Geography Commons^™

Jlag Perspectives: China's Belt And Road Initiative: What Role For Latin America?, Margaret Myers

Journal of Latin American Geography

Though excluded from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in its earliest phases, the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) region was recently designated as a potential destination for Belt and Road investors. However, the extent to which LAC stands to benefit from enhanced Chinese engagement will depend more on the region’s capacity for policy coordination and strategic planning than on its official inclusion in the Belt and Road.

Adapting To Climate Change Through Source Water Protection: Case Studies From Alberta And Saskatchewan, Canada, Robert J. Patrick

The International Indigenous Policy Journal

The protection of drinking water sources continues to gain momentum in First Nation communities on the Canadian Prairie. Through the identification of potential threats to drinking water sources communities are taking action to mitigate those threats. This article explores the extent to which climate change has been taken into consideration in recent source water protection planning community exercises. In addition, this article describes how source water protection planning has potential to enhance community adaptation strategies to reduce the impacts of climate change on source water and drinking water systems. Results are based on six case studies from Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Using Drones To Generate New Data For Conservation Insights, Paul Lorah, Alice Ready, Emma Rinn

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

Human impact on the environment is driving a decline in biodiversity that heightens the need for informed management of conservation lands. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are an increasingly cost-effective tool for generating high-quality data used to map landscape features, analyze land cover change and assess the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Traditional sources of remotely sensed data such as satellites and aircraft can be costly, inflexible and unable to detect fine-scale surface variation. This paper explores the advantages (and challenges) of analyzing data collected by drones to generate useful conservation management insights. We focus on three key ...

Humans As Sensors: The Influence Of Extreme Heat Vulnerability Factors On Risk Perceptions Across The Contiguous United States, Forrest Scott Schoessow

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extreme heat events are the deadliest natural hazard in the United States and will continue to get worse in the coming years due to the effects of climate change. As a result, more people will experience deadly heat conditions. This highlights the need for decision-makers to develop better strategies for preventing future losses. How badly individuals are affected by extreme heat depends on many circumstances, such as how high temperatures actually are, weather conditions, and location. For example, a dry 90 °F day in Phoenix is probably more tolerable than a humid 90 °F day in New Orleans for most ...

Which Urban Residents Vote And Why? A Geospatial Analysis Of Voting Behavior In Worcester, Ma, John D. Holbrook

Graduate Theses

This study investigates the relationship between voter travel distance to polling places in Worcester, MA and voter turnout. Linear and geographically-weighted regression are used to evaluate the significance of travel distance and demographic control variables. Worcester appears to be unique when compared to previous studies investigating travel distance and voter turnout. Travel distance to polling place does not reliably predict voter turnout in Worcester, but vehicle ownership, race, and age do.

The Energy Yield Of Global Crops 1961-2016, Quinn Montana

Theses and Dissertations

It is often suggested that world food production must increase by 70%-100% or more by the year 2050 if we are to feed the anticipated world population at that time. To evaluate this claim, global crop production from 1961 to 2016 was inventoried using publicly available data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). To determine the adequacy of global crop output for humanity, annual global food crop production data (T y-1) were converted to energy yield in kilojoules (KJ y-1). These data were then compared to the annual metabolic energy requirement of the global human population ...

Critical Citizenship Education Through Geography, Jung Eun Hong

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

In a current globalized world, citizens are expected and encouraged to understand cultural diversity and respect individual differences. Furthermore, they are also expected to become responsible citizens for recognizing and actively participating in issues on social justice and human rights at local to global scales. That is, our diverse society demands “critical” citizens who are interested in public affairs, concerned about inequality and injustice, and motivated to change and improve our society. In response to an increased need for actively engaged and participating citizens in a today’s world, critical citizenship education has been suggested as a new framework for ...

Nasa Astronaut Photography Of Earth: A Resource To Facilitate Students’ Learning And Using Geospatial Concepts, Zahra Ghaffari, Injeong Jo, Nathan Allen Currit

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

Spatial thinking is considered a fundamental cognitive skill and there has been more focus on it in recent years due to improved geospatial technologies. Teaching spatial concepts to students by using publicly available resources is an appropriate method to increase spatial thinking ability. More than 1.5 million photographs are publicly available through the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website. We wanted to explore the effectiveness of using photographs to improve students’ spatial thinking by using a set of these photographs.

In this research, we selected uncataloged photographs from the International Space Station astronauts’ collection and asked undergraduate students ...

Learner Requirements And Geospatial Literacy Challenges For Making Meaning With Google Earth, Lynn A. Moorman, Susan Crichton

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

This research contributes an educational research perspective to teaching and learning with geospatial technologies. This work considers the literacy of a geospatial text that is readily accessible to students, but often assumed to be intuitive to read– dynamic scalable satellite imagery, which often serves as base maps for common navigation, GIS, and virtual globe applications. Within the context of a STEM project, Grades 5 and 6 students were observed and interviewed to identify knowledge and skills that were required to make meaning of Google Earth imagery. A qualitative methodological approach incorporating a thinkaloud data collection protocol was followed to stay ...

Improving Spatial Thinking Through Experiential-Based Learning Across International Higher Education Settings, Kyle C. Flynn

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

Research in geographic education has a strong focus on the improvement of spatial thinking. For Millennials, spatial thinking curriculum could benefit from the inclusion of experiential-based learning activities. However, as universities are faced with larger class sizes, new approaches need to be incorporated by the instructors to offer improved learning environments. Courses introducing basic geography skills often incorporate lessons concerned with spatial thinking and global perspectives. Thus, the instruction of geographic tools such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS), longitude, latitude, and remote sensing offer prime opportunities for experiential-based learning in geographic pedagogy. This research aimed to employ a low-cost experiential-based ...

