We compared different sources of land use/land cover data using the percentages of forest, agriculture, urban, and mined lands in approximately 400 watersheds of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region. The primary data sources were digital Land Use/Land Cover maps (LULQ from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and data derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery obtained by the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLQ Consortium and interpreted at the Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) Data Center (version 2). The latter is referred to as MRLC-TM. We also used aerial photographs (AP), topographic maps, field comments, and qualitative watershed assessments as ancillary information. The LULC and MRLC-TM data differed in age, source material, classifications, format (vector vs. raster), and resolution. However, Pearson correlation coefficients between LULC and MRLC-TM were high for broad (composite) forest, agriculture, and urban categories (0.95, 0.96, and 0.92, respectively). Correspondence varied by forest type and by percentage. Where deciduous forests comprised less than 50% of the watershed, MRLCTM data depicted greater amounts than did LULC, while the reverse was true where deciduous forests were dominant Agriculture and forest percentages were inversely related in all cases. Urban land percentages were consistently lower for MRLC-TM than LULC. Relatively few watersheds contained strip mines, quarries, or gravel pits and the MRLC-TM vs. LULC relationship was weak (correlation coefficient = 0.41). Detection of reclaimed mines seemed problematic for LULC and MRLC-TM, but these were readily discerned on AP. A single “snapshot” of land cover data will inadequately characterize a watershed if rapid landscape changes occur (e.g., forest clearcuts). Each data type has strengths and weaknesses, depending on a study's objectives, but individual limitations may be alleviated by using multiple data sources.

The article offers an examination of recent efforts to streamline the NEPA process. Proposed streamlining methods are evaluated to answer whether streamlining initiatives would either improve NEPA or result in a cautionary tale of unintended consequences. Examples are given of commonly encountered sources of delay outside of NEPA that streamlining initiatives cannot address. The article concludes with a discussion of ways to reduce delay in NEPA review.

Environmental Practice 16: 302–308 (2014)

Coal-mining activities in the Appalachian Basin have left behind an environmental legacy of acid mine drainage (AMD), which collectively discharges more than 1.2 billion liters of low-pH contaminated water per day into freshwater streams. Meanwhile, concerns over the use of freshwater for hydraulic fracturing applications in the Appalachian Basin are rising, where an average daily withdrawal of freshwater for hydraulic fracturing may approach 60 million liters per day. The use of AMD as a substitute for freshwater has the joint advantages of mitigating existing environmental damage to surface waters and relieving some pressures on freshwater withdrawals, but the practice faces technical, economic, and regulatory hurdles. To reduce sulfate levels, coal-mine drainage that is currently treated to meet Clean Water Act standards may need additional treatment for hydraulic fracturing applications. Reducing sulfate levels without the use of additional freshwater may involve costs of several dollars per barrel versus less than one dollar per barrel for freshwater purchased directly. The cost of treatment to remove sulfates would need to decline by perhaps a factor of 4 in order to be cost-competitive with the purchase of fresh water. So-called abandoned (untreated) mine drainage poses a larger environmental challenge, but treatment and transportation costs may be orders of magnitude larger. Issues regarding handling liability and storage costs for abandoned-mine waters in particular represent significant regulatory barriers. We find that treatment, transportation, and storage costs are the most important factors affecting water-utilization decisions in shale-gas development. While Pennsylvania has proposed policy reforms to address environmental liability issues associated with AMD use, implementation itself will likely raise costs for its use in hydraulic fracturing as compared to the use of freshwater. AMD use may become cost-competitive with the development and use of low-cost AMD treatment technologies in centralized locations designed for long-term use, along with efficient water transfer and storage facilities.

Environmental Practice 14:301–307 (2012)

Landscape aesthetic values can easily be overlooked or undervalued in the environmental impact statement (EIS) process. Public sector projects may underestimate the aesthetic damage they cause, which, if fully considered, could alter the types of projects undertaken or the form those projects take. This article seeks to more persuasively represent the aesthetic damage wrought by a public project by attaching to it a dollar figure. Cost-benefit analysis is often incorporated into the EIS, but for cost-benefit analysis to be valid, all costs and benefits must be fairly represented. To exclude aesthetic value from the analysis on the basis that beauty is intangible or priceless is to assign it a de facto value of zero in cost-benefit calculations. The monetizing of aesthetics is approached by integrating the methods of economic contingent valuation with landscape aesthetic assessment. Economic values and aesthetic values can be reconciled; a demonstration of the integration of methods is provided.

