Digital Commons Network^™

Enhancing Coastal Vulnerability Assessments And Policy Impacts On Socioeconomic And Environmental Equity In Michigan's Great Lakes Communities, Esther N. Acheampong

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Accelerating shoreline erosion, fluctuating lake levels, and climate-induced hazards are transforming the Great Lakes’ freshwater coasts, exposing the limitations of static and inequitable management frameworks. This dissertation investigates how Michigan’s coastal governance systems produce and manage vulnerability along the Lake Michigan shoreline by integrating geospatial modeling, institutional policy analysis, and environmental justice theory. It argues that both physical processes and institutional designs co-determine patterns of exposure, protection, and equity. The research begins by developing a refined Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) tailored for lacustrine environments, applying it to Muskegon County to assess how shoreline change, armoring, and seasonality influence localized risk. …

A Critical Toponymy Of Humboldt County: Ethics And Tensions Within Efforts To Change Place Names, Serenity Aleta Wood

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project explores how Humboldt regional placenames enact toponymic silencing and how Indigenous activists challenge colonial names and geographies, advancing un-settled interpretations that position language revitalization/regeneration as a means of revitalizing relationships with the land. Mobilizing Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy’s concept of (re)naming, I analyze two case studies, the Baduwa’t documentary and the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation’s film A'-t'i Xwee-ghayt-nish: Still, We Live On, as well as three additional artistic works: Sarah Biscarra Dilley’s every pattern needs a passage, Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe’s Thunder Song, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s painting, State Names. In tandem with film and poetry analysis, I survey local …

Improving Flood Risk Mapping By Incorporating Local-Scale Calibration Data Derived From Stakeholder Input, Jennifer M. Holifield, Wei Wu, Patrick D. Biber, Margo Posten, Dennis Mcgrury, Stephen C. Deal, Alexandria Hancock

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Globally, flooding is the most frequent and costly natural hazards, disproportionately affecting populations based on environmental, social, and economic factors. Understanding the spatial variability of flood risk as well as the respective flood drivers is essential for informing cost-effective mitigation strategies and enhancing community resilience. Here we mapped flood risk that combines flood hazards and vulnerability in an under-resourced coastal community prone to compound flooding. Our approach integrates stakeholder engagement with GIS-based analysis using open-access datasets.

We first developed an initial flood hazard map using an equal-weight combination of factors commonly associated with flood occurrence/prevention, including upslope area, impervious surface …

The Landless Rural Workers Movement (Mst) And New Agrarian Questions In Brazil, Estavan Coca, Gustavo Oliveira

Geography

The Landless Rural Workers Movement of Brazil (MST) primarily organized occupations of large-scale farms, forcing the redistribution of land for creation of agrarian reform settlements. In the past 20 years, however, land occupations and the establishment of new agrarian reform settlements have consistently declined, while the MST shifted strategies to strengthening existing agrarian reform settlements, increasing marketing mechanisms through government purchasing programs and direct rural–urban connections, cultivating new financial instruments, advancing agroecological transformations to strengthen production and contesting space in governance and discourse about sustainability, rural development and socio-ecological wellbeing. We argue this shift represents not an abandonment of the …

Assessing Fisheries Dependence Of Coastal Communities In Managed Mangrove Forests In Latin America, Ariel Alexander Quintanilla Magana

Open Access Dissertations

Fisheries dependency refers to the action of a person, community, or society linking their social, cultural, and economic actions to different ecosystem services (ES) for covering their food system with essential marine species, developing a governance system to conserve these fishing areas, their local ecological knowledge, and guaranteeing food security in the coastal areas. In Latin America, most fishing activities are practiced within three nautical miles of the shoreline, estuaries, lagoons, and mangrove forest channels, using small vessels and traditional gear such as hooks, trammel nets, and gill nets. Some coastal communities have developed their subsistence and livelihood activities in …

El Sistema Nainu De Agricultura Familiar: Semillas De La Memoria Social Y De La Autonomía Alimentaria En Gunayala (Panamá), Lenín Alfonso Morales, Geodisio Castillo, Diego Madi Dias

