Browsing by Author "Schenk, Todd"

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    Addressing the Contribution of Indirect Potable Reuse to Inland Freshwater Salinization
    Bhide, Shantanu V.; Grant, Stanley B.; Parker, Emily A.; Rippy, Megan A.; Godrej, Adil N.; Kaushal, Sujay S.; Prelewicz, Gregory; Saji, Niffy; Curtis, Shannon; Vikesland, Peter J.; Maile-Moskowitz, Ayella; Edwards, Marc A.; Lopez, Kathryn; Birkland, Thomas A.; Schenk, Todd (2021-02-02)
    Inland freshwater salinity is rising worldwide, a phenomenon called the freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS). We investigate a potential conflict between managing the FSS and indirect potable reuse, the practice of augmenting water supplies through the addition of reclaimed wastewater to surface waters and groundwaters. From time-series data collected over 25 years, we quantify the contributions of three salinity sources—a wastewater reclamation facility and two rapidly urbanizing watersheds—to the rising concentration of sodium (a major ion associated with the FSS) in a regionally important drinking water reservoir in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Sodium mass loading to the reservoir is primarily from watershed runoff during wet weather and reclaimed wastewater during dry weather. Across all timescales evaluated, sodium concentration in the reclaimed wastewater is higher than in outflow from the two watersheds. Sodium in reclaimed wastewater originates from chemicals added during wastewater treatment, industrial and commercial discharges, human excretion, and down-drain disposal of drinking water and sodium-rich household products. Thus, numerous opportunities exist to reduce the contribution of indirect potable reuse to sodium pollution at this site, and the FSS more generally. These efforts will require deliberative engagement with a diverse community of watershed stakeholders and careful consideration of the local political, social, and environmental context.
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    Birth of The New Dominion: EV Charging in the Climates of Capitulation, 1995-2022
    Balch, Thomas Keith (Virginia Tech, 2022-06-09)
    This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between government influence and market forces pertaining to the introduction of new technologies in the market. The thesis will do this by utilizing electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) in California and Virginia as a historical analysis case study to determine the historical catalysts for change in the public EVSE market since its introduction in 1995. Comparing the rate of change to historical timelines for both states, "market tendencies" and "government involvement" played the greatest role in EVSE growth, with there being a distinct shift from "market tendencies" to "government involvement" over time. Results show that California has fully embraced the interventionist role, with state and local actors playing a part. Virginia, on the other hand, has just begun to allow state intervention, so much of the change in the state has come from economic or business events. Data shows, however, that this could be changing, and that Virginia could be on the verge of allowing for market intervention based on equitable development and future economic opportunity.
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    Can Common Pool Resource Theory Catalyze Stakeholder-Driven Solutions to the Freshwater Salinization Syndrome?
    Grant, Stanley B.; Rippy, Megan A.; Birkland, Thomas A.; Schenk, Todd; Rowles, Kristin; Misra, Shalini; Aminpour, Payam; Kaushal, Sujay; Vikesland, Peter J.; Berglund, Emily; Gomez-Velez, Jesus D.; Hotchkiss, Erin R.; Perez, Gabriel; Zhang, Harry X.; Armstrong, Kingston; Bhide, Shantanu V.; Krauss, Lauren; Maas, Carly; Mendoza, Kent; Shipman, Caitlin; Zhang, Yadong; Zhong, Yinman (American Chemical Society, 2022-09-14)
    Freshwater salinity is rising across many regions of the United States as well as globally, a phenomenon called the freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS). The FSS mobilizes organic carbon, nutrients, heavy metals, and other contaminants sequestered in soils and freshwater sediments, alters the structures and functions of soils, streams, and riparian ecosystems, threatens drinking water supplies, and undermines progress toward many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There is an urgent need to leverage the current understanding of salinization's causes and consequences?in partnership with engineers, social scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders?into locally tailored approaches for balancing our nation's salt budget. In this feature, we propose that the FSS can be understood as a common pool resource problem and explore Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom's social-ecological systems framework as an approach for identifying the conditions under which local actors may work collectively to manage the FSS in the absence of top-down regulatory controls. We adopt as a case study rising sodium concentrations in the Occoquan Reservoir, a critical water supply for up to one million residents in Northern Virginia (USA), to illustrate emerging impacts, underlying causes, possible solutions, and critical research needs.