The success of urban salt marsh restoration depends upon an understanding of the local tidal regime and hydrologic conditions. Reference wetland characteristics can provide biological and physical restoration baselines for a restoration design through the use of techniques such as bio-benchmarking and geomorphologic assessment. Reference site vegetation can be used as indirect indicators of local tidal elevations and duration of flooding of each tidal zone. Reference sites can also provide landscape allometry to generate geomorphologic ratios that can be applied to the restoration site. Through the use of field measurements, aerial photographs, and GIS technology, relationships can be identified for tidal channel width, depth, diurnal tidal prism, and marsh area. Calculating a hydrologic budget for freshwater is critical to estimate salinity concentrations and their effect on the restoration wetland. This information, along with field measurements of salinity, can be used to predict salinity ranges resulting from the interaction of freshwater sources and will help determine the target vegetation communities. Preconstruction planning is not always sufficient to understand site conditions, especially in urban areas. Flexibility in design, even during the construction phase, may be required to assure project success. During excavation of fill, conditions were found at specific locations that would reduce the likelihood of reestablishing historic functions and values of the tidal marsh. Designs were altered at one low marsh area, which was redesigned as mudflat; and a second low marsh area that was changed to a freshwater fen.

Environmental Practice 14:1–11 (2012)

FracTracker is a participatory geographic information system (PGIS) and website that was designed to address concerns surrounding the process of unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) by enabling registered users to make visual connections by using raw data and mapping technologies. An electronic survey (n = 147) and case studies (n = 3) of registered users were conducted in 2011–12 to better understand FracTracker's usage, outcomes, and barriers. Results indicate that PGISs like FracTracker, while difficult for some users to operate, can effectively provide information about UNGD to engaged nonexperts—or regular users. User contributions via volunteered geographic information or crowdsourcing remain limited on FracTracker, but are a barrier that could be overcome with targeted training, by facilitation of a user intermediary, and by diversifying site features. Future PGIS research should assess individuals' concept of space, investigate the interaction between PGIS and digital discourse, and search for the proper balance between the system's technological capacities and ease of use.

Environmental Practice 14:1–10 (2012)

In 1993, in an attempt to avoid the traditional lengthy, costly, and often controversial process of relicensing hydropower projects, Avista Corporation initiated a novel collaborative approach that brought together a number of disparate actors to craft a consensus relicensing application. The company's interest in a cooperative settlement was driven by continuing changes in the economic, political, and regulatory environment of relicensing. Over the last three decades various regulatory actors have placed a greater emphasis on environmental protection, increased competition in the electricity industry, and opened the relicensing process to new participants. There were three primary issues in the settlement discussions: the level of funding Avista would commit to environmental mitigation, species protection and habitat restoration, and the future operation of hydropower projects. The negotiated settlement provides the company with a degree of cost and regulatory certainty, while environmental organizations and government wildlife agencies gain an accelerated time-frame for mitigation and protection activities and a secure funding commitment. The Clark Fork settlement is evidence that negotiated compromises to relicensing applications may in certain circumstances become an effective means to balance economic and environmental values.

Communication challenges of environmental management are magnified for uncertain policy options and trade-offs involving complex issues. A novel risk-trading option authorized by Congress for setting standards for radon levels in drinking water illustrates interactions and gaps among scholarly advice, practitioner behavior, and citizen responses, as revealed in utility-customer focus groups. The aim of the focus groups was to identify citizen-preferred options (including any not yet suggested by policy makers) and difficulties in presenting needed background information so that policy preferences are valid and reliable if elicited in the future. This commentary covers such topics as effects of knowledge, risk comparisons and information framing, values clarification, presentation of policy options and evaluation, and their implications for risk communication and policy development.

