Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Final Paper For Posc370: National Energy Strategy, Courtney Trott

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

This paper aims to analyze the energy sources and needs of Canada. I worked off of current data and policies to make predictions and suggestions for the next 20 years in the areas of energy production and policy for Canada. In studying Canada’s energy policies and programs, there is a lot to be gained when thinking international energy policy and production.

Japan National Energy Strategy: Energy Politics - Posc 370, Peter Wong

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

In this paper is my energy strategy for Japan, with the purpose to: provide broad strategic objectives, identify and explain the policies chosen, mobilization of political support as well as consideration of Japan’s energy resources. Additionally the paper considers economic and political feasibility, and theaters of conflict that may arise. The paper uses the knowledge and skills of looking at national energy politics and strategies learned in class.

Gastrointestinal Helminth Prevalence In Lesser Scaup (Aythya Affinis) Wintering On Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, Usa, Sydney Cottingham

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- April 2018, Natalie Umphlett, Crystal J. Stiles, Shellie Hanneman

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

Inside this issue:

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

Weather photo of the quarter.........................................1

Tribal climate summaries......2

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

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

State Climate Extremes Committee.................................4

Update on research................5

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

Primary Atmospheric Drivers Of Pluvial Years In The United States Great Plains, Paul Flanagan, Jeffrey B. Basara, Jason C. Furtado, Xiangming Xiao

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Personnel Publications

Precipitation variability has increased in recent decades across the Great Plains (GP) of the United States. Drought and its associated drivers have been studied in the GP region; however, periods of excessive precipitation (pluvials) at seasonal to interannual scales have received less attention. This study narrows this knowledge gap with the overall goal of understanding GP precipitation variability during pluvial periods. Through composites of relevant atmospheric variables from the ECMWF twentieth-century reanalysis (ERA-20C), key differences between southern Great Plains (SGP) and northern Great Plains (NGP) pluvial periods are highlighted. The SGP pluvial pattern shows an area of negative height anomalies …

Interacting With The Trail: A Comprehensive Approach To Developing An Environmental Education Program For Agnolakely Private Nature Reserve, Claire Hamilton

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Madagascar is a diverse island, biologically and geographically. This has led to the development of endemic species and high biodiversity within the landscape. Unfortunately, due to poverty, extraction of natural resources, and a growing population, these species have become threatened. Agnolakely, is a private nature reserve, located in eastern Madagascar that is trying to combat these challenges through reforestation projects and land protection. Agnolakely is not only of ecological value, but is also integral in the community structure. As Agnolakely expands it has become essential to implement education and outreach for the reserve. This study was designed to collect biological …

Boundary Spanning At The Science–Policy Interface: The Practitioners’ Perspectives, A. T. Bednarek, C. Wyborn, C. Cvitanovic, R. Meyer, R. M. Colvin, P. F. E. Addison, S. L. Close, K. Curran, M. Farooque, E. Goldman, D. Hart, H. Mannix, B. Mcgreavy, Adam Parris, S. Posner, C. Robinson, M. Ryan, P. Leith

Publications and Research

Cultivating a more dynamic relationship between science and policy is essential for responding to complex social challenges such as sustainability. One approach to doing so is to “span the boundaries” between science and decision making and create a more comprehensive and inclusive knowledge exchange process. The exact definition and role of boundary spanning, however, can be nebulous. Indeed, boundary spanning often gets conflated and confused with other approaches to connecting science and policy, such as science communication, applied science, and advocacy, which can hinder progress in the field of boundary spanning. To help overcome this, in this perspective, we present …

High-Resolution Water Footprints Of Production Of The United States

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The United States is the largest producer of goods and services in the world. Rainfall, surface water supplies, and groundwater aquifers represent a fundamental input to economic production. Despite the importance of water resources to economic activity, we do not have consistent information on water use for specific locations and economic sectors. A national, spatially detailed database of water use by sector would provide insight into U.S. utilization and dependence on water resources for economic production. To this end, we calculate the water footprint of over 500 food, energy, mining, services, and manufacturing industries and goods produced in the United …

Erratum: Reducing Cascading Failure Risk By Increasing Infrastructure Network Interdependence, Mert Korkali, Jason G. Veneman, Brian F. Tivnan, James P. Bagrow, Paul D.H. Hines

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/srep44499.

