Kevin H Gardner

• Professor (Full) at University of New Hampshire

Metallic residues are distributed heterogeneously onto small-arms range soils from projectile fragmentation upon impact with a target or berm backstop. Incremental Sampling Methodology (ISM) can address the spatially heterogeneous contamination of surface soils on small-arms ranges, but representative kilogram-sized ISM subsamples are affected by t...

Decisions about dams, like other environmental conflicts, involve complex trade-offs between different water uses with varying human and ecological impacts, have significant impacts on public resources, and involve many stakeholders with diverse and often conflicting interests. Given the many upcoming dam decisions in New England and across the Uni...

Metallic residues are distributed heterogeneously onto small-arms range soils from projectile fragmentation upon impact with a target or berm backstop. Incremental Sampling Methodology (ISM) can address the spatially heterogeneous contamination of surface soils on small-arms ranges, but representative kilogram-sized ISM subsamples are affected by t...

The need to train sustainability scientists and engineers to address the complex problems of our world has never been more apparent. We organized an interdisciplinary team of instructors from universities in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island who designed, taught, and assessed a multi-university course to develop the core competen...

Development of sustainable and resilient water infrastructure is an urgent challenge for urban areas to secure long-term water availability and mitigate negative impacts of water consumption and urban development. A hybrid system that combines centralized water infrastructure and household decentralized water facilities, including rainwater harvest...

"Many of New Hampshire’s dams are reaching the end of their lifespan and require expensive maintenance or removal in order to meet safety standards. While engineers and public officials struggle with the scale of the challenge surrounding various dam management alternatives, including removal, what does the New Hampshire public think? In this brief...

2019. Deliberative multiattribute valuation of ecosystem services across a range of regional land-use, socioeconomic, and climate scenarios for the upper Merrimack River watershed, New Hampshire, USA. Ecology and Society 24(2):11. https://doi. ABSTRACT. We evaluate the relative desirability of alternative futures for the upper Merrimack River water...

The notion of sustainable infrastructure for the delivery of social services is to fulfill basic human needs; in war-torn societies, human safety is a critical basic need. The relationship between sustainable infrastructure development and human safety remains underresearched in Afghan neighborhoods. Therefore, this study examined the effectiveness...

Significance We assess the trade-offs and synergies involved with coordinated dam removal at three spatial scales in New England. We find that increasing the scale of dam decisions improves trade-offs among ecosystem services, river safety, and cost, but the benefits of large-scale river restoration vary dramatically by location. Our model may help...

Aging infrastructure and growing interests in river restoration have led to a substantial rise in dam removals in the United States. However, the decision to remove a dam involves many complex trade-offs. The benefits of dam removal for hazard reduction and ecological restoration are potentially offset by the loss of hydroelectricity production, wa...

Hydropower is traditionally considered to be one type of “clean” energy, and has been heavily developed in many regions of the world. Nevertheless, this assumption is increasingly being challenged by recent findings that a large amount of methane and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are emitted during reservoir creation, turbine operation, and dam dec...

A modeling framework was conceptualized for capturing the complexities in resilience and sustainability associated with integration of centralized and decentralized water and energy systems under future demographic, climate, and technology scenarios. This framework integrates survey instruments for characterizing individual preferences (utility fun...

Military ranges are unlike many waste sites because the contaminants, both energetics and metals, are heterogeneously distributed in soil during explosive detonation or ballistic impact and cannot be readily characterized using conventional grab sampling. The Incremental Sampling Methodology (ISM) has been successful for characterization of energet...

As drinking water supply systems plan for sustainable management practices, impacts from future water quality and climate changes are a major concern. This study aims to understand the intraannual changes of energy consumption for water treatment, investigate the relative importance of water quality and climate indicators on energy consumption for...

Different economic development strategies may result in varied socioeconomic and environmental synergies or tradeoffs, suggesting an opportunity for environmentally conscious planning. To understand such synergies or tradeoffs, a dynamic environmental life cycle assessment was conducted for eleven groups of New Hampshire industries. Historical stat...