Environmental Practice 16: 113–126 (2014)

Sustainability has become a guiding principle, a goal, and, in many cases, a standard for businesses, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), institutions of higher education, and environmental practitioners alike. Over the last quarter century, a widespread flurry of action in the name of sustainability has been burgeoning in a variety of settings and nations. A simple Internet news search reveals literally thousands of examples of different actors and organizations taking action in the name of sustainability. From the development of new university curricula to corporate sustainability reports, sustainability is invoked as a driving force for an ever-increasing number of organizations. The concept has become a rallying cry for a new way of operating and functioning. Like the environmental movement of the 1970s, the sustainability movement is marked by mobilization and an increased awareness of the challenges facing our current generation, as well as those who will come after us. Yet, it is not clear that actions taken in the name of creating a sustainable future are all based upon a consistent understanding of the concept of sustainability. In other words, are we all speaking the same language when it comes to the concept of sustainability and, similarly, sustainable development?

In early 2002, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) completed a revision of its Environmental Management System (EMS). The new EMS is designed to fully align with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 EMS standards. The EMS incorporated a new Environmental Review Process as an integral component. It established clear roles and responsibilities for the agency NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) staff and organizations across TVA, introduced process improvements and standardization measures, and made structural changes to bring about increased efficiency and effectiveness in NEPA reviews. The NEPA process was further strengthened by its integration into the revised comprehensive EMS. A new Environmental Policy and Principles was adopted that reestablished the TVA commitments to environmental protection and stewardship, to assess and minimize the effects of TVA operations on the environment, and to involve the public. An Achievement Plan was developed to assure that TVA meets its corporate environmental commitment; that plan recognized the EMS as the principal tool for achieving that goal. Corporate environmental objectives and targets were established, and new methods to measure the overall environmental performance of TVA were introduced. Significantly, the NEPA process was directly linked to other EMS processes, including those for environmental training, communication and stakeholder involvement, records management, environmental auditing, corrective and preventive action, performance monitoring and reporting, and management review. These systematic linkages work together to reinforce all aspects of NEPA performance and to provide improved environmental compliance, cost savings in environmental management programs, and measurable improvements in achievement of TVA environmental objectives. The TVA experience, which takes an agency-wide rather than a facility-based approach to EMS development, may offer insights and an alternative strategy to other agencies addressing NEPA/EMS implementation issues.

The study proposes a framework and methodology for investigating the environmental justice implications of the Eastern Wilderness Act (Public Law 93-622) in the context of wilderness non-use values. Census block groups and wilderness areas in the north Georgia portion of the southern Appalachians were mapped using geographic information systems, and the straight-line distances from the census block group centroids to their nearest wilderness area centroid were calculated. These distances were then analyzed as a dependent variable, along with socioeconomic independent variables, using multiple regression analysis (n = 718, p < .05). Results identified two groups living near north Georgia wilderness areas: (1) a white, low-income population and (2) a retired, higher-income population. Additionally, the area may be attracting second, or vacation, homeowners. There is not a strong minority presence near these wilderness areas. Implications of the area as retirement and vacation destinations are discussed in the context of possible effects on the low-income white population. Implications for minorities not living near wilderness areas are also addressed.

Religion and Ecology is a relatively new field of study that has developed over a period of time. Within the last 20 years, it has seen more rapid development and garnered a great deal of interest and attention. In his book Ecology and Religion, David Kinsley describes the convergence of the two areas as (1) philosophical, theoretical, or structural, and (2) moral, ethical, or spiritual. Kinsley uses the term ecological spirituality to further define this area as ethical, moral, or religious tendencies relating to ecological issues. Great strides have been made in acknowledging that this is a credible and important academic and cultural area of study, and it is now being recognized as an academic field. Some academic institutions offer specialized studies through the departments of religion and anthropology, as well as in other academic programs. This article offers an explanation of the various aspects of the emerging field of Religion and Ecology (note that more attention will be paid to Christianity).

