Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Condition assessment of tailings-impacted wetlands at the Carpenter-Snow Creek Mining District Superfund Site, Neihart, Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2019) Sovner, Nicholas Steven; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Scott PowellIn this study, I evaluate the condition of two wetlands down-gradient of mine tailings at the Carpenter-Snow Creek Mining District (CSCMD) Superfund Site near Neihart, Montana. Wetlands contaminated with mine waste are unique in that they are highly disturbed, but they still perform some level of ecological function and service. The CSCMD consists of 70 historic mine sites in the Upper Belt Creek watershed. Historic metal mining activity occurred between the late 1800s and early 1900s, with exploration activities occurring as late as the 1980s. Waste rock from mining and milling operations generated numerous tailings piles that expose heavy metals to erosion and subsequently contaminate groundwater, surface water, and stream sediments. Therefore, wetland rapid assessment tools were used to assess the capacity of wetlands to perform ecological functions. My objective was to identify which of four methods is the most effective at identifying functional loss. Rapid assessment methods included the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Hydrogeomorphic Approach to Assessing Wetland Function (HGM), the Montana Department of Transportation - Montana Wetland Assessment Method (MWAM), the Montana Natural Heritage Program - Montana Ecological Integrity Assessment (MEIA), and Montana Department of Environmental Quality - Wetland Assessment Protocol (WAP). The methods were performed on pairs of impacted and reference sites along Carpenter Creek and Belt Creek. My results indicate that MEIA displays the greatest sensitivity for differences between reference sites and impacted sites with a difference of 0.38 (out of 1) for the Belt Creek sites and 0.46 for the Carpenter Creek sites, while HGM displays slightly less sensitivity with differences of 0.31 and 0.40, respectively. The WAP shows the least absolute difference in index scores in the Belt Creek watershed (0.17), and the MWAM shows the least absolute difference between sites in the Carpenter Creek watershed (0.17). These results are useful for mining-related environmental cleanups where a decision regarding whether wetlands should be left in place, removed and reconstructed, or newly created where none currently exists. At cleanup sites, where long-term monitoring of wetland and riparian systems is necessary after reclamation, my study will help regulators and consultants determine whether a chosen remedial action was successful at eliminating, or at least significantly reducing, the effects of mine waste.Item Wetland biodiversity in Grand Teton National Park(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2022) Levandowski, Mary Lynn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Andrea Litt; Andrea R. Litt was a co-author of the article, 'Spatial and temporal isolation and size of wetlands influence richness and functional composition of aquatic macroinvertebrates' which is contained within this thesis.; Andrea R. Litt, Megan F. McKenna, Shan Burson and Kristin L. Legg were co-authors of the article, 'Multi-method biodiversity assessments from wetlands in Grand Teton National Park' in the journal 'Ecological indicators' which is contained within this thesis.Freshwater wetlands support high biodiversity, yet many wetlands are subject to shifts in precipitation and temperature under projected climate patterns. These changes can alter wetland hydrological regimes, potentially leading to longer or more frequent dry periods, with effects that differ among taxa. In this thesis we aim to build on the understanding about biodiversity in wetlands and how these species may be affected by climate change, in hopes of providing information for land management. To accomplish these goals, we first focused on macroinvertebrates, a group that employs diverse strategies for surviving wetland drying. We explored the roles of wetland size, spatial isolation, and temporal isolation on macroinvertebrate richness and community composition. In summer 2018, we collected macroinvertebrates from 18 wetlands in Grand Teton National Park. We found macroinvertebrate family richness increased with wetland depth and slower rates of drying. We also found the interaction between spatial and temporal isolation explained the most variation in community composition for all the life history strategies we examined. Second, we explored the utility of different automated tools to monitor biodiversity in wetlands. In 2017, we placed wildlife cameras, as well as acoustic (audible and ultrasonic) recorders at 4 permanent wetlands in Grand Teton National Park for a week in June and August; we also completed a visual survey during each of these time intervals. We compared the number and type of species detected by each method over the summer to evaluate the effectiveness of each method for monitoring. Using wildlife cameras, in addition to visual surveys, increased the observation time at surveyed wetlands, captured complementary species, and recorded dynamics in the water level during the summer. These two chapters provide insights about how changes resulting from increased drying may affect one of the most biodiverse taxa and offer methods that allow monitoring of many taxa simultaneously.Item Remote sensing for wetland restoration analysis: Napa-Sonoma Marsh as case