<p> The Cherokee Nation, a Federally-recognized Tribal government in Northeastern Oklahoma lacks Tribal water quality standards for numerical nutrient standards based on baseline conditions in the Cherokee Nation. Lotic waters are of special significance in Cherokee Nation culture and ceremonies. Three water quality standard priorities within the Tribe include defining Culturally Significant Waters as a designated use, identifying Culturally Significant Waterbodies and determining applicable numerical nutrient standards. Culturally Significant Water as a designated use was defined based on community surveys. Twelve rivers and streams were identified as a portion of the Culturally Significant Waters of the Cherokee Nation based on a tribal community survey using a Use Attainability Analysis. To address excess nutrients in the Cherokee Nation, a total phosphorus numerical nutrient criterion was determined using data for Culturally Significant Water bodies, literature guidance and the US Environmental Protection Agency recommended nutrient criteria process for the respective Aggregate Nutrient Ecoregion. The Oklahoma Scenic Rivers criterion of 0.037 mg/L total phosphorus for a 90-day geometric mean was evaluated and determined not to be protective of Cherokee Nation&rsquo;s Culturally Significant Waters. A total phosphorus criterion of 0.016 mg/L was recommended to protect Cherokee Nation Culturally Significant Waters from benthic algae greater than 100 mg/m² Chlorophyll <i>a.</i></p>

<p> Waste disposal has always been one of the challenging aspects of human life mostly in populated areas. In every urban region, various factors can impact both amount and composition of the generated waste, and these factors might depend on a series of parameters. Therefore, developing a predictive model for waste generation has always been challenging. We believe that one main problem that city planners and policymakers face is a lack of an accurate yet easy-to-use predictive model for the waste production of a given municipality. It would be vital for them, especially during business downturns, to access a reliable predictive model that can be employed in planning resources and allocating budget. However, most developed models are complicated and extensive. The objective of this research is to study the trend of solid waste generation in Philadelphia with respect to business cycle indicators, population growth, current policies and environmental awareness, and to develop a satisfactory predictive model for waste generation. </p><p> Three predictive models were developed using time series analysis, stationary and nonstationary multiple linear regressions. The nonstationary OLS model was just used for comparison purposes and does not have any modeling value. Among the other two developed predictive models, the multiple linear regression model with stationary variables yielded the most accurate predictions for both total and municipal solid waste generation of Philadelphia. Despite its unsatisfactory statistics (R-square, p-value, and F-value), stationary OLS model could predict Philadelphia&rsquo;s waste generation with a low level of approximately 9% error. Although time series modeling demonstrated a less successful prediction comparing to the stationary OLS model (25% error for total solid waste, and 10.7% error for municipal waste predictions), it would be a more reliable method based on its model statistics. The common variable used in all three developed models which made our modeling different from the Streets Department&rsquo;s estimations was unemployment rate. Including an economic factor such as unemployment rate in modeling the waste generation could be helpful especially during economic downturns, in which economic factors can dominate the effects of population growth on waste generation. </p><p> A prediction of waste generation may not only help waste management sector in landfill and waste-to-energy facilities planning but it also provides the basis for a good estimation of its future environmental impacts. In future, we are hoping to predict related environmental trends such as greenhouse gas emissions using our predictive model.</p>

Effect of implementing best management practices on water and habitat quality in the Upper Strawberry River Watershed, Fulton County, Arkansas, USA

This research explores the current and potential green initiatives to advance the sustainability agenda in property management. It outlines the environmental protection strategies adopted in housing management in achieving sustainable development goals. This research also studies how eco-friendly objectives could tie in with other environmental and social goals in sustainable development. The research involves a review of available evidence in an attempt to identify and recognize good practice/instances where green measures are actively promoted in private housing estates. The researcher tries to advance and examine the key issues and challenges that are at stake respecting sustainable development in the context of property-related decision making, and at the same time, suggests how environmental considerations can be integrated into all aspects of a housing project from planning to implementation. The study draws on evidences emerged from relevant literature reviews, interviews and a case study in exploring the role of housing management in promoting sustainability in the scope of realizing green measures. In addition, the researcher would mention the local policy background and discuss the efforts by the government in related to sustainable development. In the final section, the limitations followed by recommendations towards the subject matter would be revealed. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

