Veganism is a growing dietary trend in the U.S. and scientific evidence is showing that it may be necessary for more people to make the lifestyle change in the near future. However, previous research shows predominantly negative attitudes toward vegans among omnivores. The purpose of the present study was to measure attitude change in millennials after viewing a documentary about the environmental and ethical implications surrounding veganism in order to see if documentaries are an effective tool in changing the stigma of veganism. The study utilized a questionnaire with seven scales measuring attitude change toward vegans, animal welfare, and the environment. In addition, the questionnaire included the new ecological paradigm scale, behavioral beliefs, control beliefs, in-group meat eating identification, and perceived threat of veganism. The study implemented a pretest-posttest experimental design with two treatment groups. Each group was shown a different 35-minute segment form the documentary “Cowspiracy”. The study showed positive attitude change after watching the documentary for attitudes toward vegans and the environment. There were statistically significant results between attitudes toward veganism, the environment and animal welfare based on political affiliation. Democrats had more positive attitudes about each of the topics compared to republicans after viewing the documentary. This research is significant because it shows a possibility for creating more positive attitudes toward veganism after showing a documentary such as “Cowspiracy” to non-vegans. The results lay a solid foundation for future research in this area by establishing that attitudes have the possibility of changing after watching the documentary “Cowspiracy”. There is an opportunity for further research to take what we’ve learned about changing attitudes to apply toward behavior change with the implementation of qualitative research. / A Thesis submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 19, 2018. / Includes bibliographical references. / Patrick Merle, Professor Directing Thesis; Brian Graves, Committee Member; Jay Rayburn, Committee Member.

Air pollution is a very critical non-natural hazard that adversely affects human health as well as the environment itself in the context of climate change. One of the biggest contributors to air pollution is the transportation industry. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), transportation is the second leading source for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contributing to GHG emissions by 28%. Researchers and practitioners have been working on developing techniques to estimate and reduce transportation-related emissions by the help of various types of technologies. As such, this study aimed to investigate the effect of vehicle operating modes (i.e., constant running, idling, accelerating, and braking) on vehicle exhaust emissions in order to highlight the importance of occasionally disregarded factors that exacerbate the transportation-related air pollution problem. In order to accomplish this goal, this study adopted an approach involving two frequently used software for estimating emissions, namely VISSIM (a microscopic traffic simulation software) and EPA’s Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES). The input data required for these software was collected, processed, and introduced into the models in order to estimate the emissions. First, a corridor was simulated within the VISSIM. This corridor is located in the City of Tallahassee, Florida, which is highly congested during the peak hours, and approximately 7.7 miles long, with 22 signalized intersections. Next, the outputs of VISSIM were collected and provided to MOVES by developing an integration tool. First, average speed and volume data were provided to MOVES only for the whole corridor, and VISSIM and MOVES emissions for carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) were compared. Note that VISSIM provides only emissions for CO and NOx. After observing the massive difference between VISSIM and MOVES emissions, the importance of using operating mode distribution file in MOVES was pointed out. To meet this end, the integration tool was enhanced to compute the vehicle operating mode distribution file based on second-by-second vehicle trajectory output. This was provided to MOVES in order obtain more accurate emission estimation results since only average speed and volume data could not provide accurate emission values disregarding the different vehicle operating modes. For this purpose, an algorithm, named as operating mode calculation algorithm (OMCA), was developed in Python 3.0 to create operating mode distribution input by using second-by-second vehicle trajectory data of VISSIM. This type of analysis focusing on the emissions of individual vehicles provided more accurate emission results. Now that these results were obtained, the focus of the thesis shifted towards analyzing the impact of vehicle connectedness on the air pollution. Two intersections of the selected highway corridor were modelled and simulated with a connected environment using one of the widely used vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication application called Green Light Optimized Speed Advisory (GLOSA). The GLOSA was implemented on the major leg of these intersections only with different Connected Vehicle (CV) penetration rates. One of the selected legs was the most congested link of the corridor. After extensive simulations, second-by-second VISSIM trajectory data were provided to OMCA, which converted them to MOVES operating mode distribution input files. Finally, MOVES was run in order to estimate carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), primary exhaust smaller than 2.5 micrometer (PM2.5) and primary exhaust smaller than 10 micrometer (PM10) emissions. Findings of the study can aid researchers in understanding the effect of different operation modes on the exhaust emissions, understanding the effect of smoother and lower number of stop-and-go driving operations in the context of the connected vehicle impact on the exhaust emission, and quantifying the potential operational and environmental benefits of connected vehicles (CV’s). / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Spring Semester 2019. / March 27, 2019. / Connected vehicle, Emission, GLOSA, MOVES, Simulation, Traffic / Includes bibliographical references. / Eren Erman Ozguven, Professor Directing Thesis; John O. Sobanjo, Committee Member; Ren Moses, Committee Member.

