Geography Commons^™

Use Of Remote Imagery And Object-Based Image Methods To Count Plants In An Open-Field Container Nursery, Josue Nahun Leiva

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In general, the nursery industry lacks an automated inventory control system. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) software and aerial images could be used to count plants in nurseries. The objectives of this research were: 1) to evaluate the effect of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight altitude and plant canopy separation of container-grown plants on count accuracy using aerial images and 2) to evaluate the effect of plant canopy shape, presence of flowers, and plant status (living and dead) on counting accuracy of container-grown plants using remote sensing images. Images were analyzed using Feature Analyst® (FA) and an algorithm trained using …

Landscape Genetics Of The American Badger: Understanding Challenges In Elusive Species, Elizabeth Marie Kierepka

Theses and Dissertations

American badgers are one of the most poorly understood carnivores in North America due to their highly elusive, semifossorial lifestyle. To complicate understanding their biology further, badgers possess life history characteristics that predict radically different responses to habitat heterogeneity. In particular, they are considered grassland specialists, so their movement and population viability could be highly dependent on grassland habitats. Badgers are also highly mobile, which suggests they experience high gene flow. Predicting how these life history traits impact gene flow, however, is difficult based on the high diversity in responses to landscape heterogeneity among carnivores. To assess how landscape heterogeneity …

Applications Of A New Geodata Crawler For Landscape Ecology: From Mapping Natural Stream Hydrology To Monitoring Endangered Beetles, Douglas Ryan Leasure

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An investigation of endangered American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) ecology led to development of a Geodata Crawler with applications in eco-hydrology. Geodata Crawler includes a national GIS (geospatial information systems) database with layers that quantify climate, land cover, soils, human development, and other attributes of the biosphere. For user-locations in the continental United States, Geodata Crawler can rapidly tabulate site-specific statistics within automatically delineated sample areas: points, site radii, watersheds, and riparian zones, among others. Geodata Crawler supported a multi-scale analysis of N. americanus habitat at a military installation in western Arkansas to produce a Landsat-based monitoring tool. Royle's N-mixture …

Automatic Extraction Of Plots From Geo-Registered Uas Imagery Of Crop Fields With Complex Planting Schemes, Anthony A. Hearst

Open Access Theses

Complex planting schemes are common in experimental crop fields and can make it difficult to extract plots of interest from high-resolution imagery of the fields gathered by Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). This prevents UAS imagery from being applied in High-Throughput Precision Phenotyping and other areas of agricultural research. If the imagery is accurately geo-registered, then it may be possible to extract plots from the imagery based on their map coordinates. To test this approach, a UAS was used to acquire visual imagery of 5 ha of soybean fields containing 6.0 m2 plots in a complex planting scheme. Sixteen artificial targets …

Habitat Preferences Of The Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles Minor) In Cities And Villages In Southeastern Wisconsin, Jana M. Viel

Theses and Dissertations

Limited survey data and numerous anecdotal accounts indicate that the Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) is experiencing population declines in Wisconsin. However, the magnitude of the decline is unclear because current avian monitoring efforts are not conducted at dusk when Common Nighthawks are most active nor do they specifically target urban areas such as cities and villages where Common Nighthawks are known to nest on flat graveled rooftops. New urban, crepuscular monitoring methods are needed in order to gain a better understanding of current Common Nighthawk demographics in Wisconsin.

The goal of this thesis was to conduct a baseline study using …

Use Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uav) For Urban Tree Inventories, Brian Ritter

All Theses

In contrast to standard aerial imagery, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) utilize recent technological advances to provide an affordable alternative for imagery acquisition. Increased value can be realized through clarity and detail providing higher resolution (2-5 cm) over traditional products. Many natural resource disciplines such as urban forestry will benefit from UAS. Tree inventories for risk assessment, biodiversity, planning, and design can be efficiently achieved with the UAS. Recent advances in photogrammetric processing have proved automated methods for three dimensional rendering of aerial imagery. Point clouds can be generated from images providing additional benefits. Association of spatial locational information within the …

Spreading The Char: The Importance Of Local Compatibility In The Diffusion Of Biochar Systems To The Smallholder Agriculture Community Context, Laura C. V. Munoz

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis enters the context of smallholder agriculture communities in the developing world. It explores the potentials of biochar and what biochar systems could bring to the smallholder communities while simultaneously bringing environmental benefits. It then acknowledges the challenges of diffusion –the spreading of an unfamiliar innovation. It seeks to answer the question of what will make diffusion of biochar systems more successful in the smallholder context, fixating on the characteristic of compatibility as well as the role local community members can play in making a new biochar system more visible to the rest of the communities.

Impacts Of Spatial, Environmental, And Compositional Differences On Community-Level Flowering Phenology, Isaac William Park

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates three important topics related to flowering phenology throughout the United States. First, this work evaluates the utility of herbarium records for estimating historical variation in community-level flowering phenology, and evaluate the relationship of such estimates to satellite-derived greenup timing at regional scales. This dissertation then reconstructs historical variations in flowering phenology throughout the spring, summer, and autumn across South Carolina for the years 1951 through 2009. These estimates will then be compared to seasonal temperature variations throughout this period. Finally, this dissertation develops novel herbarium-based methods to separate intraspecific phenological variations over space from changes in flowering …

"Nature Is Pushing One Way And People Are Pushing The Other": A Political Ecology Of Forest Transitions In Western Montgomery County, Pa, Megan Elizabeth Maccaroni