<p> Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in hydrologic ecosystems is a costly environmental problem. Low Impact Development measures, such as bioretention, can help prevent nutrient pollution. Bioretention is a type of green stormwater infrastructure and landscaping feature that collects, stores and treats stormwater runoff. Bioretention media is composed of sand, soil and an organic material such as compost or wood fines. While bioretention in itself is a sustainable practice, there is an ever growing demand for more sustainable solutions to the world's environmental problems. The St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District's Lemay Waste Water Treatment (WWTP) incinerates biosolids, which creates a non-hazardous byproduct referred to as bottom ash. Incinerator bottom ash from the Lemay WWTP is mostly composed of silica and is very similar to sand. So, if incinerator bottom ash from the Lemay WWTP can be used in bioretention media as a substitute for sand, it will make a sustainable stormwater management technique even more sustainable. However, bioretention media with incinerator bottom ash will have to behave as a typical media to be an acceptable substitution. Nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in the effluent from bioretention cells are of particular interest due to the drastic environmental issues associated with nutrient pollution. Therefore, a bioretention column study was performed to observe nutrient pollutant removal efficiency and plant compatibility of bioretention media containing municipal waste incinerator bottom ash. The results of the column study indicate that municipal waste incinerator bottom ash from the Lemay WWTP could be an acceptable substitution for sand in bioretention media.</p>

<p> This dissertation examines the politics of knowledge in collaborative watershed governance institutions of the Klamath River Basin of Northern California and Southern Oregon. The waters of the Klamath are shared between farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous communities, hydro-electric facilities and one of the most biologically diverse eco-regions in the United States. Since 1986, the watershed has provided the primary spatial unit for resolving resource conflict by coordinating agency and citizen science, guiding integrated resource management and cultivating a shared sense of place and belonging among Klamath watershed inhabitants. For nearly three decades, the Klamath Basin has served as a laboratory for experiments in &ldquo;<i>watershed democracy</i>&rdquo;- a form of hydrologically-grounded political association that attempts to facilitate the direct participation of all watershed inhabitants in knowledge production, deliberation and collective action at the watershed scale. Through the idiom of <i>watershed democracy,</i> I connect empirical research on the outcomes of nearly three decades of community-based natural resource management in the Klamath with theoretical debates waged over the last century and a half regarding the question of scale in environmental science, democratic governance and natural resource management. </p><p> In this dissertation, I analyze the watershed as a scale of knowledge production, a site of democratic deliberation and a unit of environmental governance. I investigate whether the watershed is the most appropriate socio- spatial unit for representing people and place in the Klamath, paying particular attention to the impact of collaborative watershed governance arenas on the ability of Karuk Tribal members to participate in knowledge-production and decision- making for natural resource management in their ancestral territory in northern California. </p><p> Through participatory research with the Karuk Tribe&rsquo;s Department of Natural Resources, participant observation, document analysis and interviews with Federal, State, Tribal and local agency scientists and representatives, I follow knowledge and policy-making processes across a diverse range of institutions engaged in Klamath watershed governance. Combining participatory research and participant observation with theoretical insights from political ecology, science and technology studies (STS) and indigenous studies scholarship, I evaluate the processes and outcomes of collaborative watershed-based governance according to its impacts on local watershed ecosystems and communities. Drawing on the theoretical framework of &ldquo;co-production&rdquo;, I analyze the mutually constitutive relations between watershed science, watershed governance institutions, the materialities of Klamath watershed-ecosystems and the distributions of resource benefits and burdens in Klamath communities. I follow Klamath experiments in watershed democracy negotiate the basic terms of political life such as property, territory, sovereignty and the public good, as well as the material conditions and flows of watershed resources and the patterns of access to, ownership in and distribution of these resources. </p><p> While the Klamath experiements in collaborative environmental governance at the watershed scale have opened up oppportunities for Karuk representatives to participate in knowledge production and decision-making, the watershed scale has itself constrained the focus of integrated resource management, limiting the kinds of knowledge that can pattern as reliable and the types of restoration and management projects that can issue from Klamath collaborative governance forums. I demonstrate how Karuk representatives have both leveraged and critiqued the watershed as a way of conceptualizing Klamath watershed-ecological processes and as a socio-spatial unit for approaching ecological restoration and cultural revitalization in their ancestral territory. Watershed science and watershed governance forums were sometimes leveraged by Karuk representatives to substantiate Karuk sovereignty and resource rights and at times rejected for not being able to convey distinct Karuk epistemologies, ontologies and cosmologies. I demonstrate how collaborative watershed management forums have struggled to render different types of indigenous, local and scientific knowledge commensurable and have instead provoked debates about how to produce knowledge about nature in ways that are appropriate for the local community and its ecosystems. </p><p> I draw attention to the cultural politics of scale to critique watershed-centric management and search for alternative ways of representing the multiple scales through which Klamath inhabitants understand and value nature. I compare watershed-based governance with two other emerging scales of democratic resource governance- firesheds and foodsheds- in their abilities to bring together diverse forms of environmental knowledge around multiple nested scales of social and ecological processes. <i>Firesheds</i> are emerging areas of community-based fire management patterned according to the way fire burns across the western Klamath landscape. <i>Foodsheds</i> are another emerging form of community-based resource governance taking shape in the Klamath around the spatial and temporal characteristics of food resources and their associated management practices in forest ecosystems. Comparing watersheds, firesheds and foodsheds opens up the question of scale in collaborative environmental governance by highlighting tensions among different ways of producing knowledge, managing resources and acting collectively at different bioregional scales in the Klamath. </p><p> Against watershed-centric approaches to ecological democracy, I argue for deliberative multi-scalar approaches to implementing collaborative environmental governance, cultural revitalization and watershed-ecosystem restoration in the Klamath. Multi-scalar perspectives can accommodate multiple ways of making knowledge while avoiding homogenizing diverse situated perspectives into a single way of seeing Klamath eco-cultural landscapes. I argue for <i> &ldquo;democratizing scale&rdquo;</i> in order to define an appropriate scalar framework for producing knowledge, representing human values and making decisions about the management of natural resources. Collaborative environmental governance requires an accompanying democratization of scale to accommodate the myriad ways of knowing nature and making a living in Klamath watershed-ecosystems. Scalar formations that are produced through deliberative democratic processes can provide more inclusive grounds than watersheds for democratic environmental governance and multispecies world-making.</p>

