Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Decentralizing Stormwater Management: Shifting Infrastructure and Evolving Hydrosocial Relationships(2022) Wilfong, Matthew Tyler; Pavao-Zuckerman, Mitchell; Environmental Science and Technology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Stormwater management has historically remained in the technocratic realm of engineers and scientists disconnecting society from stormwater to protect public and environmental health. Despite incremental improvements, state and local governments are beginning to change their management practices and techniques in response to climatic changes, increased urbanization, and intensifying regulatory pressures. Scholars and practitioners have argued that this paradigm shift in stormwater management is required to continue to protect public and environmental health and reach regulatory goals. Despite the need for this paradigm shift, there continues to be slow progress towards decentralization. Thisshift is characterized by two key developments: the increased implementation of decentralized green infrastructure and increased involvement of individuals in managing stormwater. Broadly, this dissertation sets out to investigate two key aspects of this paradigm shift: (1) the hydrologic performance of these decentralized practices and (2) the social, political, cultural, and economic dynamics that are currently underpinning this paradigm shift. This dissertation begins with a chapter investigating the hydrologic performance ofdecentralized, green infrastructure treatment trains in Clarksburg, MD. Using stormwater monitoring methodology, we analyze how effectively treatment trains can hydrologically manage stormwater and the effects of precipitation dynamics on the ability of these treatment trains to manage stormwater. This research suggests that these treatment trains are generally highly effective at managing stormwater volumes across a host of storm events with an average of 93% of discharge abated throughout the monitoring period. We also demonstrate that precipitation intensity was the most influential precipitation dynamic on the performance of each treatment train suggesting that designing these treatment trains with the potential higher prevalence of higher intensity storm events due to climate change. To begin the social science portions of the dissertation research, we utilize an alternative framework, the hydrosocial cycle, to analyze how stormwater and society have and continue to shape each other over time. Building upon this work, we investigate the political, social, and cultural dynamics influencing and arising within this paradigm shift occurring within stormwater management. Through semi-structured interviews and Q-methodology within two urban watersheds in Maryland and Washington DC, we assess changes in the hydrosocial relationships between stakeholders and stormwater. Using these insights, we discuss the potential for alignment and cooperation among these diverging hydrosocial relationships and continuing the shift towards decentralizing stormwater management. Arising from this holistic and critical analysis, we seek to provide actionable recommendations focused on how, where, and who manages stormwater to reach more sustainable, resilient, and equitable outcomes. Additionally, we aim to demonstrate the effectiveness of theseframeworks and methodologies to better attend to political and power dynamics involved in water governance and management, more broadlyItem Analyze Municipal Annexations: Case Studies in Frederick and Caroline Counties of Maryland, 1990-2010(2012) Pomeroy, Jennifer Yongmei; Geores, Martha E; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Municipal annexations play an important role in converting undeveloped land to development, influencing landscape change. However, the existing literature does not explore the links between annexation and development. An additional inadequacy is the failure to consider environment/landscape aspect of annexation. Therefore, this dissertation proposes a new theoretical framework that is drawn upon political ecology and structuration theory to examine annexation phenomenon processes: environmental/landscape sensitivity and its causal social structures. Frederick and Caroline counties in Maryland from 1990 to 2010 were the two case-study areas because both counties experience increased annexation activities and are representative of suburban and exurban settings at rural - urban continuum of the United States. The data used in this qualitative research were collected from multiple data sources, including key-person interviews, a review of Maryland's annexation log, annexation applications and meeting minutes, and observations at public meetings. Triangulating content analysis, discourse analysis, and social network analysis, this research finds that environmental/landscape is not considered more widely in annexation practices. Although environmental mitigation measures are considered at site level if a property has site environmental elements, the overall environmental/landscape sensitivity is low. It is also found that the economic-centered space remains dynamic in the annexation processes determining annexation approvals and low-density zoning. In addition, the triangulated analyses reveal that current social structures are not conducive to environmental-conscious landscape planning because environmentally oriented non-profit organizations and residents are injected at a later stage of annexation process and is not being fully considered in the evaluation process. Power asymmetry in current annexation structures is due to a lack of environmental voice in annexation processes. The voice of such groups needs to be institutionalized to facilitate more tenable annexation practices.