Nicholas School of the Environment
Master's projects by Nicholas School of the Environment students, including the Duke Marine Laboratory.
The masters project is done in partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for the professional Master of Environmental Management or the Master of Forestry degree. While the MP may include original laboratory or field research, it may also take the form of management plans, handbooks, educational curricula, or other such products. Each student is advised by a faculty member who reviews and approves the project prior to completion.
A masters projects that is original research should not be as large as a masters thesis although it should be of publishable quality but not necessarily comprehensive enough to stand alone as a publication. A masters projects that does not follow the usual format for scientific research should follow a framework that is considered good practice in an appropriate field.
Duke migrated to an electronic-only system for masters projects between 2006 and 2010. As such, projects completed between 2006 and 2010 may not be part of this system, and those created before 2006 are not hosted here except for a small number that have been digitized.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Recent Submissions
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Retrospective analysis of the embayment in the Rachel Carson Estuarine Research Reserve from 1998 to current
(2019-08-16)The Rachel Carson Estuarine Research Reserve in Beaufort, NC has been a highly monitored and researched area due to its proximity to the Duke Marine Lab, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Beaufort Lab, and ... -
The U.S. Electric Bus Transition - An Analysis of Funding and Financing Mechanisms
(2019-04-26)Electric buses are poised to represent an increasingly larger share of the United States bus market due to the benefits of avoided air pollution, zero carbon emissions, and lower operation & maintenance costs. However, while ... -
Energy Storage and Solar for New Peaking Capacity in North Carolina
(2019-04-26)Solar power paired with battery energy storage is increasingly presented as an alternative to traditional natural gas combustion turbine technology for providing power during times of very high demand. This analysis uses ... -
Evidence Mapping: Investigating the Social and Ecological Impacts of Conservation in Mangrove Ecosystems
(2019-04-26)The global extent of mangrove forests has been rapidly declining in recent decades, raising concerns about the loss of the ecological and social services they provide. There is an increasing urgency to understand best approaches ... -
Evaluating Viability of Community Solar Microgrids for Resilience in Puerto Rico
(2019-04-26)Hurricane Maria, which hit the Caribbean two weeks after Hurricane Irma in September 2017, caused the largest electricity blackout in U.S. history. After the hurricanes, Toro Negro, a rural community nestled into the mountains ... -
Small Drinking Water Systems in North Carolina
(2019-04-26)We seek to improve understanding about small drinking water systems in North Carolina. By analyzing data on drinking water violations, individual system characteristics, and community demographics, and by speaking with system ... -
Variability in Trans-Pacific Migration Rates of Pacific Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus orientalis)
(2019-04-26)Within the past several decades, Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis; PBT) stocks have dropped to historically low levels, currently estimated at just 3.3% of unfished levels. All PBT are spawned in the Western Pacific ... -
Clean Water Act jurisdiction for Little Sycamore Wash, Arizona: Hydrologic connectivity and changing federal regulatory interpretation in the arid western U.S.
(2019-04-26)Infrequent streamflow in arid landscapes presents challenges for determining Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction. Because of such uncertainty, Freeport McMoRan (Freeport) – the second-largest copper producer worldwide – requested ... -
QUANTIFYING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE IN AUSTIN, TEXAS
(2019-04-26)The City of Austin, Texas is evaluating a new landscape ordinance called Functional Green, which is intended to integrate nature in the city and meet the growth demands. With this ordinance, it is anticipated that 10,000 ... -
Exploring the Potential Influence of Citizen Science Water Monitoring Programs on Water Resources Management and Policy in the Global South
(2019-04-26)This study explores the potential of citizen science (CS) water monitoring programs to influence water policy and management in Global South countries. CS, the involvement of “non-science” community members in the research ... -
Modeling the Economics of Offshore Wind in the Southeastern United States
(2019-04-26)This study analyzes the future deployment of offshore wind in the southeastern U.S. states of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. There has been a flurry of recent activity surrounding this topic. State governments ... -
Unexpected Alliances: Biodiversity conservation through Payments for Ecosystem Services, Protected Areas, and Sustainable Timber Management in three regions of Mexico
(2019-04-26)Our research investigated biodiversity conservation through three strategies – payments for ecosystem services (PES), protected areas, and sustainable timber management (STM) – and their interactions with each other and ... -
Assessing the Environmental Sustainability Potential of BRI Countries under the Five Connectivities Framework
(2019-04-26)China’s ambitious vision for the Belt and the Road initiative (BRI) marks a global milestone for economic and political cooperation across Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. With more than 100 member countries accounting ... -
Water Management in Rural East Indonesia
(2019-04-26)This Master Project investigates the water quality of forty-six villages across four islands in remote East Indonesia. The major objective of this thesis is to test if naturally occurring heavy metal contamination affects ... -
Sea Stack Frequency & Sediment Supply Along the California Coast
(2019-04-26)The vast majority of the world’s coastlines are rocky, with California’s coastline being no exception. These coastline types, and more specifically the California coast, exhibit a number of diverse morphologies including ... -
A Comparative Analysis of the Role Race and Socioeconomic Status Play in Chemical Exposure in the United States
(2019-04-26)Environmental justice concerns arise when historically underrepresented groups are disproportionately exposed to toxins in the environment. Analysis of environmental biomonitoring data provides a method to analyze chemicals ... -
Will Data Centers Have Enough Water? Quantifying Water Security for Data Service Centers
(2019-04-26)Data centers use considerable amounts of water in comparison to other industries because water is a key component in their cooling systems that are used to maintain optimal temperatures for their servers. Since these servers ... -
A Network and Landscape Analysis of Environmental and Diversity Organizations in Durham and Orange Counties, North Carolina
(2019-04-26)The American environmental movement has a legacy of excluding marginalized groups from organizational decision-making and natural spaces. Awareness of this discrepancy has gained traction in the past few decades, with an ... -
Association of mercury exposure with blood pressure among adults near artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Madre de Dios, Peru.
(2019-04-26)There have been few studies investigating the association between mercury exposure and blood pressure, with inconsistent results. In this study, the association between hair mercury concentration with mean arterial pressure ... -
A Generalized Framework for CBA of Asbestos Bans with Case Study in Colombia
(2019-04-26)Asbestos is a group of fibrous minerals that can cause serious cancers and other negative health effects, usually decades after exposure. While the future health impacts of today’s asbestos use have become clear over the ...
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