Geography 202 Resources and the Environment

Site Exploration, Evaluation, and Management (Part 2)

Objectives: 1) To gain a greater awareness and understanding of the state of the environment for some chosen location, 2) become familiar with resources for assessing environmental characteristics and quality, and 3) enhance learning of environmental management techniques through their application to your chosen site. Your project grade will be based on accuracy, completeness, the thought you put into it, and effort.

Directions. Choose a site to work with, and complete the following questions. You must get permission if you pick a site outside of Lancaster, York, Lebanon, or Baltimore Counties, since no soil surveys are available locally for them. You may print this site out and answer the questions in pencil, or may copy the questions to your word processor and type in the responses. In any case, do not remove any of the questions. The finished work should be stapled and turned in to me without any covers or clips. Note: I want only 1 copy of the exercise per group.


F. Forests, Parks, and Wilderness

Spend some quiet or recreational time at your site. Really use your senses to experience the site.

1. What are you hearing, seeing, smelling, and feeling (temperature, wind, etc…)?




2. Do you feel there are some elements of wilderness there? Why or why not?




3. Under the 'Definition of Wilderness' section, what four requirements does the Wilderness Act require of all areas given official wilderness designation?




4. If trees are present, list a few few species (http://treelink.org/whattree/menu.htm To begin, click Back to Start.).



G. Endangered Species

Visit http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=621014&mode=2 .

1. List any 10 of PA's endangered mammals or birds.




2. What is the reason for endangerment for two of these animals? (List the two animals.)






3. How is PA management of these two animals proceding?







H. Wildlife

Visit the following site

http://www.carnegiemnh.org/mammals/PAmamm/pamammals.html

1. Using the published distributions for each mammal on the Carnegie Museum site, list 10 mammals that live in the county of your site. Also list species you have seen at or near your site.






2. Visit http://refuges.fws.gov/profiles/ByState.cfm?state=PA and list PA's National Wildlife Refuges. Where are they located?





3. Choose an mammal or bird that frequents your site, and using the management techniques we learned this semester, choose management objective(s) and strategies for it. List the management objective, then strategies to support that objective.





I. Air Quality

Go to http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/aq/aqm/aqi.htm and scroll down to AQI reports.

1. Choose a region, then give the report on present air quality (provide date and time).

See an air quality forecast at http://airnow.gov/index.cfm . Choose Local Conditions and Forcasts at the top, then your enter your state.

2. What is the present air quality, and what is the air quality category for tomorrow?



http://www.epa.gov/air/data/index.html can provide factory emissions data for your area. Click "Reports and Maps", then geographical area, then choose 'county' at the top of the US map.

Click on PA, then your county. Click 'go' under Selected Areas. Then click facility emissions in the AirData database. Choose SO2 and NOx for 2002. Choose your options and generate a report.

3. Include the first page of your report for each pollutant.

View the number of days with excessive ozone levels by county and your county's grade for air quality at http://www.stateoftheair.org/ Click 'What do the colors mean' for additional information.

4. Include your information.

5. Is your site in an ozone nonattainment area (8-hour standard)? See http://www.epa.gov/reg3artd/airquality/ozone8hrmaintareas_2.htm. If so, which class is it in?



J. Proposed Management Plan

Consider what you have learned about your site and resource management over the semester to solve the following imaginary problem.

1. Imagine that your site is in the middle of a 2-square-mile, fully forested tract of land that has no buildings on it. Your site is fully forested, too. If buildings are there now, imagine they never existed. However, everything outside that 2-square mile area stays the same, except that wildlife preserves exist that are 1 mile to the north and 1/2 mile to the southwest of the boundaries of your tract. At least one creek and a couple streams run through your tract, and you wish them to remain in good quality. You choose whether the 2 square miles is to be used for either timber production or wildlife protection. (There is no right or wrong answer to your choice, just choose one.)

On the timber farm, your goal is to produce (which involves cutting and harvesting) a small but fairly continuous supply of hardwoods while supplying some wildlife habitat to as much of a degree as possible.
In the wildlife preserve, your goal is to maximize biodiversity on the land.

Knowing the characteristics of your site and surroundings, detail a plan to best reach your management objectives while minimizing environmental impacts. Bring into your discussion management techniques we have learned this semester, and why you use them.