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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 …

Spatiotemporal Change Detection Of The Alpine Meadows At Holcomb Valley, San Bernardino Mountain National Forest, Using Gis And Remote Sensing Techniques, Rama Ewing

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Holcomb Valley, with a general elevation between 2200-2257m, is in the Northeast of Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. Holcomb Valley is covered by Alpine meadows, unlike most mountain landscapes, which are rarely found in Mediterranean climates such as California. The cultural-environmental history of the San Bernardino Mountains in the past century speaks of intense anthropogenic activities such as timbering, grazing, gold mining, and extreme climate changes (i.e., drought, fires, floods). A study is conducted to identify and calculate the changes in the Alpine meadows at Holcomb Valley. The climatical data has been acquired to compute and visualize …

Acid Mine Drainage In The Shamokin Creek Watershed: A Spatial Analysis Of Economic And Environmental Consequences Of Coal Mining, Ben Shimer

Student Project Reports

No abstract provided.

Using Lidar To Estimate Carbon Sequestration Of Evergreen Trees At Eastern Washington University (Ewu) Campus, Cheney, Washington, Kristy A. Snyder

2022 Symposium

EWU contains a variety of deciduous and evergreen trees across its campus, providing several benefits. However, no comprehensive record exists of the total number, location, species, or ages of these trees. This knowledge can inform facilities of proper care for individual trees and can be used to estimate carbon sequestration on campus. Traditional on-the-ground methods for assessing trees require tree cores or clinometers, making trees susceptible to pests or disease and leading to inaccurate results. Remote sensing using lidar data is a noninvasive, more precise method to measure tree height and subsequently assess tree age. This poster explores using point …

Three Method Tsunami Vulnerability Analysis Of The United States East Coast, Joshua Knolla

Master's Theses

The East Coast of the United States could be susceptible to tsunamis or even mega tsunamis. With this in mind it becomes essential to answer the question: Where is vulnerability to a tsunami greatest along the East Coast of the United States? To answer this question the following parameters have been set. First, the study will include county level subdivisions along the USEC that have coasts along the Atlantic Ocean. The possible source regions of a tsunami or mega tsunami are also noted. This analysis includes both social and physical factors with nine and five of them considered respectively. Three …

Environmental Racism In Baltimore: A Geographical Study Into The Connections Between Environmental Toxins And Public Health, Genevieve Block

Honors Theses

An investigation into the relationship between environmental toxins and environmental racism in Baltimore City, Maryland.

Urban Forests And Their Potential To Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Foods From Street Trees In New York City, Ny, Kristen Cooney

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

There is growing recognition that urban forests have the potential to combat food insecurity via their edible parts, namely fruits, berries, and nuts. Many tree species commonly planted in urban spaces have edible parts that may fulfill the nutritional needs of city residents that are food insecure, but no one has analyzed the value of city street trees to understand this potential. I analyzed New York City’s street trees by each species and their edible parts to measure this potential.

Mapping The Suitability Of Cal Poly's Insulated Solar Electric Cookers (Isec) In Ghana, Togo, And Jamaica, Julia G. Kraatz

Social Sciences

The World Health Organization estimates that 3 billion people depend on biomass fuels for cooking, heating, and other day-to-day activities, which causes approximately 4.3 million people annually to die from illnesses attributable to indoor air pollution. The issue is especially pressing for women and children in developing countries, because women care for the home and are consequently responsible for attaining household fuels and cooking. In 2015, ISECs (Insulated Solar Electric Cookers) were developed at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, as a technology that utilizes solar electricity to directly cook food in a well-insulated chamber. They are capable of …

Digital Earth: The Impact Of Geographic Technology Through The Ages, Mishka Vance Huq

Theses and Dissertations

Geographic technology encompasses a wide range of geographic knowledge, concepts, processes, and artifacts. Because of its interdisciplinarity and integration with other technologies, the paper examines the diffuse impacts of geographic technology within the evolving relationship between technological and societal developments over time.

