Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Assessing Airborne Radar To Map Glacier Elevations In Alpine Terrain Including Estimated Glacier Volume Change, Bryce Allen Glenn

Dissertations and Theses

Alpine glaciers and perennial snowfields (G&PS) are important hydrologically and ecologically, providing meltwater during the hottest and driest summer periods. Climate warming shrinks these natural reservoirs while temporarily providing increased streamflow. To assess regional changes in glacier volume, from which contribution to streamflow can be estimated, I used NASA's Airborne Glacier and Ice Surface Topography Interferometer (GLISTIN). This instrument mapped the surface topography of alpine glaciers; differencing these elevations from historic elevations derived from topographic maps, volume change is calculated. GLISTIN was flown over the glacier-populated mountain ranges of the western U.S. Of the 3289 glaciers and perennial snowfields with …

Environmental And Spatial Factors Affecting Surface Water Quality In A Himalayan Watershed, Central Nepal, Janardan Mainali, Heejun Chang

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Various spatial interrelationships among sampling stations are not well explored in the spatial modeling of water quality literature. This research explores the relationship between water quality and various social, demographic, and topographic factors in an urbanizing watershed of Nepal with a comparison of different connectivity matrices to conceptualize spatial interrelationships. We collected electrical conductivity and dissolved oxygen data from surface water bodies using a handheld probe and used the data to establish relationships with land use, topography, and population density-based explanatory variables at both watershed and 100-m buffer scales. The linear regression model was compared with different eigenvector-based spatial filtering …

Who Bears The Burden? Racial Disparities In Confirmed Cases Of Covid-19 In The Greater Boston Area, Leija Helling

Massachusetts GIS Day

Documenting racial disparities in the spread of COVID-19 is crucial to bettering public health. In the Boston area, non-white and Black communities are significantly overrepresented in areas of high confirmed COVID-19 prevalence. Areas where high prevalence is clustered (“hot spots”) have disproportionate shares of non-white and Black residents, and the disparities are statistically significant. These results confirm marked COVID-19 racial disparities in Boston.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure Planning In Urban Landscapes: Understanding Context, Appearance, Meaning, And Perception, Mahbubur Meenar, Jordan Howell, Devon Moulton, Shane Walsh

School of Earth & Environment Faculty Scholarship

Prior research has documented environmental and economic benefits of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI); literature on GSI social benefits is also becoming more prevalent among scholars around the world. This paper aims to understand whether GSI projects are considered as assets to urban neighborhoods or as projects that might introduce a new set of social concerns. Based on field observations of 238 GSI projects and 50 intercept interviews, we investigate selected social aspects of GSI, such as project context, visual appearance, recreational appeal, meaning, and public perception, in two neighboring US cities—Philadelphia and Camden. Analysis of field data and observation notes …

Use Of Gis To Find Optimum Locations For Anaerobic Digestion Or Composting Facilities In Maine, Usha Humagain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As per US EPA, in 2017, 41 million tons of food waste was generated, but only 6.3% was diverted from landfills (US EPA, 2020). When landfilled or incinerated, organic waste (food waste, sludge, manure, agricultural waste) causes environmental pollution through greenhouse gas emissions, land, water, and air pollution. In contrast, if we compost or digest organic waste, we can generate soil additives and a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide gas to produce electricity or energy. Both digestion and composting reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the land through additives, and boost the economy. Many countries are adopting anaerobic digestion and …

How Can Employers Contribute To Reducing Commuter-Generated Carbon Emissions? Evaluating Employer-Provided Commuter Benefits In Cambridge, Ma, Mary Richards

Masters Theses

Encouraging a more sustainable commuter mode shift and improving urban transportation systems have the potential to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), a major contributor to climate change. Replacing some single-occupancy vehicle (SOV) trips with alternative modes of transportation, such as public transit, walking, or bicycling, represents one approach to begin reducing transportation-related emissions. Collectively, these shifts in transportation patterns would help to reduce the negative social, economic, and environmental costs associated with high rates of personal vehicle use. Employer-provided benefits programs have the potential to influence commuter behavior by making sustainable, alternative commuting choices a more convenient and economically …

