Multifidelity Prediction In Wildfire Spread Simulation: Modeling, Uncertainty Quantification And Sensitivity Analysis, 2021 San Jose State University
Multifidelity Prediction In Wildfire Spread Simulation: Modeling, Uncertainty Quantification And Sensitivity Analysis, Mario Miguel Valero, Lluís Jofre, Ricardo Torres
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
Wildfire behavior predictions typically suffer from significant uncertainty. However, wildfire modeling uncertainties remain largely unquantified in the literature, mainly due to computing constraints. New multifidelity techniques provide a promising opportunity to overcome these limitations. Therefore, this paper explores the applicability of multifidelity approaches to wildland fire spread prediction problems. Using a canonical simulation scenario, we assessed the performance of control variates Monte-Carlo (MC) and multilevel MC strategies, achieving speedups of up to 100x in comparison to a standard MC method. This improvement was leveraged to quantify aleatoric uncertainties and analyze the sensitivity of the fire rate of spread (RoS) to …
Preparing For Wildfire Evacuation And Alternatives: Exploring Influences On Residents’ Intended Evacuation Behaviors And Mitigations, 2021 San Jose State University
Preparing For Wildfire Evacuation And Alternatives: Exploring Influences On Residents’ Intended Evacuation Behaviors And Mitigations, Amanda M. Stasiewicz, Travis B. Paveglio
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
Understanding residents' intended evacuation behaviors is an increasingly important component of managing complex wildfire events in the United States and elsewhere. Growing evidence suggests that local populations consider a range of potential evacuation behaviors during fire events, yet fewer efforts explore rural residents' evacuation intentions or their relationship to wildfire mitigations that reduce risk or aid in fire suppression. This study explores evacuation intentions among wildland-urban interface residents in Pend Oreille County, Washington, USA. We explore how mitigation performance (e.g., fuel reduction efforts, structure improvements, active firefighting preparation) differs across three emergent categories of evacuation intentions and evaluate whether a …
Socio-Ecological Perceptions Of Wildfire Management And Effects In Greece, 2021 University of the Aegean
Socio-Ecological Perceptions Of Wildfire Management And Effects In Greece, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Kostas Kalabokidis, Andreas Troumbis, Michelle A. Day, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Alan A. Ager
Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations
Adapting to the growing frequency of catastrophic wildfires in Greece and mitigating their effects is a complex socio-ecological problem. We used an online survey to query more than 100 engaged stakeholders who can potentially influence possible legislation and fire management organizational reform, emphasizing civil protection agencies and research entities. We focused the questionnaire on the importance of different wildfire effects to understand which were considered negative or unacceptable, indifferent, or positive. For fire prevention, we examined the range of acceptance and views on fuel management and fire use activities that are limited in extent or not allowed in Greece. We …
Protocol For Monitoring Fish Communities In Small Streams In The Heartland Inventory And Monitoring Network, Version 2.0, 2021 United States National Park Service
Protocol For Monitoring Fish Communities In Small Streams In The Heartland Inventory And Monitoring Network, Version 2.0, Hope R. Dodd, David G. Peitz, Gareth Rowell, Janice A. Hinsey, David E. Bowles, Lloyd W. Morrison, Michael D. Debacker, Jennifer L. Haack-Gaynor, Jeffrey M. Williams
United States National Park Service: Publications
Executive Summary
Fish communities are an important component of aquatic systems and are good bioindicators of ecosystem health. Land use changes in the Midwest have caused sedimentation, erosion, and nutrient loading that degrades and fragments habitat and impairs water quality. Because most small wadeable streams in the Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network (HTLN) have a relatively small area of their watersheds located within park boundaries, these streams are at risk of degradation due to adjacent land use practices and other anthropogenic disturbances. Shifts in the physical and chemical properties of aquatic systems have a dramatic effect on the biotic community. …
Ecological Risk Assessment Of Managed Relocation As A Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 2021 University of California, Davis
Ecological Risk Assessment Of Managed Relocation As A Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, Aviv Karasov-Olson, Mark W. Schwartz, Julian D. Olden, Sarah Skikne, Jessica J. Hellmann, Sarah Allen, Christy Brigham, Danielle Buttke, David J. Lawrence, Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, Jeffrey T. Morisette, Gregor W. Schuurman, Melissa Trammell, Cat Hawkins Hoffman
United States National Park Service: Publications
Executive Summary
Changing climate and introduced species are placing an increasing number of species at risk of extinction. Increasing extinction risk is increasing calls to protect species by relocating, or translocating, them to locations with more favorable biotic or climatic conditions. Managed relocation, or assisted migration, of species entails risks to both the conservation target organisms being moved as well as the recipient ecosystems into which they are moved.
