Environmental finance for affordable housing

Two wallets are better than one, as partnerships between environmental groups and affordable housing advocates are demonstrating.Housing - Finance ; Housing - New England ; Conservation of natural resources

Fostering Stewardship: the Maine Watersheds Project (2010 State of the Bay Presentation)

https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/cbep-presentations/1041/thumbnail.jp

Maine’s Connected Food System: On the Web and Online

The authors of this case study discuss how modern communications via the internet are expanding opportunities in Maine’s food system, ranging from consumers’ buying clubs to food resource maps to “Maine Ag Trader,” a website that enables producers and consumers to connect and find what they need

Standardizing Geospatial Information for New England Conservation Lands: Data Capture Methods and Technology

In 2002 The New England Environmental Finance Center and Applied Geographics issued the Feasibility Study for a GIS Inventory of New England Conservation Lands 1 describing the conservation lands data status throughout EPA Region 1 (New England). This report identified stakeholders and technologies participating in the maintenance of conservation lands data within this region. In the four years since that initial report dramatic changes have occurred in the technical means by which geographic data are delivered from their respective repositories. These changes have been most pronounced and obvious in the area of web mapping services. Web mapping services are software utilities by which diverse and frequently unrelated geographic data sets are structured and symbolized for consumption by remote clients through the Internet. In a more general sense, these represent a kind of democratization of access to digitally mapped data, by providing tools and content (often free) from remote servers that can be consumed by an end user with only a web browser or a small software download (and with little or no technical expertise). This method of delivery is in striking contrast to the preceding era in GIS evolution where all data and tools were closely held and generally inaccessible by dint of their expense and technical complexity

Some Model Amendments to Maine (and other States\u27) Land Use Control Legislation

This model legislation consisting of ten separate provisions is intended to clarify and/or expand existing Maine law dealing with planning and land use regulation. It expands existing statutes by addressing a number of issues not presently covered by law. The overarching purpose of the proposed legislation is to underscore that planning and the imposition of land use regulations is not exclusively the responsibility of local governments but instead is a shared duty of the state and local governments. This is clearly stated in the text and commentary of Provision I, and is a theme that pervades all ten legislative proposals. Secondarily, Provision I and those that follow make clear that it is the State with its resources and larger geographical reach that is in the best position to assure that comprehensive plans and land use regulations are consistent, fair, and applied in a manner that protects and balances the rights and interests of all Maine citizens

Testing for Genomic Control of Ephemeral Leaf Phenotypes in \u3cem\u3eArtemisia tridentata\u3c/em\u3e

Climate change is driving ever increasing ecological stresses on native plant communities. Furthering our understanding of how plants, particularly keystone species of important ecosystems, deal with these stresses will be essential for the success of conservation and restoration efforts Artemisia tridentate is a keystone species of western North America and has experience sharp population declines in recent decades due to human activity. During the late winter and early spring months, A. tridentate grows large ephemeral leaves that provide more surface area for light capture and photosynthesis while resources are abundant. Then, during the onset of drought stress during the summer months, the ephemeral leaves will drop. We hypothesize that the timing of ephemeral leaf dropping is correlated to important water use efficiency traits and are under genomic control. To test these hypotheses, plants of a population of A. tridentate near Marsing, ID were tracked and phenotyped from late spring though summer. Early and late ephemeral leaf dropping individuals then had their genomes sequenced for genetic association tests. We find that there are statistically significant differences for leaf phenotypes among individuals, suggesting that the water use efficiency will vary within the population. Genetic tests are on-going to determine if these traits are genetically determined

Antecedent Prediction Without a Pipeline

We consider several antecedent prediction models that use no pipelined features generated by upstream systems. Models trained in this way are interesting because they allow for side-stepping the intricacies of upstream models, and because we might expect them to generalize better to situations in which upstream features are unavailable or unreliable. Through quantitative and qualitative error analysis we identify what sorts of cases are particularly difficult for such models, and suggest some directions for further improvement.Engineering and Applied Science

Integrating Storm Surge and Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessments and Criticality Analyses into Asset Management at MaineDOT

