Publications by authors named "Julie E Shortridge"

Manure management on dairy farms impacts how farmers maximize its value as fertilizer, reduce operating costs, and minimize environmental pollution potential. A persistent challenge on many farms is minimizing ammonia losses through volatilization during storage to maintain manure nitrogen content. Knowing the quantities of emitted pollutants is at the core of designing and improving mitigation strategies for livestock operations.

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There is increasing concern over deep uncertainty in the risk analysis field as probabilistic models of uncertainty cannot always be confidently determined or agreed upon for many of our most pressing contemporary risk challenges. This is particularly true in the climate change adaptation field, and has prompted the development of a number of frameworks aiming to characterize system vulnerabilities and identify robust alternatives. One such methodology is robust decision making (RDM), which uses simulation models to assess how strategies perform over many plausible conditions and then identifies and characterizes those where the strategy fails in a process termed scenario discovery.

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Drinking water distribution infrastructure has been identified as a factor in waterborne disease outbreaks and improved understanding of the public health risks associated with distribution system failures has been identified as a priority area for research. Pipe breaks may pose a risk, as their occurrence and repair can result in low or negative pressure, potentially allowing contamination of drinking water from adjacent soils. However, measuring this phenomenon is challenging because the most likely health impact is mild gastrointestinal (GI) illness, which is unlikely to result in a doctor or hospital visit.

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