Geography Commons^™

The Garden Is Always Greener..., Billy Hall

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

This essay builds upon a case study of community gardening in Miami to explore the extent to which these gardens are contributing to, and possibly triggering, processes of gentrification within low to lower-middle income neighborhoods. Through a literature review of recent urban planning policy and development in Miami and relevant discourse on the neoliberalization of food, food politics, food justice activism, and gentrification, I situate Miami’s gardens within a complex, multi-scalar web of ideas and processes. I show how the interaction of these forces, varying dramatically with respect to place, is implicit in the motivations for each garden’s development and …

Land Use/Land Cover Change And Its Hydrological Impacts From 1984 To 2010 In The Little River Watershed, Tennessee, Chunhao Zhu

Masters Theses

Land use/land cover (LULC) change, especially the conversion from farmland to residential and commercial land, has led to significant environmental issues in changing fluvial dynamics, accelerating sediment erosion and degrading water quality. The Little River, which provides drinking water for over 100,000 residents in Blount County, Tennessee, and serves as a source of agriculture and recreational activities, was listed as one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Targeted Watersheds because the water quality of its tributaries has become impaired due to several reasons. In this study, a detailed record of LULC change in a roughly 2-year interval was documented …

Improvements In Multi-Tool Surveying Efficiency For Archaeological Geophysics, Caitlyn Marie Williams

Masters Theses

Conventional archaeological excavation methods are, by nature, extremely invasive and result in study areas being irrevocably altered for the sake of research. For this reason, near-surface geophysical techniques have been incorporated into archaeological investigations to aid in determining the locations of buried features with minimal damage to the site. The objective of this research was to perform a geophysical survey at an archaeological site on the Akrotiri Peninsula in Cyprus to locate evidence of a Roman naval base and to develop an improved data management workflow that will improve the usefulness of geophysical data to archaeologists.

An on-site archaeologist determined …

Human Interactions In Physical And Virtual Spaces: A Gis-Based Time-Geographic Exploratory Approach, Ling Yin

Doctoral Dissertations

Information and communication technologies (ICT) such as cell phone and the Internet have extended opportunities of human activities and interactions from physical spaces to virtual spaces. The relaxed spatio-temporal constraints on individual activities may affect human activity-travel patterns, social networks, and many other aspects of society. A challenge for research of human activities in the ICT age is to develop analytical environments that can help visualize and explore individual activities in virtual spaces and their mutual impacts with physical activities.

This dissertation focuses on extending the time-geographic framework and developing a spatio-temporal exploratory environment in a space-time geographic information system …

The Shadow State And Refugees: The Role Of Nonprofit Organizations In Refugee Participation, Austin Penrod Judkins

Masters Theses

The devolution of welfare services in the United States has increased the importance of the nonprofit sector. Geiger and Wolch argue that decentralization has left nonprofit organizations (NPOs) under the purview of the state. They refer to this as the “shadow state.” Trudeau argues for a more nuanced view of the shadow state in which governmental agencies and NPOs are highly interdependent. This research expands on the findings of Trudeau by extending the shadow state construct to the individual. I examine the role of refugees in the shadow state construct and their ability to affect government policy through participation in …

"Motorbike Guide For Westerners": Entrepreneurial Development And The Creation Of A Cultural Tourism Product In Transitional Vietnam, Karl Russell Kirby

Masters Theses

Vietnam is undergoing economic transition from a command economy to an economy with greater market characteristics. Transition is fundamentally reshaping the country through economic liberalization and increased exposure to foreign markets. The Vietnamese are developing institutions necessary for market growth and international tourists are arriving in ever-larger numbers. This research project is a case study of businesses that provide guided motorbike tours and evaluates the businesses based on two criteria: as a study of institutional growth during economic transition and as an examination of tourism production through guide interpretation. The author interviewed and observed sixteen guides in Vietnam—from Dalat in …

Design And Implementation Of An Object-Oriented Space-Time Gis Data Model, Ziliang Zhao

Masters Theses

Geographic data are closely related to both spatial and temporal domains. Geographic information systems (GIS) can capture, manage, analyze, and display spatial data. However, they are not suitable for handling temporal data. Rapid developments of data collection and location-aware technologies stimulate the interests of obtaining useful information from the historical data. Researchers have been working to build various spatio-temporal data models to support spatio-temporal query. Nevertheless, the existing models exhibit weaknesses in various aspects. For instance, the snapshot model is plagued with data redundancy and the event-based spatio-temporal data model (ESTDM) is limited to raster dataset. This study reviews existing …

Employment And Business Establishment Growth In The Appalachian Region, 2000-2008: An Application Of Smooth Transition Spatial Autoregressive Models, Wan Xu

Masters Theses

Industry clusters can be important components of regional development. The effects of industry clusters on growth typically vary across geography, which has implications for targeted development strategies. Employment and business establishment growth in the Appalachian region (2000 – 2008) was regressed on industry cluster concentration indexes controlling for local determinants. The hypothesis that local response to growth determinants is geographically heterogeneous was tested using Smooth Transition spatial process models. This class of models exhibiting regime switching behavior is useful for identifying regional clusters, providing another tool for exploring relationships between geographical determinants and economic growth.