Climate Change, Cattle, And The Challenge Of Sustainability In A Telecoupled System In Africa, Tara S. Easter, Alexander K. Killion, Neil H. Carter

Neil H. Carter

Information, energy, and materials are flowing over greater distances than in the past, changing the structure and feedbacks within and across coupled human and natural systems worldwide. The telecoupling framework was recently developed to understand the feedbacks and multidirectional flows characterizing social and environmental interactions between distant systems. We extend the application of the telecoupling framework to illustrate how flows in beef affect and are affected by social-ecological processes occurring between distant systems in Africa, and how those dynamics will likely change over the next few decades because of climate-induced shifts in a major bovine disease, trypanosomosis. The disease is …

Heterogeneous Photo-Fenton Reactions And Hybridization With Ceramic Membrane Filtration, Wen Zhang

Sustainability Seminar Series

No abstract provided.

Place-Based Pedagogy And The Creative Writing Classroom, Jennifer Case

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Although compositionists have long appropriated and discussed place-based pedagogy’s ability to encourage environmental awareness and engage community issues, creative writing as a discipline has largely ignored place-based philosophies and environmental education. In fact, creative writing pedagogy often undermines place-based pedagogy by encouraging students to “write what they know” while simultaneously encouraging work with national rather than regional appeal. This article takes the first major step toward addressing this oversight by exploring the field’s assumptions about “place,” how these assumptions are influencing our classrooms, and how place-based composition and pedagogy could—and should—challenge and expand the ways we teach creative writing.

A Naturalist’S Guide To The Great Plains, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

This book documents nearly 500 US and Canadian locations where wildlife refuges, nature preserves, and similar properties protect natural sites that lie within the North American Great Plains, from Canada’s Prairie Provinces to the Texas-Mexico border. Information on site location, size, biological diversity, and the presence of especially rare or interesting flora and fauna are mentioned, as well as driving directions, mailing addresses, and phone numbers or internet addresses, as available. US federal sites include 11 national grasslands, 13 national parks, 16 national monuments, and more than 70 national wildlife refuges. State properties include nearly 100 state parks and wildlife …

Design And Implementation Of A Ferrocement Improved Cookstove In Rural Panama, Josh Donegan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Household air pollution contributes to the premature death of more than 4 million people annually. Improved cookstoves are one technological intervention that can potentially reduce exposure to household air pollution. However, improved cookstove implementation programs need to consider measures to increase sustainability and promote long-term adoption. The objectives of this research were 1) to develop and implement a new ferrocement cookstove for Peña Blanca, a rural indigenous community in the Ngäbe-Bugle region of Panama, 2) to evaluate its potential sustainability in comparison to the most common cooking technologies observed in the community, 3) to prepare a construction manual for the …

A Network Model For Primary Production Highlights Linkages Between Salmonid Populations And Autochthonous Resources, W. Carl Saunders, Nicolaas Bouwes, Peter Mchugh, Chris E. Jordan

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Spatial variation in fish densities across river networks suggests that the influence of food and habitat resources on assemblages varies greatly throughout watersheds. Conceptual models predict that in situ primary production should vary with river characteristics, but the influence of autochthonous resource availability on the capacity for river reaches to support fish is poorly understood. We estimated primary production throughout the South Fork and Middle Fork of the John Day River, Oregon, by measuring diel cycles in dissolved oxygen (DO) during July 2013. Using these data, we (1) evaluated the extent to which juvenile salmonid abundance and resource limitation correlated …

Response To Kabisch And Colleagues, Jesse T. Rieb, Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer, Gretchen C. Daily, Paul R. Armsworth, Katrin Böhning-Gaese, Aletta Bonn, Graeme S. Cumming, Felix Eigenbrod, Volker Grimm

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Agriculture In The Classroom Farm Day Lesson Plan, Tessa Nicole Thompson

Agricultural Education and Communication

Nontraditional educational programs have been proclaimed desirable by many teachers, and proven effective through data collection and feedback (Coombs and Ahmed, 1974). Of the more popular unconventional educational programs, outside learning activities are commonly implemented as they are not only advantageous to students, but to teachers as well (Cengelci, 2013; Knoblock, 2008). Though nontraditional, much thought must be put into creating lesson plans for these educational programs.