Many states within the U.S., including Florida, have seen steady population growth since the 1950s. While population growth can lead to economic growth, excessive growth of urban areas can lead to negative externalities such as road congestion, air and water pollution, decreased access to open space, habitat loss, and habitat fragmentation. This realization has led to increasing political and stakeholder pressure to more comprehensively assess impacts of land-use planning projects on human-natural systems. The Ecosystem Services Assessment (ESA) approach is a relatively new approach which is described in the peer-reviewed literature as comprehensive and holistic. This dissertation study researched the potential of an ESA approach as a planning tool in Florida by addressing the following research questions: 1) What are the guidelines for best practices in ESAs from the literature? 2) How are ESAs currently used in land-use planning projects in Florida? 3) How is the traditional approach used in land-use planning projects in Florida? 4) What are key differences between the ESA approaches used in the case studies and the guidelines for best practices in ESAs? 5) What are key differences between an ESA approach and a traditional approach as they are currently used in Florida? The research questions were investigated through the use of an online survey, in-depth interviews, and analysis of three Florida case studies. Experts in the field of ecosystem services research were interviewed to assess how ESAs are used in Florida and to gather background information for the online survey and case studies. The target group for the online survey included respondents working for local, state, regional, federal and tribal government agencies, non-profit organizations, research institutes, universities, and other relevant persons who had been involved in projects in which ecosystem services were valuated, quantified, or described. The case studies that were assessed for this research are the Central Everglades Planning Project, the Florida Conservation Lands study, and the Tampa Bay Project. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2015. / May 19, 2015. / Ecosystem Services, Integrated Systems Analysis, Natural-human Systems, Natural Resource Management, Sustainable Development, Valuation / Includes bibliographical references. / Timothy Chapin, Professor Directing Dissertation; Keith Ihlanfeldt, University Representative; Christopher Coutts, Committee Member; Jeffrey Chanton, Committee Member.

Since the start of the 21st century—and mostly in the past five years—Sigur Rós, Dan Deacon, Sō Percussion, and Nick Zammuto actively investigated their homes and found them to be inspiring, if sometimes difficult to confront or articulate. They wrote music resulting from their individual investigations. Certain albums, like Sō Percussion's Where (we) Live (2012) and Dan Deacon's America (2012), candidly explored place, while Nick Zammuto's Anchor (2014) obliquely referenced his family's homestead. In the case of Sigur Rós, Iceland undoubtedly has been an influence, although the band finds place-based descriptions of its music to be problematic. By identifying the musicians' senses of place—their psychological and emotional attachments to specific places—I contextualize the role that place plays in their lives and explore strategies of listening for locality within their music. Using these four groups as case studies, this dissertation explores the relationship of music and place. It also draws parallels between the groups' music and a recent ascendancy of place and public concern for the environment. I argue that the musicians in this study are producing work that coincides with an invigorated attention to location—examples of which include digitization of place, the migration of younger generations away from suburban living, and anxieties regarding anthropogenic climate change. Sigur Rós, Dan Deacon, Sō Percussion, and Nick Zammuto are thus part of both a cohort of place-conscious citizens and a bevy of contemporary musicians and composers who are exploring place. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / March 18, 2016. / Dan Deacon, Music, Nick Zammuto, Place, Sigur Ros, So Percussion / Includes bibliographical references. / Denise Von Glahn, Professor Directing Dissertation; Chris Coutts, University Representative; Frank Gunderson, Committee Member; Margaret Jackson, Committee Member.

