 2018

This project is targeted at bettering the quality of life of people in the rural areas who do not have easy access to electricity by creating a sustainable Plant Microbial Fuel Cell (PMFC). The concept of a PMFC is fairy new and holds a lot of potential to be explored. By referencing previous research papers, optimum operating conditions were selected, including the concentration of chemicals used and the temperature the setup was placed such that all elements of a MFC were present, with room for a plant. In order to produce a self-sustainable PMFC, the plant had to be able …

Forest Collaborative Meeting Agenda, Gothenburg, Sweden, Environment For Development (Efd) Initiative

Forest Collaborative Research

Third Biannual Meeting of the Environment for Development (EfD) Forest Collaborative on June 25, 2018 at the School of Business, Economics and Law (SBEL) University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Sustainable Production Of Bio-Based Succinic Acid From Plant Biomass, Enlin Lo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Succinic acid is a compound used for manufacturing lacquers, resins, and other coating chemicals. It is also used in the food and beverage industry as a flavor additive. It is predominantly manufactured from petrochemicals, but it can also be produced more sustainably by fermentation of sugars from renewable feedstocks (biomass). Bio-based succinic acid has excellent potential for becoming a platform chemical (building block) for commodity and high-value chemicals.

In this study, we focused on the production of bio-based succinic acid from the fiber of sweet sorghum (SS), which has a high fermentable sugar content and can be cultivated in a …

Optimising A Plant (Red Flame Ivy) Microbial Fuel Cell As A Sustainable Electricity Source, Ashley Chng

The International Student Science Fair 2018

This project is targeted at bettering the quality of life of people in the rural areas who do not have easy access to electricity by creating a sustainable Plant Microbial Fuel Cell (PMFC). The concept of a PMFC is fairy new and holds a lot of potential to be explored. By referencing previous research papers, optimum operating conditions were selected, including the concentration of chemicals used and the temperature the setup was placed such that all elements of a MFC were present, with room for a plant. In order to produce a self-sustainable PMFC, the plant had to be able …

Is Aging The Important Factor For Sustainable Agricultural Development In Korea? Evidence From The Relationship Between Aging And Farm Technical Efficiency, Jun Ho Seok, Hanpil Moon, Gwanseon Kim, Michael R. Reed

Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

This paper examines the effects of aging and income subsidies on farm efficiency in Korea by utilizing the Korean Farm Household Economic Survey from 2008 to 2015. A stochastic frontier model with a non-monotonic assumption on the effect of efficiency factors is implemented to reflect a super aging and less developed production structure in Korean agriculture. This study finds continuously decreasing farm efficiency with age, which contradicts the commonly assumed inverted-U relationship between age and productivity. Especially, we find that labor is the most important factor to explain recent farm efficiency losses in Korea. Furthermore, this paper finds that the …

Ripple Effects Of The Belo Monte Dam: A Syndemic Approach To Addressing Health Impacts For The Downstream Community Of Gurupá, Cynthia A. Pace

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the public health impacts of a large dam project on a downstream community using the framework of Syndemic Theory. The particular focus is the Belo Monte Dam, located in the Brazilian Amazon, and its impact on the community of Gurupá, Pará. At the present time the Belo Monte Dam, which is nearing completion, stands out in scale as being the world’s third largest dam complex. Gurupá is a community well known (and well-studied) in the social science literature as Amazon Town. The aims of this study are to assess the pre-existing public health of Gurupá, as well …

Understanding Agricultural-Land Conservation From The Perspective Of Landowners In Franklin County, Massachusetts, Rocio Lalanda

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

What motivates agricultural-land owners to use conservation easements? As these legal tools have become a popular strategy for private land conservation in the U.S., a growing body of literature is examining how and why landowners conserve their properties through conservation easements. This research project expands upon environmental, geographical and rural land development literature through a qualitative fieldwork study of 34 private, conservation landowners associated with the Franklin Land Trust, a nonprofit conservation organization in western Massachusetts. The study identifies a broad range of environmental, social, spiritual and financial motivations for agricultural-land owners to conserve their properties, and indicates that for …

The Dispute Over The Commons: Seed And Food Sovereignty As Decommodification In Chiapas, Mexico, Carol Frances HernáNdez RodríGuez

Dissertations and Theses

Seeds have become one of the most contested resources in our society. Control over seeds has intensified under neoliberalism, and today four large multinational corporations control approximately 70 percent of the global seed market. In response to this concentration of corporate power, an international social movement has emerged around the concept of seed sovereignty, which reclaims seeds and biodiversity as commons and public goods. This study examines the relationship between the global dynamics of commodification and enclosure of seeds, and the seed sovereignty countermovement for decommodification. I approach this analysis through an ethnographic case study of one local seed sovereignty …