Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Flow Of Power: Addressing Asymmetric Flood Risk In The Upper Valley, Eric Vr Hryniewicz

Geography Undergraduate Senior Theses

Floods are the most damaging natural disasters in America. Land use change in upland watersheds can increase the probability and severity of floods (Bronstert, Niehoff, & Burger, 2002). When watersheds are divided by political and private property boundaries it leads to a misalignment of incentives in which downstream users lack recourse for upstream land use decisions contributing to flood risk. In this thesis, researchers interrogate the attributes of town officials and towns that determine what motivates town governments to act on flooding and what motivates and enables town officials to collaborate on planning and how do they collaborate in practice. …

The Role Of Physical Geographic Features In Video Games, Dexter Ferguson

Theses

This thesis examines how physical geographic features affect individuals when interacting with video game environments. There are very few studies on the geography of video games. I aim to bridge the gap between game studies and geography, a naturally occurring link. The observation of elements such as the geography of an area is critical when exploring an individual’s perception of a video game environment. Individuals interact with the geography of their location on a day-to-day basis, whether it be physical or human geography; how they can relate a video game’s geography to the real world dramatically affects their immersion. An …

Wilderness And The Geotag: Exploring The Claim That "Geotagging Ruins Nature" In The Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Wa, Mara Gans

All Master's Theses

This research explores the claim that “geotagging ruins nature” by quantifying and qualifying patterns in geotag use and visitors’ experiences in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, in Washington, United States. Many have raised concerns that geotags increase recreational visitation to public lands, which subsequently contributes to negative resource impacts. Others, however, claim that geotagging has made the outdoors more accessible to less privileged communities and raise concerns that condemning geotags will perpetuate the exclusion of certain groups from outdoor recreation. This debate is studied within federally designated Wilderness, which is legally defined as “untrammeled by man,” a definition rooted in problematic …

Geolocation Of Monitoring Wells Using Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Joel Deyoung

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Groundwater monitoring wells are commonly installed on a property as part of an environmental investigation to observe hydrological subsurface conditions, facilitate the collection of groundwater samples, and predict the flow of groundwater across a site. In addition to their installation, monitoring wells should be surveyed or mapped as accurately as possible. Traditional surveying techniques have employed the use of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) technologies or other surveying equipment. A common surveying approach is to use real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS to accurately measure the coordinates of each monitoring well on the site.In recent years, drones, or small unmanned aircraft systems …

Association Between Stream Impairment By Mercury And Superfund Sites In The Conterminous Usa, Karessa L. Manning

Masters Theses

Mercury is a natural element that can cause harm to the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system, especially to fetuses developing in the womb. Many natural and anthropogenic factors contribute to mercury in the environment, such as geologic deposits, landfills, gold and silver mining operations, cement production, and atmospheric deposition. Mercury has been identified as a contaminant of concern at many National Priority List (NPL) sites, however, studies on contamination at NPL sites are often only conducted on a local level. This study was to analyze the potential connection between mercury-contaminated NPL sites and the presence of mercury impaired …

Snow-Albedo Feedback In Northern Alaska: How Vegetation Influences Snowmelt, Lucas C. Reckhaus

Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates how the snow-albedo feedback mechanism of the arctic is changing in response to rising climate temperatures. Specifically, the interplay of vegetation and snowmelt, and how these two variables can be correlated. This has the potential to refine climate modelling of the spring transition season. Research was conducted at the ecoregion scale in northern Alaska from 2000 to 2020. Each ecoregion is defined by distinct topographic and ecological conditions, allowing for meaningful contrast between the patterns of spring albedo transition across surface conditions and vegetation types. The five most northerly ecoregions of Alaska are chosen as they encompass …

A Modeling Framework For Urban Growth Prediction Using Remote Sensing And Video Prediction Technologies: A Time-Dependent Convolutional Encoder-Decoder Architecture, Ahmed Hassan Jaad

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Studying the growth pattern of cities/urban areas has received considerable attention during the past few decades. The goal is to identify directions and locations of potential growth, assess infrastructure and public service requirements, and ensure the integration of the new developments with the existing city structure. This dissertation presents a novel model for urban growth prediction using a novel machine learning model. The model treats successive historical satellite images of the urban area under consideration as a video for which future frames are predicted. A time-dependent convolutional encoder-decoder architecture is adopted. The model considers as an input a satellite image …

Using Historical Maps For Contaminated Site Identification And Prediction, And Environmental Justice Implications: A Case Study In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dana Heusinkveld

Masters Theses

As the production of synthetic chemicals has grown in the past centuries to increase production, lower costs, and generally make our lives more convenient, detecting and understanding the environmental impacts of these compounds has lagged significantly behind their mass production and wide-spread use. To combat this trend, sources of these contaminants, especially those that have been removed from the landscape, need to be quickly identified to make mitigation and remediation efforts more effective. In this study, historical Sanborn maps are used to extract and digitize historical site/land use in Grand Rapids during the early 1900s through the practical application of …

Kitchen Chronicles And Crude Expectations: Understanding Everyday Life In The Upper Ecuadorian Amazon, Emily A. Babb

Senior Theses

My thesis examines the everyday life of my Ecuadorian, Kichwa host family in an attempt to better understand how, if at all, they interact with and think about oil companies on a regular basis. In this way, I attempted to supplement the current literature, which tends to focus on the large, contentious interactions between indigenous people and the petroleum industry. It was my hope to expand the understanding of their identities both within and outside the context of oil and to show the complexity of their relationship with petroleum companies.

