Audrey L. Mayer

Michigan Technological University | MTU · School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science

Toxoplasma gondii is a ubiquitous parasitic protozoan that poses a health threat to wildlife and human health worldwide. Oocysts shed into the environment in felid host feces may persist for several years. Runoff from rainfall and snowmelt may carry the oocysts into waterways. Semiaquatic mammals such as the Northern American river otter (Lontra ca...

Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal.

An understanding of the scientific layout of surface water space is crucial for the sustainable development of human society and the ecological environment. The objective of this study was to use land-use/land-cover data to identify the spatiotemporal dynamic change processes and the influencing factors over the past three decades in Henan Province...

The story of the rare coastal California gnatcatcher is a parable for understanding the larger ongoing struggle to conserve biodiversity in regions confronted with intensifying urban development. Because this gnatcatcher depends on vanishing coastal sage scrub in Southern California, it has been regarded as a flagship species for biodiversity prote...

Originating in neoliberal democracies, the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is a common policy tool allowing governments to provide public service through collaboration. In some non-liberal societies, PPPs may take different forms and not squarely fit into the classic PPP category, which we label as ‘Quasi-PPPs’ (QPPPs). QPPPs provide important fun...

The Trans-Atlantic Research and Development Interchange on Sustainability Workshop (TARDIS) is a meeting on scientific topics related to sustainability. The 2019 workshop theme was "On the Role of Uncertainty in Managing the Earth for Global Sustainability." This paper presents the perspectives on this topic derived from talks and discussions at th...

Rapidly growing cities often struggle with insufficient green space, although information on when and where more green space is needed can be difficult to collect. Big data on the density of individuals in cities collected from mobile phones can estimate the usage intensity of urban green space. Taking Zhengzhou’s central city as an example, we com...

This paper reveals the role of urban green space (UGS) in regulating runoff and hence on urban hydrological balance. The modeling software i-Tree Hydro was used to quantify the effects of UGS on surface runoff regulation and canopy interception capacity in four simulated land-cover scenarios. The results showed that the existing UGS could mitigate...

The structure and function of green-space system is an eternal subject of landscape architecture, especially due to limited land and a need for the coordinated development of PLEs (production, living, and ecological spaces). To make planning more scientific, this paper explored green-space structure planning via multidimensional perspectives and me...

Applied behavior analysis can be used by development practitioners to improve the design and implementation of development programs. Programs are most successful when the goals and consequences of change agents, strategists, and adopters align, as we demonstrate with real-world examples from international agroforestry projects. We focus on the role...

Urban green spaces play a crucial role in maintaining urban ecosystem sustainability by providing numerous ecosystem services. How to quantify and evaluate the ecological benefits and services of urban green spaces remains a hot topic currently, while the evaluation is barely applied or implemented in urban design and planning. In this study, super...

This chapter describes an innovative program focused on structural changes affecting faculty resources, career experiences, and productivity metrics at Michigan Technological University, a STEM-dominant research university in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. ADVANCE Matrix Process: University Programs (hereafter referred to as AMP-UP) emerged out o...

The direct measurement of the resilience (resistance to disturbances) of an ecosystem’s current regime (or “alternative stable state”) remains a key concern for managing human impacts on these ecosystems and their risk of collapse. Approaches which utilize statistics or information theory have demonstrated utility in identifying regime boundaries....

Both policy entrepreneur and policy implementer play critical roles in the policy process. Little attention has been devoted to how the identity overlap may influence policy change. This paper addresses this gap using a case-study approach and explores the vertical-greening policymaking in Shanghai (1992–2016), China. Three conclusions are advanced...

This special issue of Landscape & Urban Planning (LAND) “Landscape dynamics of family forest owners” represents a collection of approaches to describe and understand how family forest owners around the world, in the aggregate, influence and are influenced by landscape-scale land use dynamics. Also known as smallholders, small-scale owners, communal...

Forested landscapes around the world are owned, governed, and managed by many small owners and collectives. The management decisions that these owners and collectives make aggregate into measurable impacts on forest cover, fragmentation, carbon storage, biodiversity, and on the ecosystem services these forests provide to owners and broader society....

