Land Use and Socioeconomic Influences on a Vulnerable Freshwater Resource in Northern New England, United States

Land use and cover conversions as well as climatic factors drive current and future threats to freshwater systems. Research from the United States and across the globe has focused on already threatened and degraded freshwater systems, whose recovery requires significant investments. Attention must also be directed to monitoring freshwater systems that may appear robust, yet are likely to face enhanced vulnerabilities in the future due to climate and land use and cover changes. Such proactive monitoring can help identify problems early and provide potential solutions. In this study, we consider the case of Sebago Lake and its watershed in southern Maine; a region that has experienced significant population growth and development activity. Land use, socioeconomic change and water quality trends are monitored over a 20-year period using Landsat imagery, census, water quality and precipitation data. Our results indicate that Developed Land within the watershed has increased from 5.4 % of the total land area in 1987 to 8.9 % in 2009 with associated increases in population and housing activity. Sebago Lake’s water quality indicators from 1990 to 2010 show a directional trend concomitant with this change. The increase in Developed Land is likely to place additional pressures on water quality in the future. The analysis also indicates that precipitation trends play an important role in water quality variability for Sebago Lake. Predicted changes to climatic factors including enhanced spring time precipitation or earlier ice-out conditions combined with further land use change may play an influential role in determining water quality. The analysis highlights emerging areas of concern and reiterates the essential role of proactively monitoring vulnerable systems to help mitigate future threats

Geospatial Technologies Will Affect our Future

In 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor identified geospatial technologies as among the most important emerging and evolving fields within the economy. Seven years since that report, and with the ubiquitous use of Geographic Information Systems Internet mapping and high-resolution Earth imaging, there is little doubt this trend will accelerate as private- and public-sector adopters of the technology realize its full potential

Institutional Contexts, Forest Resources, and Local Communities in Western India: a Gendered Analysis

In addition to ecosystem services, forests supply essential resources such as timber and non-timber forest products to rural populations who live nearby. These resources contribute vitally to household energy, materials, and various nutritional and medicinal requirements. In many parts of the developing world, women are assigned the task of acquiring these resources. Eco-feminism has used an essentialist position to explain the relation between forests and rural women. This paper, however, argues for the adoption of an institutional ecology approach to clarify patterns of interaction between rural communities and forests. Such an approach focuses on the role played by institutions, civil society, and individuals in environmental exchanges. Using field observations and data from western India, the paper examines the complex arrangement of interactions between rural populations and forest ecosystems, which is mediated by state institutions and long-standing socio-cultural norms and traditions. Data and field observations reveal considerable dependency on forest products in local villages. Patterns of society-forest interaction reflect local socio-cultural and political realities, and reveal the vulnerabilities faced by certain-more dependent and socio-economically marginal-communities, especially the adivasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR

Urban expansion and sea-level rise related flood vulnerability for Mumbai (Bombay) India using remotely sensed data

This book examines how Geographic Information Technologies (GIT) are being implemented to improve our understanding of a variety of hazard and disaster situations. The volume is a compilation of recent research using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS) and other technologies such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to examine urban hazard and disaster issues. The goal is to improve and advance the use of such technologies during four classic phases of hazard and disaster research: response, recovery, preparation and mitigation. The focus is on urban areas, broadly defined in order to encompass rapidly growing and densely populated areas.https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/facbooks/1202/thumbnail.jp

Re-mapping Land Use: Remote sensing, institutional approaches and landscape boundaries

Chapter 8 from the book Natures Edge: Boundary Explorations in Ecological Theory and Practice Leading environmental thinkers investigate the complexities of boundary formation and negotiation at the heart of environmental problems. Nature’s Edge brings together leading environmental thinkers from the natural sciences, geography, political science, religion, and philosophy to explore the complex facets of boundary formation and negotiation at the heart of our environmental problems. The contributors provide a fresh look at how our lives depend on the lines drawn and ask how those lines must be reinscribed, blurred, or even erased to prepare for a sustainable future.https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/facbooks/1201/thumbnail.jp

Assessing Land Use and Riparian Buffers Along Maine\u27s Presumpscot Watershed Using Landsat Thematic Mapper

