Impacts of Bridge Design and Land Cover Characteristics on Cliff Swallow Nesting

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dc.contributor.advisorTalley, Kimberly
dc.contributor.authorOrsak, Benjamin J.
dc.contributor.committeeMemberTorres, Anthony
dc.contributor.committeeMemberCastro-Arellano, Ivan
dc.date.accessioned2014-08-20T17:49:13Z
dc.date.available2014-08-20T17:49:13Z
dc.date.issued2014-08
dc.description.abstractThe Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) were concerned with the possible contamination of water resources resulting from animals roosting on bridges, particularly, from Cliff Swallows (The Texas Department of Transportation, 2012). Considering there are approximately fifty thousand bridges currently in Texas, these potential contamination sources could be an environmental problem. These bridges can offer thousands of potential nesting sites to Cliff Swallow colonies, which vary in size from 2 to 3700 nests (Brown & Brown, 2004). An assessment of 108 bridges was made to develop a model for predicting total Cliff Swallow nest density based on bridge characteristics and geographical information systems (GIS) land cover and soil data. Backwards step-wise regressions were run and then evaluated based on Akaike’s Information Criteria adjusted for small sample sizes (AICc) to determine the best model for analysis. This model indicated the number of nest scars, twenty-five degree bridge skew, average sand and silt percentages within the bridge surroundings, the number of spans, span length, and the percentage of water within the bridge surroundings is positively correlated with Cliff Swallow nest density, while bridge length, bridge orientation, fifteen degree bridge skew, bridge design, percentage of developed open land within the bridge surroundings, and percentage of shrubs within the bridge surroundings have a negative correlation.
dc.description.departmentEngineering Technology
dc.formatText
dc.format.extent80 pages
dc.format.medium1 file (.pdf)
dc.identifier.citationOrsak, B. J. (2014). <i>Impacts of bridge design and land cover characteristics on Cliff Swallow nesting</i> (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10877/5277
dc.language.isoen
dc.subjectCliff swallow
dc.subjectBridge design
dc.subjectLand cover
dc.subjectSoil
dc.subjectGIS
dc.subjectGeographical information systems
dc.subjectEngineering
dc.subjectBiology
dc.subjectBirds
dc.subject.lcshSwallows--Nests--Environmental aspectsen_US
dc.subject.lcshSwallows--Texasen_US
dc.subject.lcshBridges--Texas--Design and constructionen_US
dc.titleImpacts of Bridge Design and Land Cover Characteristics on Cliff Swallow Nesting
dc.typeThesis
thesis.degree.departmentEngineering Technology
thesis.degree.disciplineIndustrial Technology
thesis.degree.grantorTexas State University, Dept. of Engineering Technology
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science in Technology

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