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

La presente investigación examina el sistema agroforestal familiar (nainu) del pueblo gunadule como un tejido de resistencia social, espiritual y ecológica frente a los procesos históricos y actuales de desposesión territorial y colapso climático. A partir de un enfoque etnográfico basado en métodos participativos y epistemologías indígenas, se analizan las prácticas, conocimientos y relaciones que sostienen la autonomía alimentaria y la regeneración del territorio en Gunayala. El estudio documenta los impactos de la transferencia tecnológica, la expansión de semillas híbridas y transgénicas, identificados como amenazas centrales para la continuidad de los cultivos tradicionales y la salvaguardia de semillas …

From Red To Green: Using Gis To Examine Colorado’S Inequitable Housing Patterns In Urban Greenspace Accessibility, Jessica Howard Karr

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Urban greenspaces provide numerous benefits to the mental and physical health of nearby people who access these locations for physical recreation, social interaction, and contemplation. Discriminatory urban planning policies from the past, such as redlining, have ensured that greenspace access is not always equitable for communities with diverse racial and socioeconomic compositions. This project utilizes Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to determine relationships between tree cover canopy, greenspace percentage within a census tract, and greenspace accessibility within a graded census tract system based on demographics and historic redlining locations in the Colorado cities of Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo. The results …

Rewilding The Built Environment: Navigating Economic, Political, And Social Barriers To Urban Ecological Restoration, Carly E. Smith

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Urban rewilding offers a nature-based approach to restoring ecological processes in cities while advancing climate resilience, biodiversity, and public well-being. Unlike conventional green infrastructure, rewilding allows ecosystems to develop with minimal intervention, emphasizing succession, complexity, and long-term adaptability. This paper examines the political, economic, and social factors that frame how rewilding is understood and implemented in urban planning. Governmental frameworks often prioritize order, predictability, and short-term results, making it difficult to accommodate the uncertainty and ecological complexity that rewilding requires. Economic models struggle to capture its long-term value, frequently overlooking ecosystem services or reconciling competing land uses. Social perceptions of …

Repairing Epistemic Injustice And Loss In The Era Of Climate Coloniality, Farhana Sultana

Geography and the Environment - All Scholarship

Climate change intensifies existing inequities, disproportionately impacting marginalised populations, particularly in the Global South and Indigenous communities. This is maintained through inequitable global climate governance, policies and solutions. The paper argues that climate coloniality, the complex entanglements of colonial legacies with contemporary climate and ecological changes, operates through systemic knowledge-based marginalisation or epistemic injustice, serving as a key mechanism in the uneven production and distribution of climate harms. Beyond the more commonly discussed material dimensions of loss and damage, epistemic injustices arise from silencing critical voices and devaluing knowledge systems. The paper extends the scope of loss and damage debates …

A Political Ecological Exploration Of The Caracol Road Project In Belize, Lorenzo A. Pantano

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Caracol Road Project is a new BZ$148,100,000 (US$74,050,000) road infrastructure development in the Cayo District of Belize and financed largely by foreign sovereign wealth funds. The areas adjacent to the road, broken into two phases include: communities, forest reserves, national parks, recreational areas, private lands and estates, and archaeological sites. This paper seeks to ask the questions: (i) For whom is the CRP being developed? (ii) For what is the CRP being developed? (iii) What visual evidence exists of sacrifice zones because of the production of the CRP? I sought to answer these questions through ethnographic observations, interviews, and …

The Potential Of National Parks And Protected Areas In The Anthropocene: Emerging Incubators Of Environmental Justice And Co-Stewardship Conservation, Yolonda Youngs

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

National parks are often praised as natural labs for physical science researchers and scholars. They are also cultural labs where ideas about public lands management, use, and access are reformulated and revised. In the Anthropocene, these sites hold special relevance. Within this context, parks can serve as active and evolving incubators of social and climate resilience guided by just conservation initiatives. Yet few studies have explored the new models of collaboration and partnerships between the U.S. National Park Service and Tribal Nations that seek to create co-stewardship conservation. This article addresses that gap with a qualitative and historical case study …

Urban Political Ecology And Informal City: Using The Capabilities Approach In Co-Designing With Slum Communities, Patrick Vance S. Nogoy