Enforcing Higher Standards For Flood Hazard Mitigation In Vermont, Tamsin Flanders

Masters Theses

The state of Vermont faces increasing risk of costly damage from catastrophic flooding events as climate change increases the frequency of heavy rains and cumulative precipitation. In addition to increasing flood inundation risk, extreme precipitation events are leading to high rates damage from fluvial erosion—erosion caused by the force of floodwater and the materials it carries. As in all U.S. states, flood hazard governance in Vermont is shared by multiple levels of government and involves a complex compliance model that relies on local governments to regulate private property owners to achieve community, state, or federal goals.

To encourage municipalities to …

Integrating Local Ecology And Human Dimensions To Understand A Tidally Dynamic Ecosystem In Downeast Maine, Gabriella Marafino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal community resilience requires connecting people with useful information that reflects their needs and interests and empowers them to make informed marine resource decisions. In this thesis, I explore how to effectively integrate disparate data from different disciplines and sources to make information more useful and usable at federal, state, tribal, and local levels in order to support more holistic and integrated management. To accomplish this, I draw on different types of knowledge and approaches, including Western science, local ecological knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, and citizen science, to incorporate the social perspective and community values for holistic marine resource management. …

Immigrant’S Personal Network In The Integration Process: A Case Study Of Ghanaian Immigrants’ In The Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, Emmanuel Kojo Kyeremeh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation focuses on the integration of recent immigrants in receiving societies by analyzing their personal networks' contribution to this process. Although migration studies have stressed the importance of relationships or im/migrant networks in different spatial contexts, gaps exist in understanding this phenomenon. Specifically, studies on immigrants' networks' structure and composition that indicate their integration level in the host society is missing within the literature. This research, therefore, contributes to our understanding of personal networks. It considers the structure of immigrants’ network by examining the role of their migration project and context of reception towards developing ties in the host …

Expanding The Boundaries Of Food Policy: The Turn To Equity In New York City, Nevin Cohen, Rositsa Ilieva

Publications and Research

Policymakers acknowledge that the food system is multidimensional and that social determinants affect diet-related health outcomes, yet cities have emphasized programs and policies narrowly connected to food access and nutritional health. Over the past fifteen years, the boundaries of food governance have expanded to include a wider range of issues and domains not previously considered within the purview of food policy, like labor, housing, and education policies. This paper illustrates the processes by which this shift occurs by presenting the case of New York City, which has broadened its food governance to a larger set of issues, requiring cross-sectoral initiatives …

Applying The Food-Energy-Water Nexus Approach To Urban Agriculture: From Few To Fewp (Food-Energy- Water-People), Silvio Caputo, Victoria Schoen, Kathrin Spect, Baptiste Grard, Chris Blythe, Nevin Cohen, Runrid Fox-Kämper, Jason Hawes, Joshua Newell, Lidia Poniży

Publications and Research

Many studies examine the correlation between the use of resources such as water, energy and land, and the production of food. These nexus studies focus predominantly on large scale systems, often considering the social dimensions only in terms of access to resources and participation in the decision- making process, rather than individual attitudes and behaviours with respect to resource use. Such a concept of the nexus is relevant to urban agriculture (UA), but it requires customisation to the particular characteristics of growing food in cities, which is practiced mainly at a small scale and produces not only food but also …

Distinguishing Variability Regimes Of Hawaiian Summer Rainfall: Quasi-Biennial And Interdecadal Oscillations, Xiao Luo, Bin Wang, Abby G. Frazier, Thomas W. Giambelluca

