Geography Commons^™

Fire Emissions In The Tropical Indonesia: Improved Estimation And Driving Forces Investigation, Xiaoman Lu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Indonesia has experienced frequent fires since the 1970s due to large-scale peatland conversion and extensive drainage for agricultural development. Fire emissions released from these fires have led to Indonesia being the world’s 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases in certain years. Given that fire emissions severely affect climate, weather, and the human environment, numerous approaches have been developed to estimate fire emissions. However, existing emission estimates differ largely by a factor of four in this tropical country because of frequent cloud interferences and low-temperature smoldering fires. Therefore, this dissertation aims to improve the quantification of Indonesian fire emissions through enhanced …

The Potential Impacts Of Climate Change On Avitourism To Islands: The Example Of Fair Isle, Scotland, Richard W. Butler Professor

International Journal of Islands Research

This paper discusses the potential impact of climate change upon a specific form of tourism, avitourism (birdwatching), and the resulting effects upon islands dependent upon this form of tourism. Bird populations, distributions and migratory patterns are all vulnerable to the impacts of global warming, extreme weather events and changes in the marine environment, as are the islands which provide their habitat. Avitourism is a lucrative and non-consumptive form of tourism that is of major importance to some small islands, particularly those that have unique indigenous breeding species and/or are visited by migrating species on a regular basis. A number of …

Actually-Existing Resilience: The Adaptive Actions Of Miami’S Redland Farmers And Potential Pathways For Transformation, Melissa Bernardo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The concept of resilience has been applied to questions surrounding agricultural production and food security in the face of global climate change, gripping the attention of policymakers and scholars alike. In South Florida, the Redland represents a unique, biodiverse farming community of national importance as Florida is second only to California in terms of vegetable production and Miami-Dade is the second highest producing county in the state. With Greater Miami recognized as one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to sea level rise, this vital U.S. agricultural community is placed in doubt. Yet, little research engages directly with …

Ecosystem Carbon Balance In The Hawaiian Islands Under Different Scenarios Of Future Climate And Land Use Change, Paul C. Selmants, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jinxun Liu, Tamara S. Wilson, Clay Trauernicht, Abby G. Frazier, Gregory P. Asner

Geography

The State of Hawai'i passed legislation to be carbon neutral by 2045, a goal that will partly depend on carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems. However, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future direction and magnitude of the land carbon sink in the Hawaiian Islands. We used the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS), a spatially explicit stochastic simulation model that integrates landscape change and carbon gain-loss, to assess how projected future changes in climate and land use will influence ecosystem carbon balance in the Hawaiian Islands under all combinations of two radiative forcing scenarios (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5) and …

Climate Change Vulnerability And Perceived Resilience Among Smallholder Farmers In The Upper West Region Of Ghana, Evans Sumabe Batung

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Globally, observed climate change has become a major barrier to agricultural productivity. At the same time, present and projected climate impacts are disproportionately affecting smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where smallholder agriculture constitutes the predominant source of livelihood. Due to the vast agricultural potential of SSA, climate change resilience has been central in several multi-level deliberations over the past few decades. However, existing policies aimed at improving the effects of climate change on food security have overwhelmingly focused on the climatic dimensions of vulnerability, resulting in a lack of knowledge of the role non-climatic factors also play in shaping …

Impacts Of Climate Change On Food Security And Smallholder Livelihoods In Northern Ghana, Kamaldeen Mohammed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Climate change and food insecurity threaten the livelihoods of smallholder communities in the Global South. In the Ghanaian context, climate change and food insecurity are particularly crucial challenges in the northern regions, where most people are engaged in diverse activities in the agricultural sector. Despite tremendous efforts to curtail food insecurity and climate change vulnerability of smallholder households in northern Ghana, food insecurity and climate change remain pervasive in the region, indicating that smallholder adaptive capacities and resilience to the impacts of climate change are not commensurate with the severity of the problems. Emerging literature has indicated that livelihood diversification …

What Spatial Environments Mean, Thora Tenbrink

Journal of Spatial Information Science

Language is one of the most prominent means of representing human thought. Spatial cognition research has made use of this fact for decades, exploring how humans perceive and understand their spatial environments through language analysis. So far, this research has mainly focused on generic cognitive aspects underlying everyday purposes such as knowing where objects are, how they relate to each other, and how to find one's way to a familiar or unfamiliar location. However, human concepts about space can be threatened by change, as the environment changes. Across the globe, people become increasingly aware of climate-change related threats to their …

