Master of Arts / Department of Geography / Douglas G. Goodin / My thesis characterizes the temporal and spatial behavior of ozone and fine particulate matter in the Kansas City metropolitan area. I also investigate the capability of a synoptic weather typing scheme, the Spatial Synoptic Classification, to characterize and explain the behavior of ozone and fine particulate matter in the Kansas City area. Daily maximum ozone concentrations from nine active ozone monitoring stations and daily average particulate concentrations six active PM2.5 monitoring stations were compared to daily SSC weather type records from 2004-2010. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests were conducted on the ozone and PM2.5 data to analyze temporal and spatial behavior. A non-parametric recursive partitioning technique was used to create a conditional inference tree-based regression model to analyze the association between the different SSC weather types and the selected pollutants. The ANOVA results showed significant seasonal trends with both pollutants. In general, ozone concentrations are typically lower in the spring and autumn months and higher during the summer months. PM2.5 concentrations were not as dependent on the season, however, they did tend to be higher in the late summer months and lower in the autumn months. The results also showed significant differences for both pollutants in average concentration depending on location. The ozone concentrations generally tended to be higher in the areas that are located downwind of Kansas City and lowest at the station located in the middle of the urban area. Fine particulates also seemed to be highest in the downwind portion of the urban area and lowest in the region upwind of the city. The conditional inference tree showed that higher concentrations of both pollutants are associated with tropical air masses and lower concentrations are associated with polar air masses.

The British-Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) is predicted to have deglaciated rapidly from ~ 18 ka, in response to rising sea level and temperature, similar forcings experienced by modern polar ice sheets. As the main conduits of ice mass loss, the reaction of ice streams to these forcings is thought to have been central in determining the mode and timing of this deglaciation. However, lack of understanding of ice stream influence on the glaciology and deglaciation of ice sheets limits confidence in ice sheet model predictions. NW Scotland is an area of the last BIIS predicted to have been dominated by ice stream onset conditions. This thesis presents results from a geomorphological and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) analysis study which resulted in the production of a composite ice-sheet thermal regime map and retreat chronology for the last BIIS in this region. Mapping and surface exposure dating suggest that the regional glaciology and landscape evolution was dominated by the presence of ice-stream onset zones during Greenland Stadial-2 (GS-2). Mountain top erratics were uplifted and transported to high elevation during GS-2, before 16.5 ka BP. By inference, mountain summits were covered by ice during maximal ice sheet conditions. The existence of sharp thermo-mechanical contrasts, developed in response to ice streaming, are proposed as the main controls on bedrock erosion and terrestrial sediment deposition. The interpretation of ‘trimlines’ in NW Scotland as englacial thermo-mechanical boundaries, is verified by the identification of ‘rip-offs’, a newly recognised geomorphic feature in the UK, and by quantitative demonstration of the increase in glacial erosion in the vicinity of these boundaries. Geomorphic and TCN data supports a conceptual model of thermal inversion following ice-stream cessation. The first description of ‘till tails’ in the UK provides insight into the glaciological organisation and thermal evolution of the BIIS. A dated (17.6 ka BP) terrestrial glacial limit on the north Sutherland coast indicates early ice retreat from the shelf and provides a minimum ii constraint on ice-stream cessation. This indicates rapid loss of ice extent and volume following shutdown of the Minch palaeo-ice stream. Major ice sheet reorganisation c. 15-16 ka BP is suggested by the correlation of some lateral margin ages with high elevation erratic deposition ages implying significant ice thinning and margin retreat prior to this time. Additionally, thinning of ~300 m is predicted for some areas prior to 14 ka BP.

