<p> In recent years, community interest groups have played an integral role in conflict situations. This paper focuses on community response to locational conflict and the community's role in the process of conflict resolution. A conceptual model of locational conflict is developed. The model includes three essential elements. These are (i) community perceptions of a facility, (ii) the formation of a community group and (iii) a cycle of conflict. This framework leads to a hypothesis that there exists a cycle of conflict between community response to locational conflict and conflict resolution. Specifically, as a conflict evolves there exists a cyclical repetition of stages which lead to a cycle of conflict. As an empirical example of locational conflict, the Upper Ottawa Street Landfill is used to evaluate the validity of the model. Illegal chemical dumping in the past has created an environmental conflict for the surrounding community. The analysis illuminated the hypothesis that a cycle of conflict exists between community response to locational conflict and conflict resolution. </p> / Thesis / Bachelor of Arts (BA)

During an emergency, information availability is critical to preserving life and minimizing damages. During the emergency response, however, information may not be available to those who need it. A community response grid (CRG) can help ameliorate this lack of availability by allowing people to document and distribute emergency information to professional emergency responders (PERs). A CRG combines mobile communications services, Internet technologies, e-government applications, and social network concepts with traditional emergency response systems. The problem that this case study investigated was how to construct a CRG for the City of Dublin, Ohio, Division of Police that works in conjunction with an in-place emergency management system (EMS). The goal was to create a process that is replicable by similarly sized cities that wished to implement a CRG. In this investigation, the author examined CRG design and implementation issues such as message origin, training needs, policy design, security issues, and funding. The results of this investigation were organized in terms of Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) phases. Throughout these phases, the author identified information that can aid PERs in to better implement a CRG. Based on the results, the author developed a paradigm for constructing a CRG that meets the requirements of residents of the City of Dublin, Ohio, Division of Police and of similarly sized municipalities.

Sabang used to be a small, marginalized Philippine fishing village that in the span of three decades became a well-known international sex tourism site. This thesis deals with the implications of tourism (including sex tourism) and how it has become embedded in the daily life in today’s Sabang. The thesis highlights the local populations’ diverse reactions to the various changes associated with tourism growth, in particular how various symbolic, moral, and spatial boundaries are constructed and maintained. The ethnographic material examined in this thesis builds on several periods of fieldwork, in total 18 months, that were carried out between 2003 and 2015. Analytical tools found in tourism anthropology and in particular the branch of postcolonial tourism studies has guided the discussion and analysis of the socio-cultural effects of becoming a tourism town. This thesis argues that complex networks of boundaries are significant in maintaining a sense of order and social cohesion in times of change. Notions of cultural differences are expressed through the narratives and behaviors of the various inhabitants, and contribute to the maintaining of boundaries within and between groups. From the beginning of tourism growth commercial sex has been central and has become a significant factor in the tourism economy. While residents acknowledge their dependency on the go-go bars, the business of the night is framed so as not to defeat the inhabitants’ struggles to maintain local community’s sense of morality, or at least to set up boundaries between the outsiders’ immorality and insiders’ morality. Tourism has also offered opportunities to challenge conventional social hierarchies and local seats of power, and there are also recurrent discussions about who has the right to control resources and who can claim entitlement to a place now shared by people from all over the world.

