Frozen no more, a case study of Arctic permafrost impacts of oil and gas withdrawal.

Approximately 8100 km of Alaska are leased to the oil and gas industry for exploration and extraction. According to industry estimates, subsurface expansion from these leases could cover up to 130.2 km per pad.

Increased nitrogen use efficiency in crop production can provide economic and environmental benefits.

Potential economic and environmental benefits of increasing nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) are widely recognized but scarcely quantified. This study quantifies the effects of increased NUE on 1) the national agricultural economy using a simulation model of US agriculture and 2) regional water quality effects using a biogeochemical model for the Arkansas-White-Red river basin. National economic effects are reported for NUE improvement scenarios of 10%, 20%, 50%, and 100%, whereas regional water quality effects are estimated for a 20% NUE improvement scenario in the Arkansas-White-Red river basin.

Cropland carbon fluxes in the United States: increasing geospatial resolution of inventory-based carbon accounting.

Net annual soil carbon change, fossil fuel emissions from cropland production, and cropland net primary production were estimated and spatially distributed using land cover defined by NASA's moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) and by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) cropland data layer (CDL). Spatially resolved estimates of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB) were developed. The purpose of generating spatial estimates of carbon fluxes, and the primary objective of this research, was to develop a method of carbon accounting that is consistent from field to national scales.