Geography Commons^™

The Value Of Farmland: Mapping Assessor Data To Understand Land Use Change, Lyndi Perry

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ideas developed by regional economists have potential applications within the urban planning field. One potential application is toward conserving farmland, and within this thesis this topic is examined for the study area of Utah County, Utah. Using assessor data, a land value map is created and further used to develop a regional economic model and spatial models that were analyzed for patterns of land use change.

Findings show that representing land value as continuous surface maps is a useful approach. The maps reveal that Utah County has densified as its population increased while farmland loss still occurred in agriculturally-important areas ...

Lightning Talk: Re/Mapping The Archives: Repository Content For The Digital Humanities And Cartographer, Michael R. Howser

Digital Initiatives Symposium

The print map, once seen as a unique and preservation worthy collection treated uniquely as a collection housed within a separate library or library space, has seen a precipitous decline in usage since Google Maps and other online tools emerged on the scene starting in 2005. With many print map collections experiencing declines in researcher requests per year, this inevitable decline of print map usage underscores the difficulty in discovering maps via the library catalog, search engines, and/or via finding aids. As collection space is pinned against demands for student space, print map collections are targets for capturing additional ...

Introduction To Human Geography, David Dorrell, Joseph Henderson, Todd Lindley, Georgeta Connor

Geological Sciences and Geography Open Textbooks

This partner text with the University of North Georgia Press was created under a Round Eleven Mini-Grant for Ancillary Materials Creation and Revision. The UNG Press also hosts a version of the text on their site:

https://ung.edu/university-press/books/introduction-to-human-geography.php

Authors' Description:

"Geography is a diverse discipline that has some sort of connection to most every other academic discipline. This connection is the spatial perspective, which essentially means if a phenomenon can be mapped, it has some kind of relationship to geography.

Studying the entire world is a fascinating subject, and geographical knowledge is fundamental to a ...

Methodological Challenges In Urban Food Systems Research: Case Study Of Local Food Institutions In South Africa, Daniel N. Warshawsky

Daniel N. Warshawsky

This paper examines how institutional power dynamics in South Africa’s urban food system have restricted the quantity, quality, and type of data collected on food institutions and limited the range of research and policy as a result. In particular, while non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local institutions speak openly with researchers or share data, key governing institutions such as the state and agri-businesses often refuse to work with scholars. This has not only limited access to data on food system flows and operations, but it has also resulted in a significant research gap about the principal institutions in food systems ...

Northeast China’S Renewable Energy Transition: Drivers And Challenges, He Li, Liyuan Zhu

Journal of Asian Energy Studies

Northeast China is undergoing a remarkable renewable energy transition. Driven by the challenges of resource depletion and climate change, fossil fuel production has declined significantly, and the production of renewable energy has climbed sharply. However, the transition is facing challenges in terms of wind and solar curtailment, burdening local economic growth, and rising dependency on energy imports. Technological innovation, infrastructure investment, and policy reforms are required to address these issues.

California Groundwater Management, Science-Policy Interfaces, And The Legacies Of Artificial Legal Distinctions, David Owen, Alida Cantor, Nell Green Nylen, Thomas Harter, Michael Kiparsky

Nell Green Nylen

California water law has traditionally treated groundwater and surface water as separate resources. The 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) broke with this tradition by requiring groundwater managers to avoid significant and unreasonable adverse impacts to beneficial uses of surface water. This paper considers the trajectory of this partial integration of science, law, and resource management policy. Drawing on legal analysis and participatory workshops with subject area experts, we describe the challenges of reconciling the separate legal systems that grew out of an artificial legal distinction between different aspects of the same resource.

Our analysis offers two main contributions. First ...

California Groundwater Management, Science-Policy Interfaces, And The Legacies Of Artificial Legal Distinctions, David Owen, Alida Cantor, Nell Green Nylen, Thomas Harter, Michael Kiparsky

Alida Cantor

California water law has traditionally treated groundwater and surface water as separate resources. The 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) broke with this tradition by requiring groundwater managers to avoid significant and unreasonable adverse impacts to beneficial uses of surface water. This paper considers the trajectory of this partial integration of science, law, and resource management policy. Drawing on legal analysis and participatory workshops with subject area experts, we describe the challenges of reconciling the separate legal systems that grew out of an artificial legal distinction between different aspects of the same resource.