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    Catawba Sustainability Center and Catawba Hospital Renewable Energy Site Planning Process Study
    Meyers, Ron; Carstensen, Laurence W.; Ford, W. Mark; Grant, Elizabeth J.; Klopfer, Scott D.; Schenk, Todd; Taylor, Adam (Virginia Tech, 2020-09-29)
    The transdisciplinary Renewable Energy Facilities Siting Project produced a white paper outlining their proof-of-concept using a case study from the Catawba Valley.
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    Community Ecosystem Services Values Support Conservation and Sustainable Landscape Development: Perspectives From Four University of California Campuses
    Fausey, Kaitlin (Virginia Tech, 2022-12-20)
    Urban landscapes homogenize our world at global scales. This sameness contributes to "extinction of experience", where people feel increasingly disconnected from native ecosystems and the services they provide. Numerous approaches have been proposed for combatting extinction of experience, all of which require community support to be successful. Because comparative assessments are relatively rare, however, it is difficult to say which options are most supported. We addresses this knowledge gap using human subject surveys and multi-criteria decision analysis to evaluate landscape preferences and their implications for three approaches recommended to combat extinction of experience: ecosystem conservation, turf replacement and nature-based solutions. Our study focuses on universities in Southern California, where native ecosystem remnants, nature-based solutions, lawns, and ornamental gardens co-exist, which is necessary to compare community support for transitions among them. Our results suggest that conservation of native ecosystems, particularly sage scrub (top ranked landscape overall), is well supported by campus communities, as are turf replacement programs (lawns ranked lowest overall). Support for nature-based solutions was more intermediate (and variable), which may reflect their relative newness, both on university campuses and in urban spaces more generally. Not all university populations preferred the same landscapes; preferences differed with degree of pro-environmentalism and university status (undergrad, graduate student, staff). Even so, all groups exhibited landscape preferences consistent with at least one approach for combatting extinction of experience. This suggests we have a viable set of tools for increasing native ecosystem exposure on university campuses, and ultimately, in the next generation of urban homeowners.
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    Contextualization and Sodium Diet Implications of Occoquan Reservoir Salinization
    Shipman, Caitlin Mariah (Virginia Tech, 2023-03-17)
    Freshwater salinization syndrome is a rising threat globally which results in increased ion concentrations in inland freshwaters. This syndrome threatens healthy aquatic ecosystems and can alter the perception of the potability of finished drinking water. The Occoquan Reservoir, located in Northern Virginia, is a freshwater system that is facing rising salinization. Stakeholders for the reservoir have been convened to address these rising salinization concerns. Among these stakeholders, there are a variety of viewpoints on the significance of the salinization, which is preventing a high level of convergence around this threat. To assist in contextualizing this system, empirical cumulative distribution functions were generated from data gathered from various governmental sources and compared the reservoir's watershed and finished drinking water ion concentrations. These analyses show that the watershed and finished drinking water have some of the highest concentrations of sodium and chloride statewide. Additional investigations determined the trend of sodium increases in finished drinking water since the 1980s. Monte Carlo simulations were ran to determined whether there would be risks to human from ingesting this water should this trend continued. Results from these analyses greatly varied due to the wide range in drinking water ingestion rates. The purpose of these analyses is to assist with stakeholder convergence around the level of threat salinization poses to the reservoir and to initiate discussions of what an acceptable threshold for management could be.
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    Designing Smarter Stormwater Systems at Multiple Scales with Transit Time Distribution Theory and Real-Time Control
    Parker, Emily Ann (Virginia Tech, 2021-06-17)
    Urban stormwater runoff is both an environmental threat and a valuable water resource. This dissertation explores the use of two stormwater management strategies, namely green stormwater infrastructure and stormwater real-time control (RTC), for capturing and treating urban stormwater runoff. Chapter 2 focuses on clean bed filtration theory and its application to fecal indicator bacteria removal in experimental laboratory-scale biofilters. This analysis is a significant step forward in our understanding of how physicochemical theories can be melded with hydrology, engineering design, and ecology to improve the water quality benefits of green infrastructure. Chapter 3 focuses on the novel application of unsteady transit time distribution (TTD) theory to solute transport in a field-scale biofilter. TTD theory closely reproduces experimental bromide breakthrough concentrations, provided that lateral exchange with the surrounding soil is accounted for. TTD theory also provides insight into how changing distributions of water age in biofilter storage and outflow affect key stormwater management endpoints, such as biofilter pollutant treatment credit. Chapter 4 focuses on stormwater RTC and its potential for improving runoff capture and water supply in areas with Mediterranean climates. We find that the addition of RTC increases the percent of runoff captured, but does not increase the percent of water demand satisfied. Our results suggest that stormwater RTC systems need to be implemented in conjunction with context-specific solutions (such as spreading basins for groundwater recharge) to reliably augment urban water supply in areas with uneven precipitation. Through a combination of modeling and experimental studies at a range of scales, this dissertation lays the foundation for future integration of TTD theory with RTC to improve regional stormwater management.
