As a result of urbanization, impermeable surfaces cover about 40% of land area around Pennypack Creek (Philadelphia, PA). The resulting increase in stormwater runoff leads to flooding, bank erosion, and stream habitat degradation. Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) have been constructed in the Pennypack Preserve (Montgomery County, PA) to evaluate the effectiveness of various mitigation techniques. The BMPs include a row of 3 infiltration trenches constructed in July 2006 to compare different designs. Water level data were recorded in monitoring wells from December 2006 through June 30, 2009, in addition to controlled infiltration experiments. The monitoring wells in the infiltration trenches allowed monitoring of any gradual loss of mitigation effectiveness and for quantitative comparison of the different trench designs. The right and center trenches are filled with gravel, and the left trench is filled with sand. The center trench is distinguished from the right by a leaf filter. Both seasonal data and controlled experiments showed water in the trenches drained at different rates in the different sections. The right gravel-filled trench tended to have the highest peak water levels followed by the center gravel with filter trench. The center trench showed a slow drainage rate from the beginning of monitoring, thus any effect of the center trench's leaf filter was obscured. The sand-filled trench showed the fastest drainage rate of the 3 trenches. The drainage rate was uniform within each trench over the 2.5 years of monitoring. The seasonal data showed that the right gravel-filled trench showed the most water level peaks, and the center gravel-filled and left sand-filled trenches responded to fewer storms over time. However, the uniform drainage rate suggests this decline in response was not due to degradation but rather a change in water delivery. As of May 2009, water from most storms flowed into only the right gravel trench due to berm erosion. At the end of the study, water level data showed that the trenches continued to receive stormwater without overflowing and drain within 72 hours, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection recommended design limit. Monitoring water level data in the infiltration BMP showed drainage effectiveness over time but also pointed out how unplanned design differences (water delivery and construction variation) affected trench behavior. Monitoring is the key to developing successful designs, implementation, and maintenance of stormwater BMPs. / Earth and Environmental Science / Accompanied by one .pdf file: 1) Jedrzejczyk-Supplemental-2010.pdf

Application of the Milankovitch model of allocyclicity to the New Creek and Corriganville Formations in central Pennsylvania reveals vertically consistent and laterally correlative stacking patterns of fifth-order and sixth-order cycles in below-wave-base shelf facies. Overlying an unconformable third-order sequence boundary (Keyser-New Creek boundary), the formational succession consists of progressively deeper fifth-order sequences traceable throughout Pennsylvania. The New Creek Formation is one fifth-order sequence, consisting of shallow-shelf, bioturbated calcarenite packaged into three meter-scale allocycle or (PACs). This fifth-order sequence, incomplete because of hiatus at the third-order boundary, is asymmetric, shallowing to peritidal facies in the uppermost Pac at Tyrone. In general, the Corriganville Formation is a complete fifth-order sequence consisting of five sixth-order cycles, but is incomplete at Tyrone where the basal PAC is missing. PAC 1 was not deposited at Tyrone because this area was not flooded by the first precessional rise in the Corriganville fifth-order sequence. Unlike New Creek PACs, which are internally gradational, Corriganville PACs contain distinct highstand and lowstand portions separated by a sea-level-­fall surface. Precession-driven eustacy is responsible for the primary cyclic fabric of this stratigraphic interval. Eccentricity functioned as a modulator by enhancing the precessional affect at the fifth-order boundaries and by dampening the precessional affect within the fifth-­order sequence and producing a general shallowing-upward trend. Recognition of these cyclic patterns, at the sixth and fifth-order scale, lends support to the concept of a genetic hierarchy of allocycles. / Earth and Environmental Science

No description available.

Recent trends indicate that firms are spending more money and resources on environmental protection and are seeking proactive ways to reduce the environment impact of their business actions. This dissertation discusses the impact of environmental issues on strategy formulation and proposes underlying themes of corporate environmentalism based on inclusion of the biophysical environment in strategy, formulation, and organization wide recognition of and response to environmental issues. Corporate environmentalism is proposed to consist of two constructs: an overall corporate environmental orientation wherein environmentalism is internalized as a corporate value, and an environmental strategic focus involving the integration of environmental issues into the strategic planning process. The construct of corporate environmentalism is operationalized and the relationship with its antecedents is empirically tested. Using theoretical perspectives from ecology, marketing, and strategic management, this study builds an integrated model of corporate environmentalism including its antecedents and consequences. Public concern, threat of legislation, top management commitment, long term focus, and the need for competitive advantage are some antecedents that were gleaned from the literature. A two-stage methodology was used: the first stage involved in-depth interviews with managers of 6 firms. Based on these interviews three models of corporate environmentalism were constructed. The second stage involved empirical testing of these models. A survey instrument was designed and mailed to 1012 firms. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the constructs of corporate environmentalism was done to examine the dimensionality of the constructs. The models were tested using path analysis. Top management commitment and the need for competitive advantage emerged as the two key variables that explained corporate environmentalism. Public concern and the threat of legislation indirectly influenced corporate environmentalism through top management commitment. Strategic implications of corporate environmentalism for firms are discussed and a framework for future research on environmental issues facing business is proposed.

