Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Developing Tornado Climatology In The Southern Great Plains Per Phases Of Prominent Oceanic Oscillations, Nicholas M. Fillo

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Meteorologists are continually working toward a greater understanding of which atmospheric environments are most conducive for tornado development. This Capstone project analyzed tornado occurrences across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana during the period 1950 through 2009 to determine if any correlation exists between the location and frequency of tornado activity and the phases of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. While it was determined that no phase of any of the oscillations studied was significantly more dominant over the other(s) concerning frequency, this project does identify some spatial shifts in tornado activity depending …

Design Of A Comprehensive Geographic Information System For The Administration Of El Camino Real De Los Tejas National Historic Trail, Jeffrey M. Williams

Faculty Publications

Stephen F. Austin State University’s Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture’s (ATCOFA) Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Laboratory were engaged by the National Park Service (NPS) National Trails System-Intermountain Region to provide GIS services supporting the NPS’s development of a Comprehensive Management Plan for El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail (ELTE). The scope of work was completed under an agreement with the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit sponsored by the Texas AgriLife Research Program at Texas A&M University. ATCOFA assisted the NPS in the coordination of local landowner and other local stakeholder contacts, conducted archival research …

Determining Heritage Oak Tree Susceptibility To Sudden Oak Death Using Gis Risk Analysis, Michelle M. Guzdek

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Sudden Oak Death (SOD), caused by the pathogenic water mold Phytophthora ramorum, has killed hundreds of thousands of oak trees in the California coastal regions, with redwood-tanoak forests being hit the hardest (Shoemaker et al., 2007). The term “sudden oak death” is used to describe the disease, because of how rapidly the pathogen has killed otherwise healthy tanoaks, virtually in a matter of weeks (COMTF 2010). SOD was first reported in California in 1994 and is believed to have originated from infected nursery or ornamental plants, but the source has never been identified (Mascheretti et al. 2008).

Mius News: Maps And Imagery User Services @ Fiu Green Library: Vol. 3, Issue 2, Spring 2010, Jill V. Krefft

MIUS News

Florida International University's Spring 2010 Map and User Imagery Services Newsletter.

Tracking Bare Sand Mobilization Arising From Landscape Manipulations In The Grasslands Destabilization Experiment (Gdex) In The Nebraska Sandhills Using Imaging Spectroscopy, Benjamin Helder

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Grassland Destabilization Experiment (GDEX) is a landscape scale manipulative experiment initiated in 2004 in the Nebraska Sandhills to evaluate changes in surface properties following the abrupt loss of stabilizing vegetation. The GDEX features five treatments allocated among ten plots of 120 m in diameter (1.13 ha). The Aggressive Bare Sand protocol included chemical defoliation and subsequent shallow disking and raking in 2004 to devegetate the plot with periodic physical disturbance to maintain bare sand. The Long Term Disturbance (Press) protocol includes an initial chemical defoliation in May 2005 and seasonal spring reapplications, but no physical disturbance. Short Term Disturbance …

Change And Persistence In Land Surface Phenologies Of The Don And Dnieper River Basins, V. Kovalskyy, G. M. Henebry

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

The formal collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 produced major socio-economic and institutional dislocations across the agricultural sector. The picture of broad scale patterns produced by these transformations continues to be discovered. We examine here the patterns of land surface phenology (LSP) within two key river basins—Don and Dnieper—using AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) data from 1982 to 2000 and MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data from 2001 to 2007. We report on the temporal persistence and change of LSPs as summarized by seasonal integration of NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) time series using accumulated …

Dual Scale Trend Analysis Distinguishes Climatic From Anthropogenic Effects On The Vegetated Land Surface, K. M. De Beurs, C. K. Wright, G. M. Henebry

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

We present a dual scale trend analysis for characterizing and comparing two contrasting areas of change in Russia and Kazakhstan that lie less than 800 km apart. We selected a global NASA MODIS (moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer) product (MCD43C4 and MCD43A4) at a 0.05◦ (∼5.6 km) and 500 m spatial resolution and a 16-day temporal resolution from 2000 to 2008. We applied a refinement of the seasonal Kendall trend method to the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image series at both scales. We only incorporated composites during the vegetative growing season which was delineated by start of season and end …

Mius News: Maps And Imagery User Services @ Fiu Green Library: Vol. 3, Issue 2 Fall 2009, Jill V. Krefft

MIUS News

Florida International University's Fall 2009 Map and User Imagery Services Newsletter; Vol. 3, issue 2.