El Dorado County’s Agriculture in the Classroom program utilizes nontraditional outdoor learning activities to conduct “Farm Day.” This lesson plan, created for Farm Day, is to teach third graders the importance of composting …

Genetic Diversity, Population Structure, And Genetic Correlation With Climatic Variation In Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum) Landraces From Pakistan, Syed Gul Abbas Shah Sani, Peter L. Chang, Asif Zubair, Noelia Carrasquilla-Garcia, Matilde Cordeiro, Ramachandra Varma Penmetsa, M. Farooq H. Munis, Sergey V. Nuzhdin, Douglas R. Cook, Eric J. Von Wettberg

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) production in arid regions, such as those predominant in Pakistan, faces immense challenges of drought and heat stress. Addressing these challenges is made more difficult by the lack of genetic and phenotypic characterization of available cultivated varieties and breeding materials. Genotyping-by-sequencing offers a rapid and cost-effective means to identify genome-wide nucleotide variation in crop germplasm. When combined with extended crop phenotypes deduced from climatic variation at sites of collection, the data can predict which portions of genetic variation might have roles in climate resilience. Here we use 8113 single nucleotide polymorphism markers to determine genetic variation …

Effects Of Different Soil Media, Vegetation, And Hydrologic Treatments On Nutrient And Sediment Removal In Roadside Bioretention Systems, Paliza Shrestha, Stephanie E. Hurley, Beverley C. Wemple

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Water quality performance of eight roadside bioretention cells in their third and fourth years of implementation were evaluated in Burlington, Vermont. Bioretention cells received varying treatments: (1) vegetation with high-diversity (7 species) and low-diversity plant mix (2 species); (2) proprietary SorbtiveMedia™ (SM) containing iron and aluminum oxide granules to enhance sorption capacity for phosphorus; and (3) enhanced rainfall and runoff (RR) to certain cells (including one with SM treatment) at three levels (15%, 20%, 60% more than their control counterparts), mimicking anticipated precipitation increases associated with climate change. A total of 121 storms across all cells were evaluated in 2015 …

Econullnetr: An R Package Using Null Models To Analyse The Structure Of Ecological Networks And Identify Resource Selection, Ian P. Vaughan, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Jane Memmott, Caitlin E. Pearson, Guy Woodward, William O.C. Symondson

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Network analysis is increasingly widespread in ecology, with frequent questions asking which nodes (typically species) interact with one another and how strong are the interactions. Null models are a way of addressing these questions, helping to distinguish patterns driven by neutral mechanisms or sampling effects (e.g. relative abundance of different taxa, sampling completeness) from deterministic biological mechanisms (e.g. resource selection and avoidance), but few “off the shelf” tools are available. We present econullnetr, an r package combining null modelling and plotting functions for networks, with data-export tools to facilitate its use alongside existing network analysis packages. It models resource choices …

Umphlett Qci March 2018, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Personnel Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Mountain Snowpack

Enhanced Fire Activity During Winter

Utilities Impacted by Extreme Cold

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

Winter Drought Conditions and Outlook

Is There A Home For Agroforestry In Nutrient Credit Trading?, John Munsell

Sustainability Seminar Series

Agroforestry riparian buffers and upslope contour plantings provide environmental and economic benefits without eliminating annual farming opportunities. A public/private partnership in Virginia is leading a project titled Conservation Credit for Agroforestry Production (C-CAP) to study the potential for agroforestry to generate profitable credits in private nutrient trading markets. Phosphorus and nitrogen delivered to stream edges are modeled across a sample of agroforestry project sites. Results are being studied to determine financial profitability and relationships to Total Maximum Daily Loads. Research is also being conducted on tree-tube effectiveness, site preparation strategies, plant-water relations on contour, nitrogen fixer intercropping, and financial risk. …

Soil Media Co2 And N2O Fluxes Dynamics From Sand-Based Roadside Bioretention Systems, Paliza Shrestha, Stephanie E. Hurley, E. Carol Adair

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Green stormwater infrastructure such as bioretention is commonly implemented in urban areas for stormwater quality improvements. Although bioretention systems' soil media and vegetation have the potential to increase carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) storage for climate change mitigation, this storage potential has not been rigorously studied, and any analysis of it must consider the question of whether bioretention emits greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. We monitored eight roadside bioretention cells for CO2-C and N2O-N fluxes during two growing seasons (May through October) in Vermont, USA. C and N stocks in the soil media layers, microbes, and aboveground vegetation were also …

Mixed Methods Approach To Understanding Farmer And Agricultural Advisor Perceptions Of Climate Change And Adaptation In Vermont, United States, Rachel E. Schattman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Scott C. Merrill, Asim Zia

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The relationships among farmers’ belief in climate change, perceptions of climate-related risk, and use of climate adaptation practices is a growing topic of interest in U.S. scholarship. The northeast region is not well represented in the literature, although it is highly agricultural and will likely face climate-related risks that differ from those faced in other regions. We used a mixed methods approach to examine northeast farmers’ perceptions of climate change and climate-related risks over time, and perceived trade-offs associated with on-farm practices. Our investigation shows how northeastern farmers think about climate-risk, and what they are doing to address it.