This study assesses land use within Maine\u27s Presumpscot river watershed using a land-change science framework. This framework calls for monitoring dynamic landscapes shaped by coupled human and natural processes so as to understand their causes and consequences. Industrial uses of the river since early European settlement activity significantly altered its hydrology and ecosystem characteristics. Moreover, recent population growth in this, the fastest growing, region of Maine has put significant development pressures on land adjoining the river. Landsat Thematic Mapper data are used to analyze the configuration of land use classes for the watershed and a buffer analysis is conducted to document dominant land use activities within zones of the river. The results indicate a fragmentation of green space along the river due to agriculture and development activities, and the buffer analysis points to an inverse relationship between the proportion of green space and distance from river. While the findings are not unexpected, they raise important concerns for the future health of the Presumpscot ecosystem from pollution and the expansion of development

Institutional efficacy in resource management: temporally Congruent Embeddedness for Forest Systems of Western India

Our understanding of the role of institutions and property-rights regimes in natural resource management has matured through the work of new institutional economists and common-property theorists. Even so, this literature has yet to establish clear connections between successful resource management, and a given property regime’s spatio-temporal fit. Examining people–forest interaction within a state-managed forest regime in India’s Western Ghats, this paper argues that regime efficacy in satisfying user needs, hinges on appropriately reflecting particular sociospatial contexts and incorporating temporal flexibility into its normative structure. To these ends, this study analyzes institutional structure regulating forest use and management, and examines data collected through extensive fieldwork, in-depth interviews and informal conversations with local villagers and foresters. The results suggest that user responses to access conditions, and their rationales for engaging in particular extraction practices, vary based on caste/class-based perceptions of regime legitimacy, distributional equity, and historical proprietorship rights. Furthermore, the analysis questions the viability of locally managed regimes under such heterogeneous social settings. Rather, this research recognizes the state’s vital role in mediating resource access. It suggests that regime efficacy can be fostered through state–civil society partnerships, widely distributed stakeholder-ship and firmly embedded regimes that adapt to changing sociospatial contexts through modifications to conditions of use and access. Based on the analysis, this paper explores an initial set of sociospatial and temporal parameters that promote institutional efficacy in management, and thus lays the groundwork for future studies in institutional and political ecology

Windscapes: A Global Perspective on Wind Power

Wind power has emerged in the twenty-first century as a viable and significant component of global energy production. And while embraced in some sectors, resistance remains to its full implementation in other situations. Windscape is the authors\u27 term for the variety of elements that feed in to the harnessing of wind power. They include the combination of local climate and geography, environmental and ecological conditions; the mix of public policies; human land use and available infrastructure. Just as a variety of factors combine to create a landscape, so these factors combine, the authors argue, to create a windscape. In developing the concept, the authors look at the history of wind energy and its modern emergence as a viable power source; the technology of converting wind into electricity; public policy as regards wind power. Importantly, the authors do not shy away from examining some of the environmental and aesthetic negatives attached to the subject of wind power. Case studies illustrating the authors\u27 arguments are derived from Europe, Asia and the USA, and the book concludes with a review of the current status of wind power. This book will be particularly useful to students on all kinds of renewables/sustainability courses, as well as for researchers, educators and developers working in the general area of wind engineering.https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/facbooks/1197/thumbnail.jp

Integrating multispectral ASTER and LiDAR data to characterize coastal wetland landscapes in the northeastern United States

This study integrates data from Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to map the spatial configuration of coastal wetland landscapes. We test data sources in their ability to capture marsh features and sources are combined to improve wetland characterizations. The complex ecosystem characteristics of the Wells Maine National Estuarine Research Reserve marshes and surrounding areas provide an ideal study site. The results of this study suggest that ASTER visible, near and shortwave infra red spectral bands combined with LiDAR last return signals provide accurate wetland cover maps categorized in broad cover classes. LiDAR contributions are important in areas of elevation and structure variability where multispectral data are unable to distinguish fine scale variations in vegetation and water signals. ASTER\u27s cost effectiveness and spectral range offer a data-rich alternative to expensive high spatial resolution imagery typically used in multispectral and LiDAR combined studies