Geographic Information Sciences Commons^™

Thematic Mapping Of Apidae Holdings Within The University Of Arkansas Arthropod Museum, Baylie Lenora Day

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Museum biological collections store species data that can be utilized in research on biodiversity, environmental change, invasive species, public health, and disease. The University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum, which began in 1905, houses over 750,000 specimens and has not yet been digitized. Making data publicly accessible via the internet makes the data available to the entire scientific community. The goal of this project was to create a digital resource to allow greater access to the University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum holdings. To do so, data from Bombus (bumble bee) and Xylocopa (carpenter bee) specimens were databased in Excel and displayed …

Estimating Effects Of Tourism Using Multiple Data Sources: The Miranda Tool As Part Of A Spatial Decision Support System For Sustainable Destination Development, Tobias Heldt

GSTC Academic Symposium - In conjunction with the GSTC Global Conference Sweden April 23, 2024

Planning for sustainable mobility and destination development in rural areas is increasingly important when tourism grows in numbers. A key to address the challenge of transformation and adaptation of local communities to mitigate adverse effects in seasonal peak hours like traffic congestion, power failure, waste management and sewage flooding, is to properly estimate the number of visitors to a destination.

The problem of estimating tourism numbers is a known challenge since, for example, guest nights statistics are in-complete and non-commercial lodging (sharing solutions) are increasing. Recently, the promising utilization of mobile phone data has emerged as a means to estimate …

High And Dry - Contextualizing Domestic Root Cellar Drains In Southern Ontario, Anatolijs Venovcevs

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The subterranean root cellar is the quintessential feature of rural nineteenth-century archaeological sites in Ontario and much archaeological, historical, and architectural research on rural farmsteads has focused on defining and understanding these structures. However, this work has neglected an important component of this feature – the root cellar drain. This paper contextualizes these features within their broader nineteenth-century ideals of drainage and goes on to tackle the topic with the use of statistical analysis on the associated geographical, social, and economic attributes. The discussion presents opportunities that are present from the vast quantities of historical sites that have been excavated …

Unearthing The Past: A Comprehensive Study Of Natural And Anthropogenic Changes At An Archaeological Site Through Hydrogeologic Connectivity Utilizing Gis, Mehlich Ii Phosphorus Extractant, And Ph, Dana L. F. Herren

Theses

This thesis aims to thoroughly analyze the Mehlich II Phosphorus Extractant and pH levels at the Bains Gap Village Site in Anniston, AL., while examining the impact of various environmental factors and human activities on them. Phosphorus is often used in archaeology as an indicator of human activity. Soil core samples were collected to analyze anomalies in phosphorus levels.

To establish any relationships, phosphorus and pH levels from soil cores were correlated with findings from past excavation units and features. The potential effects of hydrogeologic connectivity on soil phosphorus and pH levels were investigated. Geospatial technologies were used to manage …

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 …

A 20-Year Ecotone Study Of Pacific Northwest Mountain Forest Vulnerability To Changing Snow Conditions, Todd R. Lookingbill, Jack Dupuy, Ellery Jacobs University Of Richmond, Matteo Gonzalez, Tihomir S. Kostadinov

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

Background: Global climate change is expected to significantly alter growing conditions along mountain gradients. Landscape ecological patterns are likely to shift significantly as species attempt to adapt to these changes. We evaluated the extent to which spatial (elevation and canopy cover) and temporal (decadal trend and El Niño–Southern Oscillation/Pacific Decadal Oscillation) factors impact seasonal snowmelt and forest community dynamics in the Western Hemlock–True Fir ecotone region of the Oregon Western Cascades, USA. (2) Methods: Tsuga heterophylla and Abies amabilis seedling locations were mapped three times over 20 years (2002–2022) on five sample transects strategically placed to cross the ecotone. Additionally, …

Monitoring Of Caucasus Heritage Sites Facing Cultural Genocide, Peyton Edelbrock

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Microsoft Access To Sqlite Database Migration For Existing Forest Management Software: Methods And Considerations, Drue Kathryn Lindstrom

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

Bioregional Inventory Originated Simulation Under Management (BioSum) is software from the US Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. It is a complex analysis framework that models and evaluates forest management treatments across multi-decade timeframes. Originally written to work with Microsoft Access databases, BioSum is migrating to the use of SQLite as its database engine. The final module of BioSum, Treatment Optimizer, is the first one to be converted so the changes can be implemented incrementally. This practicum report outlines a workflow for converting the database engine of an existing program from Microsoft Access to SQLite with the example …

Opportunities And Challenges In Monitoring Cultivated Land Red Line In Big Data Era, Jinwei Dong, Yifeng Cui, Yuanyuan Di, Xuan Gao, Xi Chen, Linsheng Yang, Yumei Cai, Jia Ning, Jiyuan Liu

