Surface coal mining is a major form of land change and environmental degradation in Central Appalachia. Traditional mine reclamation iresults in unmanaged, unproductive grasslands that fail to mitigate many of the environmental costs of coal mining and are of minimal use to communities. Forestry reclamation is an alternative reclamation tactic that has the potential to address both environmental and socioeconomic concerns in Central Appalachia. A case study of Laurel Fork Mine in Eastern Kentucky is included.

The mining of bituminous sandstone rock for the purpose of extracting bitumen has created a need for reclamation. One such mine is located in northern Logan County. Their mining operation involves removing large sections of sandstone, which is impregnated with bitumen, and crushing it to sand-sized material. The sand-sized material is then mixed with organic solvents which extract the bitumen. Once separated, the bitumen is stored for future refinement and the spent sand is stockpiled for later disposal. The spent sands or waste material are referred to as tar sand tailings. These tailings have particular properties which make reclamation efforts difficult. One restrictive property is the 30 percent swell factor, which prevents replacement of the tailings into their respective mined area. Another property is the tailings’ hydrophobicity. This water repellence prevents merely spreading the tailings onto the surface. Experiments were conducted at Western Kentucky University during 1984 and 1985 to determine methods to lessen the hydrophobic tendencies and allow for reclamation. These experiments included mixing the tailings with the existing soil and adding surfactants to the tailings. Water holding capacities, infiltration rates, and the ability to sustain plant life were determined and evaluated. It appears that the residual bitumen not removed by the extraction process causes the hydrophobic tendencies of the tailings. This conclusion was based on a comparison of pure tailings and tailings which were subjected to 500°C temperatures for 24 hours which could destroy all organic material, specifically the residual bitumen. The pure tar sand tailing held 0.44 percent moisture and the tailings with the organic material removed held 27.48 percent moisture. Mixtures of tailings and Zanesville soil were also evaluated and compared to the tailings with and without organic material. The percent moisture of the soil was not significantly different from the tailings without organic material. All mixtures were significantly lower than the soil or the tailings without organic material and significantly higher than the pure tar and tailings. However, the mixtures apparently can hold sufficient moisture for plant growth. Water infiltration rates through various mixtures of tailings and soil with and without surfactants were also evaluated. It was concluded that a tailings/soil mixture of 75/25 percent with and without surfactant and 90/10 percent mixture with surfactant allowed the fastest water infiltration. The rate of infiltration is important since the Logan County topography is favorable for runoff erosion. Rye (secale cereale) was grown in various mixtures of tailings and soil with and without surfactants to determine phytotoxic effects. Visual observations of the growing plants indicated no phytotoxic effects due to the bitumen or surfactants. However, dry matter yields of the plants differed significantly. The lower yield of some plants could be attributed to a lack of moisture since the lowest yields were in the pure tailings with and without surfactant. In conclusion, the results of this study revealed that tar sand tailings do have hydrophobic tendencies apparently due to residual bitumen. These tendencies can be buffered by mixing the waste material with an existing soil or by complete combustion of the residual organic material. Also it was concluded that vegetation could be established on the mixtures of tailings and soil and thus, the land reclaimed.

The South Florida Everglades is a unique ecosystem. Intensive water management in the system has facilitated agricultural, urban, and economic development. The Everglades offers a variety of ecosystem services (ES) to the people living in this region. Nevertheless, the ecosystem is under imminent threat of climate change, which would alter the way water is managed today and ultimately affect the ES offered by the system. On the other hand, substantial restoration is underway that aims to restore the Everglades closer to its historic condition. This research tried to map the public’s preference for Everglades restoration. Using a geocoded discrete-choice survey dataset, the study showed variation in the public’s preference by changing the levels of ES. Additionally, the general public’s attitude toward climate change risk to the Everglades and preference for mitigation were also assessed using the survey data.

Agricultural producers are invested in managing the impacts of crop damage on their yields and profit. When damage occurs early enough in an agricultural growing season, farmers have the option to replant their corn stand in an effort to recoup some of the lost profits. In this thesis two different types of naturally occurring damage, wildlife depredation and persistent weed or insect patches, were simulated on two representative regions of Mississippi. These data were then used to assess the financial viability of a range of damage mitigation methods, including partial replanting, enrollment into a government conservation buffer, and no action. Replanting was demonstrated to be generally the most economically viable method of management across all simulation scenarios. This analysis showed a lower return on conservation enrollment than expected, indicating that an increase in financial benefits for some conservation programs may be warranted.