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

Slum communities which compose an informal city offer a serious challenge to urban metabolism approaches that promise to be inclusive in confronting environmental injustice. In particular, urban political ecology (UPE) frameworks critically examine power structures and relational dynamics in the environment where objectionable injustices are identified and corrected. However, Holifield (2009) finds UPE limiting as it excludes marginalized communities and other important factors. The main reason Holifield highlights is the dominance of Marxist UPE frameworks that interpret environmental injustices narrowly as results of uneven social power relations and dynamics driven primarily by neo-liberal capitalist behaviors, institutions, and activities. Alternatively, he …

A Debt To Whom? The Nature Questions In Sino‑Sri Lankan Development Narratives, Orlando Woods, Kanchana Ruwanpura, Loritta Chan, Barnabas Mah

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This chapter critically examines dominant narratives around Sri Lanka’s debt and development in the context of Sino‑Sri Lankan relations and the Belt and Road Initiative, questioning assumptions about “debt‑trap” explanations and highlighting how narratives about development, nature and agency shape understanding of the country’s economic and ecological futures.

Practitioners’ Perspectives On Preventing Environmental Gentrification In Chicago, Illinois, Usa, Tania Schusler, Amy Krings

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Pollution cleanup, green space creation, and other improvements to environmental quality in cities are important to urban sustainability. However, because they occur within a political economic context characterized by structural racism, urban greening initiatives can intentionally or unintentionally reproduce racial, economic, and social inequities through environmental gentrification. We explored possibilities for improving environmental quality without displacing or excluding long-term residents including people of color, the poor, and members of other marginalized groups. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with community organizers, environmental justice advocates, urban planners, housing specialists, and others who held deep expertise through their lived and professional experience in …

(De)Centralized Water Futures: Key Dimensions Of Infrastructure, Governance, And Operations, Alicia Dailey Cooperman, Jenny Linder Rempel, Ellis Adjei Adams, Alida Cantor, Manuela Muñoz Fuerte, Jeremiah Osborne-Gowey, Nicole J. Wilson, Cassandra L. Workman, Melissa Beresford, Leila M. Harris, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water system centralization and decentralization have variously been promoted as key to achieving household water security and Sustainable Development Goal 6.1. We argue that the lack of specificity with which scholars and practitioners use the terms centralization and decentralization limits our understanding of different water system configurations and their impacts. In this Primer, we provide a framework for thinking about levels of (de)centralization across three linked system dimensions: infrastructure, governance, and operations and maintenance. We encourage those analyzing water systems to characterize (de)centralization with respect to these multiple dimensions, as well as the system's broader political-economic and hydro-climatic contexts. Emphasizing …

A Mobility Data-Driven Approach To Analyzing And Modeling Park Accessibility Inequities And Use In U.S. Cities, Michaelmary Chukwu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban Park accessibility inequities have been a longstanding issue globally and the United States in particular. Despite the benefits that urban parks provide, use and access is not equitably distributed among the population, often favoring historically privileged populations over others (disadvantaged). Fortunately, improvements have been made in recent years to promote balanced park distribution in some cities; however, evidence still shows that most cities are behind. Interestingly, the rise in human mobility data has facilitated the study of human behavior and use of activity spaces. This thesis advances the existing studies on park accessibility and emerging human mobility to study …

Mapping Food Justice: Urban Farms And The Examination Of Equitable Food Access, Aaron Avila, Mark Ayiah, Jake Stavely, Marc T. Sager, Maximilian K. Sherard, Anthony J. Petrosino

SMU Journal of Undergraduate Research

In this project, we worked alongside members from an urban farm in South Dallas to learn about issues related to food justice, urban farming, and food deserts. Using participatory design research methods, we created data visualizations showing how society can reduce inequities relating to food access produced in historically underserved neighborhoods. The research goals guiding this study are: a) to identify food deserts and urban farms in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region (DFW) and b) to determine which urban farms service the needs of these food deserts. To identify food deserts, we took two steps: First, we used open-access data …

Advancing Interactive Web Cartography Through Designing And Developing An Open-Source, Data-Driven Framework For Accessible Geovisualization Of Geospatial (Big) Data, Sarigai Sarigai