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    The Dilemmas of Citizen Inclusion in Urban Planning and Governance to Enable a 1.5 °C Climate Change Scenario
    Chu, Eric; Schenk, Todd; Patterson, James (Cogitatio Press, 2018-04-24)
    Cities around the world are facilitating ambitious and inclusive action on climate change by adopting participatory and collaborative planning approaches. However, given the major political, spatial, and scalar interdependencies involved, the extent to which these planning tools equip cities to realise 1.5 °C climate change scenarios is unclear. This article draws upon emerging knowledge in the fields of urban planning and urban climate governance to explore complementary insights into how cities can pursue ambitious and inclusive climate action to realise 1.5 °C climate change scenarios. We observe that urban planning scholarship is often under-appreciated in urban climate governance research, while conversely, promising urban planning tools and approaches can be limited by the contested realities of urban climate governance. By thematically reviewing diverse examples of urban climate action across the globe, we identify three key categories of planning dilemmas: institutional heterogeneity, scalar mismatch, and equity and justice concerns. We argue that lessons from urban planning and urban climate governance scholarship should be integrated to better understand how cities can realise 1.5 °C climate change scenarios in practice.
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    Engaging with the Invisible: STS Groundwork in an Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
    Patrick, Annie Yong (Virginia Tech, 2022-01-20)
    This dissertation is a study of groundwork in Engaged Science, Technology, and Society (STS) research. Engaged STS scholars reframe STS knowledge and move it beyond the traditional scope and boundaries of the field. They use various methods such as critical participation, making and doing, situated interventions, and experimentation to critically engage with their fields of study. These scholars have evaluated their work within the context of the disciplinary outsider, described their use of high-level pragmatic frameworks, and used the arts to bring critical social issues to the public eye. Yet, when I decided to use STS engagement methods to bring visibility to the lesser-known communities in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Virginia Tech, I found a lack of work documenting the groundwork and experience of engagement. I could not locate groundwork regarding negotiation, designing the most appropriate intervention, collaboration strategies, or confronting my fears and doubts about being in the field. Therefore, in this dissertation, I identify and examine my engagement experience in three interventions within the ECE department to bring visibility to the groundwork of STS engagement. The limited-series podcast Engineering Visibility was a platform to bring visibility to the less dominant communities in the ECE department. Highlighting the experiences of women in engineering, the first-generation student, inclusion and diversity, and the non-traditional student fostered a shared identity and sense of belonging within the ECE department. On the ground, this project examined the need to protect participants' visibility through invisibility. Interventionist Protectivity conceptualizes how I combined trust, accountability, and social awareness to protect my participants' from social scrutiny. The second project was a seminar titled "Expand Your ECE Career." The seminar exposed students to a "broader range of careers" by challenging the traditional ideas of success. The seminar featured four ECE alumni with successful careers in law, finance, and fashion entrepreneurship. Additionally, this intervention pointed out the inadequacies of traditional forms of project assessment. I describe how I measured intervention success through other assessment methods such as "assessment per mobility." The last project was a data-driven white paper that translated the care work of the undergraduate academic career advisors and framed it to be understood by the ECE faculty. The care work done by the academic advisors was underappreciated in its connection to undergraduate student success. On the ground, I discussed the importance of identifying the advisors and the faculty's social construction to create an intervention that translated the advisors' work to be valued by the faculty. Lastly, I conclude with a discussion summarizing the overall lessons learned from the three interventions and discussing my experience of engagement. My engaged STS experience is discussed through my framing of the concept of self-confrontation and the work of avoiding the term of STS being deemed as useful.
