Status of the TMT site evaluation process

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is currently acquiring site characterization data at ve candidate sites. The site testing equipment includes instruments for measuring the seeing and seeing proles, meteorological conditions, cloudiness, precipitable water vapor, etc. All site testing equipment and data have gone through extensive calibrations and verications in order to assure that a reliable and quantitative comparison between the candidate sites will be possible. Here, we present an update on the status of the site selection work, the equipment characterizations and the resulting accuracies of our site selection data

Water for Life: A Journey to Nicaragua Exploring Sustainable Development

When I first arrived in the Peruvian Altiplano as a Maryknoll missioner 15 years ago, I was struck by the presence of a beautifully engineered system of irrigation canals extending through several communities. Engineers love to solve problems, and seeing progress like this in a very poor region of mostly subsistence farming was encouraging…until I learned that it had never delivered a drop of water, and probably never would. The design of the system had been done by outsiders unfamiliar with the intricacies of farming in the harsh, high-elevation climate, completely unaware of the unique form of land ownership. As a water resources engineer, I began my journey of reflection on the role of engineers in serving the poor in less developed areas

EVALUATING ECOSYSTEM HEALTH OF THE SALT CREEK BASIN THROUGH TWO-EYED SEEING

Few instances of prior research into socio-ecological health have brought together both Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Western science, especially in Nebraska. This study attempts to fill this gap in Lancaster County, Nebraska by using “Two-Eyed Seeing”. This equitably combines both Indigenous Knowledge Systems (qualitative data), obtained through oral interviews with Indigenous community members, and Western science (quantitative data), obtained through USGS, UNL, and U.S. Drought Monitor databases, to assess ecosystem health. Changes to the Salt Creek Basin were collected and analyzed through this Two-Eyed Seeing framework. Results found that there are high levels of consensus between both knowledge systems regarding decreases in water quality and increases in nutrient/pesticide levels in Salt Creek. Additionally, the two sets help to fill in the gaps of the other by providing information about indicators that the other cannot. Indigenous Knowledge alone provided information about the presence of native plants and wildlife, as well as the presence of Indigenous Peoples and their usage of the ecosystem for its pre-colonized purposes. Western science alone provided information about precipitation, discharge, and gage height amounts, as well as changes in the air and water temperatures. Overall, this Two-Eyed Seeing approach can lead to a more comprehensive and accurate environmental assessment of health and long-term change in the Salt Creek basin

When There are Different Types of Smoke in the Sky It Changes How the Sun Light Goes Through the Sky

When the sky gets smoke in it, it can be more or less bright (white) than before. This is because the small smoke bits can change whether sun light gets through the sky to the ground, can change how much white sky water there is, and can change how the sky air moves around. If the smoke is blacker, it can make the sky warmer and if the smoke is whiter, it can make the sky (and the ground) cooler because the sun light doesn't get through. So we wanted to know whether the smoke is blacker or whiter over the big water far away from here, near where there are a lot of fires on the land.We went to the big water place and watched the sky, the air, the sky smoke, and the white sky water. We did this by flying in the sky with our computers. We watched the smoke in a lot of different ways: we can look at the smoke from near the water and see what sun light gets through the sky, or from above and see how the sun light comes back up to space, or go right in the smoke with our flying computer eyes. Then we looked at whether the different ways of seeing showed that the same smoke was different (blacker or whiter) or the same. A lot of time they said it was the same, at least in some ways, but sometimes the smoke looked different and it changed a lot in different places over the big water.We hope other people can put these answers into their computer studies, or into their computers that fly REALLY high, and then we can better understand how the sky gets warmer or cooler from smoke

Water Current, Volume 38, No. 3. Summer 2006

• Fall Colloquium Features Research, Programming By Lorrie Benson • Seeing Toxic Algae Before it Blooms by Steve Ress • From the Director • Meet the Faculty • UNL Forms Public Water Resources Advisory Panel • Atema Joins Water Center as Student Worker • Hardin Hall Rededicated; SNR Moves In • Potential For Algae Blooms Continues; Test Kits Available From UNL Extension by Steve Ress • Harder, NRDs Identify Research Needs • 2006 Water and Natural Resources Tour • Water News Briefs • Internships Through the Water Resources Research Initiative • UNL’s Jess Notes Lists Creative Uses for Instate and Out-of-State Water Conflicts by Charles Flowerday • UNL Extension: A One-Stop Husker Harvest Days Information Cente

BOREAS: Detecting Planetary Subsurface Water

Direct detection of water on planets beyond Earth has always been a primary goal for space exploration. Our “Boreas” project focuses on the integration of a student-designed S-Band Radar-based water detection system, which is capable of ice penetration. For improved reliability, the system is equipped with an automatic attitude determination and control subsystem. The Boreas project aims to design, test, and fabricate a small-scale radar capable of seeing through substantial layers of ice or other material covering a given body of water. Our orbiting radar will be able to orient itself to the planet during flyby and maintain nadir orientation as the sensing subsystem takes in subsurface data. This design was inspired by Jupiter’s moon Europa, which is known to harbor subsurface high-salinity oceans and further motivated by the recent exciting discovery of liquid water on Mars. The opportunities for application of the Boreas orbiter are numerous

Restoration of Wetland Services: Economic Gains to the Farmland Owner

The objective of this analysis is to describe and, if possible, measure gains that farmland owners may have seen because of the public's demand for wetland services. To do so, we first consider landowners' ability to directly sell onsite (hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing) and offsite (water quality, groundwater recharge, etc.) wetland services. We found little evidence that landowners sell wetland services. We then consider farmland owners' gains from the mitigation banking system. We found that, with less than 200 approved mitigation banks on farmland, farmland owners had some but limited opportunities to participate in mitigation markets. Finally, we consider landowners' gains from the sale of wetland easements through the USDA's Wetland Reserve Program (WRP). Although we are unable to quantify any gains, the popularity of the program suggests that landowners do gain by participating - since the mid-1990's, more landowners have tried to enroll than program limits allow. Furthermore, two factors suggest that WRP gains are widespread. First, WRP easements have been sold in every State. And second, easement prices have increased over time which may indicate that owners of higher-valued lands may be seeing opportunities to participate.Land Economics/Use,

A generalization of a theorem of Z. Janko and J. G. Thompson

The transition that occurred in vertebrates moving from water to land was a major step in the evolution of terrestrial animals. This is an evolutionary step that has always fascinated scientists and the general public. The land-to-water vertebrate transition happened around the Devonian period and involved structural changes such as the transition from fin to limb, a reduction of the gill arch, loss of the mid-fin and a reduction in the number of scales, among others. I will use this interesting example to depict how the same evolutionary process can be seen through two different lenses. One view, which is the most widespread way of seeing evolution, is the 'survival of the fittest'. The other is intentionally stated in the title as the double negative 'survival of the non-unfit'. Only semantic differences? Not in my view