Geography ETDs

The growth of geospatial big data has intensified the demand for open-source, accessible tools for interactive spatial exploration. This dissertation introduces a modular web mapping framework and details its design, extension, and evaluation to advance geovisualization through user-centered, transferable design. The first study presents the original framework, named dciWebMapper, establishing foundational cartographic and information visualization principles, with a focus on modularity and extensibility. The second study extends dciWebMapper with advanced capabilities—such as diverse map types, bivariate visualizations, temporal filtering, spatial querying, and hotspot analysis—and demonstrates its broad transferability across domains. The third study offers a structured usability evaluation of …

Analyzing Environmental Health: Air Pollution And Human Health Using Geospatial Data Science, Yanhong Huang

Geography ETDs

Air pollution from industrial emissions and wildfire smoke poses growing threats to public health. This dissertation employs geospatial data science to examine these challenges through three interrelated studies. The first study investigates the relationship between maternal residential exposure to industrial pollutants and low birth weight, identifying five chemicals as significant risk factors. The second study assesses the impact of industrial air pollution on lung and bronchus cancer survival, finding that exposure to 1,1,1-trichloroethane and cobalt is associated with reduced survival. The third study explores disparities in wildfire smoke PM_2.5 exposure and its association with asthma exacerbations. Results show disparities …

Du Undergraduate Showcase Abstracts: Research, Scholarship, And Creative Works, Kabe Aberle, Nadia Kako, Kateri Mcrae, Brooke Agulnek, Sky Palmon, Yasmine Ramirez, Francisca Aguirre Beltran, Ashley Juarez, Bridget Kim, Tessa Appel, Sterling Kerr, Spencer Ingley, Gabe Meyer, Robin Tinghitella, Dale Broder, Lily Baeza, Chloe Beers, Julia Coakley, Whitney Kelsey, Sydney Gainforth, Gabi Wing, Audrey Martin, Aaliyah Amore Berry, Brooke Watley, Kiruthika Venkatesan, Rachel Bienstock, Annabella Brotherston, Madison Bryant, Mia Burgener, Emma P. Lieb, Rachel A. Johnson, Jennifer L. Hoffman, Kania Campbell, Kiena Campbell, Courtney Cassidy, Sage Krzyzkowski, Maddox Jones, Skylar Abookire, Luke Hawkins, Sunnah Yoon, Andrea Chu, Yan Qin, Nyah Cubbison, Brian Gearity, Daniel Mcintosh, Mariely Cruz, Edward Garrido, Grady Dionne, Nicole Doris, Lyndsie Salvagio, Ann-Charlotte Granholm-Bentley, Anna Dymov, Hannah Eckert, Gabrielle Welsh, Erica Larson, Charlie Ernst, Anna Zhou, Sarah Watamura, Larissa Fedorovich-Klein, Georgie Fields, Kimberly A. Guevara, Aven Mccall, Ben Peltier, Feruz Yahia, Patrick Flores, Jadyn Floyd, Sophia Forcier, J. Von R. Monteza, Peter Sokol-Hessner, Gwendolyn Geiger, Scott Nichols, Camryn Gunter, Kendal Hengst, Charlie Bednarz, Issy Garside, Addison Baker, Rachel Mina, Brooke Hermanson, Amanda Klingler, William Highfill, Sydney Jaques, Kerstin Lewey, Allison Grossery, Daniel Linseman, Ethan Lim, Jagger Livengood, Owen Mantelli, Gabby Pappas, Abby Mcdonald, Madeleine Dierking, Eve Miller, Emma Loeber, Anna Marlow, Michael Kerwin, Ella Mathews, Hillary Hamann, Khadija Mohamed, Vivian Nguyen, Gabri Notov, Ifunayachi Ogbonna-Ukuku, Sunil Kumar, Charles Baysah, Sarah Olson, Don Sullivan, Anna Paradiso, Jay Parrish, Mira Pronobis, Alisha Pravasi, Kerstin Haring, Diego Ramirez, Christopher Reardon, Juliana Ramirez, Casey Doherty, Ella Kestner, Teagan Weindel, Cate Billings, Pablo Torre-Walter, Lucy Rand, Samantha Reynolds, Mark Siemens, Khadeeja Rashid, Laine Satterlee, Piper Heilbronner, Lily Pound, Ben Whitehurst, Anna Respet, Lizzie Lesoing, Sydney Hertel, Aya Saad-Masri, Brooke Ballenger, Max Proske, Hannah Rosenberg, Ellia Nakahara, Sophia Espinoza, Ivan Woolhouse, Simon Ruland, Gorkem Er, Timothy Sweeny, Melaku Saketa, Michela Schenk, Maren Lynch, Madi Hamm, Grace Schroeder, Michelle Rozenman, Rana Seif, Jackson Hall, Marisela Simental, Daniel Paredes, Aaron Mena, Preston Spaan, Evelyn Stovin, David Andrew Swartz, Anh Tran, Daniel Pittman, Luke Farchione, Emily Boyer, Ukari Verner, Lacey Conrad, Jonathan Velotta, James Weiner, Jagger Gossett, Noah Sherry, Sam Proud, Ben Block, Avi Narayana, Zoey Weiss, Alyssa Wilson, Gabrielle Walsh, David Zonana, Keely Wright, Kena Riveria, Lillybelle Deer, Jena Doom, Elysia Davis, Isabelle Yaremenko, Caitlyn Young

