Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Town That Built Its Own River: La Plaza Del Cerro At Taos County New Mexico, José A. Rivera Ph.D

Faculty Publications

Cerro is an unincorporated community in Taos County, New Mexico, and is situated near New Mexico State Highway 522 heading north to the Colorado border. Nearby is Cerro de Guadalupe, a peak that has an elevation of 8,796 feet and Cerro at 7,490 feet. The connection to Guadalupe Mountain gave the town its original name as “La Plaza del Cerro de Guadalupe.” Cerro was established in the early 1850s by settlers who arrived from nearby Questa and Taos. By itself, Guadalupe Mountain did not provide sufficient water to sustain an agrarian economy based on farming and livestock ranching as was …

Projecting Vegetation Condition And Fire Risk In Southern California, Westin K. Guthrie

Geography ETDs

In the western US, relationships between fire, vegetation, climate, and urban areas are dynamic and evolving. This work used a forest landscape model, LANDIS-II, informed by future climate scenarios and projections of urban expansion to understand wildfire interactions within projected Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas. This simulation showed that in both 2050 and 2100 +93% of the WUI in southern California experienced fire. Future work needs to be done in parametrizing forest biomass to ensure the validity of projections. Additionally, increasing each climate scenario model's replicates will create more accurate projections.

State Of Urbanization In Nepal: The Official Definition And Reality, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari, Shiva Gautam

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepali government’s official delineation of several human settlements as new urban areas has been questionable because many important criteria such as urban infrastructure and services, open space, population density and economic viability are not thoroughly analyzed while defining what is urban. Many settlements in Nepal officially defined as urban, often driven by political considerations, are operating in the rural framework forming ruralopolises. This paper analyzes various criteria needed for defining urbanization that are internationally accepted to assess Nepal’s official definition of urban settlements. Urban areas have been expanding in Nepal at the cost of agricultural, forest, and shrubland land uses. …

The Bearing Earth: Colonization, Conservation, And Political Ecology In Costa Rica (Coto Brus 1948 - Present), Pablo Alonso Arias-Benavides

Latin American Studies ETDs

This thesis presents two questions: How are relationships between people in Coto Brus and the land – specifically, forest – mediated by social, political, and economic forces? How are personal and collective identities expressed through relationship with the landscape? I chose Coto Brus because it is a forested region of Costa Rica which was populated with state support in the 1950s, and because it is my father’s hometown. In order to understand the subjective experiences of Costa Ricans involved in deforestation and reforestation, I performed interviews in the canton, visited conservation sites, and analyzed historical sources. This study combines multiscale …

The Affective Landscapes Of Herbalism In New Mexico, Samantha Angelou Stroud

Geography ETDs

Herbalism, or practices which use plants for medicinal purposes, is tied to traditions in several cultures of the American Southwest, including Indigenous herbal medicine, Mexican-American curanderismo, and Western herbal traditions. Herbalism has been steadily gaining mainstream popularity since the late 1960s, alongside counterculture, holistic health, and back-to-nature movements, introducing many newcomers to the practice. This study asks: How does herbalism create and attach meaning to plants, cultures, and place in New Mexico? What are the affective landscapes produced by herbalism in New Mexico? And, to what extent do meaningful attachments manifest in ethics and actions of care? I argue that …

The Manito Topos Project: Place Naming And Toponymic Silencing In The Sierras Of Northern Nuevo México And Southern Colorado, Len N. Beké

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This dissertation reports on documentary research on vernacular toponymies in Manito communities in Nuevo México and Colorado. These toponymies are erased, obscured and delegitimized in official maps. Within the study area, vernacular antecedents for 49.5% of official names for natural features were documented, along with 280 previously unmapped names. These data were compared to the state-sanctioned toponymy to determine a typology of linguistic mechanisms of toponymic silencing. While a majority of official toponyms are based on Manito oral tradition, only 15.4% of the labels for natural features represent unaltered versions of names in that tradition. This dissertation theorizes the conceptual …

Pathways To Sustainability: Industry, Development, Business, Agriculture, Economy, And Politics, Andreas Hernandez, Pablo Arias-Benavides, Dayana C.M. Machada, Ousmane Pame, Alice Main, Per Moller

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

In this chapter we examine six compelling on-the-ground experiences, which are demonstrating pathways to sustainability, resilience and regeneration. Each case opens a pathway to sustainability in a key sphere of human activity: industry, development, business, agriculture, economy and politics. These experiences are creating new social imaginaries embodied in the practical forms of new politics and economics aimed at profound democratizations of human life, and towards a creative realignment of humans with the rest of the web of life. These social imaginaries are both open and encompassing. They are open in the sense that they can be filled with new possibilities …