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    Environmental Risks, the Leverage of Scientific Information and Data, and Mediated Communication
    Seo, Hye-Jeong (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-28)
    This dissertation addresses the complex challenge of communicating knowledge about environmental risks from toxic chemicals. Modern environmental risks are often invisible and technically complex, making the management of these risks highly dependent on data and information. Reliance on risk knowledge necessitates effective dissemination and communication by government agencies, yet the public's engagement with this information remains unclear due to limited real-world studies. This dissertation is comprised of three standalone papers bridging this gap. Each focuses on different aspects of risk knowledge communication using news dialogues as data sources. The first paper investigates the communication of location-specific risk information through a case study of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant (RAAP). Using content analysis and logistic regression, the study examines how scientific information about local environmental issues is presented in news articles and what factors influence its inclusion. Findings highlight the varying capacities among different stakeholder groups to access and utilize scientific information, underscoring the need for governmental and research support for less-resourced groups. The second paper explores chemical-specific risk knowledge, focusing on the environmental risks associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Employing a structural topic model (STM) and multinomial logistic regression, the study assesses the impact of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)'s Draft Toxicity Assessment for GenX, one of the PFAS chemicals, on news topics. Results indicate that the influence of new risk knowledge on news topics varies depending on community context, with significant impacts observed when communities are ready for governmental action or legislation using the new assessment. The third paper examines the use of the US EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database in news media. Through exploratory analysis, it reveals how different stakeholders use TRI data to make claims about environmental risks, highlighting that environmental organizations are primary users who often reconstruct TRI data to make it more relevant to the public. This suggests their potential role as intermediaries in risk knowledge communication. This dissertation provides empirical evidence of the limited news coverage of environmental risk knowledge, the dominance of government sources, and the significant role of intermediary groups. The findings suggest policy implications for government agencies and other organizations, highlighting the need to improve the conveyance and communication of risk knowledge. Recommendations include providing more contextual information and training for communities and intermediary groups on interpreting and utilizing risk data and information. These aim to bolster public comprehension and responsiveness to environmental risks, thereby protecting public safety and health.
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    Exploring how social justice is considered in climate adaptation planning and implementation within local governments in the United States
    Brousseau, Jennifer Joyce (Virginia Tech, 2023-10-11)
    This dissertation investigates how social justice is considered as local governments in the United States develop and implement climate adaptation plans and is composed of an introduction (Chapter 1), three stand-alone manuscripts (Chapters 2-4), and a conclusion (Chapter 5). The introduction gives a brief overview of climate adaptation planning, the intersection of social justice and climate adaptation, and existing research about how social justice is considered as communities prepare for climate change. To conceptualize social justice throughout this dissertation, we adopt the three-dimensional theory that includes recognitional, distributional, and procedural justice. Both Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 focus on adaptation planning through a review of 101 climate adaptation, climate action, and climate resilience plans published between 2010-2021 by US municipalities. In Chapter 2, we used data from this review to understand generally how recognitional, distributional, and procedural justice were considered within these documents. In Chapter 3, we used the same data and demographic data for each community to understand trends over time and other patterns in how each type of justice was considered through a series of regressions. Chapter 4 serves as a follow-up to the adaptation plan review to understand how local governments are considering justice as they move forward and implement adaptation initiatives. We interviewed the plan leads from 25 communities that published a recent climate plan that we reviewed and asked them how their local government has considered social justice as they've implemented adaptation projects, what factors have enabled these considerations, and what challenges they've encountered. The results of these studies show that social justice is increasingly addressed in more recent climate plans, but recognitional and distributional justice are often considered more than procedural justice. Most communities we spoke with are still in the early phases of implementing these plans, and largely centered on how these municipalities have engaged marginalized individuals, with most aspiring towards empowerment but informing or consulting with residents. Our findings revealed that many opportunities remain to advance justice further, especially in how municipalities can meaningfully engage and empower marginalized residents in adaptation initiatives. The conclusion summarizes how social justice is considered in adaptation planning and implementation, as well as what gaps remain. Within this section, I reflect on my experiences as a Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech and my future goals within academia.