The Sustainability-Peace Nexus In Crisis Contexts: How The Rohingya Escaped The Ethnic Violence In Myanmar, But Are Trapped Into Environmental Challenges In Bangladesh, Saleh Ahmed, William Paul Simmons, Rashed Chowdhury, Saleemul Huq

Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Because of ethnic and cultural violence in Myanmar, approximately a million Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh starting from August 2017, in what the UN has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Those arriving in Bangladesh were able to escape decade-long ethnic violence in Myanmar, but the Rohingya’s immediate destination, Cox’s Bazar district is one of the most climate-vulnerable and disaster-prone areas in Bangladesh. Currently, they have been subjected to extreme rainfalls, landslides, and flashfloods. With the COVID-19 pandemic, they continue to face fear and further marginalization in resource-constrained Bangladesh, as well as increased vulnerability due to tropical cyclones, flashfloods, …

Trends In Land Surface Phenology Across The Conterminous United States (1982-2016) Analyzed By Neon Domains, Liang Liang, Geoffrey M. Henebry, Lingling Liu, Xiaoyang Zhang, Li-Chih Hsu

Geography Faculty Publications

Tracking phenological change in a regionally explicit context is a key to understanding ecosystem status and change. The current study investigated long-term trends of satellite-observed land surface phenology (LSP) in the 17 National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) domains across the conterminous United States (CONUS). Characterization of LSP trends was based on a high temporal resolution (3-d) time series of the two-band enhanced vegetation index (EVI2) derived from a long-term data record (LTDR) of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). We identified significant trend patterns in LSP and their seasonal climate and land …

Composite Analysis Of Mendenhall Glacier Interannual Glacial Health Decline, Hailey Marie Cantrell

Masters Theses

Glacial health in Alaska, USA is demonstrating an interannual declining trend. Repetitive years have suffered an imbalance between winter seasonal ice accumulation and summer seasonal ice loss. Increased ice loss has commonly been attributed to warmer Arctic summer temperatures, which contribute to greater calving events and amplified ablation. Study of the unique climatic influences by different variables is ongoing and at the forefront of climate-glacier interaction research.

This study is designed to quantitatively evaluate correlations between changes in Alaskan climatic patterns and an interannual trend of declining glacial health for Mendenhall Glacier by combining analysis of Landsat satellite imagery, teleconnection …

Research On Climate Change In Social Psychology Publications: A Systematic Review, Kim-Pong Kam, Angela K. Y. Leung, Susan Clayton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There is a strong scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is happening and that its impacts can put both ecological and human systems in jeopardy. Social psychology, the scientific study of human behaviours in their social and cultural settings, is an important tool for understanding how humans interpret and respond to climate change. In this article, we offered a systematic review of the social psychological literature of climate change. We sampled 130 studies on climate change or global warming from 80 articles published in journals indexed under the “Psychology, social” category of Journal Citation Reports. Based on this sample, …

Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Benefit To Climate-Displaced And Host Communities, Gül Aktürk, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues …

International Migration From The Latin American-Caribbean Region: Taking Environmental Indicators Into Consideration, Chelsea Wepy

Student Theses and Dissertations

International migration, the act of leaving one’s country to permanently settle in another country, is driven by many socio economic/political factors, such as lack of economic opportunity, access to education, governmental corruption, and violence. These factors have proven to be the reason that many citizens within the Latin American-Caribbean region either choose or are forced to relocate internationally. While these factors are important to consider independently; these issues are often exacerbated by changes in the natural environment. The objective of my paper is to highlight the importance of considering changes in the natural environment. In doing so, I hope to …

Detecting Recent Crop Phenology Dynamics In Corn And Soybean Cropping Systems Of Kentucky, Yanjun Yang, Bo Tao, Liang Liang, Yawen Huang, Christopher J. Matocha, Chad D. Lee, Michael Sama, Bassil El Masri, Wei Ren

Geography Faculty Publications

Accurate phenological information is essential for monitoring crop development, predicting crop yield, and enhancing resilience to cope with climate change. This study employed a curve-change-based dynamic threshold approach on NDVI (Normalized Differential Vegetation Index) time series to detect the planting and harvesting dates for corn and soybean in Kentucky, a typical climatic transition zone, from 2000 to 2018. We compared satellite-based estimates with ground observations and performed trend analyses of crop phenological stages over the study period to analyze their relationships with climate change and crop yields. Our results showed that corn and soybean planting dates were delayed by 0.01 …