Geography

Summer precipitation in Hawai'i accounts for 40% of the annual total and provides important water sources. However, our knowledge about its variability remains limited. Here we show that statewide Hawai'i summer rainfall (HSR) variability exhibits two distinct regimes: quasi-biennial (QB, ~2 years) and interdecadal (~30–40 years). The QB variation is linked to alternating occurrences of the Western North Pacific (WNP) cyclone and anticyclone in successive years, which is modulated by the intrinsic El Niño–Southern Oscillation biennial variability and involves a positive feedback between atmospheric Rossby waves and underlying sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. The interdecadal variation of HSR is largely …

Opportunities And Challenges Of Geospatial Analysis For Promoting Urban Livability In The Era Of Big Data And Machine Learning, Anna Kovacs-Györi, Alin Ristea, Clemens Havas, Michael Mehaffy, Hartwig H. Hochmair, Bernd Resch, Levente Juhasz, Arthur Lehner, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Thomas Blaschke

GIS Center

Urban systems involve a multitude of closely intertwined components, which are more measurable than before due to new sensors, data collection, and spatio-temporal analysis methods. Turning these data into knowledge to facilitate planning efforts in addressing current challenges of urban complex systems requires advanced interdisciplinary analysis methods, such as urban informatics or urban data science. Yet, by applying a purely data-driven approach, it is too easy to get lost in the ‘forest’ of data, and to miss the ‘trees’ of successful, livable cities that are the ultimate aim of urban planning. This paper assesses how geospatial data, and urban analysis, …

Reviewing Pesticide Impacts On Frogs To Suggest Management Applications In The Gambles Mill Eco-Corridor, Marc Gorman

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

For years, frog populations have been declining due to a variety of anthropogenic sources, including pesticide use. Pesticides work by inhibiting bodily functions in their target pest species, though they frequently have unintentional impacts on other life forms in an ecosystem. Some researchers have evaluated these effects, but their studies mainly focus on finding an LC50 - a concentration that will kill 50% of their test species sample. However, these LC50 levels are often higher than what would be found in nature, and pesticides have been shown to still impact species at lower concentrations. Thus, this study attempted to summarize …

Sustainability In The Fashion Industry: Two Case Studies Highlighting Consumer Purchasing Actions Related To Brand Sustainability, Allison Zhang

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

The rise of competition in the fashion industry has called for companies to differentiate themselves. One way of differentiation that has been seen in recent years is an increase in sustainable and environmentally friendly practices. This paper explores the use of press releases by fashion companies to see if the releases impact the companies’ bottom line. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if sustainability related press releases impact consumers in the United States decision making in purchasing products or supporting certain brands or companies. To conduct this study, yearly and quarterly financial data was collected to find trends …

The Importance Of Environmental Education: Incorporating Sustainability Into The Gen-Ed Curriculum At Ur, Amanda Brosnan

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

Climate change and its effects are increasingly salient issues in our world today, and with these issues, is the imperative of adequate environmental education. As an institution of higher learning, University of Richmond (UR) has the unique potential to equip students with the knowledge and tools to combat the imminent climate crisis. The purpose of this study was to explore the possibility of incorporating sustainability into the General Education Curriculum at UR. To accomplish this, three sources of data were analyzed. The core of this study was based on an examination of the ongoing reformation of the General Education curriculum …

Pollinator Habitat On The University Of Richmond Campus: Assessing The Success Of Pollinator Meadows In The Gambles Mill Eco-Corridor, Mary Berner

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

Globally, many insect pollinator populations are declining in response to anthropogenic harms including habitat loss due to land-use change and urbanization, climate change, increasing pesticide use, invasive species introductions, and increased pathogen transmission. In order to protect these insects, and the benefits they provide through pollination, habitat must be protected. Much of the effort to protect insect pollinator habitat is occurring in urban areas, where pollinators may struggle to find the resources they need to survive. The purpose of this study was to assess the success of three pollinator meadows created within the Gambles Mill Eco-Corridor (Eco-Corridor) on the University …

Oil, Climate Change, And Human Rights: A Case Study Of Norway With Comparative Analysis, Kate Sjovold