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    Flood Modeling and Community Engagement in Giles County, Virginia
    Kahl, Alexandra Claire (Virginia Tech, 2020-06-04)
    Evaluating and educating communities on their flood risks is an integral part of adapting to climate change and more extreme precipitation patterns. Low-income communities are often the most affected by in-land floods. They are more likely to live in floodplains and have less socioeconomic mobility. This thesis takes a two-pronged approach to evaluating flood risk. First, a flood risk model that identifies areas of high runoff in Giles County, Virginia was developed. The model accounts for land cover, soil type and elevation. The soil retention layer and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) produced a cell by cell layer of runoff. Storm data was collected from the NEXRAD program and integrated into the runoff layer. Countywide maps of low, moderate and high risk were produced. Semi structured interviews were then conducted to gauge the usability of the maps within high risk areas. Interview feedback was transcribed and coded for analysis. Themes identified throughout the interviews, were used to make adjustments to the model and maps. This experience suggests that combining technical analysis and community engagement can create a more accurate depiction of flood risk that is meaningful to those most affected. This paper also suggests that evaluating riverine flooding based on the most severe, recent storm yields a more accurate and impactful tool than previous flood modeling methods. This work takes flood modeling a step farther by receiving community input and shows that models are only as useful as they are meaningful to the most impacted communities.
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    The Governance of Mobilized Urban Policies: The Case of Riyadh's Transit-Oriented Development Program
    Altasan, Ibrahim Abdullah (Virginia Tech, 2023-08-18)
    Countries and cities around the world are searching for ways to plan urban development to accommodate the growing demand for public infrastructure and amenities due to high rates of urbanization. Urban policies deemed to be successful are often adopted by other cities and hence applied across contexts. Urban Policy Mobility (UPM) theories study the ways in which political relationships, power dynamics, and other potential drivers influence the circulation of urban policies. UPM provides a guiding framework to analyze the policymaking associated with mobilized urban policies to understand the socio-spatial processes that motivate the adoption of urban policies from elsewhere. This dissertation engages with the UPM literature by investigating the assemblage and implementation processes of a mobilized urban policy to explore how the fixed socio-spatial processes embedded within a particular planning culture interact with and absorb a flowing urban policy. The term flowing in this study refers to the process of transposing policies from one place to another. Little attention has been paid to how the planning culture in a developing country can shape the adoption (or non-adoption) of certain policy elements, and what challenges arise during the implementation of a flowing urban policy. Given this context, this study answers two research questions: (a) How does urban policy mobility unpack in practice in response to local socio-spatial processes? and (b) What challenges emerge when policies are transposed into new urban policy environments that are dissimilar from those in which they originated? A case study methodology was used to study the changes that occurred when a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) urban policy was introduced in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A qualitative content analysis of archival resources, documents, and semi-structured interviews revealed how local urban planning conditions and challenges influenced Riyadh's TOD assemblage and implementation. Public officials and consultants from Riyadh, national officials, and experts were interviewed to develop a clear understanding of the TOD policy assemblage and implementation processes. The two main findings from this research are that: 1) there was an incomplete translation of TOD into the local planning culture, primarily due to Riyadh's stronger emphasis on the density, diversity, and design features of TOD and less concern with the sustainability dimensions; and 2) several governance and prioritization challenges emerged during the policy implementation process, which stem from institutional constraints and institutional and resource gaps. This research expands the UPM field by tracing the trajectory of policy mutation due to local socio-spatial processes. Additionally, this study provides a conceptual framework that synthesizes three heterogeneous elements: planning culture, planning policy, and policy carriers. It offers a methodological contribution that advances UPM analysis to better explain policy mutation. This study can be used as a cautionary tale for officials engaged in adopting urban policies that originate in other jurisdictions.
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    Illuminating Identities and Motivations in Public Participation: Public Administrators' Perspectives about Public Participation in Local Government
    Daniels, Lorita Ann Copeland (Virginia Tech, 2019-12-05)
    The U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Agency provides Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding to state and local governments, giving them broad flexibility to design and implement community projects. The CDBG program emphasizes that public hearings are a requirement to obtain federal funding at the state and local levels. Also, HUD lists several other public participation methods that can be used in addition to public hearings. Further, the extant literature on public participation emphasizes the prevalent use of one method, public hearings, compared to the use of other more engaging techniques. Despite the availability of different methods that may be more engaging, administrators continue to engage the public through the use of public hearings. This study explores the motivation and identity of public administrators in local government, implementing public participation programs. Using a multi-site case study based on fifteen interviews with officials from various localities across the Commonwealth of Virginia, I found that administrators held onto their identity as public servants but might have had difficulty staying motivated to do public engagement work when they perceived that there were impediments in the work environment. Another interesting finding is that these obstacles created tensions between the public servants and their respective organization, leading to fewer performance outcomes among the administrators. Further, the administrators' characteristics (identity) such as job tenure, rank, education, age, and gender, along with their public service motivation, might have impacted their actions and behavior in the public sector environment. I also found that administrators who wanted to do more, commonly reported they were situated in a work environment that limited their ability to do more. I found that the work environment and the identity (personal characteristics and public service motivation) could influence the public service behavioral outcomes of administrators. The interview data pointed out a complex picture of the tensions existing between the institution and the individual. The research revealed that public administrators often adhered to their role as public servants but were faced with dynamics that interacted with their performances. From these findings, administrators must look pass those informal and formal influences that prevent them from staying engaged with their roles as public servants and find ways to give citizens meaningful opportunities to have input into the government decision-making process.