This report presents the results of a Climate Resilience Pilot Project conducted by the Maine Department of Transportation and sponsored in part by the Federal Highway Administration. The project developed and implemented tools to prioritize vulnerable transportation assets in the face of rising sea levels and increasing frequency and intensity of coastal storm surge events. State-owned roads, bridges, and culverts were selected and ranked according to criticality and sensitivity metrics developed in reference to agency maintenance records, flooding histories, and the prioritization efforts of agencies in other states. For the highest priority assets in the towns of Scarborough, Bath, and Bowdoinham, alternative engineering designs were created that would be expected to be resilient to 3.3\u2019 and 6\u2019 of sea level rise. Depth damage functions were created for these designs and for the existing structures. The T-COAST software was then used to evaluate relative cost-efficiency of the designs in each location under a range of sea level rise and storm surge scenarios, and compare it to replacing each asset in-kind. Cost efficiency inputs included initial construction costs and cumulative expected repair costs over time given agency maintenance records, the depth damage functions created, and the sea level rise curves and storm surge scenarios selected. Results show which candidate designs would be the most cost efficient in each location and demonstrate there is no one correct design for the 3.3\u2019 or 6\u2019 sea level rise scenarios, even for similar asset types in adjacent towns. Local hydrology, topography, and tidal and storm surge regimes demand a site-specific approach to benefit-cost analysis of alternative engineering structures, at the conceptual design phase. Results also help identify relative contributions of risk from sea level rise and storm surge for each candidate design in each location, and provide insights about how to evaluate agency planning, budgeting, scheduling, and design procedures in an era of both rising sea levels and changing storm surge intensities and probabilities

A 2022 Assessment of Food Security and Health Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

We conducted a Northern New England survey to understand the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, food access, home food production, health behaviors, and health outcomes. The surveys were conducted in the spring of 2022 (April-May) with a total of 1,013 adults (598 in Maine and 415 in Vermont) responding to the survey. Key findings include:1. The prevalence of food insecurity remains similarly high to early points in the pandemic, likely driven by inflation and food prices, and long-term impacts from the pandemic. 2. The majority (62%) indicated the recent rise in food prices affected their food purchasing, this was significantly higher (90%) for food insecure respondents. 3. 1/3 of respondents utilized food assistance programs in the last 12 months. They reported difficulty traveling to food program offices to apply or recertify as a key challenge. 4. 2/3 of respondents engaged in some kind of home food production (HFP) and half of those did HFP activities for the first time or did existing HFP activities more in the last 12 months. 5. Nearly 1/3 reported weight gain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Food insecure respondents were significantly more likely to report weight gain. 6. Nearly 40% of food insecure respondents ate fewer fruits and vegetables and certain animal products in the last 12 months. These changes are significantly higher than for food secure respondents. 7. Half of the respondents faced a health care challenge in the last 12 months, with canceled appointments and trouble finding a timely appointment being the most commonly reported challenges. 8. More than 50% of respondents indicated anxiety and/or depression, with 17% of those with a diagnosis newly diagnosed in the last 12 months. 9. Compared to food secure respondents, food insecure respondents were significantly more likely to face a variety of health challenges in the last 12 months, including difficulty accessing healthcare, being diagnosed with anxiety and depression, stopping and skipping medications due to cost, and using habit-forming substances

Home Food Production and Food Security Since the COVID-19 Pandemic

We conducted a Northern New England survey to understand the initial and continued impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, food access, and home food production (HFP) (i.e. gardening, fishing, harvesting shellfish, foraging, hunting, trapping, raising animals for meat, dairy, or eggs, and food preservation such as canning, drying or freezing). The surveys were conducted in the Spring and Summer of 2021 (March – June). The survey was conducted in Maine (n = 562) and Vermont (n = 426). The cohort of respondents was representative of racial and ethnic identities of Vermont and Maine state populations. The data presented in this research brief were weighted to be representative of income in both states. Here, we summarize our findings related to changes in food security, food sourcing, and HFP before and since the COVID-19 pandemic. When data are referred to as “significant” it indicates a statistical significance at p\u3c 0.05