Evaluating Urban Parks Accessibility And Equity: A Case Study Of Hartford, Ct And New Haven, Ct, Natalie Roach, Mara Tu

Honors Scholar Theses

Public parks provide cities with environmental benefits, positive health effects, recreational opportunities, community building, educational spaces, and public amenities. However, certain populations have been systematically denied their fair share of these benefits because of unjust practices in the creation and maintenance of urban parks. With a lens of environmental justice, the goal of this research was to assess park quality and accessibility of two Connecticut cities, Hartford and New Haven, by gathering publicly available information as well as using GIS tools.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has an existing ParkScore rating system that evaluates the quality of a city’s …

Integrating Local Ecology And Human Dimensions To Understand A Tidally Dynamic Ecosystem In Downeast Maine, Gabriella Marafino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal community resilience requires connecting people with useful information that reflects their needs and interests and empowers them to make informed marine resource decisions. In this thesis, I explore how to effectively integrate disparate data from different disciplines and sources to make information more useful and usable at federal, state, tribal, and local levels in order to support more holistic and integrated management. To accomplish this, I draw on different types of knowledge and approaches, including Western science, local ecological knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, and citizen science, to incorporate the social perspective and community values for holistic marine resource management. …

The Invasion Of The Southern Pine Bark Beetle, Matthew Shaughnessy

Transformations: Presentation Slides

The Southern Pine Bark Beetle is a pest that is native to the south eastern United States. Historically the population has been held to southern parts of the nation due to the harsher cold weather in the north. During the last twenty years there has been an increase in average annual temperatures on the east coast. This has allowed the species to move northward and afflict unprotected softwoods at a high rate. The objective of this project was to observe the movement of the Southern Pine Bark Beetles between 2012 and a population estimate for 2027 made by the USDA …

Tropical Cyclone Vulnerability Of Atlantic Coastal Counties In The United States, Zachary Alexander

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

1. Abstract

   Coastal populations along the Atlantic Coast of the United States face a persistent threat of tropical cyclones. Tropical cyclones of any strength can cause significant damages and losses to both life and property. As coastal populations continue to rise in a changing climate, the power of knowing which communities are the most and least vulnerable to future tropical cyclone events can assist in mitigating some of the losses. This paper explores the factors that make a coastal community more or less vulnerable to tropical cyclones based on prior natural hazards research and creates a relative index that will tell …

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Lewisburg Shade Tree Commission: Tree Inventory Repair, Community Awareness, And Policy Recommendations, Jiaxuan Zhao, Brian Gockley

Student Project Reports

No abstract provided.

Mapping Time-Space Brickfield Development Dynamics In Peri-Urban Area Of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Mohammad Mehedy Hassan, Levente Juhasz, Jane Southworth

GIS Center

Due to the high demand for cheap construction materials, clay-made brick manufacturing has become a thriving industry in Bangladesh, with manufacturing kilns heavily concentrated in the peripheries of larger cities and towns. These manufacturing sites, known as brickfields, operate using centuries-old technologies which expel dust, ash, black smoke and other pollutants into the atmosphere. This in turn impacts the air quality of cities and their surroundings and may also have broader impacts on health, the environment, and potentially contribute to global climate change. Using remotely sensed Landsat imagery, this study identifies brickfield locations and areal expansion between 1990 and 2015 …

Geographical Analysis Of Offender Vulnerability: Modeling Coastal Hazards And Social Disorganization In Southern Mississippi, Ashleigh Nicole Price

Master's Theses

Hazards research continually examines how specific groups are affected by damaging events and how their unique sociodemographic characteristics contribute to variations in resilience and recovery. Studies have shown that underprivileged communities suffer more adversely and take longer to recover from hazard events. Probationers and parolees are uniquely disadvantaged regarding demographics and economic opportunity, both of which contribute to increased vulnerability and reduced resilience. Numerous legal restrictions and widespread discrimination towards former criminals means offenders are often relegated to underserved, criminogenic neighborhoods. Given such severe social and financial limitations, offenders have little capacity to prepare for or recover from disasters.

The …

Assessment Of The Socio-Environmental Impacts Of The Urban Expansion Using Gis And Remote Sensing In The City Of Guayaquil, Ecuador., Erika P. Jimenez Rivera

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the impacts of the urban expansion from 1990 to 2010 in Guayaquil, Ecuador using geospatial technologies. It incorporates census and land cover data to identify the social and environmental repercussions through Hot Spot Analysis, land cover classification, and Markov chains model.