Many environmental campaigns use threatening messages that feature the severity of the problem and the irreversible consequences to encourage pro-environmental behaviors. However, individuals tend to respond to threatening information defensively. Defensive message processing strategies help people distance themselves from the uncomfortable feeling without actually changing the existing attitudes and behaviors. As a result, people will likely to reject the message, deny the problem, or engage in biased processing of the message instead of changing their behaviors. Thus, how to reduce defensive processing of the message is one of the major tasks in environmental communication. Self-affirmation theory suggests that by affirming alternative sources of self-integrity, individuals will be able to reduce defensive processing of messages and evaluate risks more objectively. Past research has attempted to use individual-level values to achieve self-affirmation manipulations. This dissertation examined the self-affirmation framework at a group level by investigating whether affirming the group that an individual belongs to increases the acceptance of threatening information, risk perception and behavioral intention among college students. By using the group resources, the ultimate goal of this project is to design more practical interventions that can be used in public communication campaigns. The first study tested a new manipulation with group values incorporated into the pro-environmental public service announcements (PSA). Participants were randomly assigned to view either a PSA with group values highlighted or a control PSA. Results demonstrated that exposure to information about group values could influence participants' self-efficacy, but not other variables, such as attitudes toward the PSA, perceived message strength, risk perception, or behavioral intention. Participants' environmental concern moderated the effect of affirmation on perceived message strength. For participants with low environmental concern, affirmed participants reported a significantly higher perceived strength of the message than non-affirmed participants; but for participants with medium or high environmental concern, the group affirming message did not influence participants' perceived strength of the message compared to the control message. The second study tested a more visual-based manipulation. Participants were randomly assigned to view in-group beautiful photos, out-group beautiful photos, in-group not beautiful photos, or out-group not beautiful photos, before they were exposed to view an environmental risk message. Results demonstrated that participants who viewed in-group photos had more positive attitudes towards the message and reported greater on perceived message strength, compared with participants who viewed out-group photos. But the photos' aesthetic quality did not make a difference in the outcome variables. Instead of traditional manipulations, such as essay writing, this dissertation explored two affirmation manipulations, which require no writing from audiences but achieve the goal of affirmation. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed, as well as the suggestions for future research. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / January 23, 2017. / environmental behaviors, group identity, public communication, risk perception, self-affirmation / Includes bibliographical references. / Laura M. Arpan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Betsy Becker, University Representative; Juliann Cortese, Committee Member; Mia Liza A. Lustria, Committee Member.

Excessive nitrogen loading to surface water bodies has resulted in serious environmental, economical, ecological, and human health problems, such as groundwater contamination and eutrophication in surface water. One important source of nitrogen in the environment, especially in densely populated coastal areas in Florida, is due to wastewater treatment using onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems (OSTDS) (a.k.a., septic systems). Moreover, due to the population expansion, nitrogen loads from septic systems are expected to increase. Therefore, sustainable decision-making and management of nitrogen pollution due to septic systems are urgently needed. In this thesis, two software are used to simulate the whole process of nitrogen (ammonium and nitrate) transport starting from septic systems to finally reach the surface waterbodies. One software is VZMOD, and the other one is the ArcGIS-based Nitrogen Load Estimation Toolkit (ArcNLET). VZMOD is seamlessly integrated with ArcNLET in the way as follows. VZMOD is firstly used to simulate the flow and nitrogen transport in the vadose zone, which is between drain field infiltrative surface and water table, based on the assumption of steady-state, one-dimensional vertical reactive transport with constant incoming fluxes of water, ammonium, and nitrate. The ammonium and nitrate concentrations, given by VZMOD at the water table, are then used as the inputs to the modeling of ammonium and nitrate fate and transport in groundwater in ArcNLET, considering heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity and porosity as well as spatial variability of septic system locations, surface water bodies, and distances between septic systems and surface water bodies. In addition, the key mechanisms controlling nitrogen transport, including advection, dispersion, and denitrification, are also considered in ArcNLET. The study sites of this thesis research are the Main-South Canal (MSC) drainage basin and the City of Sebastian located in Indian River County in southeast Florida. Surface water bodies (e.g., rivers and streams) and groundwater at the two site discharge to the Southern Indian River Lagoon, where the ecological and biological integrity has deteriorated in the last several decades due to the decline in water quality caused in part by nitrogen pollution. There are in total 12,741 septic systems in the MSC area, while in the City of Sebastian, the number of septic systems is 4,883. The process of simulating nitrogen reactive transport from septic tanks to surface water bodies consists of the following three steps: (1) based on the site-specific data, such as DEM, waterbodies, septic locations, hydraulic conductivity and porosity, forward models of VZMOD and ArcNLET is developed, (2) based on the measured data of system state variables, such as water level and nitrogen concentration, the forward models are calibrated, and (3) the calibrated models are used to simulate nitrogen plumes and to estimate nitrogen load from the septic systems to surface water bodies. Considering the modeling ability and the site complexity, two questions, (1) what are the nitrogen characteristics of these two sites, (2) can my model be able to capture these nitrogen characteristics, have been investigated in this study, and the major findings are as follows: (1) The simulated nitrogen plumes and load estimates exhibit substantial spatial variability in the both sites, and the depth from drainfields to water table is important to nitrogen reactive transport, especially the ammonium nitrification to nitrate. (2) Ammonium and nitrate loads for the Main-South Canal drainage basin are largely located in the south to the South Canal drainage basin. Along the ditches and canals, the ammonium concentration is lower due to the small distance between water table and drainfields. There exists a region located in the southeast drainage basin where ammonium loading is high. (3) Incomplete nitrification process is exposed under the vadose zone while the denitrification process is mostly complete in the saturated zone in the Main-South Canal area. (4) The nitrification process is largely complete under the unsaturated zone while the denitrification process is incomplete in the saturated zone in the City of Sebastian area. (5) Reduction ratio is lower while nitrogen loading to surface waterbodies per septic system is larger in the City of Sebastian area than in the Main-South Canal area. (6) The flow model calibration in the City of Sebastian area is not as satisfactory as in the Main-South Canal area, because of the simplified assumption that water table is a subdued replica of topography used in ArcNLET is not satisfied at the study site. These results can be used to support the on-going Basin Management Action Plan. More efforts, such as investigating the soil condition (e.g. micro-bacteria content, dissolved oxygen or dissolved organic carbon and pH) and specific septic system environment, are also needed to verify these results and to develop more insights about the nitrogen processes in the study areas. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Scientific Computing in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester 2017. / November 08, 2017. / ArcNLET, Calibration, Nitrification/Denitrification, Nitrogen load estimation, Septic systems, Surface waterbody / Includes bibliographical references. / Ming Ye, Professor Directing Thesis; Xiaoqiang Wang, Committee Member; Sachin Shanbhag, Committee Member.