Recognizing this risk, calls have been made for practitioners interested in considering a managed relocation project to engage in a serious risk assessment prior to advancing a project. We engaged a …
Protocol For Monitoring Aquatic Invertebrates Of Small Streams In The Heartland Inventory & Monitoring Network, Version 2.1, 2021 United States National Park Service
Protocol For Monitoring Aquatic Invertebrates Of Small Streams In The Heartland Inventory & Monitoring Network, Version 2.1, David E. Bowles, Michael H. Williams, Hope R. Dodd, Lloyd W. Morrison, Janice A. Hinsey, J. Tyler Cribbs, Gareth A. Rowell, Michael D. Debecker, Jennifer L. Haack-Gaynor, Jeffrey M. Williams
United States National Park Service: Publications
Executive Summary
The Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network (HTLN) is a component of the National Park Service’s (NPS) strategy to improve park management through greater reliance on scientific information. The purposes of this program are to design and implement long-term ecological monitoring and provide information for park managers to evaluate the integrity of park ecosystems and better understand ecosystem processes. Concerns over declining surface water quality have led to the development of various monitoring approaches to assess stream water quality. Freshwater streams in network parks are threatened by numerous stressors, most of which originate outside park boundaries. Stream condition and …
Viability And Application Of Mounting Personal Pid Voc Sensors To Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, 2021 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Viability And Application Of Mounting Personal Pid Voc Sensors To Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Cheryl Lynn Marcham, Scott Burgess, Joseph Cerreta, Patti J. Clark, James P. Solti, Brandon Breault, Joshua G. Marcham
Publications
Using a UAS-mounted sensor to allow for a rapid response to areas that may be difficult to reach or potentially dangerous to human health can increase the situational awareness of first responders of an aircraft crash site through the remote detection, identification, and quantification of airborne hazardous materials. The primary purpose of this research was to evaluate the remote sensing viability and application of integrating existing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) sensors with small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) technology to detect potentially hazardous airborne contaminants in emergency leak or spill response situations. By mounting the personal photoionization detector (PID) with volatile organic compound …
Absorbent Household Materials For The Collection Of Ignitable Liquid Residues From Surfaces Of Varying Porosity, 2021 Eastern Kentucky University
Absorbent Household Materials For The Collection Of Ignitable Liquid Residues From Surfaces Of Varying Porosity, Jessica Carlotti
Online Theses and Dissertations
Ignitable liquids (ILs) are used as accelerants to burn items at a faster rate and the presence of an IL indicates that arson has occurred. Upon arrival to an arson scene, fire investigators access the scene and collect substrates containing ILs. The substrates, such as concrete and wood, are removed from the scene by methods that are time consuming, and require heavy machinery and tools. The evidence is transported in air-tight containers to the laboratory where analysts identify the chemical classification of the IL using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). In this work, readily available absorbent household materials such as …
Ua12/8 Annual Campus Safety & Security Report, 2021 Western Kentucky University
Ua12/8 Annual Campus Safety & Security Report, Wku Police
WKU Archives Records
A statement of current campus policies regarding procedures for students and others to report criminal actions or other emergencies occurring on campus and policies concerning the institution's response to such reports.