Snow And Non-Snow Events Based Winter Traffic Crash Pattern Analysis And Developing Lake Effect Snow Induced Crash Count Prediction Model, Bandhan Dutta Ayon

Masters Theses

This study aims to (i) find the spatial-temporal traffic crash pattern and (ii) develop a statistical model for predicting LES induced traffic crash counts. Three southwest Michigan counties: Allegan, Kalamazoo and Calhoun are selected to conduct this study. Snow and non-snow event based comparative analysis are conducted using Getis-Ord Gi* statistic to identify high density crash cluster locations in the study area. While several new and oscillating hot spots are detected in Allegan during snow, no hot spot is detected during non-snow events based analysis. In Kalamazoo, traffic crashes do not exhibit much difference in spatial-temporal trend during snow or …

The Spatial Ordering Of Nabataea: An Integrated Analysis Of The Geography, Architecture, And Morphology Of Nabataean Petra, Christopher Clifton Angel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Nabataean city of Petra is well known for its sandstone architecture and rock-hewn funerary landscape. Over the last few decades, numerous studies examined their history, culture, art, and architecture. The few studies that assessed the urban space of Petra focused on the functional properties of individual architectural forms and their nominal placement within the overall landscape. This study focused on the spatial configurations of architecture as relational to the dynamics of Nabataean politics and ritual where shifts in social order manifested similar shifts in spatial order which in turn produced and reproduced forms of social order. The production of …

Mapping Community Space And Place In Mto Wa Mbu, Tanzania Through Surveys And Gis, Jessica Craigg

Georgia College Student Research Events

Cities throughout the African continent have been developing at an unprecedented pace, many of them due to the influence of the tourism industry. This is particularly true in Tanzania, a country famous for its national parks and their draw to tourists who help provide money for development. However, the only way to get the whole story on how to spend this money is through the experiences and needs of the people themselves. This study focuses on a small town in northeastern Tanzania, Mto wa Mbu, situated near Lake Manyara National Park, and its people’s perceptions of the park and community. …

Terror And Territory: A Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Isil, Robert Riley Strider

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), alternatively the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is one of many non-state organizations that resulted from the extensive foreign intervention in the Middle East leading up to current conflicts there. Like the wider network that it used to be part of, ISIL is considered to be a great threat to modern first world countries. Using data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), this paper analyzed the relationship between the amount of territory ISIL held from June 2014 to December 2015 and the attacks it carried out in that time, …

Using Geospatial Analysis For High School Environmental Science Education: A Case Study Of The Jane Goodall Institute's Community-Centered Conservation Approach, Madison G. Vorva

Pomona Senior Theses

Given my experiences as a young conservation advocate, I saw a need to teach students the importance of interconnectedness, cultural awareness and systems-thinking skills through a spatial lens. I believe these skills are required for holistic, equitable and sustainable conservation decision-making in local and international contexts. This thesis uses geospatial tools to teach conservation ecology vocabulary and concepts from high school environmental science curriculum in two online resources. The purpose of my lesson plan is to show students how conservationists address complex conservation and land-use challenges using the Jane Goodall Institute’s community-centered conservation approach as a case-study. My hope is …

The Invisible People Of The Invisible Coast: The Resilience Of People Experiencing Homelessness To Disasters On The Alabama, Louisiana, And Mississippi Gulf Coasts, Nicole Elizabeth Callais

Master's Theses

While extensive research has been conducted on vulnerability and resilience with regard to hazards, very few studies have researched the resilience of homeless populations. The Gulf Coast region is densely populated and susceptible to natural and anthropogenic hazards. Climate change studies indicate that this region will experience an increase in severe and intense tropical cyclones[1], thereby increasing the risk of experiencing adverse impacts from future coastal hazards. While local government agencies in this region have policies in place to protect communities, these policies tend to exclude any action regarding the evacuation and safety of the homeless population.

