Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Env. Sc.)--University of Adelaide, Mawson Graduate Centre for Environmental Studies, 1996. / Two col. maps in pocket on back end-paper. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-135).

Jung Jeng Lake located in Mei Nong in south of Taiwan, is the origin of Mei Nong Hakka culture. Owing to stockbreeding hogs, cultivation and domestic wastewater in the upstream of Jiang Tz Liau River that finally flows into Jung Jeng Lake for years, the lake thus suffered extremely serious problem of eutrophication. In addition, the water hyacinth remain seeds in the lake and reproduce resulting in speeding up the lacustrine silt that would greatly shorten the life of Jung Jeng Lake. Using artificial lagoon and artificial floating island were found able to improve the water quality of lake. Therefore, we could sightseeing resource, historic site, and ecological resources of Mei Nong. This research applied the advantages of ecological engineering methods to restore the Jung Jeng Lake, and thus the southern Taiwan unique Hakka tourism can be presented.

Current stormwater management practices (SMP) are not sufficient for maintaining predevelopment runoff volumes. Low impact development (LID) uses site scale SMP to reduce runoff. Bioretention cells, one practice within LID, are small planting beds designed to filter and infiltrate runoff using amended soil and vegetation. The bioretention cell can create a harsh soil moisture regime for plants that has not been adequately characterized. Bioretention cell construction, meteorological, and soil science data were built into the Happy Plant Model to determine how often bioretention plants were saturated and experienced water stress over a thirty year period. The model takes into account eight design factors: soil media depth and texture, gravel storage, ponding depth, drainage area, in situ soil infiltration rate, the landscape coefficient, and root zone depth. The Happy Plant model will aid future studies and landscape architecture practitioners with bioretention plant selection.

Rivers and their surrounding riparian and subsurface ecosystems, known as river corridors, are important landscape features that provide a myriad of ecological and societal benefits. While the importance of riverine flooding has been widely acknowledged and extensively studied, very little research has been conducted on the interactions between river channels and their adjacent floodplains. The importance of this hydrologic connectivity between rivers and floodplains has been emphasized in recent decades and now ecological engineering techniques such as stream restoration are often utilized to restore connectivity between streams and their riparian ecosystems. Despite its ubiquity in practice, there are still many basic components of river-floodplain connectivity that are not well understood. Furthermore, a lack of cost-effective monitoring techniques makes sustainable management of river corridors quite challenging. Thus, the overall goals of my dissertation were: 1) develop user-friendly river corridor monitoring techniques utilizing cost-effective approaches such as time-lapse digital imagery and satellite remote sensing and 2) identify the effects of anthropogenic activities on river corridor hydrologic and biogeochemical processes that occur at varying spatial and temporal scales during flood events. These goals were addressed through five independent studies that span spatiotemporal scales. The five studies utilized a combination of novel remote sensing, hydrologic/hydraulic modeling, and high frequency spatial sampling techniques to analyze river corridor dynamics. Results highlight that digital imagery and satellite remote sensing can be effective tools for monitoring river corridors in data scare regions. Additionally, impounding streams and river corridors alters floodplain connectivity and biogeochemical processing of reactive solutes such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Findings from this work highlight the important role that spatial and temporal scale plays in river corridor dynamics. Overall, this research provides new analytical techniques and findings that can be used to effectively monitor and manage river corridors. / PHD

Fire occurrences in the Everglades have increased since hydrologic alterations began, yet the vulnerability of Everglades peat to combustion during wildfires has yet to be determined. Natural fire regimes help maintain ecosystem functions and services and disruptions of natural disturbance regimes can have detrimental impacts, jeopardizing ecosystem health. Severe peat combustion can destroy native vegetation, alter microtopography, and release large amounts of stored carbon into the atmosphere. To create a better understanding of the mechanistic controls on Everglades ground fires, the soil's physical properties within several sites of Water Conservation Area 3 and how changes in water table affect these physical characteristics were determined. Areas disturbed by hydrologic alterations contain higher mineral content and therefore require lower water content to combust when compared to preserved regions. Changes in water tables have a significant effect on soil moisture and lower water tables drastically increase the vulnerability of a region. / by James Johnson. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

