Environmental problems are growing at a pace and scale that traditional research methods alone can no longer tackle. Innovative research models that utilize contributory, participatory and crowdsourcing methods are rapidly emerging to fill this gap. For these participatory efforts to be effective and sustainable, however, closer attention must be paid to key components that can promote coordinated action and sustainability. Through the lens of public participation in plant-pollinator conservation, I have, with rigorous social-ecological inquiry, offered three foundational assessment areas that can provide scientific support to this nascent field: accuracy, ecological significance and scalability. In the first study (Chapter 2), I explored a common concern about citizen science: that a lack of foundational knowledge, or familiarity with following scientific protocols could lead to inaccurate data collection. I evaluated the accuracy of plant phenology observations collected by citizen scientist volunteers following protocols designed by the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN). Phenology observations made by volunteers receiving several hours of formal training were compared to those collected independently by a professional ecologist. Approximately 11,000 observations were recorded by 28 volunteers over the course of one field season. Volunteers consistently identified phenophases correctly (91% overall and 70% during transitions) for the 19 species observed. Accuracy varied significantly by phenophase and species (p<0.0001). Volunteers who submitted fewer observations over the period of study did not exhibit a higher error rate than those who submitted more total observations, suggesting that volunteers with limited training and experience can provide reliable observations when following explicit, standardized protocols. Overall, these findings demonstrate the ii legitimacy of phenology observations collected by volunteers, an important finding for the increasing number of analysts relying on data collected by citizen scientists. In Chapter 3, I explored a common concern that restoration efforts implemented by the public may not have adequate ecological value. I addressed key ecological variables to determine how small-scale patches attracted pollinators and explored which of these variables might be best to prioritize for restoration efforts suited to public initiatives. This study demonstrated that in small-scale plant restoration sites, plant diversity and resource (nectar) availability significantly affects the abundance and diversity of pollinating insects. Specifically, the treatments which contained high-resource (nectar-rich) plant species increased pollinator abundance and diversity the most. Plant diversity increased pollinator diversity and abundance only in the absence of high-resource plants. Pollination facilitation was observed in high resource treatments, but varied among species. Competition for pollinators was observed in high diversity treatments but did not affect seed set for high-resource plants in any of the treatments. Together, these results suggest that managers or landowners who are restoring patches of native plants as habitat for pollinators should prioritize including species with high nectar production, and secondarily, a diverse mix of species if space and resources allow. In Chapter 4, I explored an emergent approach to public participation in regional community science initiatives (and networks) through an exploratory case study of the New York Phenology Project. I demonstrated that local organizations have the opportunity to utilize existing data aggregation platforms to activate regional collaborative alliances to achieve what is often challenging for large-scale contributory projects. I describe our hands-on experience of conceiving and launching a regional network and outline a model that could serve as a guide for catalyzing networks. Drawing on direct experience and interviews with network partners, I developed a description of key categories related to network node success, and a linked assessment tool that could be used to evaluate network node capacity and project outcomes. The assessment tool will be used to test preliminary findings in a more formal quantitative and qualitative exploration in future studies. In Chapter 5, I explored an exceptional long-term, community-level phenology data set that spans New York State, USA (1802-2017), and found interesting and significant patterns of phenological change over time. The data set provides statewide phenology and temperature data that extend further back in time than any previously known data set for the region, extending to years prior to or at the beginning of recent human-caused global warming. I found that most species are flowering and leafing earlier in recent years (2009-2017) than they did in the early 19th century (1802-1861). Plants are flowering 11 days earlier and leafing 18.8 days earlier, with some species flowering up to 27 days earlier and leafing up to 31 days earlier over that time period. Most of this change was driven by warming mean spring temperatures (MST) over that time; mean spring temperatures warmed by 1.0°C statewide (2.5°C in New York City) on average between the historical and contemporary periods. Seasonality, Life Form, and the interaction between Seasonality and Life Form explained variation in phenology among species. The large number of geographically distinct sites in this dataset permitted novel investigation into differential changes in phenology between urban and rural areas (urban areas have more advanced phenology than their rural counterparts) and between insect and wind pollinated trees by seasonal category (insect pollinated trees are showing more advanced phenology than wind pollinated trees in both early and late spring). This analysis has brought the efforts of a historical network into a modern context and has illustrated how organized long-term monitoring efforts can be valuable for ecological discovery. This combined work provides a diverse contribution to the field of public participation in monitoring and conservation efforts. While thorough and disciplined ecological theories drive the design of the research, I simultaneously strove to help meet the ongoing demand for useable, purposeful insights into how to support public efforts to restore plant-pollinator habitats, monitor key ecological dynamics such as phenology, and scale networks capable of collecting data that address issues of global change.