The freshwater pearl mussel (FPM) is an iconic bivalve mollusc whose presence in rivers is assumed to indicate a healthy, bio-diverse ecosystem, capable of providing a range of goods and services. However, excessive sedimentation has been shown consistently to have detrimental effects on FPM, at both the juvenile and adult life stages. As a major source of diffuse river pollution, previous studies have shown erosion rates rising with increasing precipitation, suggesting also increased risk under wetter, future climates. So far, however, most erosion studies have been at the small plot scale and hence it is not possible to make predictions at the catchment scale where risk assessments for FPM are most relevant. Furthermore, little research has focussed on how work to remediate sediment delivery might affect public appreciation of rivers as highly valued landscape features. This research focussed on three typical FPM rivers in the UK: the Ehen catchment in Northern England; the Conwy in North Wales and the Dee in East Scotland and asked 1) How will climate change predictions for the period 2010 – 2039 affect soil erosion at the catchment scale? 2) What factors influence public attitudes towards rivers, the FPM, and mitigation measures to control sediment movement? and 3) Can habitat management for FPMs take into account climate-driven environmental change and social values when constructing conservation goals? In respect of the first aim, the Pan-European Soil Erosion Risk assessment model, PESERA, showed that whilst soil erosion rates increased with rising precipitation, land cover was a more dominant driver of erosion rates over the period studied (2010-2039). Despite being flatter, arable land had higher erosion rates than those from forested portions of each catchment, which were in regions of steeper topography. Secondly, based on a mixture of qualitative focus groups and quantitative surveys, the majority of people had positive attitudes toward rivers, both in a general and local sense. The FPM was not a well-known aquatic species but information about possible human or ecological beneficiaries of mitigation to control sediment delivery into rivers did not affect how acceptable these measures were perceived to be. Factors increasing acceptability of mitigation measures included natural looking scenes that were accessible. In contrast, concerns about impacts on agriculture and food production led to lower levels of acceptability. Finally, this research highlighted crossovers between FPM habitat needs and ideal river scenes from a public perspective and concluded that social values of riverscapes can be included in habitat management plans for the FPM, without compromising conservation goals. A case study exemplifying the methodology used to do this, using the Dee catchment, Scotland and future scenarios from the National Ecosystem Assessment showed that conservation measures in aid of the FPM can accommodate different land management priorities and societal needs. As one of the first studies to assess interactions between evidence from physical sciences, ecology and public perception for an iconic species, this research is expected to have far reaching consequences for public policy, land management practices and river conservation. At a policy level, this includes the ways in which environmental practices can accommodate the social values identified within this research to allow a more holistic approach to ecosystem management; for on the ground practitioners, this research will influence how ecologically important but socially unfamiliar species are managed and how the impacts of land management are assessed both temporally, (to include the impacts of future climate change), spatially, (to take account of catchment wide effects) and socially (to examine social acceptability of different management options).

<p>The main aim of this thesis was to contribute with detailed information of regional environmental change during the Holocene through studies of speleothems and their growth environments from two caves, Korallgrottan and Labyrintgrottan in northwestern Sweden, and a cellar vault in Uppsala. This was done through studies of stable isotopes and luminescence properties in the speleothems in combination with a detailed monitoring study in Korallgrottan.</p><p>The monitoring study suggests that stalagmites fed by stalactites with slow and stable drip rates from deep inside the cave may be suitable as palaeoclimate archives. Similarities between oxygen isotope signals of contemporary samples from Labyrintgrottan and Korallgrottan emphasize the potential of speleothems from Labyrintgrottan to also provide high resolution regional palaeoclimate information.</p><p>Except for a number of cold events stalagmite δ¹⁸O records from northern Scandinavia indicate that temperatures were warmer than today between 9500 and 6000 years ago. During this period the interval between 7800 and 6000 years ago seems to have been the warmest. The area above Labyrintgrottan was most likely covered by much denser vegetation than today at the time of stalagmite growth (9500-7500 years ago) and was, unlike today, probably situated below the local tree-limit between 9000 and 8000 years ago. The δ¹⁸O record of a stalagmite from Korallgrottan covering the last 4000 years agrees with the concept of a warmer period, the so called Medieval Warm Period, centred around AD1000 and a colder period, the so called Little Ice Age, somewhere between AD1000 and today.</p><p>Studies of luminescence properties in fast growing speleothems from Uppsala indicate that the variations in luminescence intensity are annual and that the annual lamiae of the luminescent record represent a flush of organic material.</p>

Prepared by the Arid Lands Information Center, Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona ; Dr. James R. Silliman, compiler.

Prepared by the Arid Lands Information Center, Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona ; Sandra J. Turner, compiler.

No description available.