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The demographic reality of a large population and limited land resources in China necessitates the implementation of the world’s most stringent cultivated land protection system. Effective, timely, and accurate monitoring of the status of cultivated land protection red line is essential to ensuring cultivated land protection and food security. The development of cutting-edge technologies such as remote sensing big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence has provided new opportunities for cultivated land control and monitoring. This article systematically elaborates on the current research status and challenges in the field of cultivated land protection redline control and monitoring, including the establishment …

Quantifying Current Soil Brine Contamination Within The Smackover Oil Field In Arkansas Using Multispectral Digital Imagery, Victoria Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A remote sensing study was performed to quantify current soil brine contamination across the historic Smackover Oil Field in south-central Arkansas, United States. The oil field was established in 1922 and was not subject to the future waste regulations created by the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission. Brine is a waste product of oil manufacturing which contains water with high salt levels. The storage and transport of brine in the oil field created landscape scarring across the study area.

Landsat 9 multispectral digital imagery was utilized to create supervised classification maps based on earthen pits and creek scarring across the …

Socioeconomic Geographies And Municipal Decision Making Of New York's Climate Smart Communities Program, Stephen Corbisiero

Digital and Data Studies Student Scholarship

Nearly all of New York’s residents live in a municipality designated as a Climate Smart Community, but few are familiar with one of the state’s major legislative accomplishments. The initiative allows municipalities to earn points toward a climate smart certification by implementing sustainable technologies in their communities, which in turn makes them eligible for increased grant funding from New York State. As climate change begins to have a greater impact on human and natural life, investing in green infrastructure has never been more important. New York’s Climate Smart Communities program is widespread, but adoption rates vary greatly throughout the state …

Development Of A Historic Digital Elevation Model (Hdem) From Archival Aerial Imagery Over The Black Mountain Alluvial Fan, Canada, Emma Menio

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In a rapidly changing Arctic, reconstructing landscapes pre-warming is essential to understanding impacts due to climate-inducted geomorphic change. High-latitude elevation datasets extend temporally back to the 2000s, while region-wide warming became measurable in the 1980s. Historic aerial imagery archives provide datasets of high-resolution imagery from the mid- to late- 1900s with stereo-capability that can be harnessed to create historic digital elevation models, or hDEMs. A major issue with reconstructing a surface from the past is finding a way to constrain it in space, given a lack of ground control from that era, especially at high latitudes. The main purpose of …

Airbnb Valuation: A Machine Learning Approach, Katherine Wyatt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses a geospatially-enhanced, machine learning approach to investigate variations in rental success on the peer-to-peer property sharing website Airbnb.com. Geographic factors, listing attributes and amenities, customer response metrics, and host attributes are included in decision tree modeling to predict the short-term probability of receiving a review. The most important variables in increasing model accuracy are assessed and variations in the importance of these variables investigated using Shapley values.

Age, Size, And Composition Of Selected Old-Growth Shortleaf Pine Stands In The Upper Buffalo River, Arkansas, Willa Avery Thomason

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) approaches the westernmost limits of its range in the Arkansas Ozarks. Despite heavy logging of shortleaf pine throughout its range during the 19th and 20th centuries, the species was not easily accessible for harvest and transportation in the most rugged areas of the Boston Mountains and, as a result, there are a few extant stands of old-growth shortleaf pine in the region. The shortleaf pine stands in the interior Boston Mountains are unusual in that they exist primarily above bluff lines at topographic breaks in the hardwood canopy and are not disturbed by fire as frequently …

Sc-Fuse: A Feature Fusion Approach For Unpaved Road Detection From Remotely Sensed Images, Aniruddh Saxena

Department of Computer Science and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Road network extraction from remote sensing imagery is crucial for numerous applications, ranging from autonomous navigation to urban and rural planning. A particularly challenging aspect is the detection of unpaved roads, often underrepresented in research and data. These roads display variability in texture, width, shape, and surroundings, making their detection quite complex. This thesis addresses these challenges by creating a specialized dataset and introducing the SC-Fuse model.

Our custom dataset comprises high resolution remote sensing imagery which primarily targets unpaved roads of the American Midwest. To capture the diverse seasonal variation and their impact, the dataset includes images from different …

Big Data Applications And Challenges In Giscience (Case Studies: Natural Disaster And Public Health Crisis Management), Amir Masoud Forati

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the application and significance of user-generated big data in Geographic Information Science (GIScience), with a focus on managing natural disasters and public health crises. It explores the role of social media data in understanding human-environment interactions and in informing disaster management and public health strategies. A scalable computational framework will be developed to model extensive unstructured geotagged data from social media, facilitating systematic spatiotemporal data analysis.The research investigates how individuals and communities respond to high-impact events like natural disasters and public health emergencies, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods. In particular, it assesses the impact of socio-economic-demographic …

