In July of 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
activated the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDLs) provisions of the
Clean Water Act. As the first river in Oregon to implement TMDL
regulations, people and agencies in the Tualatin basin face many
challenges. Non-point source pollution affects water quality in the...
The general objective of this study was to develop
models and datasets that would significantly advance our
ability to assess the current and future effects of global
change on the biosphere. The focus was in two areas: (1)
preparing environmental datasets at regional to small
watershed scales; and (2) developing...
Trends in greater sage-grouse breeding populations are typically indexed by determining the peak number of males attending a lek in a lekking season. Numerous studies have estimated negative trends in sage-grouse breeding populations over time via data collected for the last 50 years. However, the inherent bias in data collection...
Use of high-strength steel (HSS) reinforcing bars could provide constructability and economic benefits for the construction of structures, reducing the initial and ultimately the life-cycle cost of bridge and building structural elements. This thesis summarizes work performed in a research project on the use of HSS reinforcing bars for concrete...
The western United States has experienced large-scale degradation due to land use and land cover changes, invasion of annual grasses, and expansion of woody plants into grass and shrublands and the resultant altered fire regimes. These landscape-scale changes have coincided with declining mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) populations, making habitat loss...
The majority of households in the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia feed wild birds, and 53 million people in the U.S. spent more than $5 billion on bird food and feeding accessories in 2016. Given the massive scale over which it occurs, purposeful feeding of wild birds has the potential...
Improvements on the charge control measurements of the torsion pendulum, electron gun, and autocollimator system were conducted at the University of Washington in preparation for the fabrication of the final prototype of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) gravitational wave detector for NASA. One main cause of transient forces on...
Climate change, wildfire, timber harvest, and land conversion alter the availability of downed wood in forests of the western United States. Numerous taxa rely on downed wood for temperature and humidity refugia, and downed wood may play a key role in enabling the persistence of climate-sensitive, low-vagility species like terrestrial...
This collection of three manuscripts serves to improve methods for collecting, interpreting, and utilizing autocorrelated data from headwater stream networks. Each stream network is comprised of linear segments. These segments lie within a unique branching structure that connects the segments via flowing water, and the connectivity provided by water varies...