Environment and Sustainability Honors Papers

Forests in Southeastern Pennsylvania have been shaped by a number of anthropocentric factors over the past century, with many areas experiencing a recent trend towards forest recovery. Studies on forest dynamics have shown that most developed regions exhibit a forest transition, which begins when land is cleared for natural resource extraction (e.g., agriculture, forestry) during an early development stage. Then as a population grows and food production needs are met, rural peoples begin to migrate to the city, and a feeling of scarcity of trees develops that may lead to changes in land management attitudes, and many formerly deforested areas …

Salmonid Habitat Restoration On The Chocolay River, Michigan, Ross J. Crawford

Masters Theses

This project seeks to improve salmonid habitat quality by improving riparian vegetation on the adjacent banks (from toe to terrace) on the Chocolay River in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Quantities of large woody debris (LWD) were also analyzed to determine the heterogeneityof stream habitats, or channel roughness. Percentages of rock, gravel, sand, and silt were analyzed to determine spawning habitat quality. As the proportions of fines (

Application Of An Imputation Method For Geospatial Inventory Of Forest Structural Attributes Across Multiple Spatial Scales In The Lake States, U.S.A., Ram K. Deo

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Credible spatial information characterizing the structure and site quality of forests is critical to sustainable forest management and planning, especially given the increasing demands and threats to forest products and services. Forest managers and planners are required to evaluate forest conditions over a broad range of scales, contingent on operational or reporting requirements. Traditionally, forest inventory estimates are generated via a design-based approach that involves generalizing sample plot measurements to characterize an unknown population across a larger area of interest. However, field plot measurements are costly and as a consequence spatial coverage is limited. Remote sensing technologies have shown remarkable …

Beyond Roots Alone: Novel Methodologies For Analyzing Complex Soil And Minirhizotron Imagery Using Image Processing And Gis Tools, Justina A. Silva

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Quantifying belowground dynamics is critical to our understanding of plant and ecosystem function and belowground carbon cycling, yet currently available tools for complex belowground image analyses are insufficient. We introduce novel techniques combining digital image processing tools and geographic information systems (GIS) analysis to permit semi-automated analysis of complex root and soil dynamics. We illustrate methodologies with imagery from microcosms, minirhizotrons, and a rhizotron, in upland and peatland soils. We provide guidelines for correct image capture, a method that automatically stitches together numerous minirhizotron images into one seamless image, and image analysis using image segmentation and classification in SPRING or …

Fire Type Classification In The Brazilian Tropical Moist Forest Biome, Sanath Kumar Sathyachandran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Brazilian Tropical Moist Forest Biome (BTMFB) is “Earth’s greatest biological treasure and a major component of the earth system” and forest degradation and deforestation by fire is a serious issue in this region. Fires in the BTMFB can be broadly classified as maintenance, deforestation and forest fire types. Spatially and temporally explicit information on the incidences of fire types are important as they have widely varying atmospheric emissions and ecological impacts. Satellite based remote sensing is a practical means of monitoring the BTMFB that spans almost 4 million km2. However, there has been no way to reliably …

Biomechanical Effects Of Trees And Soil Thickness In The Cumberland Plateau, Michael Shouse

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Previous research in the Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas suggests that, on relatively thin soils overlying bedrock, individual trees locally thicken the regolith by root penetration into bedrock. However, that work was conducted mainly in areas of strongly dipping and contorted rock, where joints and bedding planes susceptible to root penetration are more common and accessible. This project extended this concept to the Cumberland Plateau, Kentucky, with flat, level-bedded sedimentary rocks. Spatial variability of soil thickness was quantified at three nested spatial scales, and statistical relationships with other potential influences of thickness were examined. In addition, soil depth beneath trees was compared …

Natural Phenomena As Potential Influence On Social And Political Behavior: The Earth’S Magnetic Field, Jackie R. East

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

Researchers use natural phenomena in a number of disciplines to help explain human behavioral outcomes. Research regarding the potential effects of magnetic fields on animal and human behavior indicates that fields could influence outcomes of interest to social scientists. Tests so far have been limited in scope. This work is a preliminary evaluation of whether the earth’s magnetic field influences human behavior it examines the baseline relationship exhibited between geomagnetic readings and a host of social and political outcomes. The emphasis on breadth of topical coverage in these statistical trials, rather than on depth of development for any one model, …

Sustainability Policy’S Inherent Dilemmas – Exemplified Via Critical Examination Of The Las Vegas Metropolitan Sustainability Campaign, Kathryn A. Zimmerman

All Master's Theses

In response to a dual problem of critical water scarcity and rapid population growth, leaders of metropolitan Las Vegas implemented a region-wide, internationally marketed sustainability campaign. Preliminary studies found that, while sustainability policy attains its rhetorical goals, solutions initiated not only perpetuate but also purposefully expand the original dual problem to justify continuous water resource acquisitions. To examine this sustainability conundrum constructed by leadership—problem-perpetuation rather than problem-resolution—a critical examination in resource management asked two basic questions: what is being sustained and by what means? Via this inquiry, specific processes by which leaders perpetuate problems can be identified; and, so-informed, new …

Kingswood Lake Management Plan, Sarah Martina Tierney

Honors Theses and Capstones

High water quality and natural buffers exist on Kingswood Lake located in Brookfield, New Hampshire. A comprehensive lakes inventory (CSI) was recorded and health of the land, wildlife, and waterways were observed. Educational outreach was taken to inform the local community and to instruct them on proper stewardship of the land. A completed watershed management plan was constructed including key recommendation of limiting nitrogen loading in the area, checking septic systems for leaching, stabilizing shoreline from erosion, and establishing man-made rain gardens to help preserve water quality. The Kingswood watershed management plan acts as a guide for the town of …