Our analysis offers two main contributions. First ...

Employing Natural History Collections In The Aid Of Conservation: Streamlining An Approach To Model Species Distributions En Masse For The Preservation Of Biodiversity, Alice Fornari

Alice Fornari

Using species distribution models (SDMs) in Natural History Collections (NHCs) can influence how humans implement conservation changes in flora and fauna communities and ecosystems. Through the use of legacy data (old NHCs and their associated locality/collection information), data correction (background data or pseudo absences added to presence-only data), and the SDM software, Maxent (and its associated geographic information systems or GIS projected models), it has been shown that it is feasible to create a low budget protocol/setup to project the past, present and future of species population changes. This has been done in the past few decades as ...

Reparation Ecologies: Regimes Of Repair In Populist Agroecology, K. Valentine Cadieux, Stephen Carpenter, Alex Liebman, Renata Blumberg, Bhaskar Upadhyay

K. Valentine Cadieux

Representation Of The Titanic In Children's Literature, Charity R. Huwe

The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies

State and national education initiatives are the driving force behind increased exploration of diverse texts, namely informational texts. Trade books offer opportunity for interdisciplinary units to develop through the rise of informational text use in both English/language arts and history/social studies. Primary source documents serve as a liaison to filing gaps in the information left out from textbooks and trade books. A more thorough understanding of historical figures and events are a result of such analysis. The initiatives do not dictate specific curricular material; teachers use their discretion when choosing available trade books, primary documents, and other curricular ...

Fifth Grade Students’ Disciplinary Literacy Using Diverse Primary And Secondary Sources, Tara L. Richeson

The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies

This study analyzed students’ use of diverse sources for a history-based writing assignment on Abraham Lincoln. Participants includes 41 students in a fifth grade self-contained classroom in rural Illinois. The study was conducted during students’ 30-minute writing period, every day for six weeks. During this time period, students close-read trade books and primary sources to collect research on Lincoln. Students also gathered additional information during their field trip to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Students synthesized their information from the various sources and organized the notes to write an informational, history-based writing piece on Lincoln. Students were required ...

Assessing History Students’ Historical Skills In The Cape Coast Metropolis Of Ghana, Charles Adabo Oppong

The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies

This study assesses history students’ historical skills in the Cape Coast Metropolis of Ghana. The specific skills assessed were document literacy and evaluative skills. In assessing these skills, two instruments were employed: the use of a test and a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) guide. Students were tested to examine their skills in using historical documents under sourcing, contextualisation and corroboration. FGD was used to investigate how students evaluate historical evidence. The data analysis of the students’ test consisted of three stages. The first stage involved marking the responses while making notes on them, the second stage included writing a single ...

Perspective Taking Through An Elementary Unit On Lewis And Clark, Ronald V. Morris

The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies

The teachers showed the perspectives students acquired through reading and comparing narratives. Teachers helped students work toward the common good in a democracy by helping the student to examine perspectives. In their reading and writing, they developed rich background and content about the experience. When students studied these explorers, the students developed an empathetic understanding for the hardships and sacrifices madeby the Corps of Discover as they traveled on this expedition. Student interest and motivation flowed into this project because they felt the problems as their own; they, therefore, were interested when they understood what it meant and found ...

Discrimination Against First Nations Children With Special Healthcare Needs In Manitoba: The Case Of Pinaymootang First Nation, Luna Vives, Vandna Sinha

The International Indigenous Policy Journal

First Nations children face systemic barriers in their access to health, education, and social services ordinarily available to other Canadian children. This article summarizes the findings of a research project initiated by, and carried out in partnership with, Pinaymootang First Nation, Manitoba between 2015 and 2017. Through this partnership, we were able to document the routine delays, denials, and disruptions of services that Pinaymootang children with special healthcare needs experienced. We further described the impact that this discrimination had on children and their caregivers. Here, we consider three specific service areas: medical services (primary and specialized), allied health services (e ...