This study compares conventional grab sampling to incremental sampling methodology (ISM) to characterize metal contamination at a military small-arms-range. Grab sample results had large variances, positively skewed non-normal distributions, extreme outliers, and poor agreement between duplicate samples even when samples were co-located within tens...

Research shows grab sampling is inadequate for evaluating military ranges contaminated with energetics because of their highly heterogeneous distribution. Similar studies assessing the heterogeneous distribution of metals at small-arms ranges (SAR) are lacking. To address this we evaluated whether grab sampling provides appropriate data for perform...

The need to train early-career interdisciplinary, solutions-driven sustainability researchers has never been more apparent than today. To meet this challenge, educators at the Universities of Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island have collaborated with their students to design and assess an interdisciplinary, multi-university course meant to devel...

Accurate quantification of ecosystem services (ES) at regional scales is increasingly important for making informed decisions in the face of environmental change. We linked terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem process models to simulate the spatial and temporal distribution of hydrological and water quality characteristics related to ecosystem service...

As the global imperative for sustainable energy builds and with hydroelectricity proposed as one aspect of a sustainable energy profile, public discourse reflects the complex and competing discourses and social-ecological trade-offs surrounding hydropower and dams. Is hydropower “green”? Is it “sustainable”? Is it “renewable”? Does hydropower provi...

The need to train early-career interdisciplinary, solutions-driven researchers has never been more apparent than today. For this reason, educators at the Universities of Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island have collaborated on the design and assessment of an interdisciplinary, multi-university course to develop critical skills, content knowledge...

In New England, where an industrial past is reflected along many rivers, dam removal has become a cornerstone of environmental restoration practice. One outcome of dam removal that has received significant attention is improved fish passage to historic habitat, providing a crucial gain in ecosystem resilience and health in New England rivers. Howev...

Deciding what to do with dams is an increasingly pressing challenge of the Anthropocene. In the New England Sustainability Consortium, we focus on this challenge in the northeastern US where there are more than 14,000 dams, many of which are aging or obsolete and where 50 are eligible for federal relicensing in the next decade. Making decisions abo...

On a National Science Foundation-funded research project in New England, dozens of sustainability scientists are practicing innovative team science through shared leadership, distributed decision making, and multi-dimensional knowledge integration. This distributed process is made increasingly visible and vital through an ethnography that spans mul...

Motivated by the ecological benefits of dam removal, we explore strategies, tools, and examples to consider the decommissioning of obsolete dams as a tactical alternative for ecological compensation projects. Under the compensatory mitigation (CM) rule of the U.S. Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), several types of restoration projects may b...

The trapped sediments in reservoirs is a matter of concern in the decommissioning of dams: the flux of sediment during and after removal, increase in availability of potential toxic contaminants, the influence of deposited sediments on downstream habitat and other site-specific considerations. The significant volume of sediments accumulated over th...

Transportation infrastructure and transportation behaviors consume significant natural resources and are costly to municipalities, states, and the federal government. Small cities, in particular, may find themselves with high costs. Although transportation has been extensively investigated, methods that may enable small cities to act are still lack...

Purpose In situ sediment treatment technologies can be more economical alternatives than dredging and ex situ treatment; however, their development and application had been hindered due to uncertainties associated with the homogeneity of amendment delivery and mixing and the concern of contaminated sediment resuspension and amendment release into...

Carbon recycling, in which organic waste is recycled into chemical feedstock for material production, may provide benefits in resource efficiency and a more cyclical economy—but may also create “trade-offs” in increased impacts elsewhere. We investigate the system-wide environmental burdens and cost associated with carbon recycling routes capable o...

The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development are frequently described as having three main components, sometimes referred to as the three pillars or the triple bottom line: environmental, economic, and social. Because of an historical focus in the sustainability field on correcting environmental problems, much consideration has been g...

A life cycle assessment (LCA) of various end-of-life management options for construction and demolition (C&D) debris was conducted using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Municipal Solid Waste Decision Support Tool. A comparative LCA evaluated seven different management scenarios using the annual production of C&D debris in New Hampshire a...