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

The Arctic region is simultaneously facing profound, negative ecological impacts of climate change and is also subject to expanding oil and gas exploration and extraction. Facing a critical decision involving Arctic oil expansion, Norway is contending with its position as a global leader in the environmental movement and its historic and continued economic reliance on the oil and gas industry. This research contextualizes Norway within the Arctic region, discusses Norway as a petroleum exporting country, and addresses how value and identity play a role in environmental policy creation. Recent human rights-based climate change litigation in Norway, People v. Arctic Oil, …

A Novel Spatio-Temporal Examination Of Children's Accessibility, Exposure, And Engagement To Parks And Recreation Spaces In Middlesex-London, Ontario, Malcolm K. Little

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Children are spending more free time engaged in activities indoors, rather than in outdoor environments such as parks and recreation spaces. Parks and recreation spaces provide amenities that promote physical, cognitive, and social health among children. As it relates to the complexities of children’s living situations, properly measuring children’s levels of interactions with these spaces is poorly understood in geography research.

By examining various attributes of children, this thesis improves on the measurement of children’s levels of interactions with parks and recreation spaces. Research herein utilized household survey data, a high-resolution GIS dataset of environmental factors, and GPS logs from …

Deepmapper : Automatic Updating Crowdsourced Maps, Lasith Niroshan Hewa Manage, James Carswell

Other

To get accurate information returned from location-based services (e.g., LBS info on nearby restaurants, retail outlets, points-of-interest, etc.), the underlying map (spatial data) must be up-to-date. However, the built environment (e.g., roads, buildings, bike paths, etc.) can change quickly over time, either through planned developments or as the result of natural/manmade disasters. The problem is that keeping online crowdsourced maps like Open Street Map (OSM) updated is still very much a manual process. As such, it can take considerable time to sync the online maps used by LBS with up-to-date spatial data in "real-time".

Our case study considers the Grangegorman …

Brazil, Big Hydro, And A Beautiful Monster: “Green” Energy Generation In The Xingu River Basin, Ian F. Hirons

Student Works

Brazil is quickly becoming an influential actor on the world stage of geopolitics. The nation has achieved global economic and environmental recognition due to the extensive development of its hydrological resources in the form of hydroelectric power plants. As the world’s second greatest generator of hydroelectricity, Brazil has proven a staunch adherence to building dams in the large-scale. Though these dams have brought electricity to millions of people across the country, the socio-ecological toll inflicted by their construction has been devastating to natural biomes and local inhabitants. This article traces Brazil’s proclivity for large-scale hydropower to four motivational categories often …

An Assessment Of The Hydrological Trends Using Synergistic Approaches Of Remote Sensing And Model Evaluations Over Global Arid And Semi-Arid Regions, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Rejoice Thomas, Surya Prakash Tiwari, Karuppasamy Manikandan, Thomas Piechota, Daniele Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Drylands cover about 40% of the world’s land area and support two billion people, most of them living in developing countries that are at risk due to land degradation. Over the last few decades, there has been warming, with an escalation of drought and rapid population growth. This will further intensify the risk of desertification, which will seriously affect the local ecological environment, food security and people’s lives. The goal of this research is to analyze the hydrological and land cover characteristics and variability over global arid and semi-arid regions over the last decade (2010–2019) using an integrative approach of …

Erratum: Upcyclingphosphorus Recovered From Anaerobically Digesteddairy Manure To Support Production Of Vegetables And Flowers (Sustainability 2020, 12, 1139), Katherine K. Porterfield, Robert Joblin, Deborah A. Neher, Michael Curtis, Steve Dvorak, Donna M. Rizzo, Joshua W. Faulkner, Eric D. Roy

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

The authors would like to make the following correction for the published paper [1]. The changes are as follows: (1) Replacing Figure 4 (Figure presented).