Dans l'étang de Berre, les apports excessifs en eau douce entraînent souvent des variations brusques de la salinité et des apports en azote parfois abondants. Les processus de régénération sédimentaire et d'élimination d'azote constituent des phénomènes majeurs pouvant expliquer le développement phytoplanctoniques et contrôler l'eutrophisation. L'étude de ces processus a été réalisée dans 2 stations ayant subi des historiques de variations de salinité différents. RDNA et anammox étaient négligeables. La dénitrification (couplée à la nitrification) serait le principal processus de sortie de N2 de l'étang. La forte production primaire pélagique utilisant l'ammonium a pu être expliquée par les processus de régénération, contrairement au nitrate dont la demande pélagique serait soutenue par des apports externes. Comme la salinité est susceptible d'influencer les processus d'azote, des microcosmes ont été utilisés afin d'évaluer la sensibilité de ces processus (résistance, résilience, shift) face aux variations à court terme de la salinité. Les 2 stations ont présenté des réponses différentes (dénitrification et nitrate réduction plus résilientes que la nitrification), suggérant que les stress halins à long terme influencent les réponses à court terme. Une hypothèse serait que la diversité et la structure des communautés joueraient un rôle crucial dans le maintien des taux d'activité. Dans cette étude, seule la communauté nitrifiante (AO) a été étudiée. Les AO et leurs transcrits étaient spécifiques aux sites et leurs abondances changeaient faiblement entre les microcosmes (résistance plus forte dans le site fréquemment soumis à des fluctuations de salinité). / The Berre lagoon receives excess freshwater leading to strong changes in the ecosystem salinity and in the nutrient inputs. Regeneration processes and the N2 removal of nitrogen are of a particular interest as they can explain the planktonic development and control the eutrophication state. These processes were studied in 2 stations with different patterns of long term stresses. DNRA and anammox were negligible. Denitrification (particularly the one coupled to nitrification) would be the main N2 removal in the lagoon. The high primary production based on N-NH4+ can be explained by the regeneration processes, while the primary production based on N-NO3- might be sustained by external inputs. As salinity susceptible to influence directly or indirectly the nitrogen processes, a microcosm approach was used in order to assess their sensitivity (resistance, resilience, shifts) to short term salinity fluctuations. Overall, towards the same kind of perturbations, the two stations responded differently (denitrification and nitrate reduction exhibited showed higher resilience than nitrification.), suggesting that long-term saline stresses would influence short-term responses. We suggest that the diversity and the structure of the communities would be crucial in their functional redundancy and thereby in the maintenance of the rates. In this study, we focused on the total structure of the nitrifying community (AO). AO and their transcripts were site-specific and their abundances changed slightly between microcosms (higher resistance in the site subject to frequent salinity fluctuations compared to the other site which is not affected by changes in the in situ salinity).

This thesis looks at the current fracking debate on a national scale, before focusing specifically on how this debate is playing out in the landscape of Central Arkansas. Focusing on the lack of national regulation, the unique array of state regulations that have popped up are assessed in their effectiveness on the ground through speaking with residents of the area. The demographics of these residents are analyzed within an assessment of environmental injustice vulnerability. This ethnographic approach also compares the de jure v. de facto outcomes of these regulations through the narratives of residents working with organizations across the political spectrum, and specifically seeks to gauge their own personal stories and experiences with regulators and the fracking industry. Other key actors are identified. This thesis concludes that agency capture is a reality for these residents, and their perceived powerlessness drastically increases the power of the gas companies that monopolize the political agenda in the region.

Traditionally, hypoxia has been defined as the situation where DO levels have fallen below 2.0 mg O2 L-1, but increasing evidence suggests that this low level of DO is inadequate to describe the onset of hypoxia impacts for many organisms. Consequently, there is a need for a greater understanding of how ‘moderate’ alterations in DO levels will affect ecosystem processes and functionality, specifically through behavioural and physiological alterations at the organism and community level. This thesis reports on mesocosm experiments which were conducted to examine the effects of moderate ( > 3.0 mg O2 L-1) hypoxia on firstly, a key ecosystem engineer, the brittlestar Amphiura filiformis, and secondly, on the Station L4 infaunal macrobenthic community. Station L4 is a longstanding marine biodiversity and MSFD reference site and forms part of the Western Channel Observatory. At the organism level, short-term (14 d) exposure to moderate hypoxia significantly reduced oxygen uptake rates, oocyte diameter and oocyte development in A. filiformis. However, these physiological affects occurred irrespective of brittlestar population density. Additionally, moderate hypoxia reduced brittlestar activity, in terms of bioturbation behaviour, consequentially having an effect on ammonium and silicate fluxes. These observations were only detected when brittlestar population density was high. It was concluded that denser populations of A. filiformis may therefore exhibit the greatest changes in behaviour and shifts in ecosystem function as competition for resources and oxygen heightens. The benthic community at Station L4, displayed considerable tolerance to medium-term (6 wk.) exposure to moderate hypoxia, in terms of structure, diversity and bioturbatory behaviour, but these results may be different if exposure was longer or more severe. Alterations in nutrient fluxes were detected, but there was little evidence to suggest these changes were due to macrofaunal behavioural alterations. Additionally, results from this study revealed that bringing complex natural communities into the mesocosm caused a substantial loss of individuals and species, mainly due to translocation and disturbance effects. This important insight into the effects of bringing community assemblages into the mesocosm confirms that even with a loss of diversity, the L4 community maintained functionality and was resilient to alterations in DO. This suggests that the L4 benthic community does not depend on any one specific species for the provision of important ecosystem processes, resulting in considerable functional resilience within the L4 system. However, vulnerability to benthic systems may increase if functionality is dominated by species such as A. filiformis. Consequently, moderate hypoxia may not immediately affect benthic communities in terms of structure and diversity, but the physiological effects on individuals, especially to reproductive development, may cause alterations in the quality and quantity of planktonic propagules supplied by benthic species to the pelagic environment. This could affect benthic community diversity and functionality in the long term if repeated hypoxic events occur.