Interest in corporate environmentalism has exploded in recent years from a minor concern to a serious endeavor. Most firms today devote an average of 1-2% of revenues to environmental matters. Recent research has shown that an upstream, proactive approach to environmental strategy can lead to win-win outcomes and improved environmental and financial performance. Much has been learned about how top managers develop and promote proactive ecostrategies, and the details of employee contributions are also becoming clear. However, middle managers' contributions to realized ecostrategy are largely unexplored, as are multilevel aspects of environmental strategy making. Drawing from literatures of strategic processes, organizational behavior, and environmentalism, the dissertation hypothesized that attitudes, behaviors, communication style, and identity orientation of middle managers is associated with the promotion of environmental initiatives by subordinates. A quantitative case study tested the hypotheses. Three companies in the retail grocery business participated in the study, and survey data was collected from 584 managers at three organizational levels. The final sample consisted of 406 managers, and hierarchical linear regression was used to analyze the data. Results show that middle managers' activities and attitudes are indeed related significantly to emergent environmental initiatives in the organizations studied. Thus, middle managers are critical, central players in achieving environmental performance improvements. In addition, specific patterns of middle manager involvement varied significantly by company, and there were indications that these patterns were related to organizational culture. Other results include the development and validation of an expanded measure of environmental initiative development that, for the first time, delineates a multiphasic process and proves useful in understanding the nuanced nature of proactive ecostrategy making. Similarly, the dissertation combined and retested previous findings from organizational behavior, strategic, and relational models of organizational environmentalism, thereby permitting comparison of the relative influence of different factors for the first time. Finally, this study represents the first use of multilevel quantitative analysis, specifically multilevel regression and hierarchical linear modeling, in the study of environmentalism in organizations. These results reinforce the value of mesolevel studies of environmentalism by providing depth and nuance that is inaccessible in organization-level quantitative studies or qualitative case studies.

This integrative analysis of simulated wheat and corn growth in the Great Plains investigated effects of changed climatic and atmospheric conditions resulting from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO$\sb2$). Findings are based on global climate models (GCMs) developed by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and the Crop Estimation through Resource and Environment Synthesis (CERES) crop models. Modifications in the crop models reflect changes in photosynthesis and stomatal resistance caused by doubled CO$\sb2$. Climate change alone reduced mean simulated dryland wheat yields by 30 and 33% in the GISS and GFDL scenarios respectively; dryland corn yields were reduced by 18 and 47%. Higher temperature was the major cause of yield reductions because shorter crop life cycles occurred with corresponding decreases in grain-fill. Changes in precipitation produced a relatively minor effect on wheat yields, but did diminish corn yields in specific locations. At many Great Plains sites, physiological effects of increased CO$\sb2$ on simulated grain growth compensated for negative impacts of climate change. However, physiological effects failed to compensate when hot, dry conditions of the GFDL scenario resulted in severe yield decreases. Simulations of climate change effects at Northern Great Plains sites indicated that winter wheat may replace spring wheat, on account of less winterkill and lower relative yield decreases. Greater warming at high latitudes, however, caused wheat yield decreases to be greater than or equal to those in the Southern Great Plains. Comparison of simulated wheat and corn responses to double-CO$\sb2$ climate change and to observed climate of the 1930s indicated that future climate may be even more detrimental to crops than that of the past. When simulations included irrigation, irrigated yields under climate change scenarios were better maintained and less variable than dryland yields. A change in planting dates in response to longer growing seasons had little effect on simulated wheat and corn yields. At certain study sites, changing cultivars did compensate for negative climate change effects. If higher temperatures predicted by GCMs occur, wheat and corn production as practiced in the Great Plains is likely to become more difficult to sustain.