Even if urban catchments are adequately drained by sewer infrastructures, flooding hotspots develop where ongoing development and poor coordination among utilities conspire with land use and land cover, drainage, and rainfall. We combined spatially explicit land use/land cover data from Luohe City (central China) with soil hydrology (as measured, g...

The monitoring of forested landscapes dominated by many small private forest owners is difficult or not possible without spatially explicit and up-to-date information on land cover change. Analysis of time series multispectral data from the Landsat series of satellites have the spatial and temporal characteristics required to detect sub-hectare and...

Shipbreaking in the Chittagong region of Bangladesh supplies metal to meet the needs of the nation’s construction sector. The shipbreaking industry has received international attention for environmental contamination and workers’ insecurity. However, these issues have been framed without considering the actors (and their associated motive) that pro...

We asked young scientists this question: What is your New Year's resolution for your fi eld? Describe one thing that your fi eld's research community could do better in the coming year. We received responses from scientists around the world representing a variety of fi elds. Excerpts of their responses are printed below.-Jennifer Sills must learn t...

At times, my life as a scientist has resembled what many see as the archetype: available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to go to the lab or out to the field, with no personal responsibilities that can't be sacrificed or taken care of by others. I have lived this life—and enjoyed it. But since becoming a single mother, I've realized that it is only o...

Agenda setting is a policy process stage when ideas compete for time and resource prioritization, e.g., budget line items. Changes in the relative priorities at an agency typically happen at points of personnel turnover or during exogenous events that create “policy windows” for new items or priorities. A rapid increase in energy prices in Michigan...

Green space is the main part of human and natural ecological environmental systems. The connectivity of green space is fundamental for the survival of flora and fauna, human outdoor recreation, and urban sustainability. The objective of this study was to quantify the dynamic changes of green-space connectivity of Zhengzhou, including the rapid urba...

“Our Common Future” harmonized development policies around a new sustainable development (SD) paradigm, and experts also emphasize the importance of a democratic and equitable approach to define and achieve sustainable development. However, SD targets and indicators are often defined by a suite of experts or a few stakeholder groups, far removed fr...

The decisions of the central Chinese government have been a key driver of the urbanization process in large cities in eastern China, however their influence on the later-urbanizing cities in central China is unclear. The objective of this study was to use remote sensing data and spatial metrics to identify the relative influence of planning policie...

Shrinking cities are widespread throughout the world despite the rapidly increasing global urban population. These cities are attempting to transition to sustainable trajectories to improve the health and well-being of urban residents, to build their capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to cope with major events. The dynamics of shrinking c...

Coordinating forest management across thousands of nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners is a difficult yet necessary task for state land management agencies. Voluntary Incentive Programs (VIPs) can coordinate the decentralized activities of these owners in return for services or financial incentives. However, many VIPs typically have low enro...

The ship breaking industry in Bangladesh is challenged to balance economic goals with improving environmental and human health conditions. Since ship breaking is an inherently international industry, Bangladesh as a major shipbreaking party needs to adjust its national policy strategy to harmonize with international rules, regulations, and decision...

The ship recycling industry in Bangladesh provides necessary scrap metal for domestic steel products, such as rebar for construction. These recycled products may represent a dramatic reduction in energy consumption and ecological footprint when compared to production from virgin iron ore. A life cycle assessment approach is used to evaluate energy...

Landscape ecology is a discipline that explicitly considers the influence of time and space on the environmental patterns we observe and the processes that create them. Although many of the topics studied in landscape ecology have public policy implications, three are of particular concern: climate change; land use–land cover change (LULCC); and a...

The United States (US) Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires that the "best available scientific and commercial data" be used to protect imperiled species from extinction and preserve biodiversity. However, it does not provide specific guidance on how to apply this mandate. Scientific data can be uncertain and controversial, particularly regarding...

As bioenergy production expands and new bioenergy-based technologies emerge, there is a growing concern regarding the sustainability of their ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Comprehensive sustainability assessments are needed to address this concern and to assure that the development of the bioenergy industry meets sustainability goals. Most...

Recent years have witnessed an upsurge in certification schemes and sustainability assessment tools for bioenergy, however these mechanisms are often too generic, numerous and too broad for regional or local level implementation. Furthermore, these assessments are often weighted toward economic and environmental sustainability with less focus on so...

