This case study focuses on laws and policies used in Baraboo, Wisconsin land redevelopment projects, including the state laws that regulate cleanup of environmentally contaminated properties, the authorizing laws behind the projects, and the policies incorporated into the projects. It does this by highlighting two successful land reuse projects in the City of Baraboo, Wisconsin: the Veolia Property and the Alliant Property. During the redevelopment of these brownfield sites, Baraboo sought remedy to environmental contamination and maintain the community’s health. Two grant programs assisted Baraboo in achieving these goals: the Wisconsin Department of Commerce Grant and the Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Grant. The Brownfields Grant provided Baraboo the ability to conduct health monitoring with assistance from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. These redevelopment projects in Baraboo demonstrate successful interagency and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as the role of law and policy in removing environmental hazards to reuse properties and promote human health by reducing exposure to environmental contaminants. Baraboo used these laws and policies to revitalize brownfields and account for community health in the process. Other localities and states can use Baraboo’s experience as a model to redevelop their own contaminated properties and promote environmental health through the use of their jurisdiction’s laws and policies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Plastic pollution in oceans, also known as marine debris, is a growing problem at local and global scales. Anthropogenic marine debris poses a serious threat to many marine species, both through physical harm such as ingestion or entanglement and by carrying toxins and pathogens. This debris accumulates in oceanic gyres, concentrating these effects in some specific areas. In addition, marine debris may have devastating impacts on tourism and fishing-based economies, especially where ocean currents direct this debris. Recently, a nonprofit organization called The Ocean Cleanup proposed the first large-scale in situ marine debris removal project. The Ocean Cleanup is a project attempting to use large, floating, semi-fixed screens to harness ocean currents and accumulate debris, where it can be efficiently collected and disposed of or recycled. The project currently is working on implementing itself in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” in the North Pacific Gyre. We examine this project case, as it is the first organization attempting to clean up marine debris at this scale. Understanding the potential efficacy and limitations of The Ocean Cleanup Project as a case study can give critical insights into how other projects could be created in the future to address marine plastic pollution worldwide. Using SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis to assess a marine debris cleanup can inform both a nuanced evaluation of the specific case as well as provide a means to explore marine debris as a complex, global environmental problem.

Renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) are powerful state-level climate policy tools that set minimum renewable energy targets. They have been adopted by 29 states, in the United States (U.S.) as well as Washington, D.C., and have fueled much of the growth in the U.S. renewable energy sector. However, because these policy tools are state-driven, the technologies and fuel types included in each state’s RPS vary. In this article, I discuss the inclusion of municipal solid waste in Maryland’s RPS, and a social movement for environmental justice that has emerged around this decision. Given the prominence of RPSs in both fueling renewable energy adoption in the U.S., as well as in encouraging particular technologies, it is increasingly important to interrogate the types of technologies and fuel sources that climate policies like RPSs incentivize, and how they are received by the communities for which they are proposed. Thus, this article’s objective is to inspire critical thought about the classification schemes that govern renewable energy production.

The presence of hazardous chemicals such as lead (Pb) or other heavy metals in the environment poses significant threats to human health. Industrial activities can increase the concentrations of these toxic metals in the soil, water and air where people live, work and play. When exposed to lead, residents face a higher risk of neurological damage, anemia or developmental delays. Urban soil lead levels, for example, are usually higher than the natural background lead levels due to the historical usage of lead paint, leaded gasoline and proximity to industrial activities. We explored a case in southeastern Los Angeles County, where lead contamination in the soil has been a particular concern near a lead-acid battery smelter. In this case study, we investigated soil lead levels across the neighborhoods surrounding the smelter as a mean to support this clean-up decision making. We used a hot spot analysis to identify clusters of high soil lead levels at a neighborhood scale. This case study can be used to teach higher-division undergraduate and graduate students to incorporate spatial thinking and exploratory spatial analysis approaches into the decision-making process for remediation of environmental contamination. Through this case study, the students will develop the knowledge about soil lead contamination and associated health risks, learn how exploratory spatial data analysis can assist examining the distribution of soil lead contamination and discuss potential strategies to improve the environmental remediation process in the urban environment.

Energy poses challenges to environmental studies because of climate change and other effects, and field trips are indispensable aids to learning. They enable students to see situations first-hand, and many are joyous and fun, such as field trips to forests, wetlands, wildlife reserves, or communities exhibiting positive contributions to safeguarding the natural world. Field trips to the built environment, especially those illustrating sites with raging controversies or past catastrophes are equally important in helping students turn theory into understanding of real situations. Chernobyl, one of the two worst nuclear power plant disasters, provided the venue for a field trip examining the strengths and weaknesses of nuclear power. Students had 3 weeks of preparatory classwork before departing for Kyiv, Ukraine. They spent 2 weeks there, with 1 day touring the Exclusion Zone surrounding the Chernobyl plant. Background work included basic concepts and units for measuring radiation and their biological and medical effects, types of nuclear power plants, disaster planning and response, Ukrainian history, and details of the Chernobyl accident and its effects. Participants heard from a wide variety of speakers, who presented details of the accident, its lingering consequences, efforts of the Ukrainian government and various NGOs to deal with the consequences, and Ukrainian plans for new nuclear power plants. Participants also heard both strong pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear proponents. At the end, students prepared a paper on the lessons about nuclear power from Chernobyl. Evaluations of the experience indicated the trip’s objectives were achieved. For some, the expedition proved life-altering.

