Geography Commons^™

Use Of Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle (Drones) Based Remote Sensing To Model Platform Topography And Identify Human-Made Earthen Barriers In Salt Marshes, Joshua J. Ward

Masters Theses

Elevation is a foundational driver of salt marsh morphology. Elevation governs inundation and hydrological patterns, vegetation distribution, and soil health. Anthropogenic impacts at grand scales (e.g., rising sea levels) and local scales (e.g., infrastructure) have altered the elevation of the salt marsh surface, changing the topography and morphology of these ecosystems. This study establishes and assesses means to document and analyze these impacts using Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based remote sensing to model platform topography. This thesis’s first and primary study presents and compares methods of producing high-resolution digital terrain models (DTMs) with UAV-based Digital Aerial Photogrammetry (DAP) and Light …

Public-Ish, Aliah Werth

Masters Theses

Climate change affects public space, and architecture must establish tenets that prioritize pedestrians in this difficult era. Greywater re-use can be a mechanism for creating shade, and in turn, public space.

As heat waves grow more intense, the vast swaths of asphalt that connect commercial zones pose greater risks to public health and to urban vitality. This thesis records the typical material, spatial, and lived conditions of strip malls in urban heat islands, and demands more from infrastructure in public-ish space.

Heat violence weaves through Los Angeles’ built form. Parking space minimums, required setbacks, and height restrictions pull buildings away …

Reintroducing Hemp (Rongony) In The Material Palette Of Madagascar: A Study On The Potential Of Hemp Clay Components And Its Impact On Social And Ecological Communities., Henintsoa Thierry Andrianambinina

Masters Theses

When mentioning the word hemp, especially in the local language of Madagascar, the literal translation does not set it apart from marijuana, as they are both called “rongony” - creating the stigma around hemp as the negative stereotype of marijuana. However, the material has been used by the ancestors of Madagascar, as well as across cultures, in its fibrous form to produce fabrication like textile goods and packaging. During colonization, the prohibition of hemp intensified, and since then, any activity related to either of these plants is prohibited and will end in severe punitive measures. This thesis explores the strengths …

Modeling Spatial Distributions Of Tidal Marsh Blue Carbon Using Morphometric Parameters From Lidar, Bonnie Turek

Masters Theses

Tidal marshes serve as important “blue carbon” ecosystems that accrete large amounts of carbon with limited area. While much attention has been paid to the spatial variability of sedimentation within salt marshes, less work has been done to characterize spatial variability in marsh carbon density. Driven by tidal inundation, surface topography, and sediment supply, soil properties in marshes vary spatially with several parameters, including marsh platform elevation and proximity to the marsh edge and tidal creek network. We used lidar to extract these morphometric parameters from tidal marshes to map soil organic carbon (SOC) at the meter scale. Fixed volume …

Algorithm Performance On The Estimation Of Cdom And Doc In The North Slopes Of Alaska, Monica Weisenbach

Masters Theses

Use of satellite imagery makes environmental monitoring easy and convenient with little of the logistics involved in planning sampling campaigns. Colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is an important component to track as a proxy for the large pool of dissolved organic carbon (DOC). In a world contending with the looming issue of global climate change, the ability to investigate the carbon cycle of inland to coastal environments allows for examination of the magnitude of carbon flowing through the system and potential changes over years. The Arctic region is a critical area for climate change impacts but is a difficult landscape …

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 …

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 …

Analysis Of Interdunal Wetlands And Ecosystem Dynamics Using Uas And Obia In Ludington State Park, Michigan, Claire Gilbert

Masters Theses

The Great Lakes sand dunes are the world's largest freshwater dune complex. There is a functional relationship between coastal wetlands and freshwater sand dune, referred to as interdunal wetlands. Interdunal wetland systems are highly dynamic and change dramatically seasonally and annually. Using geographic information systems (GIS) and unoccupied aerial systems (UAS), this thesis project is focused on understanding the spatial distribution of sparse and dense vegetation, and abiotic influence such as distance to coast, slope, and aspect influence interdunal wetland stability within a Great Lakes shoreline dune system. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) classification results extracted meaningful vegetation densities of growth …

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 …

A Multidimensional Analysis Of The Great Green Wall: The Environmental And Social Effects Of Reafforestation In Senegal, Anna Eugenia Alsobrook

Masters Theses

The north-central region of Senegal is home to the Great Green Wall (GGW)—a reafforestation project aimed at restoring decades–old, degraded land conditions by establishing tree belts and community gardens. Its presence on the ground has changed the local landscape and altered the social institutions governing the daily lives of the people it aims to protect.