The role of soils in the urban hydrologic cycle is poorly understood, hampering the management of stormwater and wastewater volume. A hydrogeological perspective is key to developing practical recommendations for managing soil infiltrative capacities, which will define its role in managing the local hydrologic cycle. The basis for this work derives...

Taking the perspective that it is the human activities that require management rather than the biological systems that we disturb, this chapter will describe an adaptive management approach to environmental management. Using technological advancements such as remote sensing and geographic information systems, ecologists can determine the most succe...

Soil erosion is considered to be a serious problem for environmental sustainability. Healthy and stable soils are crucial for human well-being, providing important ecosystem functions and services. There is a need for a simple and practical approach which estimates and maps soil erosion risk that uses available information as input data to facilita...

Understanding how large-scale bioenergy production can affect biodiversity and ecosystems is important if society is to meet current and future sustainable development goals. A variety of bioenergy production systems have been established within different contexts throughout the Pan American region, with wide-ranging results in terms of documented...

Forest dynamics influence climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods at multiple scales, yet current resource policy addressing these dynamics is ineffective without reliable land use land cover change data. The collective impact of harvest decisions by many small forest owners can be substantial at the landscape scale, yet monitoring harvests and regr...

Nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners make thousands of uncoordinated land use decisions that collectively and critically impact forest ecology. Prior research generally assumes private land use decisions adhere to the rational choice paradigm, driven primarily by cost–benefit calculations, such as financial considerations. Thus, when aiming t...

Biofuel production has grown significantly in the past few decades as a result of global concern over energy security, climate change implications and unsustainable attributes of fossil fuels. Currently, biofuels produced from food crops (such as corn, sugarcane, soy, etc.) constitute the bulk of global biofuel production. However, purported advers...

This paper focuses on the emerging trend to increase the credibility and legitimacy of corporate contributions to sustainable development through the adoption of the ISO 26000 guidance standard for social responsibility. Empirical insights are gained from a two-stage exploratory study combining an online managerial survey and personal interviews in...

There is a growing interest in the development of forest-based bioenergy industries in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Potential bioenergy production may include cellulosic ethanol and bio-oil for transportation fuels, and wood pellets and chips for heat energy. In order for these bioenergy industries to develop sustainably, areas across t...

For coupled human and natural systems (CHANS), sustainability can be defined operationally as a feasible, desirable set of flows (material, currency, information, energy, individuals, etc.) that can be maintained despite internal changes and changes in the environment. Sustainable development can be defined as the process by which CHANS can be move...

Water is an invaluable resource, and equitable access to it is a fundamental human right. Disenfranchised groups often lose access to water resources because their interests are not well represented by decision makers. Excluding these groups from resource management policy often results in myopic decisions that contribute to further ecosystem damag...

Decentralized stormwater management approaches (e.g., biofiltration swales, pervious pavement, green roofs, rain gardens) that capture, detain, infiltrate, and filter runoff are now commonly used to minimize the impacts of stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces on aquatic ecosystems. However, there is little research on the effectiveness of ret...

Monitoring progress toward sustainability goals requires a quantitative assessment method including indicators. Indicator sets and goals have typically been developed by experts, which may be scientifically robust but are often difficult to convey to society and may not include all societal values. A participatory assessment approach is emerging as...

The relationship between human land use and land cover change is critical to sustainable forest management. Land use decisions by small land managers aggregate into substantial land cover changes at landscape and regional scales. Land ownership across large portions of the Upper Great Lakes region is in considerable flux, as large timber industry t...

Our paper focuses on strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR, e.g. Galbreath 2009) and particularly insights on the emerging trend to increase the credibility and legitimacy of CSR through standardization (e.g. ISO 26000 guidance standard). The ISO 26000 standard provides guidance on the integration of CSR into management processes and it ha...

The emerging interest in sudden losses in vegetation and forest cover in semi-arid areas has led to a new understanding of the patterns and processes of deforestation. The Zagros oak forests in western Iran have undergone dramatic changes in cover and structure in recent decades, with negative consequences for the communities that depend upon them....