Many indigenous communities across Latin America depend on forests for livelihood. In eastern Bolivia, indigenous communities face increasing challenges in forest management due to insecure land tenure, lack of capacity, and state policies that favor extractivism and export-oriented agriculture. This case study examines the dilemma of forest management in the Guarayos Indigenous Territory, with a particular focus on the influence of conflictive policies under Evo Morales administration. Using a combination of literature reviews, semi-structured interviews, and land use/land cover analysis, we investigated the drivers behind the challenges that the Guarayos indigenous community is facing in the forest and land governance and explore potential solutions. We found that deforestation within the Guarayos Indigenous Territory from 2000 to 2017 was primarily driven by agricultural commodity production. Despite its promises on protecting nature and the indigenous peoples, the government weakened the Guarayos indigenous people’s governance capacity through failure of forest law enforcement, prioritization of extractivism and export-oriented agriculture, and support for land titling of external entities. We presented these findings through a case narrative featuring the president of Guarayos indigenous government as the decision-maker. This case study provides an illustrative example of the challenges and management strategies in indigenous land and forest governance in the Latin American context. A Spanish version of this case study is available at https://www.learngala.com/cases/bolivia-forests-esp .

This case study introduces students to the impacts that wildfires have on water resources as well as the challenges associated with managing these risks. By examining the development of a collaborative watershed group galvanized by the 2012 High Park Fire in Colorado, the case engages with the longstanding conundrum of how better to align ecological and social scales in natural resources management. It explores the role that collaborative groups are playing in addressing water resources problems at the watershed scale despite fragmented governance at that scale. A phased case study format allows students to investigate the motivations of diverse stakeholders and appreciate the challenges faced in watershed-based collaboration after a catalyzing event, such as a wildfire. Upon completion of the lesson, students will be able to (1) explain wildfires’ impacts to water resources and stakeholders; (2) assess the challenges and benefits of approaching management based on the physical boundaries of a watershed, rather than political boundaries; (3) identify and interrogate how collaborative watershed groups form as well as the factors that are key to their success; and (4) evaluate the outcomes of these collaborative efforts and their ongoing strengths and opportunities as well as their limitations and challenges. This line of inquiry is increasingly significant as collaborative watershed management groups proliferate in the United States, in many instances catalyzed by a disaster. Ultimately, this case study explores how collaborative watershed groups emerge and the role(s) they play in tackling long-term, multi-jurisdictional, and watershed-scale management challenges.

On 16 October 1996, a malfunction at the Swan Hills Special Waste Treatment Center (SHSWTC) in Alberta, Canada, released an undetermined quantity of persistent organic pollutants to the atmosphere. An ecologically based, staged health risk assessment was conducted to evaluate the human health risk, the findings of which are presented in Part 2, on Ecotoxicology and Human Health Risk. The incident resulted in the largest fine for an environmental infraction in Alberta history up to that time. Despite the incident, the province of Alberta has continued to subsidize the facility and has kept it in operation, with changes in management. The policy rationale is that if the facility were not available, accumulation and possible diversion of hazardous waste into illegal disposal alternatives would threaten the environment much more than operation of the plant. This case study illustrates an ecological approach to risk assessment and an attempted culturally sensitive approach to risk management. Incidents in which people are exposed to toxic substances do not occur in a social vacuum. Risk management strategies must be adapted to groups with different cultural values and expectations. Community and individual responses to such incidents, and the development of health advisory messages, may depend on presenting information on exposure and risk in terms consistent with cultural patterns among subpopulations in the community.

On 16 October 1996, a malfunction at the Swan Hills Special Waste Treatment Center (SHSWTC) in Alberta, Canada, released an undetermined quantity of persistent organic pollutants to the atmosphere, including PCBs, PCDDs and PCDFs. The circumstances of exposure are detailed in Part 1, Background and Policy Issues. An ecologically based, staged health risk assessment was conducted in two parts with two levels of government as sponsors. The first, called the Swan Hills Study, is described in this part, which was conducted by the Government of Alberta to evaluate the human health risks, primarily by determining contaminant levels in wild game and fish and in serum of residents of the area to reflect body burden. A diet and activity survey was conducted by telephone to determine and to inform an initial advisory on consumption of country foods. A subsequent evaluation, called the Lesser Slave Lake Study, focused exclusively on Aboriginal residents in the area and is presented in Part 3 of this case study. Because this is a case study and not a research report, the findings are presented as they became available at the time of the study.