study(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2019) Bryne, Charles; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Scott PowellHuman-caused ecosystem change and habitat loss is a major worldwide concern. Wetland loss has been remarkable worldwide and in the US. In the San Francisco Bay system, the largest estuary on the eastern rim of the Pacific Ocean and a biodiversity hotspot, more than 90 percent of the wetlands have been lost to urban development, salt production and agriculture, a loss that primarily occurred in the century following 1850. Restoration is our primary mechanism for confronting this challenge. While wetland restoration design has advanced dramatically since the early designs of the 1980s, restoration analysis and evaluation remain challenges that until now have wholly or primarily required on-site sampling. This is a major challenge for larger restoration projects, such as the Napa- Sonoma Salt Marsh restoration in California. Previous studies have indicated that the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been used in some restoration analyses with apparent success, but data is limited. To better understand its potential, this study examines issues in restoration analysis in the context of wetland restorations. By comparing pre- and post-restoration remote sensing data, I found that two sites in the Napa-Sonoma Marsh restoration demonstrated mixed NDVI results and that changes depended on subarea and whether median or maximum NDVI was analyzed. The mixed results are explained by several factors: the inherent limitations of NDVI; the large restoration size; the fact that wetlands, less vegetated, present special challenges for analysis; and the fact that it is early in the post-restoration period. The case study supports the use of remote sensing and GIS for restoration analysis and evaluation, but also emphasizes their current limitations. Many of these limitations, which hinge on the complexity of the potential data involved, are likely to be addressed in the next generation as the relevant technology continues to develop.Item Land-atmosphere exchange of carbon and energy at a tropical peat swamp forest in Sarawak, Malaysia(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2017) Tang Che Ing, Angela; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Paul C. Stoy; Paul C. Stoy, Kevin K. Musin, Edward B. Aeries, Joseph Wenceslaus, Mariko Shimizu, Ryuichi Hirata and Lulie Melling were co-authors of the article, 'The role of biophysical drivers in controlling the variability of net ecosystem CO 2 exchange in a tropical peat forest in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo' submitted to the journal 'Global change biology' which is contained within this thesis.; Paul C. Stoy, Kevin K. Musin, Edward B. Aeries, Joseph Wenceslaus, Mariko Shimizu, Ryuichi Hirata and Lulie Melling were co-authors of the article, 'The exchange of water and energy between a tropical peat forest and the atmosphere: seasonal trends and comparison against global tropical rainforests' submitted to the journal 'Geophysical research letters' which is contained within this thesis.; Paul C. Stoy, Kevin K. Musin, Edward B. Aeries, Joseph Wenceslaus, Mariko Shimizu, Ryuichi Hirata and Lulie Melling were co-authors of the article, 'Eddy covariance measurements of methane flux at a tropical peat forest in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo' submitted to the journal 'Agricultural and forest meteorology' which is contained within this thesis.Tropical peatlands comprise 11% of the global peat area of ca. 400 Mha and are estimated to store about 89 Gt of carbon (C). However, considerable uncertainties remain about their present role in global C cycle as interannual ecosystem-scale measurements of undisturbed tropical peat forests have not been measured to date. Hence, an eddy covariance tower was instrumented in a tropical peat forest in Sarawak, Malaysia over four years from 2011 to 2014. We found that the forest was a net source of CO 2 to the atmosphere during every year of measurement. The inter-annual variation in net ecosystem CO 2 exchange (NEE) was largely modulated by the variation in gross primary production (GPP), which was jointly controlled by vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and leaf area index (LAI) in addition to photosynthetically active photon flux density (PPFD). Greater reduction of GPP in 2011 and 2012, are likely attributed to the relative low atmospheric transmission due to massive peat fires in Indonesia. Similarly, no analysis to our knowledge has measured whole-ecosystem methane (CH 4) flux from a tropical peat forested wetland to date despite their importance to global CH 4 budget. The two-month average of C-CH 4 flux measurements, on the order of 0.024 g C-CH 4 m -2 d -1, suggests that tropical peat forests are not likely to be disproportionally important to global CH 4 flux. Results demonstrate a limited ability for simple models to capture the variability in the diurnal pattern of CH 4 efflux, but also consistent responses to soil moisture, water table height, and precipitation over daily to weekly time scales. The sensible heat flux (H) and latent heat flux (LE) and their ratio (the Bowen ratio, Bo) at the study ecosystem were relatively invariant compared to other tropical rainforests. The average daily LE across the calendar year tended to be higher at MY-MLM (11 MJ m -2 day -1) than most other tropical rainforest ecosystems in the FLUXNET2015 database. Results demonstrate important differences in the seasonal patterns in water and energy exchange in tropical