This thesis presents a model which estimates energy and cost savings that can be realized by implementing Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs) at mechanically aerated wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in southeast Florida. Historical plant monitoring data is used to estimate savings achieved by implementing innovative aeration technologies which include : 1) Fine Bubble DIffusers ; 2) Single-Stage Turbo Blowers ; 3) Automatic Dissolved Oxygen (DO) Control. Key assumptions for modeling performance of each technology are researched and discussed, such as trends in the future cost of electricity, efficiency of blowers, and practical average DO levels for each scenario. Capital cost estimates and operation maintenance (O&M) costs are estimated to complete life-cycle cost and payback analyses. The benefits are quantified on an individual and cumulative basis, to identify which technologies are cost-beneficial. The results demonstrate that levels of payback of 20 years or less are available at the three WWTPs studied. / by Eric Stanley. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Cette étude vise à développer un système de dépollution d'eau et de sédiments viticoles. Le glyphosate, diuron et 3,4-dichloroaniline (3,4-DCA) sont considérés, en tenant compte de la charge en cuivre. L'augmentation du temps de séjour des polluants dans le système et le choix de la bioaugmentation couplée à la phytoremédiation est la stratégie retenue. Chaque composante d'un triplet « sorbant-inoculum bactérien-plante » a été sélectionnée en laboratoire et le triplet mis en oeuvre en microcosmes en conditions partiellement contrôlées.La sélection de matériaux sorbants dans différentes matrices liquides en présence des polluants seuls ou en mélange montre que les capacités de sorption des différents matériaux testés varient selon le polluant, sa formulation (seul ou en mélange) et la matrice liquide. Le sédiment se révèle être le meilleur sorbant pour le glyphosate ; le sable pour le diuron et le 3,4-DCA.Les performances de dissipation des colonies tolérantes isolées varient fortement selon le polluant. Le consortium sélectionné pour le procédé dissipe le glyphosate, le diuron et le 3,4-DCA en milieu liquide et complexe par ailleurs le cuivre.L'expérience en microcosmes montre que le temps de rétention hydraulique influe sur l'efficacité du système et que les matériaux sorbants sont efficaces. De plus les performances de dissipation atteintes sont bonnes. L'effet de la bioaugmentation sur les performances de dissipation n'est pas significatif pour le glyphosate et le 3,4-DCA, mais améliore en moyenne la dissipation du diuron. Un temps d'action prolongé dans la matrice solide s'avère nécessaire pour obtenir une bonne efficacité du procédé. / This study aims at developing a depollution system for vineyard sediments and passing water. Glyphosate, diuron and 3,4-dichloroaniline (3,4-DCA) have been chosen, taking a copper load into account. Strategical choices are increased pollutant hydraulic retention time and the use of bioaugmentation together with phytoextraction. Each item on this « sorbent-bacterial inoculum-plant » triplet has been beforehand selected in the laboratory and implemented in microcosm experiments under semi-controlled conditions.Sorbent material selection in different liquid matrices with pollutants alone or in combination shows that material sorption capacities change with the type of pollutant. It has also been shown that these capacities vary with formulation (alone or in combination) and liquid matrix chosen. Sediment is awarded the best sorbent for glyphosate, sand the best sorbent for diuron and 3,4-DCA.Dissipation performances from isolated colonies are strongly related to the nature of the compound. Elected consortium degrades glyphosate, diuron and 3,4-dichloroaniline (3,4-DCA) in liquid culture as well as it complexes copper.Microcosm experiments show that hydraulic retention time weighs on pollutant concentration in water at the system outlet. Sorbents prove to be efficient. Dissipation performances are satisfactory. Bioaugmentation does not impact on glyphosate and 3,4-DCA dissipation performances significantly, but enhances diuron dissipation in average. Suitable process efficiency requires increased action time within the solid matrix.

The issues of wetland protection has been looked at attentively in Taiwan. However, the action of protecting wetlands can not replace the wetlands lost in speedy developments, which causes the wetland ecosystem in natural environment of Taiwan vanished stage by stage. The idea of ¡§created wetland¡¨ refers to the conversion of a persistent upland or shallow-water area into a wetland by human activity to help to compensate the natural wetlands lost due to destruction by human beings. Such kind of wetland is used to restore wetlands or to let it become a parkland. Created wetlands are different from ¡§constructed wetland¡¨ emphasize the function of wastewater treatment. In the past, park in urban area was usually designed for human use which caused other organisms can not abundantly, and thus the ecosystem in municipal areas became poor. Hence, there is a new concept that we combine the created wetland and park together in order to improve the biodiversity of the ecosystem in urban area. The Zhou-zai wetland park is located beside the Lotus pond in Zuo-ying of Kaohsiung City. This created wetland was initially wanted to attract Pheasant-tailed Jacana come Kaohsiung through the ecosystem. The park was not only designed for human activities but also for other creatures. We tried to use ¡§ecological engineering methods¡¨ to build this artificial habitat. We hope it can promote the biodiversity in urban city by this wetland ecosystem. In this study, we use Zhou-zai wetland park as a case study, and probed into the principles of planning and management in urban created wetland park. It was hoped that the result of this research can provide some consults about constructing created wetland parks in the feature in Taiwan, so that the strategies of wetland protection can then become positive.

Indigenous peoples worldwide are engaged in the process of rebuilding and re-empowering their communities. They are faced with challenges emerging from a history of physical, spiritual, emotional, and economic colonization, challenges including a degraded resource base, lack of infrastructure, and consistent pressure on their land tenure and ways of life. These communities, however, continue demonstrating profound resilience in the midst of these challenges; working to re-empower and provide for the contemporary needs of their people in a manner grounded in supporting bio-cultural integrity; the interconnected relationship of people and homeland. At the same time, in response to contemporary environmental degradation, the fields of resilience science, adaptive management, and ecological engineering have emerged, the recommendations of which bear remarkable similarity to Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, and governance structures. The relationship between these fields and Indigenous epistemology, underscored by experience in the field, has led to the conceptualization of bio-cultural engineering design; design that emerges from the inter-relationship of people and ecology. The biocultural engineering design methodology identifies the unique cosmological relationships and cultural underpinnings of contemporary Indigenous communities, and applies this specific cultural lens to engineered design and architecture. The development of resilience principles within the fields of architecture and engineering have created avenues for biocultural design to be translatable into engineering and architectural design documents, allowing access to large scale financial support for community development. This method is explored herein through literature and analysis of practical application in several different Indigenous communities and nations. This method lends itself to future research on biocultural design processes as a source of technological and design innovation as Indigenous communities practice placing their values and cosmologies at the center of development decisions, as well as comprehensive start-to-finish documentation of the methodology applied to diverse engineered applications, including water systems, energy systems, and building construction.