This case study analyzes the potential impacts of weakening the National Park Service’s (NPS) “9B Regulations” enacted in 1978, which established a federal regulatory framework governing hydrocarbon rights and extraction to protect natural resources within the parks. We focus on potential risks to national parklands resulting from Executive Orders 13771—Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs [ 1 ]—and 13783—Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth [ 2 ]—and subsequent recent revisions and further deregulation. To establish context, we briefly overview the history of the United States NPS and other relevant federal agencies’ roles and responsibilities in protecting federal lands that have been set aside due to their value as areas of natural beauty or historical or cultural significance [ 3 ]. We present a case study of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) situated within the Bakken Shale Formation—a lucrative region of oil and gas deposits—to examine potential impacts if areas of TRNP, particularly areas designated as “wilderness,” are opened to resource extraction, or if the development in other areas of the Bakken near or adjacent to the park’s boundaries expands [ 4 ]. We have chosen TRNP because of its biodiversity and rich environmental resources and location in the hydrocarbon-rich Bakken Shale. We discuss where federal agencies’ responsibility for the protection of these lands for future generations and their responsibility for oversight of mineral and petroleum resources development by private contractors have the potential for conflict.

This article examines how clean air advocates in the San Joaquin Valley amplified a collective action frame of air pollution as a public health crisis. This frame serves to mobilize communities and attribute responsibility to relevant authorities while countering the San Joaquin Valley Air District’s narrative that places blame on the public and unalterable aspects of the physical environment, characterizing the problem as largely unchangeable. Core questions are: How did advocates facilitate frame construction and sustain resonance across time and place? How did this frame compel urgent action, including representational change in the Valley Air District Governing Board through the adoption of Senate Bill 719? Findings show that advocates counter the San Joaquin Valley Air District’s frame by shifting the focus on the negative impacts to public health and quality of life, particularly in disproportionately impacted environmental justice communities. Building and leveraging a resonant frame required strategic “stretch” in capacity while cultivating collective identity and solidarity. Within the Valley Air District, the change in governing board composition has measurably impacted dialog and provided a more welcoming reception of public participation at meetings, with the doctor and scientist appointees providing critical perspectives and contributing to subtle shifts in the agency’s dominant messaging and decision making. While a public health frame has taken shape around air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley, these efforts are not complete or without ongoing strain.

Four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington State generate hydropower and allow for regional agriculture and barge shipping to Portland OR. However, the dams impede the migration of local salmon populations ( Oncorhynchus spp .), which are in steep decline, and drastically impact the populations of salmon and orca whales, for whom salmon are a primary food source. For years, environmental groups have argued for breaching the dams; other interests counter that the dams are too critical to the economy of the region to lose; and federal agencies assert that the dams can remain and salmon populations will recover with mitigation techniques. Scientific and economic analyses, litigation, and elected officials’ efforts have not been able to move the issue towards a solution. Readers will examine the interests of primary actors in the issue, how they influence the policy process, the role of scientific and economic analyses, and possible approaches for resolving the issue.

Natural resource managers often use quantitative methods to characterize and manage ecosystems. A firm understanding of these methods, ranging from simple counts to complex models, is critical in conducting accurate population and community assessments. Students can gain an advantage in understanding these methods through early exposure and contextual examples. This fictional case study follows three American Fisheries Society club members who perform an ecological assessment of a landowner’s ponds. The club members use multiple sampling methods and analyses to answer the landowner’s questions. In this study, students are introduced to common assessment metrics, such as community patterns (richness, diversity, evenness, and similarity), abundance estimates (mark-recapture, depletion, swept-area, and line-transect), size structure (proportional stock density), and growth estimates (absolute, relative, and instantaneous growth rates; von Bertalanffy growth model). Students will also interpret results and identify physical or biological factors that may influence those results. After completing this case study, students will be able to describe the need for population and community assessments and apply these assessments to various scenarios.