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Abstracts from the DU Undergraduate Research Showcase.

Adaptation Planning To Mitigate Flood Risk: Bellevue, Nebraska As A Case Study, Michael Nti Ababio

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Flooding remains one of the most pressing natural hazards in the United States, with increasing frequency and intensity driven by climate change. This thesis explores the adaptation planning strategies employed to mitigate flood risks in Bellevue, Nebraska, a city significantly impacted by the 2019 floods in eastern Nebraska. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study combines quantitative analysis of flood vulnerability with a critical review of local planning policies using documents, zoning ordinances and institutional frameworks. Spatial analytical tools such as Global Moran’s I and Hot Spot Analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*) were used to detect clustering of inundated buildings during the 2019 …

Reluctant Transitions: Place And Post-Extraction Politics In Southeastern Ohio, Jenna Lynn Haver

Theses and Dissertations

Based on a summer of ethnographic research in a subsection of Appalachian Ohio colloquially referred to as “The Valley,” this research challenges three narratives of this place that formulate a harmful Appalachian imaginary. The first narrative of industrycontrolled coal heritage is complicated by the way local people negotiate control over their own stories of coal and its existence outside of industry domain. The second narrative characterizes this as a space of extraction which is in tension with different social relations to varying types of energy – especially the discontinuity of the coal to fracking shift. The third narrative centers of …

Political Ecologies Of Storage For The 21st Century, Sayd Randle, Matthew Archer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

New resource storage arrangements are proliferating rapidly both in terms of physical infrastructures-for the storage of things like "clean" energy, nuclear waste, carbon dioxide, fresh water, and data-and as part of a set of discursive moves that reinforce a vision of a near future world in which problems of climate change mitigation and adaptation in particular (but also issues like energy security, water security, industry growth, etc.) are solved through eco-modernist techno-fixes. This Symposium sketches the contours of a framework we term political ecologies of storage. In doing so, we treat storage as both a potent imaginary and a concrete …

Who Bears The Burden? An Assessment Of Vulnerability And Resilience To Consecutive Disasters In The Portland Metro Region, Idowu Ajibade, Jason Sauer, Matthew Walter, James M. Done, Ming Ge, Elliot Gall, Aswatha Raghunathasami, Paul C. Loikith, Chris Lower, Heejun Chang, Arun Pallathadka, E Mae Sowards

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Climate-related disasters threaten urban areas worldwide, yet gaps remain in understanding how multiple stressors interact to shape resilience. This study examines exposure, vulnerability, and resilience across three consecutive extreme events in the Portland metro area: the September 2020 wildfire-related air pollution, the February 2021 snowstorm, and the June 2021 heatwave. We used geographically weighted regression and Spearman rank correlation analysis to investigate relationships between hazard impacts, the social vulnerability index (SoVI), Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC), and proximity to community-based organizations (CBOs) in 416 census tracts. Our analysis reveals strong spatial correlations between wildfire-related air pollution, winter storm impacts, …

A Spatial Analysis Of Residential Photovoltaic Adoption In New Jersey: Focusing On 2020 With Trends Through 2025, Brandon Mcalister

