Browsing by Author "Marek-Spartz, Mary"

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    Leveraging Minnesota's Stormwater Data for Improved Modeling and Management of Water Quality in Cities
    (2024) Finlay, Jacques, C.; Janke, Ben D.; Trojan, Michael; Wilson, Bruce; Marek-Spartz, Mary
    This Minnesota Stormwater Research Council project distilled recent urban stormwater data into a curated database representing more than 14,000 storm events across 91 sites in Minnesota. The database represents the outcome of hard work and large investments in collection of stormwater data by many individuals and organizations over the past 15 years. We applied the database to generate characterization of runoff quantity and quality specific to Minnesota, and used it to reveal prominent features of stormwater quality and identify relationships between land cover, climate, and major stormwater pollutants. In this report, we present the database, major findings from our analyses, and discuss further opportunities to leverage stormwater data collection to research and management.
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    The Potential of Ceutorhynchus spp. as Biological Control Agents of Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata)
    (2022-07) Marek-Spartz, Mary
    Alliaria petiolata, known by the common name garlic mustard, is an invasive biennial forb of North American forests that outcompetes native plants, inhibits tree seedling growth, and costs millions of dollars in management efforts annually. Biological control with natural enemies is one alternative to pesticide use in forest ecosystems. Two weevils from Europe are prioritized as biological control candidates of garlic mustard. In the U.S., weed biological control agents are assessed for their potential risk to native habitats and for their efficacy on the target plant populations before approval for release. As part of this process, I examine the potential distribution of two garlic mustard weevils through lab studies and ecological niche modeling as well as anticipate levels of target plant suppression through population modeling.
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    Twin Cities Metro Area Road Surface Area, 2022
    (2023-01-09) Marek-Spartz, Mary; patt0335@umn.edu; Marek-Spartz, Mary; Minneapolis-St. Paul Long-Term Ecological Research; University of Minnesota
    This high-resolution (1 meter) raster represents road surface area for streets (including alleys) in the seven-county Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan area. Minnesota roads data contributing to this layer is compiled from several state and county agencies and accessed through the Minnesota Geospatial Commons. The Minnesota Transportation Department (MNDOT) Lane Information dataset was spatially joined with MNDOT centerlines from 2012 in order to link the Transportation Information System (TIS) ID codes for road segments with the lane information on number of through transit lanes and width of lanes. The resulting layer was then joined on the TIS code attribute with the Geospatial Advisory Council Schema road centerlines shapefile from MetroGIS. To avoid a many-to-one join, MNDOT road segments were grouped by their TIS code and the average lane width and number were summarized to make the layer compatible with the MetroGIS centerlines shapefile. Once the centerline route segment IDs were linked to the MNDOT transit lane information, the centerlines were buffered based on their average width attribute, multiplied by the number of lanes. Alleys were identified and assigned a width of 5 meters based on typical alley width measurements using satellite imagery. Due to transportation identification system scope, confidence in accuracy of private road surface area is diminished. The resulting buffered road segment vectors were rasterized and cropped to the seven-county metro area (Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka, Washington, Dakota, Scott, and Carver County).