Forests provide immense goods and services to both local and regional communities. The USDA Forest Service’s, State and Private Forestry program administer multiple landowner assistance programs aimed at helping private forest owners while supporting the continued supply of ecosystem services (e.g., timber harvesting, recreation, carbon sequestration and storage). The two landowner assistance programs assessed in this study are the Forest Legacy Program (FLP) and the Forest Stewardship Program (FSP). A majority of the nation’s forests are privately owned, many of which are facing deleterious impacts like wildfires, invasive species, development pressures, and other adverse effects from climate change. The goal of this project is to (1) quantify the economic contributions emanating from lands participating in FLP and FSP in the conterminous US and (2) quantify and value the carbon sequestration on lands participating in FLP and FSP in New England. IMPLAN is an input-output modeling system, used in Chapter 1, that estimates how money flows through a regional economy. The results from the IMPLAN analysis suggest that FLP lands in the conterminous US contribute an estimated 4,560 jobs and $306.8 million in value-added from timber harvesting and recreation. Further, FSP lands contribute an estimated 27,700 jobs and $1.8 billion in value added from timber harvesting and recreation. Using Forest Inventory and Analysis carbon sequestration data and the social cost of carbon, the results of chapter 2 suggest that, in New England, FLP lands sequester 147,000 metric tons of CO2, or $7.5 million in aboveground CO2, per year. FSP lands in New England are estimated to sequester 82,000 metric tons of CO2, or $4.1 million in CO2, per year. Quantifying and estimating the economic and ecosystem service contributions emanating from lands participating in FLP and FSP provide a framework for understanding the total benefits associated with these programs (e.g., supporting rural economies, impacting climate change and the global carbon network, etc.).

<p>Many cities around the world struggle with the presence of vacant and underutilized land in the urban environment. There is growing momentum across many municipal jurisdictions in North America to reuse public and privately held vacant and underutilized urban land on a temporary to potentially permanent basis for community-based projects; however, there are limited community-based tools available to assess the suitability of vacant land for potential reuse.</p> <p>This thesis presents three papers (Chapters 2-4) that describe the development and application of a prototype community-based decision support tool (PDSS), developed in Microsoft ExcelÒ. The PDSS provides a methodology for evaluating up to fifteen community-based reuse strategies across three green infrastructure categories: parks, urban food production, and stormwater/ecosystems management. The PDSS aids in deriving community-focused goals, objectives and solutions for the efficient reuse of vacant and underutilized land.</p> <p>The PDSS includes a vacant and underutilized land inventory for identifying and inventorying the physical and spatial attributes (i.e. location and condition) of vacant and underutilized land across the urban environment (VULI); a methodology for quantifying the suitability of vacant land for a suite of reuse strategies (SSI); a multi-objective, binary-integer programming formulation for the allocation of reuse strategies across the urban environment (LOCAL), and a tool for municipal green infrastructure investment decision-making (DECO).</p> <p>The information derived from VULI and SSI can be used by community groups to help articulate the inherent potential of these spaces for future reuse. If this methodology was adopted at the municipal level, the prototype tool has the potential to expedite applications to reuse city-owned lands on a temporary basis. LOCAL provides a methodology to facilitate the allocation of multiple reuse strategies to a single parcel, to achieve a mix of green infrastructure uses at each site, and provides users with the ability to readily generate “what-if” scenarios based on user-specified allocation constraints. DECO can be utilized to design and investigate material alternatives, maintenance schedules, and different cost regimes, which can be useful for construction and long-term preventative maintenance decision-making. Finally, the results of a tree growth-stormwater attenuation modeling exercise are presented (Chapter 5). The methodology and results presented aid in articulating the stormwater attenuating benefits of trees that are planted on a temporary basis on vacant land.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The issue of sediment removal from the San Gabriel Mountains has been a complex issue that has created problems with beach replenishment, habitat destruction and the need to spend millions of dollars at regular intervals to avoid safety hazards. Most recently 11 acres of riparian habitat, including 179 oaks and 70 sycamores, were removed for sediment placement. Other sites including Hahamongna Watershed Park and La Tuna Canyon also face a similar fate. This thesis questions: How did we get to this point of destroying habitat to dump sediment which is viewed as waste product? What are the barriers for creating long term solutions and progressive change? What are some other options? And how should we move forward? The issues with sediment management have stemmed from regulatory compliance issues, adversarial relationships within agencies and among NGO's and the public, and the lack of a comprehensive long-term plan to prevent further habitat loss and other sediment removal issues. A recommendation includes looking at a community forestry model to include a wide cross-section of the community, NGO's and government agencies to come up with a long term comprehensive and progressive solution.

