The agricultural sector is one of the largest contributors to global climate change but is also one of the most vulnerable to its impacts. Farmers are at increasing risk of livelihood loss, which produces risks for their physical and emotional wellbeing on a global scale. Swift and effective adaptation is...
The objective of this dissertation is to enhance the monitoring of forest ecosystems through the utilization of remotely sensed data to address the exigencies posed by the Anthropocene. On a global scale, rising temperatures and fluctuating precipitation patterns have strained forests and produced shifts in natural disturbance regimes. Additionally, the...
Seasonal mountain snowpack of the western US (WUS) is a key water resource to millions of people. Impurities at the snow surface directly affect snowmelt timing and rate, as they contribute to earlier peak streamflow, snow disappearance, and less water availability in dry months. Predicting the locations, timing, and intensity...
Snow is a critical component of global climate regulation and provides water resources to over one billion people worldwide. Yet current measurement methods and modeling techniques lack the ability to fully capture snow characteristics such as snow water equivalent (SWE), snow depth, and density variable landscapes. In recent years, the...
As of 2022, Uganda hosts the third largest refugee population in the world with roughly 1.5 million refugees settled within 13 districts. With some of the most progressive refugee policies in the world, refugees in Uganda live alongside hosts in integrated settlements to support positive, sustainable socioeconomic relationships in both...
Worldwide, networks of plants and pollinators are faced with the threat of climate change. The extent of this threat and the degree of adaptability is not yet understood. In Oregon, climate change is predicted to bring hotter and drier summers which may have consequences for pollinators and the resources they...
Climate change has the potential to accelerate many forms of human migration and mobility, yet almost all of the key migration outcomes of interest are determined predominantly by governance, or the norms, laws, and institutions involved in the coordination of human society. These outcomes include the decision whether or not...
We live on an Urban Planet. The current unprecedented urbanization is accompanied by intensive land cover transition and demographic shifts from rural to urban livelihoods. Cities serve as cultural, economic, political centers that facilitate wealth creation and innovation of the society, sustaining human from multi-dimensions with large ecological footprints far...
The global cryosphere, defined as the world’s ice and snow covered regions, is a crucial water source for society and ecosystem functions, as well as an important regulator of the earth’s energy budget. Melt from glaciers and seasonal snow cover provides water for more than a sixth of the world’s...
The defining feature of our planet are the oceans, which make up 70% of the Earth’s surface. The importance of the ocean cannot be understated: 50% of oxygen originates from phytoplankton; heat is absorbed and redistributed by ocean currents; and hundreds of millions of people rely on the ocean for...
Urban agriculture (UA), or growing and producing food within urban areas, is rising in popularity across the United States. There are social and environmental benefits from growing food within urban neighborhoods. UA presents the opportunity for food security in neighborhoods that do not have access to safe and healthy foods,...
The salt marshes of the Salmon River Estuary, Oregon have been of interest for decades due to their disturbance and restoration history, as well as the presence of long-term vegetation transects that were established as early as the 1970s. Vegetation abundance data have been gathered in the four sites of...
Natural disasters are an increasingly costly and frequent occurrence globally and in the United States (IPCC, 2012; IPCC, 2014; Berlemann & Steinhardt, 2017). Discrete disaster events, such as coastal flooding, have been shown to be push factors in temporary and long-term migration (Black et al., 2013). Policy efforts to adapt...
Arctic-boreal regions are exhibiting the symptoms of profound ecological shifts as they experience pronounced warming. Wildlife in high-latitudes are one such harbinger of change, and their populations are undergoing range-shifts, declines, and extinctions in response to their rapidly altering habitats. As the circumpolar and boreal north is snow-covered for up...
The purpose of this study was to understand the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of shellfish stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest who are adapting to ocean acidification (OA). This study developed a geovisualization tool of existing environmental data for assessing species-specific risk profiles to OA (based on their exposure and sensitivity),...
In the Colombian Amazon there has been a complex interplay of rebel groups’ control over land, drug trafficking, and absence of the Government of Colombia. Here, I use satellite remote sensing, ethnographic research and statistical models to provide insights into causal effect and causal mechanisms of land change and economic...