Predictive Modeling In Western Louisiana: Prehistoric And Historic Settlement In The Kisatchie National Forest, Erik Nicholas Johanson

Masters Theses

This thesis is an effort to provide the US Forest Service with a tool to effectively and efficiently protect and manage the cultural resource heritage of the Kisatchie National Forest. The development and subsequent evaluation of modeling efforts are vital to the archaeology of the region. There are two goals of this modeling project: to evaluate the active US Forest Service Predictive Model and secondly, if warranted, which it was, to improve upon previous models in the region. To do so 23 environmental variables were analyzed, many of which are inter-related, to develop a new set of probability zones while …

Spatial Variation In Organic Carbon And Stable Isotope Composition Of Lake Sediments At Laguna Zoncho, Costa Rica, Zachary P Taylor

Doctoral Dissertations

Lake sediments are valuable paleoenvironmental archives that provide information on past climate and land-use change. Most lake sediment studies rely on a single core, usually recovered from the center of a lake, and do not consider spatial variability in the lake basin. My dissertation presents a spatially-explicit record of prehistoric agriculture from Laguna Zoncho, Costa Rica and evaluates spatial variability in lake sediment proxies based on a network of five sediment cores. Results extend earlier proxy analyses of a single core collected near the center of the lake, which documented prehistoric agriculture and forest clearance from 3000 to about 500 …

Geographies Of Competitive Advantage: An Examination Of The Us Farm Machinery Industry, Dawn M. Drake

Doctoral Dissertations

Many explanations of competitive advantage view place as a secondary factor. Organizational studies models tend to be considered aspatially, yet most are inherently geographic. It is important to consider the impact that geography has on the success or failure of an individual firm or a sector. This dissertation examines how location impacts the US farm machinery industry through an empirical analysis of Porter’s Theory of Competitive Advantage. Contributing to this empirical test are other bodies of literature including models for headquarters and research and development siting, product life cycle theory, industry life cycle theory, and green technologies as a driver …

Dendroclimatic Analysis Of Climate Oscillations For The Southeastern United States From Tree-Ring Network Data, Yanan Li

Masters Theses

Dendroclimatological research along a geographical gradient is important to understanding both spatial and temporal characteristics of climate influences on tree growth. In this study, three tree-ring width chronologies, obtained from field collection and previous research, were used to represent tree growth along a longitudinal transect from coast to inland in the southeastern U.S.: Hope Mills, located at the Atlantic Coastal Plain; Linville Mountain, located on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains; and Gold Mine Trail, located on the western side of the Appalachians. The variations of ring width indices in chronologies reflect extreme climatic events such as severe droughts …

Geospatial Data Accessibility In Web 2.0 Environments, Sara Helen Mcnamee

Masters Theses

Geographically referenced data is becoming a robust source of information because the use of place-based relevance searching is being employed as a popular form of information access and dispersal. To address this trend, the researcher conducted a study on the usability of the USA National Phenology Network (http://www.usanpn.org/), engaging 6 volunteer participants structured usability test of the USANPN mapping application. The participants were asked to complete two tasks, and data was collected both during (in the form of a think aloud exercise) and after the test (in the form of an exit interview). From the data collected, the researcher aimed …

An Investigation Of Stratigraphic Evidence For An Abrupt Climatic Event 8200 Yr Bp In Valle De Las Morrenas, Costa Rica, Brian Thomas Watson

Masters Theses

Lago de las Morrenas 4 (9.498056° [degrees] N, 83.486111° [degrees] W, 3466 m elev.) is the lowest lake in a chain of glacial lakes located in the Valle de las Morrenas, a valley facing almost due north from Cerro Chirripó, the highest peak in the Cordillera de Talamanca in Costa Rica. Coarse resolution analyses of pollen, microscopic charcoal, and loss-on-ignition of a ca. 10,000 year sediment record from Lago de las Morrenas 4 was carried out to complement and extend previous research on the environmental history of the Chirripó highlands and to provide context for high-resolution sampling and analysis of …

Using Volunteer Tracking Information For Activity-Based Travel Demand Modeling And Finding Dynamic Interaction-Based Joint-Activity Opportunities, Yitu Xu

Masters Theses

Technology used for real-time locating is being used to identify and track the movements of individuals in real time. With the increased use of mobile technology by individuals, we are now able to explore more potential interactions between people and their living environment using real-time tracking and communication technologies.

One of the potentials that has hardly been taken advantage of is to use cell phone tracking information for activity-based transportation study. Using GPS-embedded smart phones, it is convenient to continuously record our trajectories in a day with little information loss. As smart phones get cheaper and hence attract more users, …

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 …

Handmade And Diy: The Cultural Economy In The Digital Age, Benjamin Joshua Shultz

Doctoral Dissertations

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In recent years there has been growing consensus among academics and policy makers that cultural industries are key drivers of contemporary economic growth. For geographers and economists, the roles of agglomeration and knowledge flows are important factors that sustain the cultural industries. However, existing research focuses overwhelmingly on elite cultural industries in global cities. In addition, there has been little effort to account for new technologies that …