My study is an in-progress assessment of the GGW towards its two major goals: 1) improving the lives of the people of the Sahel and increasing their capacity to adapt to climate change and drought, and 2) improving the state of the ecosystem and increasing …

No Fracking Way! A Study On The Spatial Patterns Of And Changes In Perception And Distance From A Michigan Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing Site, Shannon Mcewen

Masters Theses

The research investigates whether Michigan residents' perception of risk from an oil and natural gas (ONG) well site that employs the use of horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) changes with distance. The research goal is to determine if residents that live farther from a fracking site perceive it to be more dangerous than those who live closer. Secondary research goals include determining if increasing distance from a fracking site cause residents to overestimate their proximity to a fracking site and if gender and education levels have an effect on residents' perception levels. Data were collected from residents in three counties in …

Public Land In A Changing Climate: Planning For An Uncertain Future, Kathleen Marie Hauser

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates the ways in which institutions and actors consider climate change, and how the inclusion of diverse perspectives and challenges in the planning process shapes climate change governance. In particular, I asked how the participants, place-specific contexts, and decision-making processes affect environmental decision-making in Alaska’s National Parks. I discuss the literature on geographical perspectives on climate change, environmental and climate change governance, how uncertainty and risk affect decision-making in the context of climate change, and the history of land use management in the United States. This project incorporates qualitative methods to research the Climate Change Scenario Planning project …

Spatial Discrepancies Between Nhdplus And Lidar-Derived Stream Networks, Nicole Marie Samu

Masters Theses

Many organizations demand that current water resource issues necessitate improved stream network mapping for more accurate and reliable watershed analysis and modeling results, which can ultimately enable better management and policy decisions. Stream network data from the National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlus) and derived from Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) are each widely accepted to be of superior quality compared to many other conventional datasets. Each dataset indicates potential to improve a wide range of water resource applications; NHDPlus for its high spatial accuracy and functionality, and LIDAR-derived networks for their high resolutions. NHDPlus is publicly available and widely used; …

The Effects Of Land-Use Change On The Hydrological Properties Of Andisols In The Ecuadorian Paramo, James Joseph Hartsig

Masters Theses

The Ecuadorian páramo is characterized by unique soil properties that allow the ground to hold large amounts of water. These páramo grasslands support Andean cities and communities as a source of water for municipal, industrial, and agricultural use. Although recent research has suggested that changes in land use can decrease the amount of water and affect the water-holding capabilities of the soil, the hydrologic effects of different land uses, including burning for livestock grazing and pine planting for carbon credits, are currently under debate.

This research tested hypotheses about moisture-related properties of páramo soils under different land uses at two …

A Vegetation History From Emerald Pond, Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas, Based On Pollen Analysis, Ian Arthur Slayton

Masters Theses

Emerald Pond (26° 32' 12" N, 77° 06' 32" W) is a vertical-walled solution hole in the pine rocklands of Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas. In 2006, Sally Horn, Ken Orvis, and students recovered an 8.7 m-long sediment core from the center of the pond using a Colinvaux-Vohnout locking piston corer. AMS radiocarbon dates on macrofossils are in stratigraphic order and indicate that the sequence extends to ca. 8400 cal yr BP. Basal deposits consist of aeolian sands topped by a soil and then pond sediment, suggesting that the site began as a sheltered, dry hole during a Late Pleistocene …

Location Analysis Of The Recycling Drop Off Program In Knox County, Tennessee, Carol Michelle Donoghue

Masters Theses

This study examines the drop-off recycling program in Knox County, Tennessee, in order to evaluate the convenience of the drop-off site locations. Measures of convenience were distance, level of recycling participation, and location of the site. Surveys were administered to 461 individuals participating in the program at the three Convenience Centers with drop-off recycling facilities. The spatial analysis compared the drop-off locations to the development patterns of the surrounding area.

The survey results indicate that more people are recycling now than before the beginning of the drop-off program. More than half of those surveyed recycle at least once a week …

The Resource Base For Water-Oriented Recreational Areas In Coles And Cumberland Counties, Roger J. Barry

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.