Environmental degradation and climate change have become core social and political issues. Subsequently, it is critical to educate environmental studies and sciences students with respect to the appropriate conceptual models and the relevant skill sets to become effective environmental problem solvers. Spatial analysis, often implemented through the use of geographic information systems, is a key tool for exploring unique combinations of place, space, and time. Spatial analysis uses quantitative, formal techniques to facilitate an in-depth look at how environmental phenomena manifest themselves in a particular geographic location, and is an ideal fit within environmental case study pedagogy. For one, environmental problems inherently have spatial boundaries. Further, case studies regularly accommodate multiple variables. Additionally, spatial analysis can be a teaching tool that challenges students to think outside their preconceived worldviews. For these reasons, we offer this special collection of Case Studies in the Environment, which featuredss manuscripts on case studies from faculty and students at the University of Southern California Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI). Academics, researchers, and students presented with the pieces in this special collection will come away with an understanding of a wide range of spatial analysis techniques, and how they can be applied to creating actionable information around a variety of environmental topics.

Costa Rica is known as a verdant, tropical paradise with rich rainforests, abundant wildlife, striking mountains and volcanoes, and picturesque beaches. However, the perceived abundance of Costa Rica’s water resources is only true for part of the country. The same geography and climate that bring abundant precipitation to most of southern Costa Rica and its Caribbean coast also leave the northern Pacific province of Guanacaste with substantially less rainfall and even periods of severe drought. This case study focuses on Guanacaste province, which is a major tourist destination as well as one of the country’s most productive agricultural regions. Water from the lush Caribbean slopes of the Lake Arenal region is transported across the continental divide through extensive infrastructure projects. Passing through the semi-arid regions of Guanacaste, hydroelectric power generation, extensive irrigated agriculture, and tourism development use most of the water, supporting a rapidly growing regional economy but leaving increasingly less water for environmental flows. This case study introduces students to “nexus thinking” to explore the multiple and overlapping water, energy, and food (WEF) demands and ecological challenges present in Guanacaste province. Each sector and its interconnections with other sectors are examined in turn through introductory lectures, and enriched by WEF systems thinking activities and class discussions. At the conclusion of this case study curriculum, students will be able to identify and characterize points of intersection, i.e., the nexus, of WEF supply and demand, and trade-offs that exist between WEF resources and biodiversity conservation.

Joshua Tree National Park is a remarkable desert ecosystem made iconic by the famed Joshua trees that dot the landscape. In 1994, a majority of Joshua Tree’s holdings were designated as “wilderness” (a legal status in the U.S.). Subsequently, Joshua Tree was buffeted by deleterious anthropogenic forces and suffered from severe budgetary constraints. In 2018/2019, a U.S. Government shutdown forced the Joshua Tree staff into furlough, while the park remained open to visitors. The response of local volunteers, who took responsibility for educating visitors about park policies and ecosystem conservation in the midst of the shutdown, shows the extent to which networks of local and community volunteers can be mobilized to mitigate at least some of the effects of budgetary constraints that affect the wilderness and national park lands.

Despite the dominant trends toward farm consolidation and cheap food policies in California, there are many examples of producers who are adopting regenerative on-farm practices and supporting organizations that assist small, beginning, and sustainability-focused farmers to thrive in a challenging environment. Sustainability innovations profiled in this case study are variously related to the three broader concepts of socioecological systems, integrated landscape management, and rural-urban interface. After reviewing these concepts, this case study presents the main barriers to sustainable farming and sustainable food systems, which are identified in interviews with producers. This case study then profiles illustrative examples of economic, social, and environmental innovations at the farm and institutional levels, which have achieved success at overcoming these barriers and are sufficiently documented for sharing and scaling-up impact. Producer innovations to reduce climate and market risks are then classified on a scale continuum. Finally, this case study presents the diverse types and qualities of support available to sustainability-focused farmers and ranchers in California, with clear policy implications for broadening and deepening this support.

