The people of the southwestern Rhodope Mountains of Bulgaria live in small, mountainous villages and rural areas. They rely on berries, herbs, and mushrooms provided by the forest and maintain a lifestyle and culture of gathering them. This study determined the economic and landscape concentration of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) and how this has changed in the past twenty years in the region of Garmen. The objective was to gauge the cultural and economic significance of NTFPs in the lives of the people who live there. Data was collected using informal, open-ended interviews and through participant observation. Results indicate that ethnicity influence how resources are utilized. Roma people collect mushrooms for income generationï¼› Orthodox Bulgarians gather herbs, berries, and mushrooms for medicinal purposes, to supplement their diets, and to carry on traditions. Bulgarian Muslims collect for a combination of the aforementioned reasons. Changes that occur in the forests affect each of the ethnic groups in different ways and forest management practices should include people’s knowledge and uses of NTFPs.

Coastal sage scrub (CSS) is a unique and highly threatened vegetation community in coastal Southern California and northern Mexico, with 90 percent lost to development, agriculture, and invasive species. Understanding CSS recovery is critical to its survival. This study looks at the long-term effects of grazing and cultivation in southern California by tracking the extent of exotic grassland in two valleys in the Santa Monica Mountains over sixty years. The rates of native shrub return in a grazed valley were compared to those in a cultivated valley. Transects compared physical differences of stable and recovering grassland-shrubland boundaries. Native shrubs returned to the grass valley that was grazed nearly one and one-half times faster than the valley that was cultivated. Cultivation may result in a type conversion of CSS to a new steady state of exotic annual grassland. The field transects showed that stable and recovering boundaries had different physical characteristics.

Great Britain and the United States were, in turn, the worlds leading maritime powers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Comprehensive historical and archaeological analyses of ship construction practices among these countries, therefore, reveal the predominate types of iron and steel vessels that were built during this time. There are limited data available, though, that infer the corrosion behavior of iron and steel vessels over historical timescales. The author performed minimal-disturbance corrosion analyses on two shipwrecks located in Bermuda. These surveys represented the first time that in-situ corrosion testing was ever performed on shipwrecks in the region. The in-situ corrosion behavior of archaeological iron and steel shipwrecks had also never been compared against either standardized or replicated marine conditions. The author, therefore, completed a series of laboratorial potentiodynamic polarization scans on reference steel samples that were placed in a series of synthetic marine environments. Overall, the potentiodynamic polarization scans showed that such controlled laboratorial experiments could not be adequately utilized to infer the approximate degradation rates of archaeological iron and steel shipwrecks. The best way to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of shipwreck corrosion behavior would be to focus solely on in-situ data collected from a relevant site. The in-situ investigations also implied that for archaeological iron and steel shipwrecks corroding in the shallow, subtropical waters of Bermuda, more iron, once displaced from the underlying oxide-based layers, is leaching directly into the seawater instead of forming more stable compounds within the exterior calcareous concretion layers. Corrosion product layers, therefore, cannot be solely utilized to infer the actual corrosion rates of archaeological iron or steel shipwrecks in Bermuda. A combination of direct in-situ electrochemical measurements and mass spectrometry analyses also determined that certain areas of a respective archaeological iron or steel shipwreck might corrode at different rates. The laboratory-based potentiodynamic polarization analyses and the in-situ investigations did not specifically consider the possibility that microbiologically influenced corrosion in natural seawater might eventually mitigate longer-term corrosion processes on archaeological iron or steel artifacts. The effects of microbial metabolism on iron or steel shipwreck corrosion behavior, therefore, would mean that the corrosion behavior among multiple vessels, even if they featured a similar construction methodology and sank in close proximity, would be distinct for each site. The determination of an archaeological iron or steel vessels specific corrosion rate may therefore require more intrusive and expensive survey techniques, such as the complete coring of hull plates.

Coastal sage scrub (CSS) is a unique and highly threatened vegetation community in coastal Southern California and northern Mexico, with 90 percent lost to development, agriculture, and invasive species. Understanding CSS recovery is critical to its survival. This study looks at the long-term effects of grazing and cultivation in southern California by tracking the extent of exotic grassland in two valleys in the Santa Monica Mountains over sixty years. The rates of native shrub return in a grazed valley were compared to those in a cultivated valley. Transects compared physical differences of stable and recovering grassland-shrubland boundaries. Native shrubs returned to the grass valley that was grazed nearly one and one-half times faster than the valley that was cultivated. Cultivation may result in a type conversion of CSS to a new steady state of exotic annual grassland. The field transects showed that stable and recovering boundaries had different physical characteristics.