Many forested landscapes in the United States contain a large number of small private landowners (smallholders). The individual decisions of these smallholders can collectively have a large impact on the structure, composition, and connectivity of forests. While models have been developed to try to understand this large-scale collective impact, few...

Until recently, Industrial Ecology has underestimated cultural, political, and economic influences on the flow of resources through industrial systems. Several recent case studies have found that a lack of social ties has impeded the formation of symbiotic links between firms that would improve resource use efficiency, but present no explanation of...

This project investigates the role that social influence plays in the land management of small private forests in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the collective impact on the UP landscape of thousands of land management decisions by non-industrial private forest owners. We are gathering data through stakeholder interviews, GIS and remo...

Detection of land-cover changes through time can be complicated because of sensor-specific differences in spatial and spectral resolutions; classified land-cover changes can be due to either real changes on the ground or a switch in sensors used to collect data. This study focused on two objectives: (1) selecting the best predictor variables for th...

Green infrastructure at the parcel scale provides critical ecosystem goods and services when these services (such as flood mitigation) must be provided locally. Here we report on an approach that encourages suburban landowners to mitigate impervious surfaces on their properties through a voluntary auction mechanism. We used an economic incentive to...

The Zagros region of western Iran has been affected by the recent changes both in amount and in structure of forest cover. We evaluated the influence of several driving forces on forest cover and structure, including socioeconomic (urban and rural population and rural income) and climatic (mean annual rainfall and mean annual temperature) variables...

Green infrastructure at the parcel scale provides critical ecosystem goods and services when these services (such as flood mitigation) must be provided locally. Here we report on an approach that encourages suburban landowners to mitigate impervious surfaces on their properties through a voluntary auction mechanism. We used an economic incentive to...

Understanding how non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners gain and share information regarding the management of their property is very important to policy makers, yet our knowledge regarding how and to what degree this information flows over privately owned landscapes is limited. The work described here seeks to address this shortfall. Widely...

Zagros oak forests have a long history of use by local communities. Palynological research provides evidence of stock breeding, grazing, and agriculture at least since the beginning of the fifth millennium cal B.P. (Djamali and others 2009, Sumner 1990, Wright and others 1967). The traditional sustainable management was maintained by a homeorhetic...

The use of remote sensing for environmental policy development is now quite common and well-documented, as images from remote sensing platforms are often used to focus attention on emerging environmental issues and spur debate on potential policy solutions. However, its use in policy implementation and evaluation has not been examined in much detai...

Official protection can play a major role in the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable management of endangered species habitat. Bozin and Marakhil Forest in Kermanshah province of Iran covers 23,724 ha of semi-arid Zagros forests. It was designated as a protected habitat area for Eurasian roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in 1999, a species th...

Ecologists have long assumed that forests, savannas, and grasslands change gradually over space and time, with tree cover responding linearly to gradients in precipitation, aridity, fire disturbance, and grazing pressure. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that these biomes are self-reinforcing and that transitions between them can be non...

Background/Question/Methods Bozin and Marakhil forest was designated protected area in 1999 to restore habitat for roe deer (Capreolus capreolus). It is located in Kermanshah province, Iran, and covers 23724 ha of semi-arid Zagros forests. Research in Europe has identified the importance of landscape structural characteristics, such as patch edge...

Background/Question/Methods Bozin and Marakhil forest was designated protected area in 1999 to restore habitat for roe deer (Capreolus capreolus). It is located in Kermanshah province, Iran, and covers 23724 ha of semi-arid Zagros forests. Research in Europe has identified the importance of landscape structural characteristics, such as patch edge a...

Dynamic regime theory is used in a growing number of disciplines to understand, manage, and predict system behavior. A variety of mathematical models have been developed for seemingly disparate systems, however the similarity of these models suggests that the systems could be approached as a collection of samples. A multidisciplinary meta-analysis...

Background/Question/Methods Zagros oak forests are extended northwest to southeast of Iran, and are one of the main sinks of the atmospheric humidity and the origin of the main rivers in the region. These forests have been subject to long and intensive human use (e.g., harvesting, grazing), and are at risk from these pressures as well as increase...