The initial estimate of the flow rate of now liberated crude oil following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform turned out to be a factor of 50 times lower than the physical reality. This initial estimate, provided by the corporate owner of the oil platform, British Petroleum (BP), was a leak rate of 1,000 barrels per day (bpd). This number was not based on any scientific approach and was never put into context, for the media or the public, of whether this was a big or small number (i.e., how many bpd is equivalent to filling a bathtub for 24 h) and was simply accepted as the physical reality. As a consequence, the initial response to the disaster would plan for a scope that was much smaller than what ultimately unfolded. Furthermore, since 1,000 bpd turns out to be a small number, the initial strategy was based on the belief that the leak could be patched and therefore a fix was manageable. Here we show that (a) simple physical reasoning at the time of the occurrence would have lead to initial estimates that were close to the final estimate (determined 2 months after the initial incident) of about 50,000 bpd; (b) there was an unnecessarily slow time evolution to involve the scientific community to gather relevant data that would vastly improve the estimate and; (c) this slow evolution in unmasking the physical reality of the situation prevented a more robust governmental response to the problem. Even though the government, through National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), revised the leak rate to 5,000 bpd one week after the disaster, another month would elapse before it was officially recognized that the leak rate was essentially 10 times higher.

Agricultural production in the United States provides numerous economic contributions from the national scale to the local, providing farmworker and laborer jobs for hundreds of thousands of people [ 1 ]. Unfortunately, conventional agricultural operations are often associated with pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, which can cause environmental degradation and health problems. Large-scale conventional agriculture is often using pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer intensive, and these chemicals may contaminate natural environments, harming wildlife, and degrading water quality. When contamination incidents occur, government agencies and non-profit organizations respond in various ways, including environmental remediation. These efforts can be successful in restoring water quality and improving biodiversity. But, what happens when clean-up efforts are able to improve the physical environment but do not address human health? We use the case of Lake Apopka, Florida, to analyze a case of agricultural contamination that resulted in damage to the environment and the health of the farmworkers who were exposed to these harmful chemicals. Our analysis explores how government agencies and non-profit organizations were successful in their conservation efforts, but failed to help the farmworkers and other people who were sick as a result of exposure to toxic chemicals. We conclude with recommendations for policy makers and environmentalists to better address and include marginalized or vulnerable communities in environmental remediation projects.

The federal government of India and the state government of Bihar, India’s least electrified state, have always focused on grid expansion to bring power to those living without grid access. However, grid expansion has been slow. In Bihar, 83% of people still live without electricity, relying on dangerous kerosene lamps to light their homes. In the 1980s, an alternative—a market for solar home systems and solar lanterns—started to develop in Bihar. Yet, this market has failed to thrive, despite three decades of intervention by the government and activity by private companies. Today, fewer than 4.2% of unelectrified Bihar households use a solar lighting product. Based on interviews with key stakeholders, this case study found that the biggest obstacle to market growth is the government kerosene subsidy, which halves the price of kerosene, and makes people less interested in solar lighting products. Lack of company financing, product quality issues, lack of customer awareness of the benefits of solar, and another counterproductive government subsidy for solar products are other challenges that hamper market growth. Interviewees also identified factors promoting the growth of the sector, including the large unmet electricity demand and unreliable electricity supply, and dropping solar prices. Overall, there is significant potential for market growth if strategies are developed by key stakeholders to help overcome the challenges identified in this case study, and build on the factors promoting the sector’s growth. Most importantly, the government needs to re-think their subsidy policies and adopt a stance to encourage market forces.

Modern economies cannot function without electricity, and production of electric power affects citizens in many ways, including climate change. Production of electricity requires investments that easily reach billions of dollars, and streams of investment capital must be perpetual to procure fuel, build and maintain plants, and transmit electricity to customers. This case study addresses whether a California decision relevant to investments about generating electricity adequately considered competing concerns. In 2009, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E, a private, investor-owned utility) applied to renew the operating licenses of its two nuclear reactors at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (the “plant”). By 2016, PG&E had decided not to seek license renewal and asked the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to approve a price increase for its electricity to pay for specified expenses in closing the plant, which generated 24% of PG&E’s electricity. Four environmental groups and two labor organizations supported PG&E, and CPUC approved most elements of PG&E’s plan in 2018. PG&E’s application generated considerable debate during the CPUC process, and multiple organizations argued that PG&E’s plan was flawed. Two of the protests were from environmental groups favoring nuclear power as mitigation for climate change. Nuclear reactors generate electricity with uranium and have low emissions of carbon dioxide, the key source of climate change. This case study summarizes the competing arguments relevant to energy investments and climate change. Was the decision to close the plant in the best interest of the PG&E customers and the residents and taxpayers of California?