Minimizing Surface Run-Off, Improving Underground Water Recharging, And On-Site Rain Harvesting In The Kathmandu Valley, Ambika P. Adhikari, Keshav Bhattarai

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal's political institutions and administrative units were thoroughly restructured in 2015 with the promulgation of the new Constitution. Several rural areas were combined to meet the definition of urban threshold criteria to classify rural areas into urban categories. Accordingly, over 3,900 local political and administrative units were amalgamated into 753 units, of which, 293 units are classified as urban. Within these newly defined urban areas, many natural environments have been converted into impervious surfaces such as paved roads, sidewalks, and building roofs. These impervious surfaces have drastically increased the amount of surface run-offs-often termed as "urban floods"--under increasing precipitation caused …

Human-Centered Avalanche Susceptibility Mapping, Lindsey L. Rotche

Geography ETDs

With backcountry winter travel increasing in popularity, the importance of accessible avalanche safety information is crucial. Widely accessible avalanche backcountry maps use slope shading to show where avalanches are likely to start. Instead of focusing on the hazard of an avalanche starting in a specific location, this project shifted the cartographic emphasis of avalanche susceptibility maps to show risk to a human traveling in the terrain. I developed a methodology to incorporate possible avalanche runouts, terrain traps, and connected slopes while reducing false certainty of the visualization. To provide a more comprehensive representation of susceptible terrain, I integrated aspect, distance …

A Review Of Environmental Vulnerabilities Related To Nepal’S Graduation Process From Least Developed To A Developing Country Status, Ambika P. Adhikari, Keshav Bhattarai, Basu Sharma

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal has long aspired to graduate from the Least Development Country (LDC) to Developing Country category as defined by the United Nations system. Nepal had met two of the three graduating criteria and could have technically graduated from the LDC status in 2015. However, based on the Nepal government’s request to defer the review, the new 2021 assessment by the United Nations Committee for Development Policy (CDP) recommended that the country should graduate from the LDC status by 2026. The graduation requires not only meeting pre-defined development-related thresholds, but also maintaining sustained improvements in at least two consecutive assessments in …

Nuanced Networks: How Social Relationships And Power Influence Participation In Private Lands Conservation Programs, Ellen Loechner

Geography ETDs

Because the majority of land in the Midwestern United States is privately owned, the responsibility for creating and maintaining space for wildlife conservation falls upon private landowners. Numerous state and federal agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) host private lands conservation programs that offer landowners financial and technical support to complete conservation projects on their property (Echols, Front, and Cummins 2019). While the individual motivations and priorities of a landowner may inform how they use and manage their property, a landowner’s ability to connect with the agricultural and conservation communities may determine if they have the opportunity to participate in these …

Weedy Relations: Narratives Of Invasion And Intimacy With Tamarisk In The Chihuahuan Desert, Shannon S. Pepper

Geography ETDs

Tamarix spp., also known as salt cedar or tamarisk, is a shrub that has garnered a notorious reputation in North America as an invasive plant, with widespread policy and research advocating for its eradication in the Southwest U.S. and Northern Mexico. This study examines both governmental conservation documents and news articles to investigate narrative trends on tamarisk in the Southwestern U.S. and Northern Mexico as a contiguous region (the Chihuahuan Desert), expanding on current research to include transborder effects on the perception and management of introduced species. This paper asks: In the last 25 years, how has the movement, …

Individual Exposure Potential Assessment For Livestock Based On Spatial-Temporal Analysis Of Gps Data And Behavior Patterns Classification In Cove Wash Watershed, Arizona, Zhuoming Liu

Geography ETDs

This thesis examined the geospatial and temporal grazing patterns of domesticated livestock to model individual-level exposure potential to abandoned uranium mine (AUM) waste in a tribal community in the Southwest United States. Lotek Litetrack Global Positioning System (GPS) collars collected data at 20-minute-intervals for 2 flocks of sheep and goats during the Spring and Summer of 2019. Depending on the flock and individual animals, tracking time ranges from 10 days to four months. This research developed a GIS-based exposure potential framework that built on existing methodologies in time geography, GIS, and exposure mapping. This thesis aims to: 1) classify GPS …

The Bluff River Trail: A Community Land Ethic, Kelly F. Davis

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

The Bluff River Trail (BRT) is a future 10+ mile trail along the San Juan River corridor in the 4-Corners region of the Southwestern United States. By asking, what is the land ethic of the Bluff Community? this qualitative study identifies behaviors and beliefs, or land ethics, between seven Bluff residents and the San Juan River corridor. A land ethic contributes to the social re/production of space; therefore, third space theory contextualizes intersecting and contradicting spatialities evidenced in data. Data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and focus groups. I used a qualitative content analysis pulling from grounded theory to …

