Browsing by Department "Environmental Sciences and Policy"

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    A new context for agroecology: establishing the foundation in the southeastern US considering the implications of climate change
    (2018-04-25) Snyder, Sara
    Agroecology is grounded in indigenous knowledge. Current agroecological research is primarily focused on Latin America, reflecting an area where substantial indigenous populations actively practice it. This project aimed to examine agroecology in the southeastern US as a possible practice given the forecasted climate change. A list of plant species used by the Siouan peoples was compiled from archaeobotanical records of Hillsborough, North Carolina. For three of these species (maize, nightshade, and sunflower), changes in the timing of key phenological stages were computed using Julian Day and growing-degree-days between 1950-2099 based on meteorological records and climatic model projections. Records indicate the use of 37 species that were cultivated and foraged. All three species showed decreases of 1.6-2.2 days/decade in the number of days required to reach maturation, which ranged from 137.7 to 227.7 days. Corn and nightshade showed similar decreases in total number of days to reach flowering, decreasing 1.6 days/decade and 1.5 days/decade respectively. However, sunflower had a 1.5 days/decade increase to reach flowering. This increase reflected that sunflower was beginning growth earlier but progressing slower, thus requiring a longer time to reach flowering. The indigenous knowledge of this region has potential to expand and challenge the dominant idea of local agriculture. However, the results indicate that the exact ways in which plants were cultivated and foraged cannot be replicated given the dramatic changes that will alter plant phenology timing within this century. Instead, this project highlights novel local plants that could be incorporated into diet and underscores the need for further research on plant response to climate change.
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    King Democracy: Do Democratic Nations Mitigate Conflict Over Transboundary Freshwater Resources Better Than Other Nations?
    (2016-06-27) Abendroth, Kathryn
    The prospect of water wars and conflict over water are ideas that are frequently dramatized in media and also studied by scholars. It is well-established that bona fide wars are not started over water resources, but conflict over water does exist and is not well understood. One would suppose, as scholars often do, that dyads composed of two democratic nations would be the best at mitigating conflict and promoting cooperation over freshwater resources. General conflict research supports that supposition, as does the argument that democracies must be best at avoiding conflicts over resources because they excel at distributing public goods. This study provides empirical evidence showing how interstate dyads composed of various governance types conflict and cooperate over general water and water quantity issues relative to each other. After evaluating the water conflict mitigating ability of democratic-democratic, democratic-autocratic, and autocratic-autocratic dyads, this study found that democracy-autocracy dyads are less likely to cooperate over general water issues and water quantity issues than the other two dyad types. Nothing certain can be said about how the three dyad types compare to each other in terms of likelihood to conflict over water quantity issues. However, two-autocracy dyads seem to be most likely to cooperate over water quantity issues. These findings support the established belief that democratic-autocratic pairs struggle to cooperate while also encouraging greater scrutiny of the belief that democracies must be best at cooperating over water resources.
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    Marine Protection in the Baltic Sea: An Analysis of the Implementation Duration for Marine Protected Areas
    (2017-06-30) Morton, Kayla
    This project examines the problem of why there is often a long duration between proposing a marine protected area (MPA) and implementing the MPA. The European Union has a vast network of proposed MPAs, but not enough are implemented to create an effective network. By analyzing the Baltic Sea, whose marine network is overseen by the regional body HELCOM, this project seeks to define what factors lead to implementation being delayed or expedited. Fisheries, regional governance, EU governance, and geographic concerns were some of the variables included. Data limitations made it difficult to find definitive conclusions, but the results of the duration analysis did reveal that EU and regional marine protection measures can help speed up implementation of MPAs.