Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

The Development Of A Convenient And Consistent Methodology For Flight Proficiency To Certify Multi-Rotor Uas Pilots For State Departments Of Transportation, Colin Dees

All Dissertations

To fly an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly referred to as a “drone,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires pilots to pass a knowledge test. There is no requirement at the state or federal level for drone operators to demonstrate the ability to operate a UAS. The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) has created an exam for public and private entities to assess basic UAS flight proficiency. It is the only nationally recognized flight proficiency protocol. NIST does not provide a scoring recommendation and leaves it to the user to determine the minimum criteria to pass. There is …

Prendersi Cura: Taking Care Of Nature In Perugia, Italy, Katharine Kurtz

Other student scholarship

Cities need more green spaces to adapt to climate change and facilitate community resilience. However, successfully managing green spaces is challenging. City governments consistently employ top-down management practices that limit the benefits, usage, and perception of such spaces as Nature. Further, current management practices overlook socio-cultural factors important to residents. Using the existing categories of urban green spaces (UGS) and informal green spaces (IGS), this article situates the cultural practice prendersi cura as a way to conceptualize successful, bottom-up green space management. The term prendersi cura, meaning “to take care of” in Italian, emerged through interviews in Perugia, Italy, and …

A Tale Of Two Working Landscapes, Sage C. Sutcliffe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Public-Ish, Aliah Werth

Masters Theses

Climate change affects public space, and architecture must establish tenets that prioritize pedestrians in this difficult era. Greywater re-use can be a mechanism for creating shade, and in turn, public space.

As heat waves grow more intense, the vast swaths of asphalt that connect commercial zones pose greater risks to public health and to urban vitality. This thesis records the typical material, spatial, and lived conditions of strip malls in urban heat islands, and demands more from infrastructure in public-ish space.

Heat violence weaves through Los Angeles’ built form. Parking space minimums, required setbacks, and height restrictions pull buildings away …

Quantifying The Carbon Stored And Sequestered By The Trees On Pomona College’S Campus, Paola A. Giron-Carson

Scripps Senior Theses

We are experiencing a climate crisis that must be confronted with strategic mitigation. Pomona College contributes to the climate crisis through its emissions for which there is a baseline record. However there is no baseline record of the climate mitigation currently performed by the trees on Pomona’s campus through carbon storage. This study seeks to determine a current baseline quantity of carbon stored and sequestrated by Pomona’s trees as well as possible courses of climate mitigation for Pomona College to take. Initial information gathering was conducted through interviews with several stakeholders. This study was conducted using data collected prior to …

Feasibility Of Earthships As Sustainable Homes In Brookings County, South Dakota, Whitney Sunkwah Yeboah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Addressing the issue of housing deficit while providing affordable and sustainable homes is a significant problem in the United States today. This has prompted architects to design homes with less adverse environmental impacts despite their affordability, hence the birth of sustainable housing. Earthships are sustainable homes built from recycled materials, utilize solar or wind energy, and function as self-sufficient units. The study's main aim is to assess residents' perceptions of earthships and their willingness to adopt earthships in Brookings County, South Dakota. The research employs online surveys to garner data from residents, and data are analyzed using mixed methods. Results …

Learning From Public Spaces In Historic Cities, Cody Josh Kucharski

Symposium of Student Scholars

Successful public spaces in cities are key for enhancing social cohesion and improving health and safety. Learning from historic cities involves the development of representational and analytical tools aimed at capturing their essence as places of human interaction. The research reports findings of the spatial analysis of twenty Adriatic and Ionian coastal cities, which addresses the question of how the network of public spaces calibrates different degrees of spatial enclosure necessary for creating successful social interactions. Cities in the littoral region include well-preserved historic centers that are renowned for the successful integration of urban squares into the urban fabric. For …

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 …

Environmental Cues And The Sociospatial Imaginary: An Examination Of Spatial Perception And Meaning-Making In A Gentrifying Neighborhood, Todd Levon Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What could be more ordinary or pedestrian than two people walking down an urban street and talking about what we see and what we make of it? Yet this simple, quotidian act of walking a street—seeing, perceiving and experiencing physical spaces, places and objects—and making meaning of what is encountered, is the basis of my dissertation. It is also my basis for claiming that I have learned a great deal—and much unexpectedly—about how differently different people see and interpret the urban streetscape. What are the various environmental cues that stand out to different individuals? What are the psychosocial imaginaries that …

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 …

A Spatial Analysis Of Supply-Demand Of Public Transportation In Jefferson County, Kentucky., Nastaran Abdoli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public transportation is important as it serves individuals, especially the transit-dependent population, by providing a basic mobility service to these people and all others who rely on public transportation. This research utilized estimating public transportation demand and supply to analyze the spatial patterns of public transportation in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The study focuses on the transit-dependent population, and it considers indicators of age, poverty status, vehicle ownership, and foreign-born population with less than five years residency in the United States. This study conducted a public transit supply-demand analysis to identify areas with imbalanced supply and demand in Jefferson County at …

Understanding Agrihoods: An Exploration Into The Growing Trend Of Farm-To-Table Communities Across The United States, Benjamin Breger