Mius News: Maps And Imagery User Services @ Fiu Green Library: Vol. 3, Issue 1 Fall 2009, Jill V. Krefft

MIUS News

Florida International University's Fall 2009 Map and User Imagery Services Newsletter.

Mius News: Maps And Imagery User Services @ Fiu Green Library: Vol. 2, Issue 2 Spring 2009, Jill V. Krefft

MIUS News

Florida International University's Spring 2009 Map and User Imagery Services Newsletter.

Muis News: Maps And User Imagery Services @ Fiu Green Library Vol. 2, Issue 1 2008, Jill V. Krefft

MIUS News

Florida International University's Fall 2008 Map and User Imagery Services Newsletter.

Western Juniper (Juniperus Occidentalis) Ecology With An Exercise In Remote Sensing Techniques, Elizabeth A. Goralski

Geography Masters Research Papers

Western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis var. occidentalis) has been expanding its biogeographic range since the mid-1800's, resulting in decreased biodiversity, altered wildlife habitat, increased soil erosion, reduced stream flows and reduced forage production. The direct causes of western juniper aforestation are unclear but appear to be related to altered fire regimes, over grazing, and climatic shifts.

This study seeks to determine how Landsat images combined with Digital Orthoquads (DOQs) can be used to examine the geographic distribution of western juniper. Satellite imagery has yet to be applied to the large scale mapping of western juniper aforestation, resulting in the lack of …

Mius News: Maps And Imagery User Services @ Fiu Green Library: Vol. 1, Issue 1 2007, Jill V. Krefft

MIUS News

Fall 2007 Newsletter for FIU's Maps and Imagery User Services department.

Gis Aided Archaeological Research Of El Camino Real De Los Tejas With Focus On The Landscape And River Crossings Along El Camino Carretera., Jeffrey M. Williams

Faculty Publications

Many generations of indigenous pathways through the forests of eastern Texas have their origins obscured in antiquity. Utilized by early European explorers, these pathways became modified through heavy use and the expansions and improvements needed to accommodate easy passage of European horses and carts and finally the heavy wagons of Anglo-American settlers. The first road through Texas, El Camino Real de Los Tejas, utilized portions of these early trails.

El Camino Carretera (known as the cart road) is an early segment of El Camino Real de los Tejas that crossed the Sabine River at the boundary between Texas and Louisiana. …

Large Seasonal Swings In Leaf Area Of Amazon Rainforests, Ranga B. Myneni, Wenze Yang, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Alfredo R. Huete, Robert E. Dickinson, Yuri Knyazikhin, Kamel Didan, Rong Fu, Robinson I. Negron Juarez, Sasan S. Saatchi, Hirofumi Hashimoto, Kazuhito Ichii, Nikolay V. Shabanov, Bin Tan, Piyachat Ratana, Jeffrey L. Privette, Jeffrey T. Morisette, Eric F. Vermote, David P. Roy, Robert E. Wolfe, Mark A. Friedl, Steven W. Running, Petr Votava, Nazmi El-Saleous, Sadashiva Devadiga, Yin Su, Vincent V. Salomonson

GSCE Faculty Publications

Despite early speculation to the contrary, all tropical forests studied to date display seasonal variations in the presence of new leaves, flowers, and fruits. Past studies were focused on the timing of phenological events and their cues but not on the accompanying changes in leaf area that regulate vegetation–atmosphere exchanges of energy, momentum, and mass. Here we report, from analysis of 5 years of recent satellite data, seasonal swings in green leaf area of ~25% in a majority of the Amazon rainforests. This seasonal cycle is timed to the seasonality of solar radiation in a manner that is suggestive of …