Renewable energy resources, such as wind, solar, and wave, have a number of advantages compared to traditional fossil fuels. Numerous studies attest to the physical potential for wave energy development in Oregon. In transitioning from conventional fossil fuel to alternative energy provision, citizen understanding of the global energy problems and their causes and solutions is believed to be the key for the development of renewable energy. Using a statewide mail survey of 1,200 Oregonians this dissertation provides some insight and understanding about the determinants of public opinion with regards to renewable energy, the role these determinants play in public opinion formulation, and their relative importance in citizen support of or opposition toward wave energy development in Oregon. Citizen environmental values and value orientations, ideology preferences, climate change awareness and energy policy beliefs, familiarity with the technology, energy knowledge, and sociodemographic characteristics are examined. Using multiple regression analyses, the results reveal that several determinants serve as statistically significant predictors of attitudes toward wave energy development. Some of the most important are: familiarity with the technology, agreement with the possibility of increasing energy supplies while protecting the environment, and awareness about rising global temperatures. Some policy and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for further research are proposed. Key Words: Oregon Energy Policy, Wave Energy, Renewables, Public Opinion, Attitudes, Environmental Values, Environmental Concerns, Knowledge, Information Sources, Global Warming, Climate Change.

The American public is increasingly turning to the Internet to gather, analyze, and evaluate information about environmental risks. The goal of most risk-communication campaigns is to help citizens understand and take control of risks, make wise choices, and develop stable and beneficial changes in their risk-related behaviors. All 50 states have issued fish-consumption advisories for certain species of fish that may contain chemicals, such as mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls PCBs), and dioxins, which can pose risks to human health. These advisories are often made available online with the intent of recommending that people limit or avoid eating certain species of fish caught in specific water bodies. This method of environmental-risk communication is the focus of this study with a special emphasis on an especially vulnerable population, women of childbearing age and parents responsible for the fish consumption of their young children. This study surveys a purposive sample of this target population in the state of Maryland to determine the respondents perceptions about characteristics of Web sites used to convey information on safe fish-consumption habits, focusing on the usability and credibility of the information presented. This study also provides insights from discussions with state government officials responsible for issuing such guidelines and publishing sites addressing safe fish-consumption habits. Using linear multiple regression and logistic regression, analysis of survey responses was conducted to determine the influence of a sites usability and credibility as well as other factors) on a respondents knowledge of the risks of fish consumption and their intended behavior changes. Although the results of the analysis do not show that usability and credibility significantly influence ones intended behavior change or their knowledge on this issue, other factors are influential. In this study, a Web site presented in a narrative format as opposed to a graphical presentation) is a significant predictor of an intended change in behavior. Additionally, younger parents between the ages of 20 and 39 years) are more likely to report an intended change in their behavior as a result of viewing certain online fish advisories. Another influential factor in intended behavior change includes the respondents trust in private sources of information. As a respondents trust in the information generated by a private firm decreases, his or her intentions to change behavior increase. A respondents fishing habits when mediated by the Web sites presentation format is also a significant predictor. When active anglers view a graphically presented fish-advisory Web site, they tend to report less of an intention to change his or her behavior in terms of fish consumption, indicating that a narrative site may resonate more with active anglers. This study shows that ones ecological beliefs and gender are significant predictors of a perfect score of ones knowledge of the risks of fish consumption. The results of this study show that the probability that a respondent will score a perfect knowledge score of the safety of fish consumption increases as ones ecological beliefs score increases. The findings of this study also show that male respondents have a higher probability of scoring a perfect knowledge score, in comparison to female respondents. An additional finding of the study shows that both state fish-consumption advisory Web sites, California and Maryland, rank low in their usability and credibility. By incorporating a mixed-methodology approach of quantitative and qualitative research, this study highlights potential options for improvement on these Web sites for consideration by state risk communicators. On a broad scale, this study highlights the importance of the public sectors need to continually evaluate the effectiveness of publically administered Web sites. Making sites easier to use while conveying clear, concise messages and taking steps to appear more credible and trustworthy all help to ensure that online environmental information is communicated, received, and acted upon appropriately by the intended audience.

Tropical forests worldwide are undergoing rapid changes due to increasing human populations and varied land use practices. In an effort to protect these forests and their species, the number of protected areas has increased exponentially in recent decades. While the amount of money invested into conservation has been increasing along with the number of protected areas across the globe in the past few decades, few well-designed empirical studies try to show what could have happened in the absence of the conservation efforts. This study combines tools and techniques from remote sensing, GIS, and landscape ecology to evaluate conservation interventions in a tropical landscape in Central India. The study area, namely Pench tiger reserve, Maharashtra is embedded within a matrix of other land cover types, including non-protected forests, agricultural fields, or urban areas. It is critical to monitor this landscape for changing forest dynamics as this region can host viable tiger population in presence of adequate prey-base, which in turn is directly dependent on the forest for food and cover. This study utilizes spatio-temporal forest cover transitions, and simulated landscapes assuming absence of the conservation intervention as proxies for the effectiveness of this protected area. This study also explores the role of continuous vegetation indices, and surface temperature derived from multiple satellite images in describing and quantifying changes in forest composition and structure. Methods used in this study are robust and can be used in any ecological settings. Findings of this study show that while national-level policies establishing protected areas play an important role in conservation, alternative approaches including favorable management policies could also be effective to extend conservation over larger areas. This study also suggests that combination of methods from multiple disciplines can be effectively used for spatio-temporal assessment of changing forest cover, structure and composition as well as empirical evaluation of conservation intervention, particularly in developing countries.

The Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines, and Emissions CAFEE) of West Virginia University WVU) is developing the Integrated Bus Information System IBIS), an information resource on transit bus emissions for vehicle procurement purposes. IBIS provides the transit bus industry with exhaust emissions information, including an emissions database, and predictive models for fuel economy F.E.) and emissions. Inputs for the models are in the form of drive cycle metrics, but the knowledge of such metrics is not readily available for transit agencies. The first part of this dissertation was an effort to close the gap between engineering drive cycle metrics and the information available to transit bus operators. In cooperation with WMATA Transit, an extensive evaluation to characterize transit bus operation was performed. This evaluation was based on GPS and ECU logs of diverse bus routes. Instantaneous speed and road grade were determined for all the routes. Transit operation was classified in four main service groups: Inner-City, Urban, Suburban, and Commuter. Characterizing transit bus operation played an important role because it defined the parameters, and their ranges, to be used in F.E. and emissions models. The second part of the dissertation studied the effects that drive cycles have over emissions and F.E. of diesel-electric hybrid buses, focusing specifically in MY 2007–2009 diesel-electric serieshybrid 40 transit buses. Using ANLs PSAT, the hybrid bus was dynamically modeled and validated against chassis dynamometer test data. As part of the vehicle dynamic model, a model was developed for fuel consumption and NOx emissions of the Cummins ISB 260H diesel engine. The vehicle model was simulated over a variety of duty cycles assuming zero grade, producing a database of instantaneous fuel and NOx rates, with all tests satisfying SAE J2711s restriction for state of charge. A regression based method was devised for predicting cycle F.E., CO 2, and NOx, in which the inputs were average speed, percentage idle, and characteristic acceleration. Fuel consumption and NOx were broken into the idle and driving contributions. The driving portion was predicted with average speed without idle and characteristic acceleration without grade, and then aggregated with the idle contribution. The proposed approach produced excellent predictions with coefficients of determination of 0.96 for F.E., 0.99 for CO2, and 0.99 for NOx. A tool was developed to allow transit agencies to place hybrid buses in routes that take the most advantage of the hybrid-electric capabilities and to evaluate emissions impacts in strategic planning and vehicle procurement. The selection of the best routes is based on fuel savings. Depending on the route, hybrid transit buses have the potential for saving between 0.5 and 1.2 gallons of fuel per hour per vehicle and 5 to 12 kg of CO2 per hour.

The goal of natural resource management is to maintain or promote the ability of ecosystems to sustain healthy biotic and physical resources within a framework that recognizes, integrates, and balances human needs. Effective natural resource management involves thoughtful consideration and analysis of the ecological, economic, and social dimensions of management issues, while recognizing that the mix and relative weight of those dimensions may vary depending upon the issue being addressed. The need for cross-disciplinary scientific inquiries that facilitate improved natural resource management outcomes through increased understanding of both the biophysical and human dimensions of management issues has been widely recognized. Despite this broad recognition, implementation of these approaches is still fraught with various challenges and barriers. Improving our understanding of these challenges and barriers will further enable our ability to address them and thereby foster appropriate and effective utilization of cross-disciplinary approaches to solve natural resource management challenges. This research uses a case study analysis of the United States National Estuarine Research Reserve System NERRS) to improve our understanding of the critical factors that influence practitioners decisions related to incorporating social science into their natural resource management work. The case study research is analyzed and evaluated within a Theory of Planned Behavior framework to a) determine and describe the factors that predict practitioners intent to incorporate social science into their natural resource related activities and b) recommend potential strategies for encouraging and enabling cross-disciplinary approaches to natural resource management. The results indicate that NERR practitioners decisions related to incorporating social science are primarily influenced by two things: confidence in their own capability to incorporate social science into their work and beliefs about whether or not the outcomes of incorporating social science into their work would be valuable or beneficial. In addition, the results indicate that practitioners are more likely to incorporate social science into their work if they have received training in the social sciences.

Invasive alien plant species pose a serious threat to Canadas natural ecosystems. It is the thesis of this paper that sub-national laws are important tools in combatting such species that are naturalized and spreading within provincial and territorial boundaries. Weed control acts in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island and the plant health protection acts in New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador are a strong basis to combat invasive alien plant species. However, since these laws were enacted for weeds in agro-ecosystems, they are not up to the task of protecting natural ecosystems from invasive alien plant species. In some provinces and territories, there is a need to fill gaps in the law and ensure that it applies in a clear and uniform manner to all natural ecosystems. Numerous other revisions are recommended to make applicable provincial and territorial laws more effective.