How Do Farmers Experience Agroecology In Rural Communities Of Northern Ecuador?, Neil Michael Ayala Ayala

Latin American Studies ETDs

Agroecology, a concept in continuous evolution embraces science, practice and sociopolitical aspects. Its meaning is gaining space of debate and global interest as an alternative for building sustainable food systems and resilient communities, not only from the environmental perspective, but from all the dimensions of sustainability. The Andes region is recognized for its agrodiversity and for its history of agricultural activity; nevertheless, the effects of unsustainable agricultural practices inspired in the principles of the so called “Green Revolution” are evident. Conventional agriculture has decreased the capacity of resilience of the agroecosystems and their associated communities. Agroecology is often perceived as …

Drinking Water Governance For Whom? An Institutional Analysis Of Rural Drinking Water Systems In New Mexico, Tucker Colvin

Geography ETDs

Rural community drinking water systems in New Mexico are facing many challenges, including a lack of personnel, deteriorating infrastructure, lack of funds, overly burdensome and confusing regulation, environmental concerns, and concerns over water rights. Governing agencies are creating vulnerability by making managers prioritize some issues and neglect others. Water systems designated a Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Associations are especially problematic because they are small and managed by volunteers but have as much regulatory burden as larger municipalities. I use the theory of institutional work to explain how an institution that was originally designed to help low-income and rural communities is …

Dry-Land Farming, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

Dry-land farming is a system of land use, crop management, and timing of operations that are designed to cope with the conditions of climate and rainfall of a semiarid land. Experiments began on dry-land techniques as early as the 1860s and the methods became well-known in the Great Plains by the end of the 1880s. A major component of dry farming, which is a term (along with dry-land farming) of western American origin, is the conservation of soil moisture during dry weather by special methods of tillage and plant adaptation. It is not farming without moisture, but farming where moisture …

Reasons For Vacating The Land, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

According to interview data, the mid droughts began very early. The first was in 1908 and 1909 followed by a low rainfall period of 1910 and 1911. These mild droughts were followed by another dry period in 1925 and 1926 and later by the dust bowl period of the mid-1930s. To experience even a mild drought was sufficient to weed out the land speculators who had little interest in farming the land. There were also a number of people who intended to farm, but arrived with insufficient funds to purchase the necessary equipment to produce enough surplus to ride through …

Subdividing The Public Lands: The Apportionment And Settlement Of Northeast New Mexico, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

The land of northeastern New Mexico, outside of the recognized title rights of the former Mexican citizens, became the public domain of the United States by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. This immediately allowed for US control over 10,000 square miles of land within the area east of the 105° meridian and north of a line roughly defined by Interstate 40 in Quay County and the boundary between San Miguel and Guadalupe counties. Portions of the northeast which were excluded from this public domain by the action of the Court of Private Land Claims between 1891 and 1904 …

Peopling The Northeast Plains, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

During the 1880s and the early part of the 1890s the cattle companies were continuing to hire ranch hands to prove up homesteads around water holes. At the same time the early farmers began to appear in the northeast, but not in the form of the sodbusters who were to later swarm over the highland llanos during the early part of the twentieth century. The early farmers were not labeled "nesters," which was the derogatory term coined by the stockmen for the people who turned small parcels of the grassland into fields and began erecting fences over the plains. The …

Natural Elements Of Northeastern New Mexico, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

Northeastern New Mexico is one of the most diverse natural landscapes in the state. Large volcanic vents dot the basalt flows that cap the piedmont surface, providing a very rugged horizon rather than the flat monotonous topography usually associated with the Great Plains of the United States. The dissected and rolling plains are broken by severely eroded canyons that have cut through the sandstone layers topped with caliche. In some areas where the major drainages confluence (such as the intersection of the Ute and Canadian or the Conchas and the Canadian) the narrow canyons broaden into extensive valleys characterized by …

Missouri Avenue On The Caprock, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

Lured by reports about grama grass that was so high it tickled the belly of a horse, the settlers poured onto the high plains of New Mexico during the first decade of the twentieth century. Boom towns began to sprout up along the sidings that the single-line railroads needed for intersecting trains and for locating maintenance crews. The towns especially blossomed if the siding was next to a highland area of prairie that appeared capable of dryland farming. The railroad companies, which were provided with large blocks of land to promote settlement, and the merchants of the new railroad towns …