In the past decades, engineers have started to realize the importance of the interaction between vegetation, biota and water flow, in riverine and marine environments; a discipline that has been named “Eco-Hydraulics”. Scientists have valued this coupled phenomenon for much longer than their engineering colleagues. As early as 1970, marine researchers presented the evidence that colonies of micro-organisms might alter the stability of fine cohesive sediments (Neuman et al., 1970). However traditional models of sediments transport (e.g. Shields, 1936) have been derived using abiotic sediments and did not consider that most wet surfaces would soon be colonized by micro-organisms and their extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), a combination called “biofilm” (Lock, 1993). Scientists during the 1990s, after observing this phenomenon in the field, coined the term “biostabilization”. During this period they showed that colonies of cyanobacteria and diatoms coating fine sand or cohesive sediments can increase their stability by up to 960% compared to abiotic sediments (Grant and Gust, 1987; Dade et al, 1990; Paterson 1997). Only recently have engineers started to take into consideration the effect of such increased cohesion and adhesion due to biogenic forces within the sediment transport model (Righetti and Lucarelli, 2007); yet all of those studies have low applicability because they are linked to specific environmental conditions. Moreover no data are available on the effect of biofilm on larger sediments (e.g. coarse sand and gravel). The present thesis provides experimental data carried out in a flume laboratory pertaining to biostabilization of non-cohesive coarse sand and gravels at a scale representation of a real river system (from 0.2m to 1m). Four sediment substratum (glass spheres of D50 = 1.09mm and 2.00mm; sand of D50 = 1.20mm and gravel of D50 = 2.20mm) were colonized under unidirectional flow by a cyanobacterium (Phormidium sp.) for between 1 and 10 weeks. The increase in erosion threshold for biotic sediment is then investigated using a series of different methods ranging from traditional sediment transport techniques (e.g. Yalin, 1972), to image thresholding and particle image velocimetry (PIV) assessments of flow modification due to biofilm presence. Moreover, tensile strength analysis of ex-situ biofilm/substratum specimens will be presented to understand better the mechanical property of this composite material. Data indicates that: i) biostabilization of sediments in the range of coarse sand and gravel occurs (9%-150% more shear stress required to induce entrainment compared to abiotic sediments) but to a lower extent compared to critical entrainment thresholds for fine sand and cohesive sediments (Paterson, 1997); ii) flume experimentation can be employed to control specific variables affecting biostabilization and could help to unfold the complicated interactions between environmental variables, and the affect of flow on the growth and strength of biofilm colonization over sediments; iii) strong biofilm growth generated a more uniform velocity field, with reduction in shear stress (up to 82% compared with abiotic sediments) and decreases in roughness length of the bed (up to 94% compared to abiotic sediments); iv) Composite biofilm/substratum specimens presented a clear elastic behaviour when tensile tested; v) Conventional models of sediment transport (e.g. Wiberg and Smith, 1987) do not consider the presence of biofilm and will not work in the case of bio-mats smoothing the surface of the bed; hence the need for new models which include the biofilm elasticity and the bio-mat smoothing process. This thesis suggests two theoretical examples where the biofilm action is considered at a grain to grain and bio-mat scale.

Subsidence in river deltas is a complex process that has both natural and human causes (Boesch et al., 1994). The Yellow River delta is used for farming, contains an important nature reserve for wild animals especially for waterfowl, has a population of 1.64 million, and is the location of significant oil fields (Chen et al., 2012). Increasing human activities like farming and petroleum extraction are affecting the Yellow River delta, and one consequence is subsidence. This subsidence may have social, economic and environmental impacts (Syvitski et al., 2009). The purpose of this thesis is to measure the surface displacement in Yellow River delta and to investigate the causes of measured displacement. The use of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) for Earth surface displacement mapping has increased since the 1990s when a lot of radar images become available. InSAR time series techniques identify displacement of an area between different image acquisition times. In this study, StaMPS package was employed to process Envisat ASAR images collected between 2007 and 2010. StaMPS selects only the stable pixels from interferograms to maintain the coherence signals over a long time interval. Consistent results between two descending tracks show subsidence with a mean velocity of up to 30 mm/yr in the radar line of sight direction in Gudao Town (oilfield), Gudong oilfield and Xianhe Town of the delta, and also show that subsidence is not uniform across the delta. Field investigation shows an association between areas of subsidence and of petroleum extraction. In a 9 km2 area of the Gu-Dao Oilfield in the delta, InSAR derived surface deformation is used to model the geometry, volume or pressure change of the deformation source, namely the extraction of fluids, using three different models: the spherical source Mogi type model, the finite prolate spheroid model and the poroelastic disk reservoir model. In general, good fits between InSAR observations and modelled displacements are seen. The source depths estimated in the three models agree well with the published oilfield depth. The subsidence observed in the vicinity of the oilfield is thus suggested to be caused by fluid extraction. For Mogi type model, a uniform subsidence rate of about 7 mm/yr is co-estimated. InSAR observations in Xianhe Town in the delta, which is not affected by oil extraction, also shows 8~12 mm/yr uniform subsidence. It is suggested this uniform subsidence is caused by other sources e.g. loading and sediment compaction. Since InSAR only measures relative displacement, accurate determination of small uniform rate need the reference phase provided by other observations e.g. GPS and levelling. Mogi model provides the volume change in Gudao oilfield. The ellipsoidal source and the disk reservoir model the pressure changes. Additional reservoir information e.g. material parameter will help better confine the model parameters. Although no production data is available for comparison, the volume and pressure changes obtained from the models, together with InSAR observed displacement might be of interest for oil industry, to predict future subsidence in Gudao oilfield.