Labilization And Diversification Of Pyrogenic Dissolved Organic Matter By Microbes, 2021 Old Dominion University
Labilization And Diversification Of Pyrogenic Dissolved Organic Matter By Microbes, Aleksandar I. Goranov, Andrew S. Wozniak, Kyle W. Bostick, Andrew R. Zimmerman, Siddhartha Mitra, Patrick G. Hatcher
Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications
With the increased occurrence of forest fires around the world, interest in the chemistry of pyrogenic organic matter (pyOM) and its fate in the environment has increased. Upon leaching from soils by rain events, significant amounts of dissolved pyOM (pyDOM) enter the aquatic environment and interact with microbial communities that are essential for cycling organic matter within the different biogeochemical cycles. To evaluate the bio-reactivity of pyDOM, aqueous extracts of laboratory-produced chars were incubated with soil microbes and the molecular changes to the composition of pyDOM were probed using ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry (Fourier transform – ion cyclotron resonance – …
Arc Flash In Single-Phase Electrical Systems, 2020 University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Arc Flash In Single-Phase Electrical Systems, John Francis Wade
Doctoral Dissertations
Arc flash and blast are hazards unique to electrical installations. Such events can start fires, destroy equipment, and severely injure or kill workers. NFPA 70E and IEEE 1584 are defining standards for arc flash hazard analysis used during system design, construction, and maintenance. Both focus on three-phase faults for calculations since three-phase power distribution is predominant in utility and industrial applications. However, discussion of arc flash in single-phase systems prevalent in residential and commercial facilities is excluded. Single-phase faults can also occur in a variety of industrial and utility circumstances.
This dissertation explores historic background and treatment of arc flash …
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Paleontological Resources Management Plan (Public Version), 2020 United States National Park Service, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Paleontological Resources Management Plan (Public Version), Scott Kottkamp, Vincent L. Santucci, Justin S. Tweet, Jessica De Smet, Ellen Stark
United States National Park Service: Publications
Executive Summary
Since Agate Springs Ranch was founded by James H. Cook in 1887, exquisite examples of transitional Miocene mammalian fauna have been found along this stretch of the Niobrara River valley. Collectively these paleontological discoveries, along with the existing archeological and historical Native American collection, were the basis for establishing Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (AGFO) as a unit of the National Park System (NPS). The fossil remains from the Harrison and Anderson Ranch formations span a short, but important, time period within the Miocene Epoch. AGFO has provided science with an intimate look into North American mammalian evolution …
Before The Flood Washes It Away: The Road Connecting Urban & Regional Planning And Emergency Management Planning, 2020 University of Massachusetts Amherst
Before The Flood Washes It Away: The Road Connecting Urban & Regional Planning And Emergency Management Planning, Ian Cyr
Masters Theses
This master’s thesis examines the relationship between emergency management planning and comprehensive land use planning. The incorporation of emergency management practices into the comprehensive planning process allows for a better understanding of the impact of development, zoning, building code, and economic development on the mitigation of hazards that face the community. Academic curricula may provide a brief introduction of the relationship between hazard mitigation and land use; however, a more detailed exploration of how emergency management planning and regional or urban planning are interrelated is needed. The impact of weather-related events, natural disasters, or other human-caused shock or disruption can …
Rfia: An R Package For Estimation Of Forest Attributes With The Us Forest Inventory And Analysis Database, 2020 Michigan State University, East Lansing
Rfia: An R Package For Estimation Of Forest Attributes With The Us Forest Inventory And Analysis Database, Hunter Stanke, Andrew O. Finley, Aaron S. Weed, Brian F. Walters, Grant M. Domke
United States National Park Service: Publications
Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) is a US Department of Agriculture Forest Service program that aims to monitor changes in forests across the US. FIA hosts one of the largest ecological datasets in the world, though its complexity limits access for many potential users. rFIA is an R package designed to simplify the estimation of forest attributes using data collected by the FIA Program. Specifically, rFIA improves access to the spatiotemporal estimation capacity of the FIA Database via space–time indexed summaries of forest variables within user-defined population boundaries (e.g., geographic, temporal, biophysical). The package implements multiple design-based estimators, and has …
Development Of A Modified Floristic Quality Index As A Rapid Habitat Assessment Method In The Northern Everglades, 2020 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Development Of A Modified Floristic Quality Index As A Rapid Habitat Assessment Method In The Northern Everglades, Rebakah E. Gibble, Donatto D. Surratt
United States National Park Service: Publications
Floristic quality assessments (FQA) using floristic quality indices (FQIs) are useful tools for assessing and comparing vegetation communities and related habitat condition. However, intensive vegetation surveys requiring significant time and technical expertise are necessary, which limits the use of FQIs in environmental monitoring programs. This study modified standard FQI methods to develop a rapid assessment method for characterizing and modeling change in wetland habitat condition in the northern Everglades. Method modifications include limiting vegetation surveys to a subset of taxa selected as indicators of impact and eliminating richness and/or abundance factors from the equation. These modifications reduce the amount of …
Shifting Public Perception: Climate Change Means Living With Fire And Smoke, 2020 Seattle University School of Law
Shifting Public Perception: Climate Change Means Living With Fire And Smoke, Robert Froembling
Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law
The urgency to prepare for the climate crisis has never been greater. We are currently living in the sixth mass extinction and the effects are only going to accelerate. We will inherit more wildfires, larger wildfires, and more frequent wildfires.