Social capital concepts may help to explain implementation gaps and to make water demand management policies more effective. However, the research is limited along these lines of inquiry. We collected data through multiple semistructured interviews, participant observation, surveys, and literature review to assess the evidence of social capital's influence on municipal water policy. The research approach represents an alternative because it challenges the dominance of a technical conceptualization of water management.

Environmental Practice 12:214–226 (2010)

Urban health is strongly linked to mental illness, being overweight, smoking behaviors, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and coronary disease; most of these are chronic diseases/conditions. Healthy Cities and Cittaslow are urban initiatives that acknowledge the importance of such societal and cultural contexts and factors as social determinants of health, whereas the more commonly considered factors such as access and use of health care services often have less impact. Changes in social environment and lifestyle are now major determinants of risk and disease at all ages. Based on the principles of Healthy Cities and Cittaslow, this research aimed to establish comparisons and formulate plausible hypotheses for the relationship between healthy cities and chronic diseases/conditions. It is a qualitative observational and comparative study from a socio-anthropological perspective carried out in five cities. Improved capacity of local communities to identify and address problems could be the best outcome from Healthy Cities and Cittaslow. The capacity to change urban environments and social habits to ones that promote a healthier lifestyle may help to lessen the impact of chronic diseases/conditions.

Environmental Practice 17: 16–24 (2015)

The purpose of this article is to help environmental practitioners deal with uncertainty. A simple model is presented that distinguishes between uncertainties about fact—past, present, and future—and indecision about what to do. To help environmental practitioners deal with these two problems, four tools or conceptual aides are presented. First presented is the “source of uncertainty” analysis method, which can help environmental practitioners understand the sources of uncertainty about facts. Second, a conceptual discussion of imprecise probability is presented to provide environmental practitioners with a method for understanding how to represent uncertainty quantitatively. The third tool presented is known as comprehensive life cycle analysis, which is a methodology to help environmental practitioners assess the full impacts of potential environmental decisions over multiple criteria and time. Fourth, a decision process framework is presented to help environmental practitioners understand when and how uncertainty and indecision can be attacked. The paper includes a discussion about how these four tools can be used by environmental practitioners to overcome seven common everyday problems they may face when confronted with the need to make environmental decisions under uncertainty. The paper also applies the four tools and relates the seven problems to the example of tropospheric ozone.

When the National Environmental Policy Act was passed in 1969, it presupposed that there were clear ways to identify and then address environmental impacts from federal actions. Since then, it has become evident that environmental issues are grounded in complex systems, which are often difficult to “see” in traditional venues for gathering public input and informing decision makers. To address this, practitioners have been exploring collaborative modeling using system dynamics as a method for promoting systems thinking in a variety of decision venues. Historically applied in the business world, system dynamics has expanded into other arenas, including natural resource management. Cooperative modeling combines principles of collaboration with system dynamics to link relevant physical and social systems. In this approach, a multidisciplinary team convenes to engage in dialogue, to identify key variables for a particular issue, to identify relevant data, and to construct a systems-based computer model that helps team members “see” the complexity inherent in the system. Results from these experiences suggest that participants develop a deeper level of understanding about the policy issue, increase their agreement about root problems, and generate sound information about the issue being addressed. This article suggests that cooperative modeling can be an effective tool to meet both the letter and the spirit of the National Environmental Policy Act.

Environmental Practice 12:127–133 (2010)

In cooperative modeling projects, a group of people work together to develop a model to better understand a complex system and explore consequences of various “what if” scenarios. This report describes a case study from New Mexico in which representatives from diverse organizations and institutions employed system dynamics–based cooperative modeling enhanced by computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) to design a model that could be used as a tool in making water management decisions. In this case, CSCW was necessitated by the geographically dispersed nature of the participating stakeholders. The case study reflects that, although it is no panacea, cooperative modeling can be a successful way to create a sense of community, even among geographically dispersed citizens and decision makers, to understand contentious and complex water management issues. The purpose of this article is to highlight lessons learned for applying cooperative modeling with CSCW to assist other practitioners and broaden possibilities for improved water management decisions.

Environmental Practice 12:316–327 (2010)