A rating curve provides a functional relationship between water height (i.e. stage) and discharge at a specified cross-section in a river. Used in combination with a time series of stage, rating curves become one of the central components for generating continuous records of streamflow. Since developing and maintaining rating curves can be time consuming, hydraulic models have shown potential to reduce the effort required for developing rating curves. A central challenge with modeling procedures, however, is the acquisition of accurate stream channel and floodplain topography. From this perspective, this thesis focuses on the real-world application of close-range remote sensing techniques such as laser-based ranging technologies (i.e. Light detection and ranging or LiDAR) or acoustic based ranging technologies (i.e. acoustic Doppler current profiler or ADCP) to capture topographic information for hydraulic modeling applications across various spatial scales. First, a review of the current LiDAR literature was carried out to identify potential ways to take full advantage of these novel data and technologies in the future. This was followed by four interconnected studies whereby: (i) a low-cost custom laser scanning system was designed to capture grain size distributions for a small stream; (ii) synthetically thinned airborne laser scanning (ALS) data was applied in a physically-based hydraulic modelling framework to develop rating curves; (iii) low-resolution national-scale ALS was coupled with ADCP bathymetry to be used in conjunction with a hydraulic model to develop rating curves; and (iv) the impact of measurement uncertainties on generating rating curves with a hydraulic model were investigated. This thesis highlights the potential of close-range remote sensing techniques for capturing accurate stream channel topography and derive from these data, the necessary parameters required for hydraulic modeling applications. / En avbördningskurva tillhandahåller ett funktionellt förhållande mellan vattendjup (dvs. vattenstånd) och flöde vid ett specifikt tvärsnitt i ett vattendrag. Avbördningskurvan blir en central komponent för generering av kontinuerliga tidsserier av vattenföring från tidsserier av vattenstånd. Eftersom det är tidskrävande att utveckla och underhålla avbördningskurvor erbjuder hydrauliska modeller attraktiva möjligheter att minska den insats som krävs för att utveckla avbördningskurvorna. En central utmaning för sådana modelleringsförfaranden är emellertid tillgången till noggrann topografidata av strömfåran och de omgivande stränderna. Den här avhandlingen fokuserar på tillämpningen av fjärranalystekniker för avståndsmätning på nära håll, såsom laserbaserade teknik (dvs. Light detection and ranging eller LiDAR) och akustisk baserat teknik (dvs. acoustic Doppler current profiler eller ADCP), för att fånga topografisk information för hydraulisk modellering av vattendrag i olika rumsliga skalor. Först presenteras en litteraturstudie av den nuvarande LiDAR-litteratur för att identifiera potentiella sätt att dra full nytta av dessa nya data och tekniker i framtiden. Detta följs av fyra sammanlänkade studier: (i) tillämpning av ett lågkostnads-laseravsökningssystem för att fånga kornstorleksfördelningar i ett litet vattendrag, (ii) syntetiskt förtunnad flygburen laserskanningsdata (ALS) applicerad i en fysiskt baserad hydraulisk modell för att utveckla avbördningskurvor, (iii) lågupplösta ALS från Svensk nationell höjdmodell kopplade med ADCP-batymetri för att ta fram en avbördningskurva med en hydraulisk modell, och (iv) undersökning av effekterna av osäkerheter på mätdata för att generera avbördningskurvor med en hydraulisk modell. Denna avhandling belyser potentialen för fjärranalystekniker för avståndsmätning på nära håll, för att fånga strömfårans exakta topografi och ifrån dessa data härleda de parametrar som krävs för hydrauliska modelleringstillämpningar. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Manuscript.</p>