This piece is not meant to stoke fear in its readers or be depressing, but to shift public perception on what our future holds by evaluating the laws and science presented to us. This piece will look at regional and federal regulations and assess the increased rate of forest fires and the grave public health concerns from stagnant smoke specifically …
Fire Monitoring Handbook, 2020 University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Fire Monitoring Handbook
United States National Park Service: Publications
Fire is a powerful and enduring force that has had, and will continue to have, a profound influence on National Park Service (NPS) lands. Fire management decisions within the National Park Service require information on fire behavior and on the effects of fire on park resources. With good reason, the public is holding park management increasingly accountable, especially in the area of fire management. Federal and state agencies are instituting progressively more stringent guidelines for burning, monitoring, and evaluation. The impetus behind these guidelines and the purpose of this handbook are to ensure that management objectives are being met, to …
Aircraft Rescue And Fire Fighting Capabilities: Are Today’S Standards Protecting Passenger’S Futures?, 2020 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Aircraft Rescue And Fire Fighting Capabilities: Are Today’S Standards Protecting Passenger’S Futures?, Kaetlyn Blocker
Student Works
Few studies have been conducted that have truly considered the relevance and inadequacies of applicable aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) regulations. Fewer still have studied and explored accident cases that directly exemplify the deficiencies and inconsistencies of various regulatory standards and requirements. This study seeks to expose and explain those inadequacies by utilizing a historical, case-study type research method to examine accident cases during which time the governing regulations played a significant role in the ARFF operations. The findings discovered as a result of this multi-case analysis provide evidence that the current regulations governing United States ARFF operations are both …
Acoustically Advertising Male Harbour Seals In Southeast Alaska Do Not Make Biologically Relevant Acoustic Adjustments In The Presence Of Vessel Noise, 2020 Syracuse University, Syracuse
Acoustically Advertising Male Harbour Seals In Southeast Alaska Do Not Make Biologically Relevant Acoustic Adjustments In The Presence Of Vessel Noise, Leanna P. Matthews, Michelle E.H. Fournet, Christine Gabriele, Holger Klinck, Susan E. Parks
United States National Park Service: Publications
Aquatically breeding harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) males use underwater vocalizations during the breeding season to establish underwater territories, defend territories against intruder males, and possibly to attract females. Vessel noise overlaps in frequency with these vocalizations and could negatively impact breeding success by limiting communication space. In this study, we investigated whether harbour seals employed anti-masking strategies to maintain communication in the presence of vessel noise in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Harbour seals in this location did not sufficiently adjust source levels or acoustic parameters of vocalizations to compensate for acoustic masking. Instead, for every 1 dB …
Carnivore Population Structure Across An Urbanization Gradient: A Regional Genetic Analysis Of Bobcats In Southern California, 2020 San Diego State University, San Diego
Carnivore Population Structure Across An Urbanization Gradient: A Regional Genetic Analysis Of Bobcats In Southern California, Julia G. Smith, Megan K. Jennings, Erin E. Boydston, Kevin R. Crooks, Holly B. Ernest, Seth Riley, Laurel E. K. Serleys, Shaelynn Sleater-Squires, Rebecca L. Lewison
United States National Park Service: Publications
Context In human-dominated landscapes, habitat fragmentation and barriers to movement can interrupt gene flow. While often considered at a local extent, regional analyses are also needed to reveal broader landscape-mediated population processes.
Objectives To explore the relationship between patterns of gene flow and fragmentation resulting from urbanization across southern California, we used the bobcat as an indicator species. We assembled data for a landscape level genetic analysis across southern California from both archived and new samples, including two northern Californian populations for comparison, to identify local and regional areas affected by isolation.
Methods Our regional analyses focused on a dataset …