Masters Theses

Agrihoods are a recent trend in real estate development that integrate agricultural amenities - such as working farms, orchards, or community gardens - into residential or mixed-use communities. As an emergent trend, agrihoods have the potential to enhance farmland preservation and local and regional food systems, making them a ripe area for research. However, very little scholarly research has been carried out to characterize, contextualize or evaluate agrihood developments. Thus far, the development model has primarily been detailed in popular media sources. This thesis serves as a baseline study that seeks to understand how neighborhood food systems operate within agrihood …

The Role Of Geospatial Information And Effective Partnerships In The Implementation Of The International Agenda For Sustainable Development, Etta Delores Jackson

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon (2014), repeated the core promise in the 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development, in which the General Assembly called for an approach guaranteeing meaningful participation of everyone in development and the fair distribution of the benefits of that development. To this end, partnerships are central and can lead to the dignity of the citizens involved as they participate in the development of their own communities. This dissertation research conducted in Manyatta A and B in the Port City of Kisumu, Kenya sought to do just that. The purpose of this study …

Getting Past Possession: Subsurface Property Disputes As Nuisances, Joseph A. Schremmer

Faculty Scholarship

Property rights in the subsurface of land are adapting to accommodate modern activities like massive hydraulic fracturing (fracing). Property rights will need to continue adapting if they are to accommodate other developing activities like large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS). Courts and commentators rarely approach the nature of subsurface property directly. They tend instead to discuss appropriate standards for tort liability when disputes arise—for example when artificial fissures from a frac treatment extend into and drain oil or gas from a neighbor’s land. The case law and literature generally approach unauthorized subterranean invasions as trespasses. Because the tort of trespass …

The Effects Of Urban Development And The Incidence Of Flooding And Discharge Changes From 1956-2016: A Case Study From Juan Diaz Township, Republic Of Panama, Virgilio De Jesus Quintero Rodriguez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increase in flood occurrences in the Township of Juan Diaz has affected thousands of families and hundreds of businesses and has negatively impacted the lives of thousands of residents, who expect the worse every time there is a prolonged period of rain. Some of the residents lose their appliances, cars, furniture and houses every year. This study examines the relationship between urban development and flooding. Also, it addresses the influences of topography, green cover, population changes, runoff changes, and social dynamics on this relationship. This study implemented the use of thematic cartography, geographic information systems (GIS), personal interviews and …

Crown-Level Mapping Of Tree Species And Health From Remote Sensing Of Rural And Urban Forests, Fang Fang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Tree species composition and health are key attributes for rural and urban forest biodiversity, and ecosystem services preservation. Remote sensing has facilitated extraordinary advances in estimating and mapping tree species composition and health. Yet previous sensors and algorithms were largely unable to resolve individual tree crowns and discriminate tree species or health classes at this essential spatial scale due to the low image spectral and spatial resolution. However, current available very high spatial resolution (VHR) remote sensing data can begin to resolve individual tree crowns and measure their spectral and structural qualities with unprecedented precision. Moreover, various machine learning algorithms …

Fences: Physical And Socio-Cultural Boundaries, Vanessa Baehr

Senior Projects Fall 2018

Fences, walls, and lines exist around the world, across many cultures, and are generally universally understood symbols of defense, inclusion, and exclusion. Barriers are created intentionally and their purposes vary. Fences can act as a tension or relief between public and private spaces. Physical barriers can been seen as metaphors for social dynamics and relations; boundaries can be reflections of both our internal and external landscapes. Incorporates fences / walls from a number of perspectives; historical, anthropological, archaeological, and cultural. Inspired by a reflexive moment in moving to a new town, buying a house, having a garden, and wanting a …

Impermeable Assemblages: Flooding, Urban Infrastructure, And Stormwater Politics In São Paulo, Brazil, Nate Millington

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This project analyzes efforts to remake the relationship between water and city in São Paulo, Brazil. Currently experiencing overlapping problems of flooding, scarcity, and pollution, São Paulo illustrates the challenges of managing water in a contemporary mega-city. This dissertation subsequently considers the city’s water management through an approach that borrows from urban political ecology, social studies of science, and post-colonial urban theory. With an epistemological grounding in these literatures, this project analyzes ongoing conversations about water management in São Paulo, and focuses on how water is encountered and engaged with in the landscape by engineers, artists, and activists. This project …

Bringing Football Back To Los Angeles, Gabriel Leiner

Gabriel Leiner

Identifying a suitable parcel for a large scale professional football stadium in the greater Los Angeles, CA area, which does not conflict with current uses, environmental protection codes, or airspace rights, and also has adequate transportation access and nearby populated neighborhoods.