rainforest ecosystems that need to be captured by models to understand how ongoing changes in tropical rainforest extent impact the global climate system.Item Finding nature in an industrial swamp: a case study of New Jersey's Hackensack meadowlands(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2017) Hendry, Cheryl Ann; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary MurphyThe Hackensack Meadowlands is a large tidal marsh ecosystem and state-designated planning district located in heavily urbanized northeastern New Jersey. Because the Meadowlands' wetlands had been perceived as worthless, dangerous, and a barrier to progress, over half of the Meadowlands' wetlands disappeared under drainage ditches and developers' fill as Greater New York expanded in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Yet, today 8,400 acres of wetlands remain there; this dissertation seeks to explain why. This dissertation analyzes environmental preservation efforts in the Meadowlands from 1968 to 2004, including legislative efforts to pass the Hackensack Meadowlands Reclamation and Development Act in 1968, early Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission planning efforts and environmentalists' attempts to block construction of an incinerator and the Meadowlands Sports Complex in the early 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency's veto of fill permits filed under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act in the 1980s, and grassroots environmentalists' efforts to block a Special Area Management Plan and the construction of the Meadowlands Mills Mall at the end of the twentieth century. These efforts culminated in the HMDC's adoption of a Master Plan in 2004 which barred all new development on the Meadowlands' wetlands. In each of these episodes, this dissertation analyzes the ways in which people defined nature, and the human relationship to it, in this place over time, and it explains how those definitions of nature shaped policy and the Meadowlands' landscape. It argues that 8,400 acres of wetlands remains in the United States' most densely populated metropolitan area stands as a testament to Americans' willingness to embrace humanized landscapes within their understandings of nature and their ability to force the environmental management system to protect such landscapes.Item Hydrologic influence of wetland restoration : the Story Mill case study(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2016) Deford, Lillian Bell; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Joel CahoonThe Story Mill Wetland is a 20 hectare restoration project in Bozeman Montana, intended to help improve the quality of surface water that leaves the city. The streams that border the property, Bozeman Creek and the East Gallatin River, exceed the Montana Department of Environmental Quality's (MTDEQ) water quality standards for nitrogen (0.27 mg/L) and phosphorus (0.08 mg/L). Wetlands in the landscape have become more intriguing in the advent of MTDEQs adoption of Circular DEQ-13, a legal framework for nutrient trading to achieve improved watershed water quality. Earth-work took place in Summer/Fall 2014, including excavating 5,800 m 2 of disconnected floodplain, and filling a surface drain. The research objectives were to quantify the impacts of the restoration so as to make inferences about the short-term changes in groundwater/surface water interaction, wetland volume and area, and the wetland's impact on the water quality in the bordering streams. Measurements of groundwater levels and surface water flow rates, and water chemistry analyses for both water sources, were recorded weekly from 30 shallow wells and 5 stream gauging stations from August 2014 through September 2015. Groundwater velocity and hydraulic residence time were estimated by performing slug tests in several groundwater wells. Spatially normalized wetland area and volume were calculated based on interpolated groundwater surfaces. Throughout the monitoring period, in all surface and groundwater samples, total nitrogen never exceeded 3 mg/L, averaged 0.76 mg/L, and almost always exceeded the target standard for the East Gallatin River. Total phosphorus was below the detection limit in 97% of all samples and never exceeded 0.22 mg/L. Neither average nutrient concentrations nor pH showed significant general temporal trends, while dissolved oxygen decreased over time. Changes in hydrology were generally localized near earth moving activity. Overall, wetland volume decreased slightly and wetland area increased slightly. Hydraulic gradients showed the primary flow of groundwater to be out of the wetland, with an average soil water velocity of 0.11 m/day. The slow moving groundwater in the wetland system appears to limit the extent of groundwater/surface water interaction, and hinders the role of the wetland in enhancing the water quality in the receiving creeks.Item Wetlands and copper concentrations across a headwater catchment impacted by acid rock drainage(Montana State University - Bozeman, 2000) Novak, Tracy M. Knoop; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Paul HookItem Processes of alkalinity addition to passive wetland systems near Great Falls, MT(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1998) Allen, Diana L.Item Effects of road construction on wetlands in a dead-ice moraine(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1972) Surrendi, Carl RaymondItem Effects of land use on vegetation in glaciated depressional wetlands in western Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1998) Borth, Cynthia S.