Fire-Induced Albedo Change And Its Radative Forcing At The Surface In Northern Austrailia, Y. Jin, David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the impact of fire on surface albedo and the associated radiative forcing over 56% of continental Australia encompassing the fire-prone northern tropical savanna. Fire-affected areas and albedos are derived for the 2003 fire season using daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) surface reflectance data. Near-infrared and total shortwave albedos are observed to generally decrease after fire occurrence. Regionally, the total shortwave albedo drops by an average of 0.024, with increasing reductions as the dry season progresses and larger reductions in grasslands than woody savannas. These fire-induced albedo changes exert a positive forcing at the surface that increases …

Methods For Correcting Topographically Induced Radiometric Distortion On Landsat Thematic Mapper Images For Land Cover Classification, David Michael Rosen

Geography Masters Research Papers

Satellite imagery is commonly used to study land-use, land-cover change in mountainous areas. Classification of land-cover types is particularly difficult in this type of terrain because topography affects the spectral response of surface features. Several techniques have been developed to help compensate for this topographic effect and to increase classification accuracy.

The purpose of this study is to compare topographic correction methods to determine which produces the most accurate results. Method 1 does not use any topographic correction, serving as a control. Method 2 is based on the Lambertian model, and uses topographical data as variables in an equation. Method …

Comparing Twenty-Four Years Of Forest Change In Two Communities Of Mexico's Meseta PuréPecha Using Multi-Spectral Satellite Imagery, Kevin Scott Martin

Dissertations and Theses

The Meseta Purépecha, a volcanic plateau in the Mexican state of Michoacan, is home to one of the most species-rich pine forests in the world. Recent increases in demand for forest products has put added pressure on these resources. Though existing research has suggested significant deforestation in the Meseta, there is little information identifying specific areas of decline. This study focuses on two indigenous communities in the Meseta--Pichátaro and Sevina. Both communities have long relied on wood as an economic resource. However, the two communities have reacted differently to increased demand for forest resources. The purpose of this study is …

Proceedings Of The Workshop On Spatio-Temporal Data Models Of Biogeophysical Fields For Ecological Forecasting, Geoffrey Henebry, Jan Chomicki, Tony Fountain

Geoffrey Henebry

Coastal Zone Landscape Classification Using Remote Sensing And Model Development, Kevin R. Slocum

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Coastal zone landscape characterization and empirical model development were evaluated using multi-spectral airborne imagery. Collectively, four projects are described that address monitoring and classification issues common to the resource management community. Chapter 1 discusses opportunities for remote sensing. Chapter 2 examines spectral and spatial image resolution requirements, as well as training sample selection methods required for accurate landscape classification. Classification accuracy derived from 25nm imagery with 4m pixel sizes outperformed 70nm imagery with 1m pixel sizes. Eight natural and five cultural landscape features were tested for classification accuracy. Chapter 3 investigated the ability to characterize 1m multispectral imagery into rank-ordered …

Mapping The Desertification Process In Southern Morocco Using Remote Sensing Data, Abdellah Benkhalti

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Desertification is a problem occurring in arid and semiarid zones all over the world. It is a consequence of mismanagement of the land. Human activities and livestock pressure on such fragile ecosystems lead to a deterioration of the soil by increasing its salinity, lessening its moisture, and covering it with sand and dust. Aerial photographs and satellite images constitute a tool for mapping and monitoring the desertification process. Multispectral data can assist in detecting the indicators of desertification in early stages in order to plan adequate action.

The improvement of the resolution of satellite images and the fact that they …

Use Of Remote Sensing To Quantify Construction Material And To Define Geologic Lineations : Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project, Maine, H. L. Mckim, C. J. Merry

Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project

This report contains Appendixes A and B of Special Report 242, use of remote sensing to quantify construction material and to define geologic lineations.