Interviews With Pioneers, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

There are many first-generation pioneers still living in northeastern New Mexico. Most are over eighty years of age and several are nearing the century mark. Their recall of the era of farming is remarkable and it is fascinating to record the events which are firmly locked into their minds. Many decades have passed since their families abandoned the farm and the homestead and either migrated to urban areas for employment or remained on the land by converting to a cattle economy. When probed or reminded of events through the line of questioning, most interviewees would discourse with clear details and …

Homesteading And Public Land Law, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

It is important to the discussion of Butcher and Wyatt as homesteaders to understand the public land laws which affected their choice of land. Consequently, a review of the history of land legislation affecting the allocation and use of the public domain is in order and particularly that legislation under which Butcher and Wyatt made entry: the Homestead Act of 1862. Through this act early settlers around Tucumcari were able to acquire, at little expense, 160 acre tracts of land. In addition, the shortcomings and beneficial aspects of other acts of Congress concerning the acquisition of public domain will be …

Elements To Assist The Farmers And Promote Immigration, Jerry L. Williams

Homestead Geography Project - Oral Histories and Publications

The purpose of this portion of the resource survey of the northeastern plains is to reconstruct the settlement phase which occurred between 1880 and 1940, the period generally referred to as the homesteading era. To reconstruct the 60 years of human settlement and resettlement required an extensive review of secondary information resources as well as a field project(?) oriented around the collection of data from primary information resources. Much of the information that was compiled was directed toward a mapping project of the northeastern plains which included the location of the places named by the settlers as well as identifying …

Backyard Wildlife Refuges In Albuquerque, Nm: An Urban Land Ethic In Practice, Laurel E. Ladwig

Geography ETDs

In the urban setting, biodiversity conservation requires intentionally creating spaces humans and wildlife can share. An urban land ethic can guide this process. Developing and practicing this ethic requires asking questions that consider approaches from multiple disciplines and avoid anthropocentric framing. Both More-Than-Human and Critical Physical Geography bring multiple knowledges into conversation to make complex realities visible. This project explores these fields of scholarship as guides for reconciling the needs of the land community.

Sharing familiar spaces creates opportunities for developing ethical relationships between humans, non-humans, and natural systems. Wildlife gardening creates habitat in our residential and community areas, providing …

Climate Change Adaptation In Highland Ecuador: Intersections Of Gender, Geography, And Knowledge In Farming Communities, Dinka Natali Caceres Arteaga

Latin American Studies ETDs

This dissertation uses a feminist political ecology perspective to explore the socioeconomic impacts of climate change in Ecuador, especially but not limited to the agriculture sector. It is based on the use of mixed methods that allowed the participation and validation of the local population, surpassing their role as beneficiaries to co-authors of this research.

The significance of this study relies on the position the local population holds in the fields of human geography, under a community local-planning perspective, as they attempted to collaborate in the process of adaptation to climate change by presenting analysis and calculation of an index …

Getting Past Possession: Subsurface Property Disputes As Nuisances, Joseph A. Schremmer

Faculty Scholarship

Property rights in the subsurface of land are adapting to accommodate modern activities like massive hydraulic fracturing (fracing). Property rights will need to continue adapting if they are to accommodate other developing activities like large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS). Courts and commentators rarely approach the nature of subsurface property directly. They tend instead to discuss appropriate standards for tort liability when disputes arise—for example when artificial fissures from a frac treatment extend into and drain oil or gas from a neighbor’s land. The case law and literature generally approach unauthorized subterranean invasions as trespasses. Because the tort of trespass …

Implications Of The Modifiable Areal Unit Problem For Wildfire Analyses, Timothy P. Nagle-Mcnaughton, Xi Gong, Jose A. Constantine

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Wildfires pose a danger to both ecologies and communities. To this end, many large-scale analyses of wildfire patterns and behavior rely on the aggregation of point data to polygons, typically those based on distinct disparate ecological areas. However, the sizes, shapes, andorientations of the polygons to which data are aggregated are not neutral factors in the resulting analysis. The influence of the aggregation polygons on calculated results is known as the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP), which is well-documented in the spatial statistics literature. Despite the documentation of the MAUP, relatively few wildfire studies consider the effects of the MAUP …

A Hybrid Gis/In Situ Analysis Of Aed Coverage On The Unm Central Campus, Ian T. Hill

Geography ETDs

Automated External Defibrillators (AED’s) are lifesaving devices that can greatly improve the survival rates of cardiac arrest when used quickly. There are publicly accessible AED’s on the UNM campus, and each device has an effective range based on how quickly a responder can retrieve the AED and return it to the site of the cardiac emergency. The ranges of the AED’s on UNM central campus are analyzed using GIS, interior building measurements, and various retrieval speeds. This helps evaluate the current placement of AED’s on campus and helps reveal where future coverage is needed. This focus on the combined navigation …