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    Imagine Blacksburg: Using immersive 3D models to explore density
    Newcomb, Cecile Gaines (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-06)
    This project explores the challenges of increasing density in a college town grappling with how to appropriately respond to expected population growth. It presents a concept idea for a section of Downtown Blacksburg, Virginia that meets the various planning goals for the community. It also experiments with an innovative way of presenting and fostering discussion around this kind of vision by inviting stakeholders to experience models of the concept in an immersive three dimensional environment. Common negative perceptions of density lead to resistance to increased density projects by the public and elected representatives. While there seems to be a consensus of understanding that denser development is preferable to sprawl, Americans in communities across the country have been resisting efforts to increase density. In Blacksburg higher density is often met with fear of student housing located too close to single family neighborhoods. Density resistance is rooted largely in the lack of general knowledge of what density looks like, how it is built, and how it feels once built. The negative aspects of high density neighborhoods, which have caused fearful reactions, are results of poor design, not an inevitability caused by density. This thesis uses two approaches to argue for the advantages of higher density development. Methods include background research of densification elsewhere, a neighborhood redevelopment proposal, and a research event in which a select group of participants completed surveys, viewed presentations of 3D computer models of virtual developments in Blacksburg, and discussed their opinions and thoughts about the models and proposal. This project has demonstrated that 3D modeling is a more effective planning tool for helping decision-makers perceive density and understand the value of quality designs than typical planning tools based on 2D presentations.
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    The Impacts of Climate Change on Rice Production and Small Farmers' Adaptation: A Case of Guyana
    Mahdu, Omchand (Virginia Tech, 2019-04-22)
    Prior research has concluded that climate change is having an overall negative impact on rice production worldwide. The vast majority of climate change impacts on rice production result from fluctuations in precipitation and temperature, which lead to flooding, water scarcity, and increases in insects and pests, diseases, and weeds. As a small developing country, Guyana is highly vulnerable to climate change despite its insignificant contribution to global warming. Guyana heavily relies on rice cultivation for food, employment, and export earnings. While generally increasing, rice yields have fluctuated over the last two decades. For example, in 2016, rice yields declined by 12.7 percent due to a drought. This dissertation explores the relationship between fluctuating yields and climate change, and how farmers are adapting. Of particular importance are the impacts of climate change on small farmers (those cultivating less than 4.45 hectares or 11 acres) and their ability to successfully adapt. Small farmers are especially vulnerable to a changing climate because they often lack the necessary knowledge, support, and resources to effectively respond and adapt. Given the large percentage of rice farmers engaging in small-scale production in Guyana, this study investigates the impacts of climate variability on rice production and the extent to which the production and productivity of small farmers are affected. It also identifies the coping strategies small farmers employ to combat the effects of climate change and the extent to which these strategies are successful. Given that climate change is expected to vary across different regions of the world, the first aim of this study is to show how the climate in Guyana has changed. At the country level, evidence from descriptive statistics, a linear trend model, and a two-sample t-test shows that minimum and maximum temperatures have increased over the last 111 years. The aggregate data is less clear on changes in precipitation over the last 111 years. However, analysis of farm-level data provides strong evidence of shifts in rainfall patterns. Among 189 small farmers interviewed, 182 (96.3%) perceived changes in rainfall patterns, 170 (89.9%) perceived changes in temperature, 169 (89.4%) perceived changes in extreme weather events, 185 (97.9%) perceived changes in insects and pests, 73 (38.6%) perceived changes in diseases, and 168 (88.9%) perceived changes in weeds. Changes in precipitation have included an increase in intensity and out of season