Summary International trade transfers social and environmental impacts across national borders. The consumption of forest products often takes place far away from industrial production sites, and mills procure raw material from remote forests. Finland produces about 10% of forest products that are traded internationally, with the majority of its ex...

All organisms alter their surroundings, and humans now have the ability to affect environments at increasingly larger temporal and spatial scales. Indeed, mechanical and engineering advances of the twentieth century greatly enhanced the scale of human activities. Among these are the use and redistribution of natural resources. Unfortunately, these...

Novel systems combining bioindicators, models, and remote sensing are possible cost-effective methods to monitor regional-scale pollution. Epiphytic macrolichen communities have been widely used as air pollution bioindicators, however these communities are also affected by microclimate conditions as influenced by forest structure. We used the Finni...

Human societies are intimately connected to their supporting environments, thus suggesting that societies should be referred to as socioecological systems. To be ?sustainable?, the conditions of socioecological systems must meet two criteria. First, the conditions must be those that can persist for the long term, given the physical constraints of t...

Background/Question/Methods Although many definitions of sustainability are in current use, few have been tested under practical circumstances, and this is particularly true for hypotheses pertaining to environmental management and restoration. We have conducted an experiment in a small urbanized watershed (Shepherd Creek; Cincinnati OH) to determ...

Background/Question/Methods Many US cities are struggling with aging and undersized stormwater management systems, outgrown by sprawl and infilling and no longer sufficient to meet current water quality laws. Residents in watersheds with centralized stormwater management systems are little more than “taxpayers”, with no involvement in mitigating...

Many US cities are struggling with aging and undersized stormwater management systems, outgrown by sprawl and infilling and no longer sufficient to meet current water quality laws. Residents in watersheds with centralized stormwater management systems are little more than “taxpayers”, with no involvement in mitigating a problem they contribute to b...

Several recent reports on the status of women in US academic institutions have recommended more generous family policies to encourage and retain more women among academic staffs. Many of the policies suggested are modelled on those that have been in effect in Nordic countries for decades. The status of women among Finnish and Swedish academic staff...

Sustainability is rapidly moving from an abstract concept to a measurable state of dynamic human-ecological systems. The large number of economic, social, and environmental indicators currently available provides an unwieldy view of system sustainability. To aid policy decisions, these indicators are therefore either presented in the context of a c...

Industrial ecology, promoted as a discipline of 'sustainability science,' applies ecological concepts to industrial systems to improve their sustainability. Concepts such as diversity, food webs and nutrient recycling have been investigated for industrial systems. Complex systems theory may also prove to be an appropriate framework for industrial s...

The issue of sustainability has arisen naturally from the observation that a growing human population is consuming ever increasing amounts of limited natural resources and causing a host of environmental impacts. The management of environmental impacts that are the result of human activities requires an understanding of various forces on a global s...

In many countries, a large proportion of forest biodiversity exists on private land. Legal restrictions are often inadequate to prevent loss of habitat and encourage forest owners to manage areas for biodiversity, especially when these management actions require time, money, and other resources. Environmental programs encouraging these actions thro...

Among wealthy countries, increasing imports of natural resources to allow for unchecked consumption and greater domestic environmental conservation has become commonplace. This practice can negatively affect biodiversity conservation planning if natural resource harvest is merely pushed across political borders. As an example, we focus on the borea...

Ecosystems often exhibit transitions between multiple dynamic regimes (or steady states), such as the conversion of oligotrophic to eutrophic conditions and associated aquatic ecological communities, due to natural (or increasingly) anthropogenic disturbances. As ecosystems experience perturbations of varying regularity and intensity, they may eith...

The combination of species distributions with abiotic and landscape variables using Geographic Information Systems can prioritize areas for biodiversity protection by identifying areas of high richness, although the number of variables and complexity of the relationships between them can prove difficult for traditional statistical methods. The use...

The concept of sustainability is associated with the statement from the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: “…development that meets the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future…” However, this statement lacks a practical environmental management strategy. The goal of a sus...

We explore the use of Fisher Information as a basis for an index of sustainability. Sustainability of an ecosystem refers to the robustness of a preferred dynamic regime to human and natural disturbances. Ecosystems under perturbations of varying regularity and intensity can either remain within the current regime or transition into the neighbourho...