Conservation of natural resources is challenging given the competing economic and ecological goals humans have for landscapes. Vernal pools in the northeastern US are seasonal, small wetlands that provide critical breeding habitat for amphibians and invertebrates adapted to temporary waters, and are exceptionally hard to conserve as their function is dependent on connections to other wetlands and upland forests. A team of researchers in Maine joined forces with a diverse array of governmental and private stakeholders to develop an alternative to existing top-down vernal pool regulation. Through creative adoption and revision of various resource management tools, they produced a vernal pool conservation mechanism, the Maine Vernal Pool Special Management Area Plan that meets the needs of diverse stakeholders from developers to ecologists. This voluntary mitigation tool uses fees from impacts to vernal pools in locally identified growth areas to fund conservation of “poolscapes” (pools plus appropriate adjacent habitat) in areas locally designated for rural use. In this case study, we identify six key features of this mechanism that illustrate the use of existing tools to balance growth and pool conservation. This case study will provide readers with key concepts that can be applied to any conservation problem: namely, how to work with diverse interests toward a common goal, how to evaluate and use existing policy tools in new ways, and how to approach solutions to sticky problems through a willingness to accept uncertainty and risk.

Today’s students arrive to college with increased environmental awareness but often without the skills necessary to sort, interpret, and critically think about global environmental change or their relationship to it. To address the barrier of perceived student powerlessness in global environmental problems, we designed a transdisciplinary project for students to begin to take ownership of their learning experience, gain competencies in basic social science research methods, and explore agency with a community partner. In this case study, we narrate one exercise in which students created a public product of collated newspaper articles related to contemporary water issues in Oregon. The project involved the creation of an online database that resulted in a learning tool for future courses, a base for transdisciplinary research, and a deliverable for the public. The exercise proved valuable in demonstrating how students can engage with concepts of activist applied linguistics to evaluate positionalities of news sources while situating themselves as active and engaged members in their local environment. Homework assignments throughout the course revealed that students (1) gradually reported more positive and action-oriented views of their role in the environment and (2) developed greater competency in weighing the quality of media sources around environmental issues. We conclude with guided learning questions for faculty interested in implementing a similar exercise as well as suggested student discussion questions.

The invasive snakehead fish, which is native to Africa, Asia, Indonesia, and Malaysia, has been found in nine states in the United States and has notably developed a reproducing population in South Florida, Maryland, and Hawaii. This case study discusses the environmental impact and policies surrounding the snakehead fish population in the United States’ waters, as well as three other fishes (smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, and trout) that are native to some bodies of water in the United States, but non-native to others. This case study will examine the paradox that exists when the support of anglers and/or other important stakeholders in wildlife management does not match the potential a species has to damage a native habitat. Readers should be able to think critically about how people have come to define what is seemingly good for the environment based on personal human interest rather than environmental interest. They should also think about how easily the environment can be changed, even permanently, due to small cases of invasive species spreading rapidly from human practices.

Sharks play critical roles in the marine ecosystem, and they face serious threats due to overfishing. Conservation efforts have focused on the consumption of shark fins, especially the “finning” practice that removes the fins of a shark and discards the carcass at sea. This article reviews the shark fin legislation in the United States, including the “finning ban” which outlaws finning practices and the “fin ban” that prohibits the use of shark fins entirely. Our case study specifically focuses on the animal welfare, cultural, and policy debates surrounding these bans. We discuss how and why shark finning is regarded as a cruel practice and whether shark fin bans discriminate against Chinese Americans. At the policy level, there is an ongoing policy debate whether a ban on shark fins in the United States would lead to increased protection of sharks or it would have little effect on the global trade. Due to the lack of detailed information on shark fisheries, the policy discussion is likely to persist. Although this case study focuses only on regulations on shark fins, we would like to emphasize that shark fin industry is not the only threat to sharks. Conservationists also need to consider other issues such as bycatch, habitat destruction, and a wider array of policy tools to protect sharks.