Water quality in less-developed countries is often subject to substantial degradation, but is rarely studied in a systematic way. The concentration and flux of major ions, carbon, nitrogen, silicon, and trace metals in the heavily urbanized Bagmati River within Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, are reported. The concentrations of all chemical species increa...

With the goal to move society toward less reliance on fossil fuels and the mitigation of climate change, there is increasing interest and investment in the bioenergy sector. However, current bioenergy growth patterns may, in the long term, only be met through an expansion of global arable land at the expense of natural ecosystems and in competition...

Municipalities all over the globe seek to evaluate the sustainability of their communities and this process requires an interdisciplinary perspective. Walkability and social capital are important measures of sustainable communities that are not necessarily considered together in measurement schemes. Through a community-based case study, the followi...

Purpose Shifting the resource base for chemical and energy production from fossil feed stocks to renewable raw materials is seen by many as one of the key strategies towards sustainable development. The objective of this study is to assess the environmental burdens of producing polyitaconic acid (PIA), a water-soluble polymer derived from itaconic...

This study investigates the relationships between the built environment, the physical attributes of the neighborhood, and the residents' perceptions of those attributes. It focuses on destination walking and self-reported health, and does so at the neighborhood scale. The built environment, in particular sidewalks, road connectivity, and proximity...

Managing solid waste is one of the biggest challenges in urban areas around the world. Technologically advanced economies generate vast amounts of organic waste materials, many of which are disposed to landfills. In the future, efficient use of carbon containing waste and all other waste materials has to be increased to reduce the need for virgin r...

Unlabelled: Natural weathering processes are significant mechanisms that noticeably affect the fundamental nature of incineration ash residues. To provide a greater understanding of these processes, a MSWI (mono)landfill site in the north east of the US was selected as the target for systematic investigation of the natural weathering of bottom ash...

Authors consider the environmental prospects of using melted waste slag as the aggregate for asphalt pavement. In particular, the enrichment of slag-derived fragments in fine abrasion dust particles originated from slag asphalt concrete and its size dependency were concerned. A series of surface abrasion tests for asphalt concrete specimens, contai...

Walkability has been linked to quality of life in many ways. Health related benefits of physical exercise, the accessibility and access benefits of being able to walk to obtain some of your daily needs, or the mental health and social benefits of reduced isolation are a few of the many positive impacts on quality of life that can result from a walk...

Current regulatory testing of stabilized/solidified (S/S) soils is based on short-term performance tests and is insufficient to determine their long-term stability or expected service life. In view of this, and the significant lack of data on long-term field performance in the literature, S/S material has been extracted from full-scale remedial ope...

Incorporating the beneficial use of industrial by-products into the industrial ecology of an urban region as a substitute or supplement for natural aggregate can potentially reduce life cycle impacts. This article specifically looks at the utilization of industrial by-products (IBPs) (coal ash, foundry sand, and foundry slag) as aggregate for roadw...

This study investigated the interferences caused by high humic acid concentrations on the adsorption of coplanar and noncoplanar polychlorinated biphenyls ( PCBs) on coconut shell activated carbon. In particular, the research focuses on the application of activated carbon as a reactive cap for contaminated sediment sites, a possible intervention to...

Water samples were analyzed for DOC and trace metals from Bagmati River within Kathmandu valley, Nepal, to understand the variation trends of DOC and trace metals and their relationship along the drainage network. The variability in organic matter and wastewater input within the Bagmati drainage basin appeared to control DOC and most of the trace m...

Mitigation of risks stemming from contaminated sediments in freshwater and estuarine environments remains an important challenge to the field of environmental science and engineering. Capping sediments with reactive materials is one approach that has recently been the subject of research and development. This research evaluated the use of organocla...

The incorporation of roadways into a regionpsilas industrial ecology is an ideal method of managing some of the industrial by-products (IBPs) that may be generated. Current management of these industrial by-products is through beneficial use (for certain types of materials), but also stockpiling or landfilling, which have economic and environmental...

Surface water samples were collected from Langtang Lirung glacier outlet point to the Narayani river system in central Nepal in order to investigate the role of elevation in the variation of chemistry along the drainage networks. The chemistry of Langtang–Narayani river system was dominated by sulfide oxidation coupled with carbonate dissolution an...

