INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF ANTHROPOGENIC, CLIMATE, AND POLICY INDUCED CHANGES OF PHOSPHORUS EXPORT IN THE UNITED STATES LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES WATERSHEDS

Anthropogenic activities have increased phosphorus (P) loading in tributaries to the Laurentian Great Lakes resulting in eutrophication in small bays to most notably, Lake Erie. Changes to surface water quality from P loading have resulted in billions of dollars in damage and threaten the health of the world’s largest freshwater resource. To understand the factors affecting P delivery with projected increasing urban lands and biofuels expansion, two spatially explicit models were coupled. The coupled models predict that the majority of the basin will experience a significant increase in urban area P sources while the agriculture intensity and forest sources of P will decrease. Changes in P loading across the basin will be highly variable spatially. Additionally, the impacts of climate change on high precipitation events across the Great Lakes were examined. Using historical regression relationships on phosphorus concentrations, key Great Lakes tributaries were found to have future changes including decreasing total loads and increases to high-flow loading events. The urbanized Cuyahoga watersheds exhibits the most vulnerability to these climate-induced changes with increases in total loading and storm loading , while the forested Au Sable watershed exhibits greater resilience. Finally, the monitoring network currently in place for sampling the amount of phosphorus entering the U.S. Great Lakes was examined with a focus on the challenges to monitoring. Based on these interviews, the research identified three issues that policy makers interested in maintaining an effective phosphorus monitoring network in the Great Lakes should consider: first, that the policy objectives driving different monitoring programs vary, which results in different patterns of sampling design and frequency; second, that these differences complicate efforts to encourage collaboration; and third, that methods of funding sampling programs vary from agency to agency, further complicating efforts to generate sufficient long-term data to improve our understanding of phosphorus into the Great Lakes. The dissertation combines these three areas of research to present the potential future impacts of P loading in the Great Lakes as anthropogenic activities, climate and monitoring changes. These manuscripts report new experimental data for future sources, loading and climate impacts on phosphorus.

Assessment of Seismic Damage of Buildings and Related Environmental Impacts

Sustainable development has only recently started examining the existing infrastructure, and a key aspect of this is hazard mitigation. To examine buildings under a sustainable perspective requires an understanding of a building's life-cycle environmental costs, including the consideration of associated environmental impacts induced by earthquake damage. Damage repair costs lead to additional material and energy consumption, leading to harmful environmental impacts. Merging results obtained from a seismic evaluation and life-cycle analysis for buildings will give a novel outlook on sustainable design decisions. To evaluate the environmental impacts caused by buildings, long-term impacts accrued throughout a building's lifetime and impacts associated with damage repair need to be quantified. A method and literature review for completing this examination has been developed and is discussed. Using software Athena and HAZUS-MH, this study evaluated the performance of steel and concrete buildings considering their life-cycle assessments and earthquake resistance. It was determined that code design-level greatly effects a building repair and damage estimations. This study presented two case study buildings and found specific results that were obtained using several premade assumptions. Future research recommendations were provided to make this methodology more useful in real-world applications. Examining cost and environmental impacts that a building has through, a cradle-to-grave analysis and seismic damage assessment will help reduce material consumption and construction activities from taking place before and after an earthquake event happens.