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most contested and complicated conflicts in the world. As one of the occupied Palestinian Territories recognized by the United Nations, the social and environmental conditions in Gaza are impossible to understand without reference to the occupation of Gaza by its neighbor Israel. Hostilities...
We are witness to an ever tighter coupling between natural hazard-related disasters ("disasters") and violent social conflict ("conflict"). Previous research has established that disaster has the propensity to lead to conflict, and conflict, in turn, has been found to contribute to disaster vulnerabilities. The field of disaster diplomacy, by contrast,...
Extensive research has been published on a large-scale Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) rupture off the Oregon coast, including the requirements of evacuation, shelter, and mass care of a diverse coastal population due to earthquake and tsunami related hazards. Adequate preparedness centers around the understanding of a hazards characteristics, and the...
Environmental crime around the world, such as trafficking in illegal timber, is directly related to political instability. Traffickers exploit weak, fragile, and chaotic political circumstances to illegally extract high-value commodities, challenging the extent to which conservation goals are achievable in resource rich developing countries. Rosewood is the largest traded endangered...
With the increasing international focus on transboundary cooperation as a part of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Framework, there is global recognition of transboundary water cooperation as a tool for improved governance and management of transboundary surface and groundwaters. Yet, there is not an agreed upon definition of transboundary water...
Globally, there are 40 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and 25.4 million refugees as of 2018. Of this global refugee population, 19.9 million are under mandate by UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, while 5.4 million Palestinian refugees are protected by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees...
The Walla Walla Subbasin (WWSB) in Oregon is underlain by formations of the extensive Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) which have been deformed by post-Miocene folding and faulting. Extensive irrigation with groundwater from these basalt groups, as well as sedimentary aquifers and surface water diversions from the Walla Walla River,...
The frontlines of climate change adaptation will occur in rural, impoverished regions of the world where households engage in climatically dependent livelihoods, such as peasant agriculture or pastoralism. As changing climate and changing markets affect the suite of household livelihood assets (environmental, social, and economic) which enable a household to...
The objective of this dissertation was to understand the physical mechanisms affecting inversion events in a complex forested mountain landscape. This work was motivated by the long-term studies of climate at the Andrews Forest, short-term studies of vertical temperature, light, wind, and moisture gradient in old-growth trees, and interest in...
Involuntary movement, also known as forced displacement, has affected millions of people worldwide. At the end of 20th century, approximately 80 million people had been displaced due to hydropower projects, including approximately 22.5 million people in China. Dam-induced migration not only causes material loss, such as loss of homes and...
Forested, mountain landscapes in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) are changing at an unprecedented rate, largely due to shifts in the regional climate regime. Documented climatic trends across the PNW include increasing wildfire frequency and intensity and an increasingly ephemeral snowpack, especially at moderate elevations. One relationship that has yet to...
Despite the growth of the global refugee population, the proliferation of refugee camps, and the personal experiences of many refugees with violent conflict, there is little systematic understanding of the relationships between conflict events, conflict actors, and refugee communities. Indeed, conflict in and around refugee camps has thus far only...
Municipal watersheds attempt to balance growing and conflicting demands for water for human use and for ecosystems. The Mill Creek basin, a 295 km2 basin in southeast Washington, exemplifies these conflicts. Since the late 1800s, the City of Walla Walla has withdrawn water from Mill Creek for municipal use. However,...
The mangrove ecosystem has served as a life-support system to large populations of coastal dwellers in Ecuador for many generations. Diverse communities comprised of multi-racial and multi-ethnic groups have formed along the edge of the mangrove forests throughout the Ecuadorian coast. These groups self-identify as being part of an “ancestral”...
Effective forest governance is central to the efficient, sustainable, and equitable use of forest resources, yet challenges in assessing forest governance impede efforts to improve it. Contemporary forest governance involves decisions by multiple stakeholders across multiple sectors of economy and society, from local to global scales – making forest governance...
The magnitude of global AIS data exceeds the capability of conventional in-browser graphic rendering technologies like Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and Canvas. Normal practices of rendering AIS data in browser will either suffer from low frame rates or will have to limit the total number of visual elements. In this...