Aspects Of Climate Change, Anthony Defusco

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

Climate change continues to become a global issue, and with that, more people being affected by the harmful factors that come with it. Climate change not only effects the environment, but also has aspects of cultural and health issues. Different cultures view this problem differently than other as it affects different aspects of that culture. Health risk is on the rise as air pollution is more prominent and diseases spread. The climate is being warmed, causing extreme weather and drought. These different perspectives on global warming allow for new and unknowing people to be exposed to this issue and allow …

Building A Long-Time Series For Weather And Extreme Weather In The Straits Settlements: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach To The Archives Of Societies, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In comparison to the Northern Hemisphere, especially Europe and North America, there is a scarcity of information regarding the historic weather and climate of Southeast Asia and the Southern Hemisphere in general. The reasons for this are both historic and political, yet that does not mean that such data do not exist. Much of the early instrumental weather records for Southeast Asia stem from the colonial period and, with some countries and regions changing hands between the European powers, surviving information tends to be scattered across the globe making its recovery a long and often arduous task. This paper focuses …

Quantifying The Impacts Of Land Use, Management And Climate Change On Water Resources In Missouri River Basin, Arun Bawa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A location-specific evaluation of hydrological landscape responses concerning past and projected climate and land use land cover (LULC) changes can provide a powerful intellectual basis for developing efficient and profitable agroecosystems, and overcoming uncertain and detrimental consequences of LULC and climate shifts. This dissertation assessed the impacts of land use, management, and climate change on water resources in the Missouri River Basin (MRB) through four specific studies that included: (i) to study the responses of leached nutrient concentrations and soil health to winter rye cover crop (CC) under no-till corn (Zea mays L.)-soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation, (ii) to …

Climate Impacts Associated With Reduced Diet Diversity In Children Across Nineteen Countries, Meredith T. Niles, Benjamin F. Emery, Serge Wiltshire, Molly E. Brown, Brendan Fisher, Taylor H. Ricketts

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

It is widely anticipated that climate change will negatively affect both food security and diet diversity. Diet diversity is especially critical for children as it correlates with macro and micronutrient intake important for child development. Despite these anticipated links, little empirical evidence has demonstrated a relationship between diet diversity and climate change, especially across large datasets spanning multiple global regions and with more recent climate data. Here we use survey data from 19 countries and more than 107 000 children, coupled with 30 years of precipitation and temperature data, to explore the relationship of climate to child diet diversity while …

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, …

Spatial And Temporal Dynamics Of Human–Wildlife Conflicts In The Kenya Greater Tsavo Ecosystem, Joseph M. Mukeka, Joseph O. Ogutu, Erustus Kanga, Eivin Røskaft

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Biodiversity conservation in developing countries is faced with many and mounting challenges, including increasing human–wildlife conflicts (HWCs). In Africa and other developing countries, increasing HWCs, particularly those adjacent to protected areas, can adversely affect local stakeholder perceptions and support for conservation. We analyzed HWC reports for multiple wildlife species compiled >23 years (1995–2017) from the Greater Tsavo Ecosystem (GTE) in Kenya to determine HWC trends. The GTE is the largest protected area in Kenya, covering 22,681 km². Overall, 39,022 HWC incidents were reported in 6 GTE regions (i.e., Taveta, Mutomo, Kibwezi, Rombo, Galana, Bachuma). The 5 wildlife species …

Ground Warming Leads To Changes In Carbon Cycling In Northern Fen Peatlands: Implications For Carbon Storage, Ericka James

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Northern peatlands store one third of the world’s soil carbon (C), as they remove more C from the atmosphere via photosynthesis than they release to the atmosphere through ecosystem respiration and methane (CH₄) production. Climate change threatens this function by stimulating C release from peatland stores as peat temperatures warm and soil moisture is reduced. Ground heating of +4 °C above ambient peat temperatures was initiated in a Sphagnum moss-dominated, nutrient poor fen and a Carex sedge-dominated, intermediate nutrient fen. Over one growing season, Carex fen heated plots had increases in photosynthesis (+23%), ecosystem respiration (+22%), and CH …

Essays On Climate Change-Related Extreme Events, Alvin E. Harris

Dissertations

There are increasing and urgent calls for global economies to join in the fight against the impacts of climate change (World Bank, 2020). With reports such as the World Bank (2020) of climate change costing billions of dollars in losses for economies, the purpose of my dissertation is to examine the effects of climate change-related extreme events and their potential economic effects in three areas: agriculture, migration, and the labor market.