The investigation of the long-term performance of solidified/stabilized (S/S) contaminated soils was carried out in a trial site in southeast UK. The soils were exposed to the maximum natural weathering for four years and sampled at various depths in a controlled manner. The chemical properties (e.g., degree of carbonation (DOC), pH, electrical con...

Management of contaminated sediments is problematic and costly. Several new technologies are under development that may in some cases reduce costs and environmental or ecological impacts. However, there are significant barriers to implementing new technologies, including the increased management complexity, the potential for introducing antagonisti...

The contamination of sediments with polychlorinated organics such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (Dioxins) and polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs) remains a significant problem in many rivers, harbors, and estuarine areas in the US and around the world. In this work, rapid dechlorination of PCBs, PCNs, and Di...

Over the past several decades, environmental decision-making strategies have evolved into increasingly more sophisticated, information-intensive, and complex approaches including expert judgment, cost-benefit analysis, toxicological risk assessment, comparativerisk assessment, and a number of methods for incorporating public and stakeholder values....

Electrodialytic remediation (EDR) can be used to extract heavy metals from a variety of different media. In this work, contaminated harbor sediments from two locations in the United States and one in Norway were subjected to EDR, and were compared with batch extractions conducted with the sediment. pH-dependent leaching tests were used to evaluate...

Environmental decision making is becoming increasingly more information intensive and complex. Our previous work shows that multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) tools offer a scientifically sound decision analytical framework for environmental management, in general, and specifically for selecting optimal sediment management alternatives. Integra...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were measured in two wetland plant species grown outdoors in pots of sediment contaminated with up to 730,000 μg/kg total PAHs. After approximately 3 months, the plants were harvested, cleaned, and analyzed for an expanded suite of PAHs which included both the 16 priority PAHs and 22 alkyl PAH homologs. Sedim...

The physical properties of suspended particles and the relationship between particle size and structure were investigated. In situ properties of the aggregates in a coagulation -flocculation process were obtained using a non-intrusive image analysis technique. Derived properties, including density, porosity and the number of primary particles in a...

The goal of this research was to provide a tool for regulators to evaluate the groundwater contamination from the use of virgin and secondary materials in road construction. A finite element model, HYDRUS2D, was used to evaluate generic scenarios for secondary material use in base layers. Use of generic model results for particular applications was...

This paper uses a life-cycle assessment (LCA) framework to characterize comparative environmental impacts from the use of virgin aggregate and recycled materials in roadway construction. To evaluate site-specific human toxicity potential (HTP) in a more robust manner, metals release data from a demonstration site were combined with an unsaturated c...

Contaminated surficial sediments in major ports and harbors remain a significant economic liability during routine dredging operations. Numerous beneficial uses have been suggested in recent years that promise reduced sediment management costs concomitant with a productive material use. This manuscript describes the leaching of metals and metalloid...

Over the past several decades, environmental decision-making strategies have evolved into increasingly more sophisticated, information-intensive, and complexapproaches including expert judgment, cost-benefit analysis, toxicological risk assessment, comparative risk assessment, and a number of methods forincorporating public and stakeholder values....

A material with potential for use as a sorbent has been prepared by carbonating damp Portland cement in a 100%CO2 atmosphere at a pressure of 3 bars. Analysis by XRD showed the main crystalline phase present, after eight 1 h cycles of carbonation, to be calcite. A series of batch sorption experiments involving single metal solutions of Cd, Co, Cu,...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations were measured in Spartina alterniflora plants grown in pots of contaminated sediment, plants grown in native sediment at a marsh contaminated with up to 900 microg/g total PAHs, and from plants grown in uncontaminated control sediment. The roots and leaves of the plants were separated, cleaned, a...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations were measured in Spartina alterniflora plants grown in pots of contaminated sediment, plants grown in native sediment at a marsh contaminated with up to 900 mu g/g total PAHs, and from plants grown in uncontaminated control sediment. The roots and leaves of the plants were separated, cleaned, and...