Assessing The Vulnerability Of Monterey Bay Area Seniors To Covid-19, Ethan A. Quaranta, Gerhard L. Gross

Culture, Society, and Praxis

This paper assesses the vulnerability of seniors residing in the Monterey Bay Tri-County Region to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to weakened immune systems, seniors are the most at-risk members of our community to COVID-19, and have a death rate that is three times higher than the overall death rate to COVID-19. Using standard ambulance response times from each hospital throughout the area, our objective is to determine what proportion of Tri-County seniors aged 65 and over, including those who are in nursing homes, are living independently, and cannot afford health care, were within an adequate travel time to the hospital. …

Healthy Diets Can Create Environmental Trade-Offs, Depending On How Diet Quality Is Measured, Zach Conrad, Nicole Tichenor Blackstone, Eric D. Roy

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Background: There is an urgent need to assess the linkages between diet patterns and environmental sustainability in order to meet global targets for reducing premature mortality and improving sustainable management of natural resources. This study fills an important research gap by evaluating the relationship between incremental differences in diet quality and multiple environmental burdens, while also accounting for the separate contributions of retail losses, inedible portions, and consumer waste. Methods: Cross sectional, nationally-representative data on food intake in the United States were acquired from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005–2016), and were linked with nationally-representative data on food …

A Methodological Framework To Evaluate Community Perceptions Of Economic And Safety Impacts Attributed To Highway Bypass And Widening Projects, Karla Diaz-Corro

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Transportation practitioners have proposed the construction of highway bypass and widening projects in rural communities to address traffic-related problems that include noise pollution and congestion, among others. In the past, the construction of bypass projects has led community residents to raise concerns about potential decreases in business activity for businesses located along the bypassed road. For transportation organizations, it is essential to understand the economic, social, and safety impacts of transportation projects in terms of public perceptions as public input is a required part of the project planning phase. Moreover, it is recommended that agencies perform retrospective analyses of project …

Visualizing A Post-Apocalypse: Notes On New Ayoreo Cinema, Lucas Bessire, Bernard Belisário

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This essay describes one recent Ayoreo film and its production in order to reflect on the wider significance of lowland South American Indigenous cinema and analyses of it today. Informed by the authors’ roles in the collaborative editing of the film Ujirei, the article details how one Ayoreo filmmaker cinematically visualizes a unique aesthetic response to the aftermath of pandemic upheavals and world-ending violence – a response that pointedly exceeds any prescriptive or structuralist approach to lowland Indigenous cinema. In order to better grasp the subjective, conceptual and political implications of this project, the essay aims to craft an analytic …

Uniformity In Place-Making: How A Focus On Image And Tradition Can Restrict Personal Expression And Repress Queer Identities, Julia Funk

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

This study looked at the University of Richmond campus, a campus built in a collegiate gothic style of and comprised of uniform buildings and highly managed landscaping. Specifically, it surveyed queer students at UR to ask about their experiences and feelings being on the UR campus. The survey found that a majority of the 44 surveyed students felt pressure to be or act straight, felt there was a lack of queer visibility on campus, felt most uncomfortable in the settings such as the Business School and Greek Life locations and most comfortable in personal housing. Overall, students liked how the …

Mapping Ghost Towns In The Santa Cruz Mountains, Sarah Christine Brewer

GSP Projects

This project identifies areas of archaeological sensitivity for historic resources related to the segment of the South Pacific Coast Railroad that spanned from Los Gatos to Glenwood in the steep terrain of the Santa Cruz Mountains in Central California. The rail line was only in use for 60 years (1880-1940) until the completion of a major highway drew travelers to greater automobile use. During the construction and operation of the rail line, small towns sprouted at the railroad stops, most of which were abandoned along with the rail line in 1940. Some of these towns are now inundated by reservoirs. …

College Of Natural Sciences 2020 Year-End Publication, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

This is the inaugural issue of the College of Natural Sciences' year-end publication.

Contents:

[Page] 4 COVID-19 Response
[Page] 6 Student Success
[Page] 8 Faculty Excellence
[Page] 10 Awards and Recognition