Scholarly Work - Earth Sciences
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/8747
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Item Aquatic Ecosystem Services Survey: Round Two Results(Montana State University, 2022-05) Gilbert, Ashlie; Kleindl, William; Church, Sarah P.Wetlands, streams, and floodplains (hereafter called aquatic systems) are an important resource for social and ecological wellbeing. Since the early 1990s, Federal policy has required a no overall net loss (NNL) of wetland area (i.e., aquatic systems), functions, and values in the United States (US). Past efforts to build assessment tools have focused primarily on wetland structure and function, and less on inherent services provided by aquatic ecosystems that are valued by people (hereafter referred to as ecosystem services (ES)). Moreover, there has been little effort to develop assessment tools that measure wetland services in a rapid and repeatable manner. Our intent with this research is to develop a framework and generalized methodology for the rapid assessment of ES provided by wetlands, streams, and their riparian buffers for use in permitting, compensatory mitigation, and preservation decisions. Moreover, we seek to understand aquatic systems decision-makers’ perceptions of planning and land use surrounding wetland protection and mitigation.Item The urgency of transforming the Midwestern U.S. landscape into more than corn and soybean(2020-05) Prokopy, Linda S.; Graming, Benjamin M.; Bower, Alisha; Church, Sarah P.; Ellison, Brenna; Gassman, Philip W.; Genskow, Ken; Gucker, Douglas; Hallett, Steve G.; Hill, Jason; Hunt, Natalie; Johnson, Kris A.; Kaplan, Ian; Kelleher, J. Paul; Kok, Hans; Komp, Michael; Lammers, Peter; LaRose, Sarah; Liebman, Matthew; Margenot, Andrew; Mulla, David; O'Donnell, Michael J.; Peimer, Alex W.; Reaves, Elizabeth; Salazar, Kara; Schelly, Chelsea; Schilling, Keith; Secchi, Silvia; Spaulding, Aslihan D.; Swenson, David; Thompson, Aaron W.; Ulrich-Schad, Jessica D.The current agri-food system emerged out of a desire to provide an inexpensive and secure food supply. Yet even before COVID-19, the abundant agricultural production of the Midwestern United States was generated amid a backdrop of increasing farm bankruptcies, declining farm employment and rural communities, and climbing farmer suicide rates. The environmental costs of this system were well established and include Gulf of Mexico hypoxia, elevated sediment and nutrient levels in waterways, and impacts to air quality, biodiversity and climate change. The economic, social and environmental consequences of contemporary agriculture already indicated the need for a wholesale revisiting of the dominant agricultural paradigm of highly specialized and subsidized production.