<p> This dissertation suggests that the greening of the corporate governance mechanisms&mdash;meaning efforts to tie executive compensation to environmental targets (incentive) and to enhance board responsibility over environmental performance (monitoring)&mdash;induces managers to comply with pressures to lower toxic emissions in the U.S. high polluting industries.</p><p> Although emphasis has been placed on the benefits of greater use of both incentive and monitoring mechanisms to improve corporate environmental performance, there is little consideration given to the potential costs associated with their implementation. I argue that mechanisms of incentive in the form of environmental compensation may serve as substitute of mechanisms of monitoring by the environmental board committee.</p><p> However, contrary to my expectations, results show that incentive and monitoring are positively associated. Nonetheless, I suggest that these mechanisms are most effective in improving environmental performance when adopted under specific circumstances of environmental risk. I found that the existence of environmental compensation is positively associated with firms' environmental risk. Furthermore, there is weak evidence showing that environmental board committees are more prevalent in firms that face conditions of moderate environmental risk.</p><p> This dissertation employs a panel regression model with random-effects. The sample consists of the S&amp;P500 firms that are required to report toxic emissions to the Toxic Release Inventory, years 2006 to 2011. Data was collected from proxy statements, annual reports, and various other databases.</p>

<p> Simulated oil spills were created in <i>S. alterniflora</i> sediment-water microcosms to determine the effects of applied crude oil on <i> S. alterniflora</i> during two 90-day studies. In the first experiment, oil dosage was varied at 0-250 mg crude oil/g wet soil to determine the lethal dosage level. In the second experiment, oil type, dosage, and soil type were varied to determine the effects of oil under multiple scales of resolution. A light, medium, and heavy crude oil at dosages ranging from 0-150 mg crude oil/g wet soil were used in addition to an oiled and non-oiled soil. Following the completion of the 90-day experiment, several key findings were observed: (1) The lethal dosage limit was reached at 250 mg crude oil/g wet soil during the first experiment but not the second, by design; (2) At initial dosages of 10 and 50 mg crude oil/g wet soil, the oiled soil (acclimated for 4 months) was more influential in decreasing cumulative biomass growth rates compared to oil applied at the oil-water interface; (3) At the heaviest dosages applied as a simulated oil slick, concentrations of 150 mg crude oil/g wet soil, evapotranspiration rates were negatively affected by the oil (significant at p=0.05 in a one-tailed t-test); (4) Light, heavy, and then medium crude oil showed the lowest biomass growths, in that order, indicating that light crude oil was the most toxic in these microcosm experiments with <i> S. alterniflora;</i> (5) The 10 mg oil/g wet soil out-performed the 0 mg oil/g wet soil in transpiration and biomass growth.</p>

No description available.

<p> The purpose of this study was to determine community perceptions of changes in ecosystem services from the restoration of Noisette Creek saltmarsh in North Charleston, South Carolina and to explore the potential impacts of restoring Noisette Creek ecosystems on human well-being. Ecosystem services are human benefits from resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems. These services have been shown to directly affect human well-being in the people using these services. Secondary data were collected at the ZCTA level to create social, economic, and health indicators to assign current levels of well-being in the study area. Three focus groups and 25 q-sorts, using 24 paired statements inspired by focus group data, were conducted to determine community perceptions of restoration and the role of Noisette Creek in influencing human well-being within the community. North Charleston in most well-being indicators scored relatively low compared to Charleston County as a whole and selected ZCTAs within the county, particularly in economic security. The focus group data showed seven main themes surrounding Noisette Creek and its restoration, the most prevalent being access to the creek, sense of community, and awareness of the condition and history of Noisette Creek. Three factors representing three discourses (awareness, ecosystem services, and community) emerged from the 25 q-sorts, all with a mix of individuals from various earned incomes and racial compositions. The general consensus using all three analyses is that the restored ecosystem services provided by Noisette Creek could lead to an overall environmental, social, and economic improvement in the area, and therefore have a positive impact on the well-being of area residents. </p>