Living Rivers, Cosmopolitan Activism, And Environmental Justice In The Bengal Delta, Daniel Adel

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis explores the social movements and civil society activism to protect the rivers that flow through Bangladesh—the cradle and terminal delta floodplain of the transboundary Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna river systems—, as well as ways to build regional cooperation and watershed democracy in South Asia. The research drew on four overarching fields of study: environmental justice, southern environmentalism, ecological nationalism, and environmental governance. These four bodies of scholarship helped address the overarching question: how are civil society organizations analyzing and responding to the water diversions and degradation of Bangladesh’s transboundary rivers? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with civil society organizations …

The Influence Of Northern Hemisphere Teleconnections On The Geography Of Pacific Tropical Cyclone Genesis, Nicholas Ray Adkins

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The research in this thesis used statistical and spatial analysis methods to test the influence of six Northern Hemisphere teleconnection patterns on the latitude and longitude components of tropical cyclogenesis occurring in the eastern and western North Pacific Ocean basins for the period 1979-2016. The Pacific-North American (PNA), West Pacific (WP), El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) teleconnection patterns were examined independently and in combination for association with variations in cyclogenesis geography. Four of the six teleconnection patterns were found to exert an influence on cyclogenesis latitude and/or longitude in …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Snowpack And Groundwater Across Utah Watersheds., Samuel Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examined what type of relationship existed between snow water equivalence (SWE) volume and groundwater elevation within six sub-watersheds in Utah. Data was gathered on SWE from seventeen SNOTEL sites and groundwater elevation data was gathered from six continuously monitored groundwater wells. This data was gathered for January through May for 2011, 2013, and 2014 in order to represent the water conditions that were above average, below average, and average respectively. Using MLR formulas the total SWE for each sub-watershed was determined for each year/month. Afterwards a correlation analysis was performed to determine if any association existed between SWE …

An Analysis Of The Patterns Of Crime And Socioeconomic Status Visualized Through Self-Organized Maps, Jason Carlin Kaufman

Masters Theses

This work is research to explore the association of spatial patterns between crime and socioeconomic status (SES) through the use of self-organized maps (SOM). It had been found that the spatial patterns of crime could be associated with those of socioeconomic, and this work sought to further these analyses in order to better understand how crime patterns and SES were related. To explore this association, patterns of crime and SES were examined in three cities: Nashville, TN; Portland, OR; and Tucson, AZ. Three SOMs were used in each city: one to analyze the patterns of crime, a second to analyze …

The Application Of Geographic Information Technology And Ground-Penetrating Radar In The Study Of The Evolution Of The Charles River Basin, Lars E. Anderas

Graduate Masters Theses

A two-part study was conducted on the evolution of the shoreline of the Charles River basin on a city-wide scale as well as in finer detail in Magazine Beach Park, along the Cambridge shore of the river. Both parts of the study utilized geographic information technology (GIT) to integrate and analyze data from modern and historical sources, including maps, digital elevation models (DEMs), and orthographic and oblique photography. The city-scale portion of the study produced estimates of the total area of new land made within the study area since Boston's founding in 1630, 14.3 km², of which 6.5 …

The Educational Training Of Storm Chasers And Storm Spotters In Relation To Geographical Dispersion Across The United States, Paul R. Zunkel

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

When severe weather strikes, storm chasers and storm spotters confirm that what forecasters and meteorologists are seeing on a radar screen is actually occurring in the field. While some documenters are classically trained (i.e. they have a background in atmospheric science and or meteorology attained from a 4 year university) many others are not. There are currently two organizations available for the weather enthusiast to be a part of, SKYWARN and SpotterNetwork. These organizations give weather enthusiasts a background knowledge into severe weather; however, many weather enthusiasts are not classically trained and most have not taken any formal education in …

Variations In Vulnerability To Climate Change In Southeast Asia, Kelsey Margaret Allard

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Geography Of Pestecide Exposure In The Lower Valley (El Paso County, Texas), Critina Solis Sanchez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Previous studies using GIS have been used to understand the demographics of particular areas of a city and the risks associated with living there. In the Lower Valley (Socorro, Clint, and San Elizario) area of El Paso County (TX), there has been a rapid growth in population. This increase in growth has led to this project about the types of pesticides used in farms and if they are creating possible health risks for people living in this area and which populations are most at risk. To determine population risk, I use existing GIS information, specifically a USDA aerial photograph taken …

Gully Evolution In The Upper Delaware River Basin Northeastern Kansas, Iona L. Meyer

Student Work

A small gully network developed across a pasture in the Dissected Till Plain of northeastern Kansas was monitored for one year to assess gully evolution in non-loessial materials. The objectives of this investigation were to identify stable and unstable drainage elements within the gully network; identify zones of net erosion and deposition; estimate the volume of sediment removed or deposited during the monitoring period; determine rates of headcut advancement; determine processes that advance and widen gullies, and to determine the historic development of the gully network.

Portions of the gully network were measured after every rain event exceeding 1.5 cm …

Topographical Surveying, Nelson D. Brayton

Manuscript Thesis Collection

A study of the use of surveying and topography to develop maps.