Drought is a well-known and costly climate-related natural hazard. Unlike other climate-related natural hazards, droughts are usually long in duration and may cover a large region, the physical boundaries of areas affected by drought are sometimes arbitrary, and the impacts are sometimes difficult to identify. Climate records since 1895 show that drought has occurred periodically in Kentucky. The drought of 2007 was the most recent drought to affect Kentucky and is the primary focus of this research. The purpose of this research is to identify impacts of drought and potential vulnerabilities to various drought impact sectors in Kentucky so that policymakers can develop a drought plan that addresses these vulnerabilities and emphasizes mitigation efforts. An historical analysis of drought was provided for the following droughts that occurred in Kentucky: 1930-31, 1940-42, 1952-55, 1987-88, and 1999-2001. A more indepth analysis of the development and impacts of the drought of 2007 was conducted. Weekly drought reports from the drought of 2007 that were published by the Kentucky Division of Water were used for analysis.The reports discussed streamflows, PDSI values, precipitation deficits, lake levels reports from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other information that documented the progress of the drought. Impacts caused by the drought of 2007 were identified mostly through news reports. Agriculture and water supplies were determined to be most impacted by drought; therefore, two separate surveys (one regarding drought impacts on agriculture in 2007, the other regarding drought impacts on water supplies in 2007) were created to increase the understanding of how the drought of 2007 affected agriculture and water supplies in Kentucky. Other impacts from the drought of 2007 that were studied include impacts on recreation and tourism, the number of fires and wildland fires, plant and animal species, and small businesses. It was found that droughts that have affected Kentucky have originated in all directions and have spread northward, southward, eastward, and westward into Kentucky. The temporal scale of these droughts has also varied. Impacts caused by the drought of 2007 in Kentucky were very similar to impacts caused by historical droughts. However, the documentation of drought impacts that occur in Kentucky needs improvement. Agricultural impacts are documented better than any other impact, while impacts on water supplies, recreation and tourism, the occurrence of wildland fires, plant and animal species, and small businesses are not as well documented. It is recommended that conducting an extensive analysis of how various sectors are vulnerable to drought in Kentucky and educating the public on the importance of drought awareness should be addressed by policymakers involved in the development of Kentucky’s state drought plan.

This study assessed the feasibility and suitability of a Water Quality Trading (WQT) program within the Kentucky River Basin (KRB). The study’s focal point was based on five success factors of a WQT program: environmental suitability, geospatial orientation, participant availability, regulatory incentive, and economic incentive. The study utilized these five success factors, geographical characteristics, and Discharge Monitoring Reports (DMR) to assess the feasibility of a WQT program. The assessment divided the KRB into five eight digit Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC), North, Middle, and South Fork, Middle Basin, and Lower Basin, to determine regional impacts caused by the nutrient PSs. Individual nutrient profiles were generated to show the number of point sources (PS) operating in the KRB, their geospatial orientation to one another, and their permitted nutrient limits and nutrient discharges in form of total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and total nitrogen (as ammonia) (TA). Findings suggest trading is highly unlikely for TP and TN PSs due to the lack of regulatory standards, limited number of TN and TP PSs, and an inadequate demand for offset credits. Trading is also unlikely in all the HUC 8 watersheds except for the Lower Basin due to the lack of nutrient impaired waters. Key Words: Point Source, Non-Point Source, Water Quality Trading, TMDL, Impaired Waters

Lake Okeechobee is the largest lake in the southeastern United States and is a central component of the hydrology and environment of the Everglades ecosystem in South Florida. The natural state of the lake has been degraded as wetlands and natural habitats in the Lake Okeechobee watershed have been replaced with farms, urban areas, and dairy operations. Excessive phosphorus loadings from these diverse sources have been identified as the leading causes of the lake’s impairment. For more than four decades, many resources have been allocated to regional and local restoration efforts to reduce phosphorus loadings into the lake. However, phosphorus loadings have not decreased and the recovery of the lake could take more time, particularly with today’s limited local budgets. Market-based instruments, such as water quality trading programs, have emerged over the past decades to cost-effectively achieve water quality objectives in impaired watersheds. The main objective of this dissertation was to assess the environmental and economic benefits of implementing a phosphorus trading program in Lake Okeechobee watershed, compared to a conventional command-and-control approach. A comprehensive literature overview of nationally and internationally implemented trading programs was conducted to highlight advantages and challenges of these programs towards achieving water quality goals, and to outline the essential elements of a successful program. Furthermore, a modeling framework, integrating a hydrologic-water quality model with an economic model, was developed to assess the potential cost savings that trading might offer over a command-and-control approach. The modeling framework was applied in three priority basins of the Lake Okeechobee watershed. In each case, while developing trading scenarios to achieve phosphorus load reduction targets, the trading program was less expensive than the conventional command-and-control approach. This research provided the foundation for stakeholders to better understand whether water quality trading has the potential to work in the Lake Okeechobee watershed and to facilitate the development of a pilot program. In addition, it offered some insights on the potential economic opportunities that pollution sources would have by participating in the trading program. The modeling framework developed in this dissertation could facilitate the assessment of future water quality trading programs in other watersheds.