Revitalizing the Municipal Model: A Case Study of Winter Park Golf Course

This thesis aims to provide a well-substantiated possible course of action for municipalities facing uncertain futures with their golf facilities. The trend of failing municipal golf courses has become prevalent since 2007, resulting in an overall decrease in the number of municipal facilities throughout the country. This is an unfortunate reality, as municipal golf plays a key role in introducing the sport to a racially and socio-economically diverse group of people, and has also played a crucial part in combatting golf’s traditional issues with racism and elitism. Ultimately, because of the accessibility and model of equality provided by municipal golf courses, municipalities are justified in investing in golf, despite questions of purpose and financial viability. Winter Park Golf Course, a nine-hole municipal facility in Winter Park, Florida provides a model for how other municipalities can invest and change their failing facilities to make them more successful from both a financial and accessibility standpoint. After undergoing a significant renovation in the mid-2010s, the previously-failing course now experiences a high amount of success. This success, which is evidenced by revenue that is nearly double what it was prior to the renovation, is because of a strategically designed golf course that caters to all types of players, as well as a number of events, organizations, and initiatives that welcome and benefit golfers and non-golfers in the community. The course’s leadership, as well as the changes to the physical design and creation of wide array of events, serve as important lessons for other municipalities. In the end, trying to follow certain aspects of the Winter Park model would serve struggling municipal courses well

Development of a simplistic vegetative filter strip model for sediment and nutrient retention at the field scale

Vegetative filter strips (VFSs) are a commonly used conservation measure to remove pollutants from agricultural runoff. The effectiveness of VFSs has been widely studied at the plot scale, yet researchers generally agree that field scale implementations are far less effective. The purpose of this research was to develop a field scale VFS submodel for the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). A model for the retention of sediments and nutrients in VFSs was developed from experimental observations derived from 22 publications. A runoff retention model was developed from Vegetative Filter Strip MODel (VFSMOD) simulations. This model was adapted to operate at the field scale by considering the effects of flow concentration generally absent from plot scale experiments. Flow concentration through 10 hypothetical VFSs was evaluated using high resolution (2 m) topographical data and multipath flow accumulation. Significant flow concentration was predicted at all sites, on average 10% of the VFS received half of the field runoff. As implemented in SWAT, the VFS model contains two sections, a large section receiving relatively modest flow densities and a smaller section treating more concentrated flow. This field scale model was incorporated into SWAT and verified for proper function. This model enhances the ability of SWAT to evaluate the effectiveness of VFSs at the watershed scale

Bovine Malignant Catarrhal Fever

Malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) or malignant head catarrh has been recognized for over 125 years as a fatal disease of cattle and some wild ruminants. Found world wide, it is prevalent in Australia, the British Isles, Canada, the United States and Africa. The causative agent is believed to be a herpesvirus, but it is thought that tissue damage is the result of hypersensitivity to viral antigens and not direct effects of the virus

Introducing a new open source GIS user interface for the SWAT model

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is a robust watershed modeling tool. It typically uses the ArcSWAT interface to create its inputs. ArcSWAT is public domain software which works in the licensed ArcGIS environment. The aim of this paper was to develop an open source user interface for the SWAT model. The interface, QSWAT, is written in the Python programming language and uses various functionalities of the open source geographic information system, QGIS. The current interface performs similar functions to ArcSWAT, but with additional enhanced features such as merging small subbasins and static and dynamic visualization of outputs. The interface is demonstrated through a case study in the Gumera watershed in the Lake Tana basin of Ethiopia, where it showed a successful performance. QSWAT will be a valuable tool for the SWAT scientific community, with improved availability and functionality compared with other options for creating SWAT models