The purpose of this research was to develop methods for using geographic information system (GIS) analysis and unsupervised classification of Global Vegetation Index (GVI) images to improve carbon budget estimates of the former Soviet Union (FSU). A GIS was used to locate the geographic distribution and estimate the area of...
The problem of this thesis is the existence of an anomalous manorial landscape in northern Fauquier County, Virginia. The county is about 45 miles southwest of Washington, D. C. The thesis seeks to develop a hypothesis to explain the existence of this landscape so different from surrounding areas in a...
Coral reef ecosystems are the most diverse on earth, and their subsistence is being threatened by natural and adverse anthropogenic patterns and processes. In an effort to understand and protect these marine environments, several programs have outlined strategies and initiatives. For example, the United States Coral Reef Task Force’s Mapping...
Childhood cancers are rare diseases that affect 188 children in Texas for every million born. Leukemia is the most common childhood cancer and accounts for roughly one third of childhood cancer cases. However, it is estimated that only 10% of childhood cancer cases can be explained by known risk factors....
Natural ground color is useful for reference maps as well as maps where a realistic representation of the Earth's surface matters. Natural color schemes are less likely to be misinterpreted, as opposed to hypsometric color schemes, and are generally preferred by map readers. The creation of natural-color maps was once...
In this thesis, the spatial patterns of vegetation and soils of reference and restored tidal marshes were compared to determine the extent to which restored sites differ from the reference site after 40 years of restoration. Vegetation surveys of 1m x 1m plots were conducted along previously-established transects of salt...
Management goals for restoring populations of the federally-threatened northern spotted owl currently include experimental lethal removals of barred owls from demographic study areas within the overlapping ranges of the two species to examine northern spotted owl population response. As lethal removals of a bird species are time- and cost-intensive, predictive...
Dot mapping is a traditional method for visualizing quantitative data, but current automateddot mapping techniques are limited. The most common automated method places dotspseudo-randomly within enumeration areas, which can result in overlapping dots and verydense dot clusters for areas with large values. These issues affect users’ ability to estimatevalues. Graduated...
Despite a relative decline in the size of Oregon's
sheep industry, the problem of sheep depredation remains
a serious economic and environmental dilemma in need of
objective examination and innovative solutions. An investigative
report on the problem as it occurs in Benton County
can contribute to the information required to...
The annual growth rate for the Corvallis-Benton County
area has traditionally been higher than the growth rate for the
State of Oregon. Corvallis is considered to be one of the most
densely settled communities in the state. Since 1972, Corvallis
has experienced a drastic decline in the number of housing...
The crawfish enterprise of South Louisiana is shown to haveexpanded as much as 18-fold since the 1950's. It is estimated(1973) that there are about 44,000 acres of managed crawfish ponds.Of the 334 ponds identified and mapped in the thesis, 231 are classedas open ponds, 45 as rice field ponds, and...
Developing accurate predictive distribution models requires adequately representing relevant spatial and temporal scales, as these scales are ultimately reflective of the relationships between distributions and influential environmental conditions. In this research, we considered both spatial and temporal scale and the influence each has on predicting broad-scale distributions of two disparate...
Visualizing large movement datasets with flow maps is difficult because overlapping flows create significant graphical conflicts that make accurate interpretation difficult or impossible. Interactive flow mapping applications allow users to explore large movement datasets by automatically generating flow maps from subsets of the data in response to queries by the...
The aggregate industry is responsible for the extraction and production of crushed stone, sand, and gravel— the literal building blocks of our society. Across the U.S. there are tens of thousands of quarries and sand and gravel pits, the majority of which are left abandoned or with minimal reclamation efforts....
This PhD dissertation describes and evaluates a geographical analysis of candidate areas for siting nuclear plants utilizing a wet cooling tower in the Columbia River Basin (CRB). It focuses on the analysis of water availability for cooling and how it may be limited by climate change effects on river streamflow....
Montane meadows in the Cascade Range of Oregon have been declining due to tree establishment since records began. Montane meadow complexes in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest shrank by 60 to 75% from 1949 to 2005, but fine scale temporal and spatial processes of tree establishment in these meadows are...