This dissertation investigates the effects of federal grant-in-aid programs on metropolitan area economic growth and recovery in "green" energy and environmental sectors of the economy, focusing on the role of self-organizing intergovernmental policy networks. Federal grant-in-aid programs are popular policy tools to bridge the gaps between fragmented local government capacities in pursuing desired policy outcomes, to facilitate collaboration and to stimulate the economy. The fragmentation of authority and responsibility for economic and environmental programs at a regional level produces institutional collective action (ICA) dilemmas. Applying a network analytic approach I examine how changes in local and regional network relationships to overcome ICA dilemmas impact policy performance. This research contributes to the literature by extending the ICA framework to examine how network structure responds to changes in the underlying problem or ICA dilemma that alter risks, and how these changes in network structure then influence policy performance. This dissertation employs an integrative model to investigate the impacts of exogenous stimuli on structural changes in networks and consequent policy performance. This empirical analysis focuses on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) as an exogenous stimulus for metropolitan green economic governance in Florida. The first analysis applies Stochastic Actor-Based Model (SABM) to test the impacts of the EECBG program on the structural changes in green economic networks among 19 metropolitan areas in Florida from 2000 to 2011. The second analysis extracts network factors from the first analysis and estimates Time-Series-Cross-Section (TSCS) models to test the hypothesized explanation for how exogenously driven changes in networks influence policy performance through green job creation in metropolitan areas. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / January 11, 2016. / Green Economic Development, Green Job Creation, Metropolitan Governance, Network Change, Network Performance, Policy Impact / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Randall Holcombe, University Representative; Keon-Hyung Lee, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

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The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Reservation was established in 1876, the same year as the transcontinental Southern Pacific Railroad completed a station in Palm Springs. These overlapping events would both enable and problematize the settler colonization of the Agua Caliente’s land, creating a checkerboard pattern of “fragmented jurisdiction” that was fundamental for its transformation into one of the wealthiest resorts in the United States. The territorial conflict between the Tribe and the U.S. would only begin to be legally resolved in 1977, when the Agua Caliente won the right to zone and plan their own lands. This dissertation examines how architecture, urbanism, and infrastructure mediated the technical, legal, and ideological struggles that took place in this period; sometimes enabling Imperial dispossession, other times structuring Tribal assimilation and decolonization. The dissertation historicizes and theorizes these processes by examining the modern architecture and urbanism of Palm Springs as a specific settler-colonial, “post-industrial” mode of development which was made possible by the particular territorial configuration that emerged out of nineteenth century Imperialism. It posits a correlation between settler colonialism and the settler imaginaries and material processes of technological progress, capitalist accumulation, natural resource extraction, and cultures of leisure that were uniquely developed in Palm Springs through modern architecture. Critically dismantling the connections between modern architecture, “post-industrial society,” and settler colonialism, this dissertation argues, is a necessary condition for the development of decolonial epistemologies and strategies of anti-colonial, anti-capitalist resistance.