2005 — 2008 |
Halverson, Mark Limerick, Patricia |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Postdoctoral Fellowship: History and Science of Freshwater Fisheries Management @ University of Colorado At Boulder
PROJECT SUMMARY Objectives and methods Anders Halverson, an aquatic ecologist, and Patricia Nelson Limerick, a historian, propose to study issues concerning science, technology and freshwater fisheries during a two-year postdoctoral fellowship for Halverson at the University of Colorado. In addition to the research described above, the fellowship will also include a training component. Halverson will sit in on classes and seminars and hold formal and informal discussions with Limerick and other scholars at the University of Colorado's Center for the American West. Intellectual Merit Every year, state agencies stock tens of millions of fish into the freshwaters of the United States for the benefit of recreational anglers. Such stocking programs, ongoing for more than 100 years, have proven enormously successful socially and economically. However, stocking and other associated techniques have also had severe consequences for native fauna and ecosystems ,especially in the American West. About 37 percent of North American freshwater fishes are currently classified as vulnerable, imperiled, or extinct by The Nature Conservancy, and introduced species were at least partially responsible for 68 percent of the extinctions through predation, competition, the spread of disease, and hybridization. Other fisheries management techniques, including the use of fish poisons and the introduction of invertebrate prey species, have also had dire consequences for native fauna. Fisheries managers, scientists and other stakeholders appear to have divided into polarized factions over these fisheries management issues, generating increasingly rancorous debate over the effects and future direction of freshwater fisheries management. While the debate is couched largely in terms of contemporary science and social science, the roots of the conflict stretch deep into the past. Indeed, throughout its history, sport fishing has had a profound influence on freshwater ecosystems in ways that have often been controversial as well as beneficial and detrimental to the native inhabitants. This study is both timely and relevant. Although every bit as consequential, freshwater fisheries management has received little attention compared to other issues like the crises in marine and anadromous fisheries. An in-depth analysis of the current and historical roots of the controversy will also illuminate broader issues about the role of science and technology in society. Broader Impacts The proposed research will have broader impacts. Halverson, a former journalist, proposes to write a book that would be accessible and of interest to the general public. The potential audience is large; nationwide about one in seven adults spend some of their leisure time fishing. In addition, by pulling together information about history, science and politics into one body of work, the proposed research would further debate and thereby improve the management of the nation's freshwaters.
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0.915 |
2012 — 2017 |
Hannigan, Michael (co-PI) [⬀] Ryan, Joseph [⬀] Williams, Mark Limerick, Patricia Bourgeron, Patrick |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Routes to Sustainability For Natural Gas Development and Water and Air Resources in the Rocky Mountain Region @ University of Colorado At Boulder
1240584 Ryan
The current energy system in the United States relies on finite resources that are the major cause of climate change and a key source of global conflict. A sustainable energy system - one that uses renewable, low-carbon, affordable, and local energy sources - may be decades away. Natural gas is seen as the "bridge fuel" to a more sustainable energy system because natural gas combustion emits smaller amounts of greenhouse gases than coal combustion. However, conflicts have arisen between accelerated natural gas development and water and air resources protection. These conflicts are becoming acute in the Rocky Mountain region, which has always played an important role in the energy system of the United States. Most of the recent growth in natural gas production is the result of extracting gas from "unconventional" sources (coal-bed methane, shale gas, tight gas) with the techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing requires large volumes of water that are chemically amended and injected to increase the permeability of the gas-bearing formations. The fracturing fluid left in ground and the fracturing fluid that returns to the surface (flowback), along with produced water, present risks to ground and surface waters. Natural gas extraction results in atmospheric emissions, particularly the release of greenhouse gases, oxides of nitrogen, and volatile organic compounds tied to the generation of ozone. These stresses on local water and air resources must be weighed against the benefits of natural gas production for the nation and the public must be provided with reliable information to make decisions about energy sources and resource protection. This Sustainability Research Network (SRN) addresses the conflict between natural gas extraction and water and air resources protection with the development of a social-ecological system framework with which to assess the conflict and to identify needs for scientific information. Scientific investigations will be conducted to assess and mitigate the problems. Outreach and education efforts will focus on citizen science, public involvement, and awareness of the science and policy issues. The intellectual merit of this SRN proposal includes (1) examination of the effects of natural gas development on water and air resources by analyzing trade-offs between local, regional, and national costs and benefits in environmental, social, and economic domains (social-ecological systems); (2) review of industry