M.A. / Geography as a discipline has undergone many different metamorphoses, and has experienced a turbulent and interesting past in its search for identity. Claims are made that geographers put great emphasis on humans and their interaction with their environment. It is therefore widely accepted that Geography is greatly dominated in its teachings by an emphasis on Environmental Management. It is therefore also accepted that South African geographers will participate actively in this practice, and that it will be reflected, distinctively, in their scientific publications. This thesis seeks to examine the validity of the above assumptions. Thus the problem of whether or not the publications by South African geographers are environmentally orientated was surveyed and reviewed for the period between 1996 and 2001. In order to do this it was necessary to undertake an extensive review of all databases, which contained publications, as well as to obtain web-site information on the lecturers at the individual selected universities. Questionnaires were also sent out to the different departments and some personal interviews were conducted. The researcher had to refine the search to an in-depth analyses of only eight of the twenty one Geography departments at South African universities, based on the availability of information. The review reveals the current diverse nature of Environmental Geography in South Africa. In some instances papers have been written that remain within the boun-daries of its sub-discipline, such as the Geomorpological papers. They did however prove to incorporate an application to the field of Environmental Management which could not be ignored, and hence they had to be of environmental relevance. On further inspection it was found that there is an increasing awareness amongst all South African geographers for greater integration to solve problems holistically. More environmentally orientated papers were published towards the end of the study period under review. The survey conducted of the various environmentally orientated papers also revealed the broad and diverse sub-discipline that Geography can cover from an environmental perspective. It can be said that there is a growing trend amongst South African geographers to publish papers that are environmentally orientated. Whether the number (and emphasis that is placed on environmental issues) of publications is large enough, still remains to be seen. It was established that geographers are still focussing more on their specialised areas of interest, in their research. They are still not doing enough to promote an understanding of the environment. The researcher had to conclude that it is disheartening and disappointing to realise what amount of growth is still needed in the emphasis of the area of Environmental Management. Some serious work still lays ahead for geographers and the content of their publications in this respect.

Citizen science projects present a distinctive opportunity for professional and volunteer scientists to coordinate their efforts to gather unique sets of data that can benefit the scientific and local communities. These projects are assumed to be an effective educational tool to teach nature of science (NOS) to participants (Brossard, Lewenstein, Bonney, 2005). This case study evaluates the effectiveness of participation in a citizen science project as a way to learn about NOS. Through enhancement of the Tryon Creek Owl Monitoring Project the researcher reviewed the characteristics of a citizen science project that were thought to be necessary to impact the volunteers' knowledge of NOS. The study also explored the benefits and limitations to organizing the citizen science protect using the principles of action research. Analysis of participants' knowledge and the effectiveness of active research theory, was evaluated through pre- and post- questionnaires and interviews. Although volunteers were able to explore the core themes of NOS through actively engaging in the scientific process, they did not experience a statistically significant change in their demonstration of understanding. For a multitude of reasons, participants had a positive experience with the presence of an embedded researcher within the project. This case study supports the use of active research as a guide to ensure that within each project the needs of both the scientific community and the volunteer scientists are met.