In …

3d Tool Evaluation And Workflow For An Ecological Approach To Visualizing Ancient Socio-Environmental Landscapes: A Case Study From Copan, Honduras, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Shona Sanford-Long, Jack Kerby-Miller

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Architectural reconstructions are the centerpieces of ancient landscape visualization. When present, vegetation is relegated to the background, resulting in underutilized plant data—an integral data source for archaeological interpretation—thus limiting the capacity to take advantage of 3D visualization for studying ancient socio-environmental dynamics. Our long-term objective is to develop methods of 3D landscape visualization that have value for examining changes in land use and settlement patterns. To begin to work toward this objective, we have (1) identified 3D tools and techniques for vegetation modeling and landscape visualization, (2) evaluated the pros and cons of these tools, (3) investigated biological and ecological …

Transportation And Sanitation Drivers Of Land Use/Land Cover Change: Loss Of The Jamaica Bay Wetlands, Margaret Joy Cytryn

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an analysis (1830-2014) of the historical events of land use/land cover change in the Jamaica Bay estuary, identification of the agents of change, and a perspective on the potential drivers of transportation and sanitation in land use/land cover change.

An Assessment Of South China Tiger Reintroduction Potential In Hupingshan And Houhe National Nature Reserves, China, Yiyuan Qin, Philip J. Nyhus, Courtney L. Larson, Charles J.W. Carroll, Jeff Muntifering, Thomas D. Dahmer, Lu Jun, Ronald L. Tilson

Philip J. Nyhus

Human-caused biodiversity loss is a global problem, large carnivores are particularly threatened, and the tiger (Panthera tigris) is among the world’s most endangered large carnivores. The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) is the most critically endangered tiger subspecies and is considered functionally extinct in the wild. The government of China has expressed its intent to reintroduce a small population of South China tigers into a portion of their historic range as part of a larger goal to recover wild tiger populations in China. This would be the world’s first major tiger reintroduction program. A free-ranging population of 15–20 tigers …

Building A Gis Model To Assess Agritourism Potential, Brian G. Baskerville

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Rural areas of the world are developing and implementing tourism programs to diversify and reinvigorate their local economies. Often, these programs focus on privately-held lands in largely agricultural regions. In some countries, tourism development strategies have combined agriculture and tourism to create a new industry – agritourism. This industry, although not new in the United States, is still in its nascent stages. Before starting an agritourism enterprise, farmers and ranchers must consider the various factors that will likely influence their potential for long-term success. These factors can be grouped into 1) farm-specific factors such as an operator’s personality or the …

A Remote Sensing And Gis-Based Wetland Analysis In Canaan Valley, West Virginia, Yisha Shi

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

With the increasing influence in climate change and human activity, more and more people have begun to recognize the benefits of wetlands. However, there was a continuous annual net loss in the wetlands area since 1980s. Many programs have been implemented to monitor the status and trend of wetlands recently. In West Virginia, the wetlands area is a small portion of the State’s land, but it plays a key role in the whole ecosystem. This research aimed to detect the land cover and vegetation changes focusing on Canaan Valley area, which represents the greatest wetlands area of West Virginia. Remote …

Agriculture, Influence, And Instability Under The Ancien Régime: 1708-1768, Adam J. Polk

Masters Theses

The French Revolution has been studied from myriad perspectives. The majority of scholarship focuses on the political and urban chaos of the times. Agricultural conditions and the influence of onerous taxation and stagnant agricultural options are given only a cursory examination in most research. This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between agronomic and environmental conditions and the eruption of violence in urban centers during the French Revolution and the years leading up to it (1708-1768). This period prior to the French Revolution serves as a template to investigate the nature of the rural-agricultural influences, with a particular focus paid …

An Integrated Approach For Developing Adaptation Strategies In Climate Planning: A Case Study Of Vulnerability In Dukes County, Massachusetts, Jonathan Pollak

Master's Theses

Climate Action Plans (CAP’s) are recent innovations in policy that have been catalyzed by a need to adjust the relationship between human activity and the Earth’s climate system. CAP’s often are composed of methods to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in addition to adaptation strategies. Research indicates, however, that many plans focus on mitigation strategies while adaptation policies related to predicted changes caused by climate change are often overlooked. This thesis presents an integrative framework for locating areas that are in need of adaptation strategies through a GIS based decision support system that visualizes vulnerability. It is operationalized through an empirical …