Temporal Trends And Origins Of Lake Erie Cadmium Contamination In Relation To Sediment Substrate Type Using Multivariate Kriging Analyses, Danielle E. Mitchell, K. Wayne Forsythe, Chris H. Marvin, Debbie A. Burniston

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

Using the kriging spatial interpolation method, Cd sediment contamination in Lake Erie from 1971 (263 samples) and 1997/1998 (55 samples) were mapped as continuous data surfaces. Although the most recent data set is two decades old, the roughly 25 year period between the two comprehensive lake-wide surveys represents a period of intense binational management action to reduce sources of contamination. To improve interpolation accuracy between two different sampling densities, auxiliary variables including lake-wide sediment substrate types were integrated into spatial analysis of Cd contamination patterns. The potential for adverse biological impacts posed by Cd sediment contamination to humans and ...

Wildfire Activity And Land Use Drove 20th‐Century Changes In Forest Cover In The Colorado Front Range, Kyle Rodman, Thomas T. Veblen, Sara Saraceni, Teresa B. Chapman

Geography Graduate Contributions

Recent shifts in global forest area highlight the importance of understanding the causes and consequences of forest change. To examine the influence of several potential drivers of forest cover change, we used supervised classifications of historical (1938–1940) and contemporary (2015) aerial imagery covering a 2932‐km2study area in the northern Front Range (NFR) of Colorado and we linked observed changes in forest cover with abiotic factors, land use, and fire history. Forest cover in the NFR demonstrated broad‐scale changes 1938–2015 and overall cover increased 7.8%, but there was notable spatial variability and many sites also experienced ...

California Groundwater Management, Science-Policy Interfaces, And The Legacies Of Artificial Legal Distinctions, David Owen, Alida Cantor, Nell Green Nylen, Thomas Harter, Michael Kiparsky

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

California water law has traditionally treated groundwater and surface water as separate resources. The 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) broke with this tradition by requiring groundwater managers to avoid significant and unreasonable adverse impacts to beneficial uses of surface water. This paper considers the trajectory of this partial integration of science, law, and resource management policy. Drawing on legal analysis and participatory workshops with subject area experts, we describe the challenges of reconciling the separate legal systems that grew out of an artificial legal distinction between different aspects of the same resource.

Our analysis offers two main contributions. First ...

Culture As Sustainability: The Case Study Of Govardhan Ecovillage And Vedic Culture In India, Danielle Lella Bartolone

School of Arts & Sciences Theses

This project investigates the relationship between sustainability and Vedic culture of India. The ethnographic research at Govardhan Ecovillage seeks to understand how sustainability is embedded in culture. I employ grounded theory for my research methodology which reveals three key themes explaining fundamental and interrelated dimensions of Vedic culture as sustainability.

Downscaling Smap Soil Moisture Data Using Modis Data, Le Tu

LSU Master's Theses

Soil moisture level is an important index in studying environmental changes. High resolution soil moisture data is in high demand for agricultural and weather forecasting purpose. Current daily large-scale soil moisture projects fail to provide sufficient resolution for medium or small region research. To acquire high-resolution soil moisture data, different kinds of methods are put into practice, including multivariate statistical regression, weight aggregation and so on. In this research, SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) level 3 data with 36-km resolution are successfully downscaled by MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) 1-km LST (Land Surface Temperature) product, NDVI (Difference Vegetation Index) product ...

Using Gis And Remote Sensing To Map Grassroots Sustainable Development For A Small Ngo In Nepal, Suzanne C. Walther, Elizabeth M. Dengenis, Krishna Gurung

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

Geographic information systems, through analysis and visualizations, can aid in pursuing and improving sustainable development. Thousands of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in developing countries provide a wide range of services and local organizations with fewer resources must often be more efficient to offer their services effectively. The accessibility of spatial data for assessment and, in turn, improved planning could enable these organizations to increase efficiency, thereby maximizing aid and sustainable development, as well as the number of people helped in a variety of ways. Focusing on mapping outreach and quantifying land use for a locally run NGO in Nepal, this study ...