My first essay focuses on the factors that influence farmers’ perception of risk and adaptive strategies against the effects of climate change-related extreme events. I examine whether farmers’ social …

Climate Change Adaptation In Highland Ecuador: Intersections Of Gender, Geography, And Knowledge In Farming Communities, Dinka Natali Caceres Arteaga

Latin American Studies ETDs

This dissertation uses a feminist political ecology perspective to explore the socioeconomic impacts of climate change in Ecuador, especially but not limited to the agriculture sector. It is based on the use of mixed methods that allowed the participation and validation of the local population, surpassing their role as beneficiaries to co-authors of this research.

The significance of this study relies on the position the local population holds in the fields of human geography, under a community local-planning perspective, as they attempted to collaborate in the process of adaptation to climate change by presenting analysis and calculation of an index …

Global Pattern And Change Of Cropland Soil Organic Carbon During 1901-2010: Roles Of Climate, Atmospheric Chemistry, Land Use And Management, Wei Ren, Kamaljit Banger, Bo Tao, Jia Yang, Yawen Huang, Hanqin Tian

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Soil organic carbon (SOC) in croplands is a key property of soil quality for ensuring food security and agricultural sustainability, and also plays a central role in the global carbon (C) budget. When managed sustainably, soils may play a critical role in mitigating climate change by sequestering C and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. However, the magnitude and spatio-temporal patterns of global cropland SOC are far from well constrained due to high land surface heterogeneity, complicated mechanisms, and multiple influencing factors. Here, we use a process-based agroecosystem model (DLEM-Ag) in combination with diverse spatially-explicit gridded environmental data to …

Credit Access And Perceived Climate Change Resilience Of Smallholder Farmers In Semi-Arid Northern Ghana, Evans Batung

Africa Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Estimating Yield Of Household Groundnut Fields In Rural Smallholder Farming Systems: Implication For Household Food Security, Daniel Kpienbaareh, Isaac Luginaah, Jinfei Wang

Africa Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Understanding Global Change: From Documentation And Collaboration To Social Transformation, Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

The conclusion to the book situates the chapters within four programs of anthropological research on climate change: (1) documentation of local impacts of and adaptations to climate change, (2) connections to socioeconomic and political contexts, (3) collaborations with nonanthropologists, and (4) activism and social transformation. The final section notes the persistent challenges to creating positive change and meaningful research outcomes. It highlights some examples of success and outlines future directions for politically engaged anthropological work around climate change.

Bridging The Food Gap: Founding And Sustaining A Food Recovery Network Chapter At Wku, Elaine Losekamp

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Food waste is a pervasive global issue with many environmental and social repercussions. While about one-third of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste, many people in the United States and the world are affected by food insecurity. Food recovery, the process of rescuing edible food that would otherwise go to waste and delivering to hungry people, is an effective solution for both food waste and food insecurity. The author of this capstone created a food recovery program at Western Kentucky University (WKU) in January 2019 and has grown the program’s scope and impact since that time. This …

Water Use Governance In A Temperate Region: Implications For Agricultural Climate Change Adaptation In The Northeastern United States, Rachel E. Schattman, Meredith T. Niles, Hannah M. Aitken

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change and access to water are interrelated concerns for agriculture and other sectors, even in temperate regions. Governance approaches and regulatory frameworks determine who has access to water, for what purpose, and when. In the northeastern United States, water governance has historically been conducted by states through a combination of statutory guidance and common law. However, it is unclear what effect if current governance approaches will be sufficient for achieving resource conservation and equitable allocation in a changing climate. To provide insight into these issues, we conducted the first review of freshwater governance in the 12 states that comprise …

Electric Grid Decarbonization Pathways: Landscape Impacts, Policy Interactions, And The Need For Cooperation, Austin Wesley Thomas

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Climate change has motivated governments around the world to ratify aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. Meeting these targets will require improved energy efficiency, behavior changes, and energy system decarbonization. Many climate change and energy policy targets imply the deployment of large amounts of low carbon, renewable energy resources like wind turbines and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels but do not specify how these resources will be sited on the landscape. The relationships between weather conditions, terrain, land cover, existing electric grid infrastructure, and electricity consumers will govern how these wind and solar PV infrastructure configurations develop and how quickly they …