Many scientific research projects carried out in developing countries gather data and fail to return any summary of the findings to the community that provided the data. Residents from communities experiencing water issues are therefore deprived of effective participation in the use of findings, since communities might be seen as only a source of data. Indigenous writers have revealed the injustice of this reality and have suggested that this is typical of colonial or ‘colonising’ research methods. It is concerning because accessing research knowledge encourages communities to examine their issues and empowers them to formulate solutions. Inspired by decolonising methodologies, we explored different ‘decolonising’ approaches to returning research findings to participant communities using the results of a recent water research project conducted in Ndola, Copperbelt Province, Zambia. In this case study, we describe participant communities experience regarding access to research findings and conclude that face-to-face discussion is the preferred approach to returning water research findings in Ndola.

High-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling has “revolutionized” the United States’ oil and gas industry by allowing extraction of previously inaccessible oil and gas trapped in shale rock [ 1 ]. Although the United States has extracted shale gas in different states for several decades, the United Kingdom is in the early stages of developing its domestic shale gas resources, in the hopes of replicating the United States’ commercial success with the technologies [ 2 , 3 ]. However, the extraction of shale gas using hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling poses potential risks to the environment and natural resources, human health, and communities and local livelihoods. Risks include contamination of water resources, air pollution, and induced seismic activity near shale gas operation sites. This paper examines the regulation of potential induced seismic activity in Oklahoma, USA, and Lancashire, UK, and concludes with recommendations for strengthening these protections.

More efficient agricultural water use sounds uncontroversial. Due to increased agricultural efficiency, about 300,000 acre-feet 1 of water per year is made available and is being reallocated from the Imperial Irrigation District to Los Angeles, San Diego and Coachella. This increase in efficiency and transfer of conserved water, however, is predicted to cause a suite of environmental and public health harms as the region’s agricultural sump (the Salton Sea) shrinks. Southern Californian water politics are famously messy, contentious and high stakes. The State struggles with the need to increase its use efficiency and decrease its overall use of its allocation of Colorado River water that supplies Californian south coast cities and inland agriculture. Local, State and federal parties involved in these water allocation decisions conflict over how to mitigate the externalities as there is no clear assignment of liabilities. This case study uses historical documents and recent policy elite interviews to construct a broad understanding of the nature of the dilemma. By engaging with this case, readers will better understand the relative positions of the rural water supplier and the urban water users in the largest water transfer in US history, and understand that increasing use efficiency in one arena—agriculture—does not always work out best for the environment.

Climate change is a global problem requiring a collective response. Grassroots advocacy has been an important element in propelling this collective response, often through the mechanism of campaigns. However, it is not clear whether the climate change campaigns organized by the environmental advocacy groups are successful in achieving their goals, nor the degree to which other benefits may accrue to groups who run them. To investigate this further, we report a case study of the Australian climate change advocacy sector. Three methods were used to gather data to inform this case study: content analysis of climate change organizations’ websites, analysis of website text relating to campaign outcomes, and interviews with climate change campaigners. Findings demonstrate that climate change advocacy is diverse and achieving substantial successes such as the development of climate change-related legislation and divestment commitments from a range of organizations. The data also highlights additional benefits of campaigning such as gaining access to political power and increasing groups’ financial and volunteer resources. The successful outcomes of campaigns were influenced by the ability of groups to sustain strong personal support networks, use skills and resources available across the wider environmental advocacy network, and form consensus around shared strategic values. Communicating the successes of climate change advocacy could help mobilize collective action to address climate change. As such, this case study of the Australian climate change movement is relevant for both academics focusing on social movements and collective action and advocacy-focused practitioners, philanthropists, and non-governmental organizations.