The rapid decline of marine ecosystems worldwide and the failure of traditional single species management pushed for the development of ecosystem-based conservation measures such as marine protected areas (MPA) to slow the loss of marine biodiversity. One approach to MPA creation advocates targeting marine megafauna (e.g., marine mammals, seabirds, sharks,...
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze an abrupt case of climate change in the past as a means to understand the mechanisms that force climate change. By looking to past analogs of climate change, we hopefully will gain an understanding of these events, which could be used to...
This dissertation examines the spatial distribution of park access by type in relation to trajectories of gentrification in Seattle from 1990 to 2010. The dissertation includes 5 Chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of the literature that motivated this research. The second, third and fourth chapters are research papers...
Academics and practitioners agree that in water governance, the quality of a decision making process should influence the quality of the outcome and the degree to which it is accepted by interested parties. However, finding a feasible way to evaluate and then improve the quality of a decision making process...
Since the Wolf, Yoffe, and Giordano 2003 Basins at Risk study, examining human interactions with transboundary water resources through a lens of conflict and cooperation has been a dominant paradigm. The Basins at Risk (BAR) method involves categorizing events on a scale from most conflictive (e.g. war or extensive casualties)...
In 1994, with the approval of the Northwest Forest Plan, the livelihood of individuals in the surrounding communities of the Siuslaw National Forest and Siuslaw Watershed were further impacted by already diminished traditional timber practices. In 2003, the United States Forest Service developed an innovative program, stewardship contracting, aimed at...
Despite the importance of plant-pollinator interactions for ecological communities, few long-term observational studies have been conducted of plant-pollinator networks. Using four years of plant-pollinator interaction data from 18 meadows in the Willamette National Forest, Oregon, this thesis examined how meadow size, the amount of nearby meadow habitat, weather, degree days,...
Reservoir systems in the western US are managed to serve two main competing purposes: to reduce flooding during the winter and spring, and to provide water supply for multiple uses during the summer. Because the storage capacity of a reservoir cannot be used for both flood damage reduction and water...
As a result of a warming climate, subsequent declining snowpack, and a century of fire suppression, forest fires are increasing across the western United States. However, we still do not fully understand how forest fire effects snowpack energy balance, nor the volume and availability of snow melt and associated water...
The selection process for map projections is a mystery to many mapmakers and GIS users. Map projections ought to be selected based on the map’s geographic extent and the required distortion properties, with the goal of minimizing the distortion of the mapped area. Despite some available selection guidelines, the selection...
The concept of ecosystem services broadens perspectives on nature to include not only intrinsic value but also the utilitarian value it provides to society. Viewing nature through this lens informs our understanding of how particular ecological processes benefit different actors. In this research, I examine how water utilities in the...
Illuminated contour lines, where line width and color are varied based on an angle of illumination, date back to the mid-nineteenth century, but their effectiveness compared to conventional contour lines has not been fully examined. Currently, illuminated contour lines are not widely used in computer-based cartography because they are not...
Volcanic hazard maps inform the public on the nature and extent of the hazards that threaten them, but these maps are often challenging for those who are not trained in map use or geology. The maps in this study focus on lahars, a dangerous, fast, and far-reaching volcanic hazard that...
The conflict over water resources exploitation and sharing in the Aral Sea Basin is one of the most pressing environmental issues yet to be resolved in Central Asia. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and establishment of the New Independent States (NIS) within the Aral Sea Bain led...
Bud break is a key adaptive trait that can help us understand how plants respond to a changing climate from the molecular to landscape scale. Despite this, acquisition of bud break data is currently constrained by cost, scale, and a lack of information at the plant scale on the environmental...
Relief shading is the most common type of cartographic relief representation for print and digital maps. Manual relief shading results in informative and visually pleasing representations of terrain, but it is time consuming and expensive to produce. Current analytical relief shading can be created quickly, but the resulting maps are...