Student And Teacher Response To Use Of Different Media In Spatial Thinking Skill Development, Larianne Collins

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

The purpose of this research is to advance K-12 geospatial learning by investigating the methods (traditional paper versus digital technology) best suited for delivering content that improves spatial thinking skills. This research was designed to investigate whether instruction through different media, among other variables such as attitudes toward geography and technology, past travel experience, and demographic variables have an effect on the development of spatial thinking skills. Specifically, it examines traditional, paper aerial imagery as compared to digital imagery visualized with 3-D globes. Findings confirm that students taught by both paper and digital media showed improvement in spatial thinking skills ...

Role Of Geography Courses In Improving Geospatial Thinking Of Undergraduates In The United States, Kanika Verma, Lawrence Estaville

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

This national study utilizes the Geospatial Thinking Survey (GTS) to assess the geospatial thinking abilities of undergraduates in the United States. A survey of 1479 students from 61 public universities provided the data. The mean score of geography majors was the highest, while that of criminal justice majors was the lowest. The mean score of students who studied at least three college geography courses was significantly higher than those students who took less than three college geography courses. College geography courses apparently bolster student geospatial thinking abilities, thereby corroborating the stronger geospatial thinking skills of geography majors. Moreover, individual questions ...

The Impact Of World War One On The Forests And Soils Of Europe, Jason Andrew Heiderscheidt

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

The First World War was one of the deadliest conflicts in human history thus far. With the human toll being over eight million deaths, and millions more wounded, and as such it has taken hold in peoples imaginations for over a hundred years. However, one overlooked impact of the war is the environmental impact it had. The forests of Europe were significantly changed, going from being diverse ecosystems pre-war to monocultures after the war, dominated by single species of trees. The soil was also affected, more heavily in some places, becoming contaminated with heavy metals, as well as becoming entirely ...

Re-Reading The Map Of Middle-Earth: Fan Cartography's Engagement With Tolkien's Legendarium, Stentor Danielson

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien provided an elaborate textual history for his writings about Middle-earth, but did not do so for his now-iconic maps. This paper examines how this difference, in concert with the general tendency of readers to treat maps as objective records of geography, has manifested in Tolkien's work and fan works based upon it. An examination of fan cartography shows a strong tendency to treat the published maps as records of geographical fact rather than historical documents from within Middle-earth.

The Persistence Of Segregation In The 21st Century, Paul A. Jargowsky

Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice

No abstract provided.

Development Of A Qgis Plugin To Dasymetric Mapping, Nelson Mileu, Margarida Queirós

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

Demographic data is usually represented by choropleth map, where the statistical data is aggregated to areal units. This type of representation has several limitations associated with spatial analysis and distribution. A common alternative to display statistical data in meaningful spatial zones is the dasymetric mapping technique. Though dasymetric mapping has existed for many decades, the open source GIS tools to explore dasymetric mapping methods are scarce. In this paper, a Geographical Information System (GIS) open source application was developed in QGIS software that applies the dasymetric mapping method to the Portuguese Guimarães municipality 2011 Census block-group populations and using Corine ...

Crowdsourcing The Georeferencing Of Historical Pictures, Timothée Produit, Nicolas Blanc, Sarah Composto, Jens Ingensand, Loic Furhoff

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

Countless organizations own archive pictures which are not used due to the difficulty of localizing them. Only the participation of volunteers can help to identify the image content. Through an accessible web interface called smapshot, citizens are able to georeference historical images without any prior specific competence. To avoid the volunteers to face the complexity of 3D digitization and navigation, we implemented a state of the art photogrammetry camera orientation algorithm in the platform. Currently several thousand images from all around Switzerland have been georeferenced by the crowd. At this time the tool is mainly used by the population for ...

Hydraulic Modeling For The Assessment Of Flood Hazard Using The Iber Software In The Amarante Urban Center, Márcia Martins, Alberto Gomes, Pedro Pinto Santos

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

Recently, there is an availability increase of hydraulic modeling software that allows the analysis and definition of several hydraulic variables, namely water depth and flow velocity, which are important parameters for the assessment and management of flood-prone areas. The growing use of this software is related with the fact of being Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), making possible the understanding of different approaches and providing most reliable and accurate results of flood-prone areas according different return periods.

In this study it was used the freely hydraulic software Iber, a tool for two-dimensional modeling of water flow in rivers and ...

Grassland Recognition With The Usage Of Thermal Weights, Alen Mangafić, Nika Mesner, Mihaela Triglav Čekada

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

In this paper we apply the usage of thermal weights, a new variable for geostatistical analysis and we present the method for their determination. In the case study we tested a data fusion between Sentinel-2 and Landsat 7/8 data, to incorporate also the thermal factor in the detection of land cover changes. The process distinguishes grasslands from other crops with similar vegetative appearance and offers us the possibility to create a new statistical sample with just grasslands. The data fusion is incorporated in the calculation of Land Surface Temperature (LST^FU) by combining the Sentinel-2 derived Normalized Difference Vegetation ...

Robust Railroad Cable Detection In Rural Areas From Mls Point Clouds, Máté Cserép, Péter Hudoba, Zoltán Vincellér

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

Monitoring of the railroad infrastructure is crucial for safety concerns and accident prevention. This task requires regular surveillance which is nowadays still carried out by expensive and time consuming manual visual inspections in many countries. The problem of railroad cable recognition (contact cables, catenary cables, return current cables) in rural areas based on LiDAR point clouds has it own methods, but current state of the art solutions suffer from extremely high computational load due the extensive size of the datasets. In this study we analyzed and compared novel robust solutions focusing on minimizing the assumptions (positions and distances of track ...