Spatial Associations Of Liver Disease Rates With Socioeconomic And Health Risk Factors In Georgia, Nguyet Le

Symposium of Student Scholars

According to the CDC Cancer Statistics Report in 2020, Liver and Intrahepatic Bile Duct is the 6th leading cancer in both USA and the State of Georgia ranked by Rates of Cancer Death. Aflatoxin-containing foods, alcohol consumption, smoking, overeating, and other risky behaviors are among the factors linked to liver diseases. They have also been related to the socioeconomic status (SES) of individuals. The behaviors and SES of individuals are affected by the socioeconomic characteristics of the communities where they live. However, the relationships between the rates of liver diseases and community-level socioeconomic factors are not well studied. The objective …

Beyond The Tide: A Comprehensive Guide To Sea-Level-Rise Inundation Mapping Using Foss4g, Levente Juhasz, Jinwen Xu, Randall W. Parkinson

GIS Center

No abstract provided.

Accessibility Or Environmental Conservation? Evaluating The Relationship Between Environmental Protection And Hiking Trails Accessibility Via Lidar & Remote Sensing, Zhanchao Yang

GIS Day

Binghamton University Nature Preserve spans 190 acres of land, with a notable 20-acre wetland serving a multifaceted purpose. It is dedicated to preserving the ecological integrity of this landscape, fostering biodiversity, and facilitating research and environmental education. Furthermore, it serves as a recreational space for students, enhancing the bonds between the campus and the neighboring community. This research focuses on Binghamton University's nature preserve as a case study to explore the intricate balance between two vital objectives: ensuring equal access for all user demographics while safeguarding its ecosystem services. To achieve these objectives, the study employs diverse public engagement methods, …

Towards Understanding The Geospatial Skills Of Chatgpt: Taking A Geographic Information Systems (Gis) Exam, Peter Mooney, Wencong Cui, Boyuan Guan, Levente Juhasz

GIS Center

This paper examines the performance of ChatGPT, a large language model (LLM), in a geographic information systems (GIS) exam. As LLMs like ChatGPT become increasingly prevalent in various domains, including education, it is important to understand their capabilities and limitations in specialized subject areas such as GIS. Human learning of spatial concepts significantly differs from LLM training methodologies. Therefore, this study aims to assess ChatGPT's performance and ability to grasp geospatial concepts by challenging it with a real GIS exam. By analyzing ChatGPT's responses and evaluating its understanding of GIS principles, we gain insights into the potential applications and challenges …

Urban Flood And Its Correlation With Built-Up Area In Semarang, Indonesia, Risty Khoirunisa, Bambang Darmo Yuwono

Smart City

The expansion of urban areas is closely related to environmental problems such as changes in land use, flooding, and land subsidence. Semarang is a city with reasonably rapid development and a high land change experiencing floods and land subsidence. This paper will discuss land transformation caused by urban growth and its implications. It uses a combination of geospatial techniques and cloud computing Google Earth Engine (GEE) to carry out mapping over a large area without being constrained by computer capabilities. This study found that the built-up area in 2010 occupied 36.27% of the city, and it went up to 59.79% …

Understanding Tourism Dynamics Using Gis And Forecasting Model In Banswara District, Rajasthan, India, Viranch N. Dave, Mudit D. Mankad, Ami U. Rawal

Journal of Tourism Insights

Understanding the tourism dynamics of an area involves a rigorous literature review, interviewing the local people and experts, and visiting the sites. This also involves getting acquainted with the transport network of the area to know about the accessibility to the tourism destination, which ultimately helps in preparing a suitable plan for tourism development by creating tourist circuits. Forecasting tourism demand with the help of past data helps put a better picture in front of planners and administration so they can plan more efficiently. Thus, a proper understanding of tourism dynamics requires a holistic vision. The present study tried to …

Gis-Based Spatial Analysis Of Population Density In Kuwait, 1957 To 2020, Nayef Alghais, Saad Algharib

The Geographical Bulletin

Population density is among the most insightful demographical metrics for urban planners, land developers and researchers in the geography sector. In this article, a Geographical Information System (GIS) framework is designed to study the spatial and temporal population density trends and investigate whether any notable patterns may be attributed to the socioeconomic factors prevalent in each period. The methodology involves collecting spatial population data over time and using GIS to overlay the population density changes against various socioeconomic parameters in Kuwait. The results indicate that the population density is strongly correlated to the national and international economic and political conditions …

Streamlined Hpc Environments With Cvmfs And Cybergis-Compute, Alexander C. Michels, Mit Kotak, Anand Padmanabhan, Shaowen Wang

