Silvopasture is the planned and managed agroforestry system in which forage, livestock, and trees or shrubs are integrated in order to enhance individual components. Silvopasture has been identified as the most promising agroforestry system for the Pacific Northwest and Southeast United States. However, there have been few studies describing the...
In this thesis I examine the question: can allowing a wildfire to burn this year result in a net positive economic gain? To answer this question I created 2,500 multiple sets of paired scenarios (called a fire of interest) which consist of ignitions, vegetation growth, and timber harvest over the...
The overarching objective of this study is to examine and compare the vulnerabilities of bridges combining effects of earthquake-induced ground shaking, ground failure (e.g., landslides and lateral spreading), and tsunami inundation. A parametric study is performed to understand the sensitivity of economic loss and traffic capacity with respect to the...
This thesis explores the relationships that income and housing space limitations have with regard to food security in full-time recreational vehicle (RV) households. This research used a scaled survey tool and a subset questionnaire to gather information on RV dwellers' housing and kitchen spaces along with participants' food shopping, storage,...
Small landowners in the state of Oregon find it difficult to be competitive with larger companies to provide traditional forest products to consumers. Additionally, many landowners hope to be profitable from their land, but are not necessarily interested in or have the capability to harvest large tracts of timber. Specialty...
This study evaluates the distributional impacts of an alternative public roads finance method, a road usage charge (RUC) fee, on lower income households and rural households in Oregon. While previous research has relied on the 2001 and 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), this research will uses the 2011-2013 Oregon...
Oregon residents possess several options in installing solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. This study examines a range of options--tax credits and rebates, a volumetric incentive rate program, power purchase agreements from third-party installers, and solar leasing--and compares the cost of these options to not installing. The paper considers the problem of...
This thesis investigates the success of and challenges facing small farmers operating direct marketing farm businesses in Oregon's Willamette Valley. This qualitative study utilizes participatory methods to gain the unique perspectives of small farmers regarding their success and challenges. Small farms are important players in local food systems and ensuring...
As reverse transfer students become a larger part of community college enrollments, it is important to better understand the underlying causes of this nontraditional population’s emergence in the traditional community college system. This quantitative descriptive study found that approximately nine percent of the student body enrolled at Rogue Community College...
Wildfire exclusion over the past century or more has resulted in extensive fuel accumulations throughout much of the West that combined with recent climatic patterns have increased the frequency of relatively uncommon, large, high-severity wildfires. Forest restoration treatments intended to alter landscape-level fire disturbance patterns can be difficult to implement...
A supply and demand model for the sweet cherry industry in Wasco County, Oregon and two investment valuation models are used to value and assess the risk of investments in high-density sweet cherry orchard establishment and production from the producer perspective. The supply and demand estimation finds the cherry price...
Central Oregon has attracted attention as a potential location for a biomass industry based on a locally fixed source of western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis Hook) feedstock. This study identifies a supply of juniper from private lands to determine how much of the available juniper is economically supplied at alternative prices...
The development of bioenergy from biomass has dominated the minds of forest engineering researchers over the last decade. One of the main themes that has been generated from that research is that bioenergy from biomass has major operational hurdles to overcome before becoming economically feasible. More directly, the impact of...
This study models the household demand for vehicle miles traveled with a focus on the effects from bicycle ridership and transit ridership. Through the use of data from the Oregon Household Activity Survey collected on behalf of the Oregon Department of Transportation, evidence is found that households participating in bicycle...
Blueberry production in Oregon is highly reliant upon the ecosystem services of native pollinators, which provide as much as a quarter of the total pollination services received by Blueberry growers. However, the health of these pollinator populations may be affected in yet unforeseen ways as growers adopt new pest management...
Signs of climate change across the Pacific Northwest indicate changing patterns of timing and availability of stream flow. Declining summer low flows, decreasing snow pack, higher temperatures and an increasing fraction of mountain precipitation falling as rain, raise concerns about future reliability of stream flows. These changes will likely affect...
Working conditions in the international garment industry have long been a concern and a process to assess and certify fair trade practices was developed as a means by which to improve those conditions. Standards for fair trade apparel include safe working conditions, fair wages, compliance with laws, and reduced environmental...
The 2004 Indian Ocean and 2011 Tohoku tsunami events have shown the destructive power of tsunami inundation to the constructed environment in addition to the tragic loss of life. A comparable event is expected for the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) which will impact the west coast of North America. Research...
Oregon's nursery and greenhouse industry has ranked the first in the State's agricultural for 18 years. The majority of nursery sales from the Pacific Northwest come from Oregon. Due to data limitations, empirical study of the Oregon nursery industry is rare. The present dissertation consists of three essays that analyze...
The wood products industry is influenced heavily by family ownership along the entire value chain. Although family ownership affects each link of the wood products value chain, there has been little research into the importance of products originating from family forestland. Specific attributes of products, such as origin or environmental...