rainfall, which has impacted harvesting due to poor dams, wet fields, and the lodging of plants. The primary responses farmers have adopted include adjusting planting dates based on water availability and the cultivation of different rice varieties. Changes in temperature have resulted in hotter days, accelerating the evaporation of water from fields. In response, farmers replenish water in their fields, when available. Excess rainfall and resulting flooding, drought, and heavy winds have been the primary extreme weather events observed. Excess rainfall and associated flooding submerges, uproots, and/or kills young plants. The lodging of plants due to heavy winds and flooding has been the main impact. In response to flooding, farmers have pumped water out of their fields. There is very little that farmers can do in response to heavy winds. The primary change in insects and pests reported by farmers has been an increase in paddy bug infestations, which cause damage to the grains resulting in lower quality and quantity at harvest. As a result, farmers are engaging in more preventative spraying. An increase in brown spot disease was also reported. Brown spots are primarily found on the leaves, damaging and/or stunting the growth of the plants by reducing the amount of food they manufacture through photosynthesis. Farmers have responded by engaging in preventative spraying and the rotation of fungicides. Increases in red rice and duckweed have been the major changes in weeds observed. Both weeds compete with rice for space, sunlight, nutrients, and water. Additionally, red rice reduces the quality and by extension the price farmers receive. Farmers are responding by spraying more herbicide and using a contact chemical to burn red rice. Multivariate analysis of farm-level data found that land tenure, tractor ownership, membership in an agricultural organization(s), secondary non-agricultural income, and farms located in regions two and four have positive correlations with annual yields. Perceived changes in rainfall, farm size, livestock ownership, participation in rice extension training, and household members help with rice farming were found to have negative correlations with annual yields. Policy recommendations to improve rice production and farmers' resilience include improving research and development capacity; tax exemption for agricultural inputs and equipment; improving extension services; improving the management of irrigation systems and water resources; enhanced access to credit, insurance, and subsidies; improving weather forecasting and climate monitoring; and improving the management of drainage infrastructure. The analytical framework used in this research produced a rich dataset and interesting results that are important to our understanding of farm-level impacts and responses to climate change. As such, it may prove useful for studying climate change impacts in other developing countries that have similar characteristics and face similar risks from climate change as Guyana.
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    Joint Fact-Finding in Practice: Review of a Collaborative Approach to Climate-Ready Infrastructure in Rotterdam
    Schenk, Todd; Vogel, Ruben A.L.; Maas, Nienke; Tavasszy, Lóránt A. (TUDelft, 2016)
    Joint fact-finding has been advanced as a method for helping stakeholders grappling with technically intensive policy and planning challenges to collaboratively engage in research and arrive at shared sets of facts to inform their decision-making. This paper introduces joint fact-finding and considers its application in the context of infrastructure stakeholders aiming to assess and increase the resilience of their infrastructure systems to climate change. A set of evaluative criteria is introduced, which are proposed for assessing joint fact finding processes both procedurally and substantively in terms of the outcomes, considering them to be both arenas for collaborative governance and joint knowledge production efforts. These criteria are applied to a case in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. This case suggests that joint fact-finding can provide value, but also reveals some lessons. For the efforts themselves, these lessons relate to: The practical applicability of the outcomes; the inherently contingent nature of the outcomes when addressing wicked problems; questions of representation from stakeholder groups; and the importance of leadership and good process design. The following observations are made regarding the criteria: While they are typically interdependent, both process and outcomes should be evaluated; and more attention should be paid to the method and metrics of evaluation, while recognizing that there is no single formula or approach that can be applied, given the heterogeneity of the criteria.