I-GUIDE Forum

High-Performance Computing (HPC) resources provide the potential for complex, large-scale modeling and analysis, fueling scientific progress over the last few decades, but these advances are not equally distributed across disciplines. Those in computational disciplines are often trained to have the necessary technical skills to utilize HPC (e.g. familiarity with the terminal), but many disciplines face technical hurdles when trying to apply HPC resources to their work. This unequal familiarity with HPC is increasingly a problem as cross-discipline teams work to tackle critical interdisciplinary issues like climate change and sustainability. CyberGIS-Compute is middle-ware designed to democratize to HPC services with the …

Geospatial Data Integration Middleware For Exploratory Analytics Addressing Regional Natural Resource Grand Challenges In The Us Mountain West, Shannon Albeke, Nicholas Case, Samantha Ewers, Jeffrey Hamerlinck, William Kirkpatrick, Jerod Merkle, Luke Todd

I-GUIDE Forum

This paper describes CyberGIS-based research and development aimed at improving geospatial data integration and visual analytics to better understand the impact of regional climate change on water availability in the U.S. Rocky Mountains. Two Web computing applications are presented. DEVISE - Derived Environmental Variability Indices Spatial Extractor, streamlines utilization of environmental data for better-informed wildlife decisions by biologists and game managers. The WY-Adapt platform aims to enhance predictive understanding of climate change impacts on water availability through two modules: “Current Conditions” and “Future Scenarios”. It integrates high-resolution models of the biophysical environment and human interactions, providing a robust framework for …

An Agent-Based Modeling Approach To Spatial Accessibility, Alexander C. Michels, Shaowen Wang

I-GUIDE Forum

Place-based spatial accessibility represents the ability of populations within geographic units to access goods and services, and thus is an important indicator for sustainable development. Existing spatial accessibility models treat population as simply demand, calculating statistics or optimizing average cost for the population within each geographic unit, rather than modeling individual decisions. This paper proposes AgentAccess, a general-purpose Agent-Based Model (ABM) for spatial accessibility analysis. An ABM framework brings us closer to reality by simulating individual and imperfect decision-making. We introduce the model and compare its results against existing spatial accessibility models using a case study of hospital beds in …

Reducing Uncertainty In Sea-Level Rise Prediction: A Spatial-Variability-Aware Approach, Subhankar Ghosh, Shuai An, Arun Sharma, Jayant Gupta, Shashi Shekhar, Aneesh Subramanian

I-GUIDE Forum

Given multi-model ensemble climate projections, the goal is to accurately and reliably predict future sea-level rise while lowering the uncertainty. This problem is important because sea-level rise affects millions of people in coastal communities and beyond due to climate change's impacts on polar ice sheets and the ocean. This problem is challenging due to spatial variability and unknowns such as possible tipping points (e.g., collapse of Greenland or West Antarctic ice-shelf), climate feedback loops (e.g., clouds, permafrost thawing), future policy decisions, and human actions. Most existing climate modeling approaches use the same set of weights globally, during either regression or …

Analysis Of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index Change Of The West Bank, Palestine, Using Multitemporal Satellite Remote Sensing Data, Ahmed Ghodieh

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

The West Bank is characterized by the diversity of its climate despite its small area. It includes four climatic regions:- a humid, semi-humid, arid, and semi-arid climate. This in turn affected the geographical distribution of vegetation cover seasonally and over the years. This study investigated changes in the West Bank, Palestine vegetation cover using multitemporal Landsat data. Four images were selected for this purpose – two corresponding to 2001 and the other two corresponding to 2021. Seasonal change of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was investigated for the acquired images. ArcGIS 10.8 software was used for image processing and …

Developing Youth-Informed And Quality-Aware Spatial Accessibility Measures To Urban Parks Using A Survey-Based 2sfca Method In London, Ontario And Halifax, Nova Scotia, Zhe Chang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Park-related research has gained much attention in recent years, yet not enough studies have focused on the inequity of park accessibility and quality. These are crucial elements that influence youth’s park use, which in turn influence their physical, mental, and social development. Existing literature uses park size as the supply level to examine park accessibility but fails to consider any other park characteristics (e.g., amenities, general condition). This research developed youth-informed and quality-aware measures to consider the influence on park attraction by its quality and size rather than size only. This was implemented by consulting a youth advisory council to …

The Impact Of Climate Change On Selected Pnw Watersheds Through The Lens Of Western Red Cedar Habitat, Jordan T. Hamann

Dissertations and Theses

Climate change is a real phenomenon that is exacerbating existing natural processes and developing into a new normal for the planet. This change may be devastating for Pacific Northwest populations of Western Red Cedar (WRC) west of the Cascade Mountain range in the states of Oregon and Washington. WRC is a valuable tree species for reasons both economic and cultural. Dieback among WRC is following an accelerating trend. Since dieback is usually followed by tree mortality, understanding its causes and distribution is beneficial to the overall success of the species going into the future.

Through the use of ESRI's ArcGIS …