practices for hydraulic fracturing, well drilling and casing, and gas collection infrastructure for best management practices recommendations (natural gas infrastructure); (3) investigation of the hydrologic processes that determine impacts of natural gas extraction on groundwater withdrawal and contaminant transport in drinking water aquifers and surface waters (water quantity); (4) characterization of the potential risks of fracturing fluid migrating to drinking water aquifers, the injection or discharge of flowback and produced water, and the mitigation of these risks by treatment of the flowback and produced waters (water quality); (5) improved spatial and temporal monitoring of air pollutants by a combination of high-resolution mobile sampling and the use of personal air monitors as an example of "citizen science" feeding data to air quality models that assess the local, regional, and national implications of natural gas development (air quality); and (6) quantitative and qualitative assessment of the health risks, both chemical and non-chemical, associated with water and air exposure. The broader impact of this SRN includes improved public understanding of the effects of natural gas development on water and air resources and better decision-making regarding the local effects and regional and national benefits and costs of natural gas development. The broader impacts will be achieved through extensive education and outreach activities: (1) dissemination of best management practices in collaboration with all stakeholders, (2) diverse communication about scientists and scientific activity that will reach a broad portion of the public, (3) collaboration with Native American tribes and other under-represented groups disproportionately affected by natural gas development, (4) educational efforts aimed at providing appreciation for the science-policy interface at the university and K-12 levels, and (5) engagement of the public through citizen science, workshops, and scenario planning.
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0.915 |
2016 — 2017 |
Fisk, Jonathan Ge, Shemin (co-PI) [⬀] Kroepsch, Adrianne Limerick, Patricia Silverstein, Joann (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Workshop On the Subsurface in the American West: Applying Historical and Scientific Lessons From Mining to Contemporary Oil and Natural Gas Development @ University of Colorado At Boulder
1649919 Limerick, Patricia N.
After a very brisk boom over the past decade, oversupply of petroleum has led to a steep drop in prices. This "bust" has interrupted the rapid expansion of well drilling in conjunction with hydraulic fracturing, and a trend of shutting down and capping, closing, and even abandoning wells has accelerated. A wide range of stakeholders are often improvising procedures to manage this new phase constrained by declining financial resources. The premise of this workshop is that the history of the American West holds, in a multiplicity of abandoned mines, a century and a half's worth of directly relevant case studies. A workshop for coming to grips with the history and material impact of Western mining, and applying that understanding to the current circumstances of Western oil and gas production, presents an opportunity to bring scientists, engineers, historians, and policy scholars into an innovative, dynamic, and consequential conversation.
The workshop will place knowledge of subsurface activities in their broader context as practices embedded in intended and unintended historical legacies and provide a novel framework for anticipating and mitigating environmental, economic, and social impacts of contemporary oil and gas development. The central premise is that a historic-scientific approach will produce a life-cycle perspective on resource extraction and suggest practices to minimize the negative long-term consequences of intensive oil and gas production. An integrated review of past, current, and emerging sensing technology will identify data gaps and promote better monitoring and management of risk from subsurface resource extraction. Workshop participants will be selected to bridge scientific and lay/local knowledge of the impact of human activities in the subsurface. The costs and benefits of subsurface enterprises will be identified, along with their distribution at scales of neighborhood, town, city, suburb, county, state, reservation, region, nation, and planet. The workshop will draw on the expertise of the Center of the American West, in casting scholars in the humanities and social sciences as participants alongside scientists and engineers in managing the impacts of energy, water, and mining activities, rather than bringing them in as translators after the scientists have done their work. The workshop will foster public discussion of management of the subsurface by bringing together heretofore disparate voices of scientists, engineers, humanists, and local residents representing diverse communities. A published document, possibly a journal special issue, will present subsurface management strategies generated in the workshop based on review of scientific findings about the impacts of oil and gas development placed in a context of political, economic, social, and cultural relations, identified through using knowledge of historic mining. Workshop outcomes also will provide a framework for regulators and stakeholders interested in producing new policy and regulations, and create opportunities for partnerships between industry and academic researchers. Ideas for interdisciplinary approaches for teaching classes about the subsurface will be developed, including recruitment and training of researchers and other experts as guest speakers, curriculum guides, and class materials representing science, technology, and the humanities. New educational developments begun at the University of Colorado Boulder will provide a grounded example that can be made available to other universities and colleges.
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0.915 |