The Design Of Frontier Spaces: Control And Ambiguity, Andreas Luescher

Andreas Luescher

In a globalizing world, frontiers may be in flux but they remain as significant as ever. New borders are established even as old borders are erased. Beyond lines on maps, however, borders are spatial zones in which distinctive architectural, graphic, and other design elements are deployed to signal the nature of the space and to guide, if not actually control, behaviour and social relations within it. This volume unpacks how manipulations of space and design in frontier zones, historically as well as today, set the stage for specific kinds of interactions and convey meanings about these sites and the experiences …

Community-Engaged Public Health Research To Inform Hospital Campus Planning In A Low Socioeconomic Status Urban Neighborhood, Jeri Brittin, Sheila Elijah-Barnwell, Yunwoo Nam, Ozgur Araz, Bethany Friedow, Andrew Jameton, Wayne Drummond, Terry T.-K. Huang

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Objective: To compare sociodemographic and motivational factors for healthcare use and identify desirable health-promoting resources among groups in a low socioeconomic status (SES) community in Chicago, IL. Background: Disparities in health services and outcomes are well established in low SES urban neighborhoods in the United States and many factors beyond service availability and quality impact community health. Yet there is no clear process for engaging communities in building resources to improve population-level health in such locales. Methods: A hospital building project led to a partnership of public health researchers, architects, and planners who conducted community-engaged research. We collected resident data …

Block 271, Reviving An Industrial Artifact, Jared Thomas Pohl

Masters Theses

Vacant industrial sites are scattered throughout our cities all across the country. These sites, these remnants of industry, are occupied by a very interesting category of buildings. They are artifacts from an industrial era that served very unique and specific functions. These service buildings suffered programmatic failure and have lost their vitality. They have entered a form of hibernation, waiting for the post-industrial epoch to wake them up.

The building stock under investigation makes up a large portion of the city’s structures. Identifiable by their heroic scale, clean articulated lines and tendency to be vacant, these service buildings raise arguments …

Mapping And Analyzing Historical Sanborn Maps Of San Luis Obispo From 1905 And 1950, Troy A. Lawson

Social Sciences

This project was conducted to map, analyze, and determine historical changes in the city of San Luis Obispo, California. Sanborn maps from 1905 and 1950 were drawn showing streets, parcels, creeks, and buildings of the city. These publications had limited use because they were in a physical format without any geographic reference. Here, these maps were digitized into a GIS format to analyze building trends and identify cultural and historical buildings not on the City’s list of Historic and Culturally Contributing Buildings, as well as published online on the City of San Luis Obispo’s website and on ArcGIS Online. Additionally, …

Situated Architecture In The Digital Age: Adaptation Of A Textile Mill In Holyoke, Massachusetts, Dorcas A. Brooks

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The City of Holyoke, Massachusetts is one of many aging, industrial cities striving to revitalize its economy based on the promise of increased digital connectivity and clean energy resources. But how do you renovate 19th century mills to meet the demands of the information age? This architectural study explores the potential impact of sensing technologies and information networks on the definition and function of buildings in the 21st century. It explores the changes that have taken place in industrial architecture since 1850 and argues for an architecture that supports local relationships and environmental awareness. The author explores the industrial history …

Tribes As Essential Partners In Achieving Sustainable Governance, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Indigenous peoples have modeled sustainable development around the world. Incentivizing the innovation and instillation of wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources can come in the form of public funding, including renewable portfolio standards, feed in tariffs and green tag programs. This article analyzes ways in which tribal communities are helping to expand cooperative good governance.

Offer Adolescents Suburban Habitat Positive Experiences In Their Neighborhood, Benjamin A. Shirtcliff

Benjamin A Shirtcliff

The adolescent population living in suburban environments is very important. This reality, however, is still too recent to be considered by practitioners of the development, which would explain why the physical environment of teenagers is rarely designed to meet their needs. This article addresses the basic needs of adolescents living in the suburbs and designers suggest ways to improve their quality of life by creating fallback places in their neighborhood. The values ​​and adolescents special needs will be used to assess the quality of suburban open spaces. We mainly interressted in the physical environment, building on the studies in the …

Parking Regulation Strategies And Policies To Support Transit-Oriented Development, Ryan W. Lundergan

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis identifies and explores the effects that new parking strategies and policies could have on transit-oriented development (TOD) success levels. Additionally, it makes the case for TOD parking regulation reform, and is designed to educate planners and stakeholders on how to successfully and responsibly shape parking regulation in the planning and implementation process, so that land use in the region allows the synergistic provision of sustainable transportation specifically to the Boston region.

Transit-Oriented Development is viewed and defined differently throughout research and literature, with its most common traits being compact, mixed use development near transit facilities and high-quality walking …

Ua30/2 Visitor's Guide & Campus Map, Wku Parking & Transportation Services

WKU Archives Records

Western Kentucky University campus map includes advertisements for local Bowling Green businesses.

Effective Planning For Seismic Risk: Case Of Kobe, Japan, Mami Itamochi

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis discusses the city of Kobe’s recovery from the Great Hanshin Earthquake from the perspective of city planning. The earthquake and fire devastated many established parts of the city, impacting housing, businesses, and community institutions, resulting in a need for coordinated planning of of rebuilding. The purpose of this research is to investigate effective planning techniques for seismic risk, using Kobe, Japan as a case study. My research examines a neighborhood where a new plan was developed after the earthquake. It also describes how Kobe is dealing with the massive loss of housing and town resources. After this devastating …