The Critically Endangered Forest Owlet Heteroglaux Blewitti Is Nested Within The Currently Recognized Athene Clade: A Century-Old Debate Addressed, Pankaj Koparde, Prachi Mehta, Sushma Reddy, Uma Ramakrishnan, Shomita Mukherjee, V. V. Robin

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Range-restricted species generally have specific niche requirements and may often have unique evolutionary histories. Unfortunately, many of these species severely lack basic research, resulting in poor conservation strategies. The phylogenetic relationship of the Critically Endangered Forest Owlet Heteroglaux blewitti has been the subject of a century-old debate. The current classifications based on non-phylogenetic comparisons of morphology place the small owls of Asia into three genera, namely, Athene, Glaucidium, and Heteroglaux. Based on morphological and anatomical data, H. blewitti has been alternatively hypothesized to belong within Athene, Glaucidium, or its own monotypic genus Heteroglaux. …

Spatial Analysis Of Ecosystem Service Relationships To Improve Targeting Of Payments For Hydrological Services, Pierre Mokondoko, Robert H. Manson, Taylor H. Ricketts, Daniel Geissert

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Payment for hydrological services (PHS) are popular tools for conserving ecosystems and their water-related services. However, improving the spatial targeting and impacts of PHS, as well as their ability to foster synergies with other ecosystem services (ES), remain challenging. We aimed at using spatial analyses to evaluate the targeting performance of Mexico's National PHS program in central Veracruz. We quantified the effectiveness of areas targeted for PHS in actually covering areas of high HS provision and social priority during 2003-2013. First, we quantified provisioning and spatial distributions of two target (water yield and soil retention), and one non-target ES (carbon …

A Cross-Country Analysis Of Climate Shocks And Smallholder Food Insecurity, Meredith T. Niles, Jonathan D. Salerno

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Future climate changes will affect smallholder farmers in the developing world, posing threats to household food security. Nevertheless, there remains limited comparable evidence across multiple countries and regions regarding the global extent of climate shocks affecting smallholder food security. We examine data from 5,299 household surveys across 15 countries in Latin America, Africa and South Asia to assess the extent of climate shocks and their association with food insecurity, as well as what strategies may help buffer against climate shocks. We find that 71% of households reported experiencing a climate shock in the previous five years. Fifty-four percent reported experiencing …

Decision Support System For The Design And Planning Of Low-Impact Development Practices: The Case Of Seoul, Jae-Yeol Song, Eun-Sung Chung, Soo Hyun Kim

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study presented the conceptual framework of the water-management analysis module (WMAM) to derive effective physical specifications for the design and planning of low-impact development (LID) practices using the storm-water management model (SWMM). This decision-support system can be used for six LID types and has the following key capabilities: determining relevant LID design parameters within the SWMM that critically influence the hydrological cycle components using a simple sensitivity analysis and determining the best hydrological values for LID planning specification. This study analyzed a highly urbanized university campus as a case study to determine the design and planning specifications for an …

Summary Of The Stock Structure Information Used For Determining Spatial Management Of The Index Species For The Scalefish Resources Of Northern Western Australia, Daniel J. Gaughan, Stephen J. Newman, Corey B. Wakefield

WA Marine Stewardship Council report series

This paper was specifically developed in response to issues raised in an assessment of the Pilbara Trap Managed Fishery (PTMF) against the fishery sustainability standard of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

Social Position Influencing The Water Perception Gap Between Local Leaders And Constituents In A Socio-Hydrological System, Melissa Haeffner, Douglas Jackson-Smith, Courtney G. Flint

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

How well city leaders represent their constituents and meet their needs are key concerns in transitioning to local sustainable water governance. To date, however, there is little research documenting the influence of social position between elected leaders who make policy, career staff water managers who design and operate systems and implement policies, and the members of the public whose individual water use behaviors are important drivers of water sustainability outcomes. In this study, we ask: ‘‘How does social position explain variation in water perceptions and concerns between different actors in a sociohydrological system?’’ Using a mixed method approach with survey …