This thesis looks at the current fracking debate on a national scale, before focusing specifically on how this debate is playing out in the landscape of Central Arkansas. Focusing on the lack of national regulation, the unique array of state regulations that have popped up are assessed in their effectiveness on the ground through speaking with residents of the area. The demographics of these residents are analyzed within an assessment of environmental injustice vulnerability. This ethnographic approach also compares the de jure v. de facto outcomes of these regulations through the narratives of residents working with organizations across the political spectrum, and specifically seeks to gauge their own personal stories and experiences with regulators and the fracking industry. Other key actors are identified. This thesis concludes that agency capture is a reality for these residents, and their perceived powerlessness drastically increases the power of the gas companies that monopolize the political agenda in the region.

Prescribed fire and imazapyr are two silviculture tools used to control hardwood midstory competition in intensively managed, mid-rotation pine (Pinus spp.) stands but also may support conservation of biodiversity in the southeastern United States. Therefore, I investigated select measures of biodiversity response, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, carabid beetles, songbirds, and vegetation communities, to fire and imazapyr treatments in intensively managed, mid-rotation pine stands of east-central Mississippi. I used a randomized complete block design of 6 stands (blocks) with 4, 10- ha treatment plots assigned randomly a treatment of burn only, herbicide only, burn + herbicide, or control. I applied dormant season prescribed fires every 3 years beginning in January 2000 and a one-time application of imazapyr in September 1999 using 877 ml/ha (12.0 liquid oz./ac; Arsenal®, BASF 2006). I sampled avifauna, herpetofauna, small mammal, and carabid beetle communities using appropriate sampling techniques for attaining species-specific relative abundance. I also measured vegetation structure and biomass. Vegetation and bird communities exhibited significant responses to treatments. Imazapyr had the greatest initial impact on communities followed by a long-term effect of repeated prescribed fires on a 3 year fire-return interval. Combining fire and imazapyr perpetuated high-quality browse for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), plant species richness, high-priority bird species relative abundances, and diversity of landscape-level vegetation structure and biomass by creating a two-tier vegetation structure (pine canopy and herbaceous understory). Independent treatments also were more effective management approaches to sustain biodiversity than controls by maintaining or increasing overall species richness specifically soon after treatment application. Most responses of other wildlife communities were time-limited suggesting the possibility of greater effects of factors other than treatments such as long-term disturbance regimes (e.g., forest management practices, climate trends), proximity of treatment plots to wetlands, and landscape-level population dynamics including characteristics within and among stands. Combined and independent applications of these treatments will support biodiversity conservation, sustainable forestry objectives, and concomitant timber management goals. Long-term conservation of biodiversity within an intensive timber management matrix also may benefit from future investigations of multiple-herbicide tank mixtures, population dynamics of indicator species, and landscape-level biodiversity responses across multiple strata.

Prescribed fire and herbicides are 2 silviculture tools used by forest managers to control hardwood competition in pine (Pinus spp.) forests. I tested effects of prescribed burning and herbicides on selected invertebrate communities, including carabid beetles, and compared 2 invertebrate sampling approaches in thinned, intensively managed pine stands in Kemper County, Mississippi. I used 6 replicate stands containing 4, 10-ha treatment plots each that were randomly assigned treatments of burn only, herbicide only, burn/herbicide, and control. I suction-sampled invertebrate communities and pitfall trapped carabid beetles to examine treatment responses. Direct effects of burning and overall vegetation response influenced communities most but responses were limited. Sampling inefficiencies may have obscured treatment effects and managers and researchers are advised to consider all available methods when integrating invertebrate research. Information on forest management effects is still lacking but future research incorporating invertebrate sampling will support a better understanding of management impacts on ecosystems.