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    Linking GIS, youth environmental literacy, and city government functions to define and catalyze community heat resilience planning in Roanoke, VA
    Dillon, Maxwell Stewart (Virginia Tech, 2022-06-10)
    Statistics show that chronic heat exposure and extreme heat waves are the leading cause of death amongst natural disasters in urban spaces across the United States, outpacing the likes of more notable phenomena such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Heat in urban spaces is not distributed equally due to the urban heat island effect, a phenomenon which significantly elevates temperatures due to the various absorption characteristics of built environment features. Historical discriminatory mortgage lending schemes and planning practices that targeted communities of color have intensified that issue, endangering the health and well-being of marginalized neighborhoods to this day. Although generating feasible design solutions to mitigate the impact of heat in urban spaces represents a substantial challenge, utilizing readily available data sources to garner the social and political support required for actionable change is likely the more complex issue. Because youth are typically less jaded by external social and political influences and will either enjoy the benefits or suffer the consequences related to the built environment for their entire adult life, they possess a unique potential to serve as a vehicle for generating community momentum for the implementation of heat resilience solutions. This thesis explores the spatial distribution of heat throughout neighborhoods in Roanoke, Virginia by exploring both land surface temperature and air temperature discrepancies by Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) classification and census tract. I find that HOLC polygons not labeled "A" possess a considerably higher average temperature than the most "desirable" classification, and that there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between mean land surface temperature (aggregation of Landsat raster files) and census tract socio demographic characteristics such as median household income and percentage of residents aged 65 and over. This thesis also examines the potential of youth-focused science education programs to catalyze the political will necessary to enact resilience planning efforts that no single governmental agency is responsible for. I analyzed the various impacts that artifacts produced by a 2021 science education program conducted with Roanoke City middle school students inflicted on a 2022 focus group comprised of influential Roanoke public officials. I show the reasoning which supports that four primary opportunity and challenge categories – Breaking Down Silos, Spreading Awareness, Places and Venues, and Resources and Funding – can serve as foundational discussion components for heat resilience planning panels in the future. This thesis advances the awareness of disproportionate exposure to heat in urban spaces and contributes to theories attempting to trigger heat resilience planning efforts.
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    Meaningful Engagement: Exploring More Inclusive Local Stakeholder Engagement in the Chesapeake Bay Program
    Showalter, Amy Laurel (Virginia Tech, 2021-11-16)
    This thesis explores stakeholder engagement in complex networked governance and adaptive management structures. It analyzes the adaptive capacity, multi-level learning, and stakeholder engagement and inclusion processes organizations engaged in transboundary environmental planning employ for effective governance. Over the last few decades, networked governance and adaptive management have become increasingly popular within natural resource management, while public demand for and expectations of stakeholder engagement within government funded programs has grown. There is a need to better understand networked governance arrangements' structures and strategies for local stakeholder engagement, and how these structures and strategies support inclusive determination and implementation of regional planning and funding priorities. Research for this project involved a qualitative study of local stakeholder engagement within the Chesapeake Bay Program using document analysis and semi-structured interviews of Bay Program staff, advisory committee members, and partners. This paper finds that inclusive stakeholder engagement, practiced in both episodic and institutionalized forms, is critical to the social learning and change required for successful natural resource management within regional partnerships. Networked governance arrangements can strategically employ engagement practices that create spaces for network and social learning and increase diversity through inclusion. Informal subnetworks play a key role in developing new engagement strategies (e.g., trusted sources) and preparing organizations for change (e.g., alternative decision-making methods). This research makes the following recommendations for stakeholder engagement: prioritize DEIJ in engagement design; identify engagement goals, values, and roles; strengthen networks to support diversity in participation and inclusion; create mechanisms to operationalize engagement learning; and regularly evaluate engagement practices.
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    A Multi-level Analysis of Extreme Heat in Cities
    Kianmehr, Ayda (Virginia Tech, 2023-09-01)
    As a result of climate change and urbanization, rising temperatures are causing increasing concern about extreme heat in cities worldwide. Urban extreme heat like other climate-related phenomena is a complex problem that requires expertise from a range of disciplines and multi-faceted solutions. Therefore, this study aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of urban heat issue by taking a multi-level approach that integrates science, technology, and policy. Throughout the three main papers of this dissertation, a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, such as microclimate modeling, machine learning, statistical analysis, and policy content analysis, are used to analyze urban heat from different perspectives. The first paper of this dissertation focuses on the street canyon scale, aiming to identify the physical and vegetation parameters that have the greatest impact on changing thermal conditions in urban environments and to understand how these parameters interact with each other. Moving towards identifying applicable heat-related data and measurement techniques, the second paper assesses whether lower-resolution temperature data and novel sources of vulnerability indicators can effectively explain intra-urban heat variations. Lastly, the third paper of this dissertation reviews heat-related plans and policies at the Planning Districts level in Virginia, providing insights into how extreme heat is framed and addressed at the regional and local levels. This analysis is particularly important for states such as Virginia, which historically have not experienced multiple days of extreme heat during summers, as is common in southern and southwestern states of the United States. The results of this study provide insights into the contributing and mitigating factors associated with extreme heat exposure, novel heat-related data and measurement techniques, and the types of analysis and information that should be included in local climate-related plans to better address extreme heat. This dissertation explores new avenues for measuring, understanding, and planning extreme heat in cities, thereby contributing to the advancement of knowledge in this field.