How does transboundary water cooperation begin at the initial stages? Countries in many transboundary basins either do not cooperate at all or have ceased cooperation altogether. Yet cooperation does often prevail, resulting in 688 water-related treaties signed between 1820 and 2007. The question we address here is, by which practices...
The concept of "adaptive governance" represents a spectrum of hybrid approaches to environmental governance employed to guide management of complex social-ecological systems under conditions of high uncertainty. While the concept of adaptive governance has benefited from over a decade of theoretical development, empirical examples of transitions towards adaptive governance are...
Human security is a framework related to the stability and sustainability of political, environmental, economical, and socio-cultural areas of concern. Water resources around the world are under increased pressure from increased development, growing populations, pollution, and global climate change. Large-scale dam development while still popular for political and economic development...
Exploration and production of oil in the Gulf of Mexico has seen an astonishing increase since the first well was drilled in 1936. Much of the current exploration is occurring in waters greater than 5000 feet. The largest and most unprecedented oil spill in the United States occurred on April...
The known distribution of beluga whales ranges from sub-Arctic to Arctic waters where they migrate in pods in response to environmental factors such as the presence of sea ice and prey. This study uses bivariate and multivariate analysis techniques to measure how environmental covariates are associated with the spatial-temporal distribution...
The problem of this thesis is to evaluate small tracts of public
domain land as to their best use in an area where the Bureau of Land
Management desires to terminate managerial responsibilities. The
area chosen is located in the Prineville District, Bureau of Land
Management and is within the...
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the methods and criteria
developed for rating actual and potential agricultural land in the
United States. It is motivated by the apparent increasing competition
for quality space created by the expanding population, and by the belief
that land rating and classification are...
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the problem of the
increasing competition between recreation and irrigation at Wallowa
Lake. Originally Wallowa Lake was an abundant source of fish for
the Indians but the advent of irrigation in the area by the early settlers eliminated the blueback salmon (oncorhynchus...
Temporal and spatial patterns of daytime cloudiness in the
Willamette Valley of Oregon were studied by utilizing monthly and
daily sky cover data published by the U. S. Weather Bureau for the
Portland, Salem, and Eugene stations. The 15-year period, 1949
through 1963, was selected as the maximum reliable period...
The retirement center is the new pattern of settlement in
Oregon. A few years ago there were no modern living accommodations
in the state especially designed for people in the retired category.
As to July 1966 development organizations have thirteen centers
in operation and over 4,000 people are in residence....
The specific geography of individual wine growing regions has long been understood to be a significant factor in predicting both a region’s success in producing high quality grapes, and the resulting demand for wines produced from that region's fruit. In the American wine industry, American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) are increasingly...
One of the most serious problems confronting modern America
is the efficient and rational utilization of the recreation resource base,
not only in terms of present demands and needs, but future as well.
The resource manager, in the past, has had few guidelines from
which to determine the type and...
The thesis presented here is a quantitative study of vacant
urban land in Corvallis, Oregon. In order to present this study the
writer first studied the available literature and found that little had
been published dealing with causal factors of vacant urban land.
Rather, it was found that several writers...
Local property-owning residents maintain high levels of interest
and awareness regarding a neighboring natural resource complex.
Factors, however, such as proximity, personal interests, use patterns
and economic considerations cause local inhabitants to have an
inaccurate perception of the natural resource complex. The nature
of local resident perception can be analyzed...
Floods and ensuing damage have always been a problem for man.
Initial reaction to the frequent destruction was to avoid siting
permanent domiciles on flood-prone lands. As a result of increasing
population and pressure for development, flood control structures
were built. Instead of reducing flood losses, however, flood control
projects...
The Late Spring Secondary Precipitation Maximum in the
Interior Pacific Northwest results from a complex system of climatic
controls. The Secondary Maximum is most strongly developed over the
high plateau of Oregon immediately in the lee of the Cascade
Mountains. Local topographic
organization exerts strong control
over the magnitude and...
Many of the natural resource problems facing man in the present
era are so large and complicated that no one discipline provides an
adequate approach for their solutions. As an example, the relationships
of man to the land resource base can best be understood when
they are considered holistically rather...