In order to protect water quality and quantity, a decision support system, Watershed Forest Management Information System (WFMIS), was developed with Visual Basic® and ArcObjects® in ArcGIS® 9. There are three subsystems: the Watershed Management Priority Indices (WMPI) is a zoning method for forest management planning with respect to soils, water, and aquatic ecosystems; the Forest Road Evaluation System (FRES) is a module to evaluate roads and road-stream crossings in order to develop and implement preventive management strategies, and the Harvest Scheduling Review System (HSRS) is a module to estimate the cumulative hydrologic effect of timber harvesting on water yield and associated changes in water quality. The system is an extension to ArcGIS ® 9. It uses commonly available GIS data and has user friendly interfaces to assist foresters and planners to manage the watershed in an environment healthy way.

The availability of fresh water is becoming an increasing concern around the world. Modern agriculture has made a transition from traditional agriculture, which often impacts watershed systems. Current enterprising agriculture yields monetary benefits but at the same time can impact environmental outcome. Water resource impacts vary from micro to macro scale. Chapter 1 starts with an introduction. In Chapter 2, I develop an integrated dynamic-based model at farm scale to evaluate the economic and environmental effects of alternative agricultural best management practices (BMPs) on overall sustainability of integrated farming system. It is an integration of a farm simulation model, soil erosion model and dynamic based model. Economic and environmental dynamic simulations are performed over a time horizon for each management practice. Marginal efficiency analysis is performed for examining economically efficient crop support practice with the consideration of change in environmental parameters' and profit accrued from the farm. Scenario outcomes of the stochastic modeling simulation results show varied impacts on sustainability of the farm-balanced scenario performs better overall. Chapter 3 discusses hydrology model at watershed scale to assess conjunctive water harvesting potentials in an urbanizing watershed system. I develop a spatially explicit method to evaluate costs of harvesting and potential benefits in water harvesting. It involves an evaluation of surface and groundwater hydrology in developed and undeveloped regions of the watershed. I develop prioritization maps to characterize conjunctive harvesting potential that is based on benefits and costs. The results demonstrate that a spatially variable harvesting strategy can be used to minimize runoff loss and to augment water supplies. A spatially variable approach that incorporates economic criteria to hydrologic assessment can be used to enhance efficiency related to water harvest and supply management. In Chapter 4, I develop a watershed based policy framework that identifies four policy types that target depletion, recharge, contamination and treatment. The policy package incorporates a mix of policies that target quantity and quality dynamics. The socio-economic implications of excessive extraction of ground water are assessed with the sustainability indicators of productivity from farms, distribution of income among different categories of farmers, groundwater level, and quality. A watershed based policy package covering both structural and nonstructural policies is suggested for achieving sustainability of water resources. Water quality degradation at macro scales involves economic as well as demographic factors. In Chapter 5, I use the concept of Environmental Kuznets Curve to examine the relationship between water quality degradation and economic development, and test the hypothesis of differences in functional relationship for nitrogen, phosphorus, suspended solids, fecal coliform and dissolved oxygen. The results show that the behavior of EKC is different for different water quality indicators. Nitrogen, phosphorous and suspended solids exhibit a U-shaped curve while fecal coliform and dissolved oxygen show N-shaped EKC curve. As transformation occurs from agriculture economy to industrialized economy, water quality improves with the reduction in nutrient and physical contaminants. The dissertation ends up with a conclusion in Chapter 6.

No description available.

Chemical characteristics and environmental behavior of halogenated organic (OX) compounds in biologically treated wastewater from a secondary-fiber mill were investigated. Liquid-liquid extraction techniques were developed and optimized for the identification and quantification of OX compounds from this sample matrix. Twenty OX compounds were identified in the treated wastewaters, accounting for 20 to 60 percent of the total organic halide in the wastewater. A significant fraction of the OX in the treated wastewater was accounted for by one single compound: 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol, which persisted through biological treatment. Much of the the organic matter in the wastewater. Volatilization was identified as a prominent transport process that affected the fate of a small fraction of the identified OX compounds. Photolysis was the only environmental transformation process that could effectively reduce trichlorophenol concentrations within the time-scales studied at this site. A significant portion of the OX was relatively stable under typical environmental conditions, resulting in its persistence in the receiving water body. Conventional biological treatment was not effective in reducing OX concentrations in the wastewater. Advanced processes like chemically assisted secondary clarification (with alum and ferric chloride) and dechlorination (with sulfite) did not have a significant effect on OX removal. Ozone oxidation and alkaline hydrolysis reduced OX concentrations in the effluent by over 50 percent.