The mandatory and voluntary carbon markets have both developed around the increasing trade of carbon offsets. In order to add legitimacy to an otherwise intangible commodity there has been a rise in the development of third party carbon certification standards, particularly in the voluntary market. These standards aim to provide independent, third party certification to projects that are developed specifically to generate and sell carbon offsets. South Africa has the opportunity to engage with these markets, but current participation in and certification of projects is sluggish. These projects have not taken off mainly due to the high transaction costs and lag times surrounding the current certification of projects', complex baseline methodologies, accounting uncertainty and the often bureaucratic systems surrounding the current voluntary carbon certification standards and methodologies. In order to overcome these pitfalls this project aimed to address these challenges through initiating the development of a preliminary South African voluntary carbon standard. This was done by: a) undertaking a critical assessment of the development of current carbon markets, with a particular focus on voluntary markets and third party certification, b) critically analysing the current voluntary carbon certification standards for best practices, pitfalls and weaknesses. To provide a better understanding of the historical development of voluntary certification standards, various established certification standards were evaluated, including the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and ISO 14000 standards. This analysis focussed on the challenges they faced in acceptance and in particular how they have managed to operationalize sustainable development within the certification process. In order to explicitly ensure the incorporation of a sustainable development assessment of projects under the proposed standard, an expert workshop was held with 14 experts from a wide variety of disciplines. These experts identified the crucial sustainable development challenges facing South Africa. They identified 12 sub-themes and 44 indicators that could be used to measure and incorporate sustainable development indicators into the certification process. These were then further developed through using the 'Input – Output – Outcome – Impact' framework model which allowed the indicators to be organised and understood and thus practical. The analysis of the voluntary certification standards and the development of the sustainable development indicator framework were ultimately incorporated into the development of the proposed South African voluntary carbon standard. The key approach to this standard is the incorporation and focus of the proposed standard to ensuring the generation of net SD benefits and placing them at the same level as carbon within the project design and development, validation and verification process. The full and effective integration of these has been missing within current fully fledged voluntary carbon standards, as they often rely on a mixture of project design standards to achieve this. Offering the inclusion of all components into one standard, specifically designed for South Africa, will not only assure SD credentials but also increase transparency and understanding, and reduce costs. This thesis allowed for the development of innovative new ideas and process focussed specifically at including and mainstreaming South Africa’s developmental challenges into the certification process. This is the hoped that the standard will effectively certify South African based landscape restoration projects, but also decrease costs and increase efficiencies in order to encourage the development of these projects. This preliminary standard not only aims to incorporate and address all the issues identified but also has the end goal of acting as the basis for future debate and development surrounding a potential South African voluntary carbon certification standard.

The scientific endeavors that took place at Hanford Engineer Works, beginning in World War II and continuing thereafter, are often overlooked in the literature on the Manhattan Project, the Atomic Energy Commission, and in regional histories. To historians of science, Hanford is described as an industrial facility that illustrates the perceived differences between academic scientists on the one hand and industrial scientists and engineers on the other. To historians of the West such as Gerald Nash, Richard White, and Patricia Limerick, Hanford has functioned as an example of the West's transformation during in World War II, the role of science in this transformation, and the recurring impacts of industrialization on the western landscape. This thesis describes the establishment and gradual expansion of a multi-disciplinary research program at Hanford whose purpose was to assess and manage the biological and environmental effects of plutonium production. By drawing attention to biological research, an area in which Hanford scientists gained distinction by the mid 1950s, this study explains the relative obscurity of Hanford's scientific research in relation to the prominent, physics-dominated national laboratories of the Atomic Energy Commission. By the mid 1960s, with growing public concern over radiation exposure and changes in the government's funding patterns for science, Hanford's ecologically relevant research provided a recognizable and valuable identity for the newly independent, regionally-based research laboratory. With funding shifts favoring the biological and environmental sciences in the latter half of the twentieth-century, Hanford scientists were well prepared to take advantage of expanding opportunities to carve out a permanent niche on the border of American science. / Graduation date: 2003