During the Colonial Period, in Mexico there was no rational
forest development policy and, as a result, forest resources were
squandered and to a considerable extent destroyed. During the
Nineteenth Century, a rational forest policy began to be promoted, but
in the end, it was translated into a policy of...
The history of fire between 1850 and 1977 in a portion of the
Willamette National Forest in-the central Western Cascades of Oregon was
documented using historical sources. Three types of records were
available: (1) records and writings not primarily concerned with fire
but yielding information about fire in context with...
The role of weather in influencing tourist-recreation visitation
to the Oregon coast during the six-month summer season of May
through October has been investigated by this research. In addition,
the normal day-to-day fluctuations in coastal visitation has been
determined.
Based upon the normal visitation, the tourist-recreation season
on Oregon's coast...
The land tenure system in the United States contains a variety
of tenure types. A major characteristic of this tenure system is the
continual change of tenure types within a given region. As these tenure
types change, problems of a cultural, economic, and legal nature
are created and interact with...
The identification and mapping of surface cover types
within Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, has been effectively
completed through the utilization of LANDSAT digital
data and NASA U-2 color infrared aerial photography. Classification
of LANDSAT data for surface cover type identification
and mapping was accomplished through use of the
Interactive...
A Stream Reach Inventory and Channel Stability Evaluation procedure has been used to assess the nature and extent of erosional nonpoint sources of pollution in the Evans Creek basin, a tributary to the Rogue River, in southwestern Oregon. The study is based upon the results of the Oregon Department of...
This thesis research consists of an investigation of the human
influences on wildlife in Belize. The study was accomplished by the
collection and analysis of data with respect to land use, habitat
characteristics, and wildlife status in Belize. Requirements and
status of many species are tabulated in order to give...
A study to determine the relationship between plant species and eight terrain variables and between thirty-one vegetation types
and the terrain variables was conducted in a 4, 000 square mile area
south and east of Tucson, Arizona. The eight terrain variables
included elevation, parent material, macrorelief, landform type,
drainage density,...
Bayocean sand spit lies along the northern Oregon coast
approximately 70 miles south of the Columbia River. Work was
begun on the construction of a large recreational resort on the spit
in the early 1900's. At the outset, the resort appeared to have a
promising future. However, a three-year delay...
The need to preserve Oregon's estuaries has been expressed
through the Land Conservation and Development Commission's Estuarine
Resources Goal 16. The first use of the mitigation guideline set forth
in this goal is in the Coos Bay estuary. The proposed North Bend
Airport runway extension will fill 32 acres (13...
This study evaluates the Earth Resources Technology Satellite-
One (ERTS-1) multispectral scanner (MSS) as a means of predicting
lacustrine trophic state and the magnitude of selected trophic state
indicators.
Numerical classificatory methods are employed to ascertain the
trophic character of 100 lakes in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,
and New York using...
This research deals with the problem of soil erosion in Cypress
Creek basin in West Tennessee and farmer participation in public
conservation programs. The study area is marginal to the
Tennessee Valley, a region identified in the 1930's as having a serious
agricultural soil erosion problem. The four voluntary programs...
Several empirical formulas that may be used to estimate available
chilling are presented in this study. Many climatic parameters
were considered in the derivation of these formulas. One equation
employing only maximum and minimum temperatures had a coefficients
of correlation (R) and R² values of .978 and .957, respectively. This...
The developmental patterns of five fuel resources located within
the state of Wyoming are examined through time and in relation to
several factors external to the location of the fuels. An historic
description and inventory of the five fuels: petroleum; natural gas;
oil shale; coal; uranium are presented. External factors...
The feasibility of utilizing LANDSAT MSS data in assessing surface cover types and areal extent of clearcut and shelterwood cut harvest sites in southern Oregon was investigated. The research utilized extensive 'ground truth' information to evaluate the LANDSAT data. A three faceted ground truth collection scheme analyzed 1) U.S. Forest...
The spatial organization of farm units in Polk and Linn counties
in the mid-Willamette Valley has undergone significant change over
the past 30 years. Whereas most study areas operations in the
1930's and 1940's consisted of small family owned farms with contiguous
land bases, present mid-Willamette Valley units vary considerably...