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Physical and Environmental Geography Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Physical and Environmental Geography

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 Mar 2024

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 …


Firesafe: Designing For Fire-Resilient Communities In The American West, Brenden Baitch Jul 2021

Firesafe: Designing For Fire-Resilient Communities In The American West, Brenden Baitch

Masters Theses

The perception that wildfires are completely preventable has caused many structures and communities to be built in locations that will inevitably experience an uncontrollable fire event, risking human lives and infrastructure. Modification of built environments into fire-adapted communities has been explored in this thesis, through multiple strategies. Central to this analysis is the idea that sustainable human developments could adopt a form of biomimicry and indigenous design informed by the adaptions of plants, animals, and native groups that endure and even thrive with regular cycles of fire. This possibility has been assessed through the scope of fire adaptation strategies available …


Time Series Analysis Of Modis Ndvi Data With Cloudy Pixels: Frequency-Domain And Sizer Analyses Of Vegetation Change In Western Rwanda, Ephraim Robert Love May 2015

Time Series Analysis Of Modis Ndvi Data With Cloudy Pixels: Frequency-Domain And Sizer Analyses Of Vegetation Change In Western Rwanda, Ephraim Robert Love

Masters Theses

Remote sensing is a valuable source of data for the study of human ecology in rural areas. In this thesis, I attempt to analyze the presence of a long-term trend indicative of post-resettlement adaptation in the vegetation signals of Western Rwanda. There is a dearth of research utilizing medium resolution imagery to study difficult environments, such as tropical-montane regions, where complex topography and cloud cover diminish image accuracy. I attempt to add to the extant literature on frequency-domain smoothing methods as well as the literature on human-environment interaction in tropical-montane regions by applying a harmonic filtering and smoothing algorithm to …