Contaminated sediments and other sites present a difficult challenge for environmental decisionmakers. They are typically slow to recover or attenuate naturally, may involve multiple regulatory agencies and stakeholder groups, and engender multiple toxicological and ecotoxicological risks. While environmental decision-making strategies over the las...

This project investigates the utility of Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) as a tool for testing stakeholder responses to and improving expert assessment of innovative contaminated sediments technologies. Within the broader context of environmental decision-making theory, this case study focuses on a planned dredging project in Dover, New Hamp...

This paper discusses the modeling of anion and cation leaching from complex matrixes such as weathered steel slag. The novelty of the method is its simultaneous application of the theoretical models for solubility, competitive sorption, and surface precipitation phenomena to a complex system. Selective chemical extractions, pH dependent leaching ex...

Carbon sequestration

Predictive methods for contaminant release from virgin and secondary road construction materials are important for evaluating potential long-term soil and groundwater contamination from highways. The objective of this research was to describe the field hydrology in a highway embankment and to investigate leaching under unsaturated conditions by use...

Recycled materials, such as recovered materials from the transportation sector or secondary or by-product materials from the industrial, municipal, or mining sectors can be used as substitutes for natural materials in the construction of highway infrastructure. Trace metals in these recycled materials may leach out and contaminate the groundwater a...

Management of dredged contaminated sediments can be a contentious, difficult, and expensive task. Because the waterways from which sediments are dredged have multiple uses, competing interests are often brought to bear on any decision. No single best alternative is likely to emerge; different stakeholder groups will prefer different alternatives. T...

New technologies face high barriers to adoption compared to existing technologies for several reasons including a perceived sense of increased risk, a lack of experience with the new technologies among managers and/or regulators, or simply the fact that decision makers are not aware of the availability of the technology. Environmental technologies,...

This report summarizes the results of a workshop sponsored by the Department of Defense's (DoD) Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) that sought to determine the research and development needs for the in situ management of contaminated sediments.

Hundreds of millions of cubic meters of contaminated sediments are dredged from US harbors and waterways annually for maintenance of navigation, environmental remediation, or both. In recent years, inexpensive ocean dumping has been largely eliminated as a disposal alternative causing a crisis in the management of sediment. This paper presents a ne...

Cement using dredged material as a replacement source of iron and aluminum is currently being manufactured in a laboratory muffle furnace under conditions mimicking those of a typical cement plant. A mass balance of heavy metals will be presented, along with leaching tests on the cement and concrete product. Studies characterizing the solid phase s...

A MSWI fly ash was characterized with respect to leaching properties (pH-static leaching, availability test), mineralogy (X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD)), and morphology and element distribution (scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM/EDX)) before and after electrodialytic treatment to study possible changes in the ash...

Experiments were performed to evaluate temporal changes in the fractal dimension of aggregates formed during flocculation of an initially monodisperse suspension of latex microspheres. Particle size distributions and aggregate geometrical information at different mixing times were obtained using a non-intrusive optical sampling and digital image an...

Recovered materials from the transportation sector or secondary or by-product materials from the industrial, municipal, or mining sector can be used as substitutes for natural materials in the construction of highway infrastructure. The environmental impact of traditional and newer secondary materials needs to be determined for the conditions of th...

This paper describes an experimental technique involving the use of small columns for generating sig-nificant quantities of leachate data from municipal solid waste (MSW) solid residues within a relatively short amount of time. Data analysis using the discretized mass balance equations descriptive of the sys-tem results in best estimates of governi...

This manuscript elucidates the mechanisms responsible for aging-induced reduction in lead leaching from scrubber residues. Leaching tests (JLT13) were conducted on 48 types of scrubber residues and lead solubility was found to be significantly reduced independent of incinerator type or type of gas treatment method. Reaction kinetics that result in...

ii Significant amounts of recycled materials are being used in structural components of highways such as base, subbase, Portland cement and asphalt concrete, and embankments. Past experience with recycled materials in highways has not shown a risk with respect to environmental impact and human health. However, environmental regulatory agencies freq...