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

This capstone project seeks to find the relationship between socioeconomic and demographic variables and their relationship to residential photovoltaic installations across New Jersey. The study consists of Geographic Weighted Regression Analyses to construct and socioeconomic index indicating the likelihood of photovoltaic adoption in New Jersey zip codes. Then using the index to predict future photovoltaic adoption across the state. The study found that socioeconomic and demographic variables can predict photovoltaic adoption within one year, but when placed in an index and used to predict future adoption trends, the model under predicts and extremely over predicts. While socioeconomic status is a …

A Fifty-Year Assessment Of Historical Planning Processes And Green Space Distribution (1975-2025): A Case Study Of Portland, Or, Usa, Quadri Olatunbosun Taiwo

Dissertations and Theses

The Portland study examined past planning regulations and greenspace distribution over the period of fifty years, with particular attention given to neighborhood differences between invested and non-invested neighborhoods. This research utilized a mixed-methods approach through the synthesis of qualitative themes from oral narratives and archival records. Furthermore, I examined spatial greenspace using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) imagery. I tested the study hypothesis using the GIS Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression test to predict how key sociodemographic characteristics affect the provision of greenspace in non-white disinvested neighborhoods. The key findings indicated a consistent trend of inequity in greenspace, heavily shaped …

Sunrise At The Salton Sea: Environmental Justice, Land Use Change, And Hydrosocial Dynamics Of Solar Energy Transitions In The Imperial Valley, California, Dustin Mulvaney, James J. A. Blair, Alida Cantor

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

California's Imperial Valley, with lithium-rich geothermal brines, extensive flat agricultural fields with abundant desert sunshine, and access to transmission lines, is a leading case to explore interconnected themes around just energy transitions. Despite being the poorest county in California and one of the smallest, Imperial already provides 15% of the state’s solar electricity, and the region as a whole represents on the order of 25% of the state’s electric power capacity. This paper brings to light frictions over solar energy development that have emerged over the history of solar power development in the southern Salton Sea region. It describes the …

Convergence Research For Microplastic Pollution At The Watershed Scale, Heejun Chang, Elise F. Granek, Amanda Gannon, Jordyn M. Wolfand, Janice Brahney

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microplastics are found in Earth’s atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, and ecosphere. While there is a growing interest and need to solve this grand challenge in both the academic and policy realms, few have engaged with academics, policymakers, and community partners to co-identify the problem, co-design research, and co-produce knowledge in tackling this issue. Using a convergence research framework, we investigated the perception of microplastic pollution among different end users, delivered educational materials to K-12 teachers and practitioners, and identified key sampling points for assessing environmental microplastic concentrations in the Columbia River Basin, United States. Three community partner workshops identified regional …

Gis And The 1944 U.S.–Mexico Treaty: Rethinking Transboundary Governance Under Climate And Demographic Stress, Pedro L. Sarabia

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the structural limitations of the 1944 U.S.–Mexico Water Treaty in the context of intensifying climate stress and growing population demand. Using GIS-based raster analysis of precipitation from 1981 to 2024, it maps hydrological trends in treaty-bound basins—particularly the Rio Grande and Lower Colorado—which exhibit persistently low and variable precipitation. These conditions, coupled with institutional rigidity, threaten the sustainability of binational water management. In addition to quantitative analysis, the study includes a qualitative assessment of transboundary governance dynamics, highlighting how institutional fragmentation and policy contention impede adaptive responses. The Treaty’s current surface-water-only framework excludes groundwater management, real-time data …

Passive Envelope Retrofits As Climate Justice Infrastructure Against Extreme Heat: A Gis-Guided Approach For Outdated Single-Family Homes In Urban California, Mert Oztekin Mr.

Master's Projects and Capstones

I examined the opportunities to enhance equity in energy performance, climate resilience, and environmental adaptation through climate-resilient envelope retrofitting and spatially guided implementation strategies (via mappings of the Urban Heat Island -UHI- and socio-economic vulnerability indicators). Passive envelope retrofits of attic insulation; high-performance windows; cool roofs; and green roofs / walls, are examined across multiple climate zones of California' aged single-family housing stock, focusing on the Disadvantaged Communities (DACs). Through spatial analysis, strong overlap between Urban Heat Island(UHI) exposure; pre-1980 housing; socioeconomic disadvantage, and thus the need for spatially-directed action is underlined. The policy landscape analysis provides confirmation of the …