Digital Commons Network^™

Modeling Debris Flow Hazard Risk Post Wildfire In Northern Colorado: A Spatial Approach, Ashleigh Boyd

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

The 2020 Cameron Peak Fire, the largest in Colorado’s History, impacted over 200,000 acres of land, including vital watersheds close to population centers in Colorado, such as the towns of Estes Park and Loveland. Runoff and debris flows are a continuous hazard for approximately five years post-fire. This study takes a spatial approach to modeling runoff potential of the Big Thompson Subbasin Watershed, using curve number methodology to approximate runoff potential by combining land cover, soil data, slope, and burn severity. Field work indicated possible uncertainty in the model due to discrepancies with field sample soil hydro groups compared to …

A Lack Of Inclusive Playgrounds And How Gis Can Bridge The Gap: A Case Study In Metro Denver, Brittny N. Wagner

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Inclusive and accessible playgrounds are a vital component to a sustainable and healthy community. These types of playgrounds encourage interactions between children of all abilities, which is a key component of social, emotional, and physical development. Playgrounds are often outdated or built without considering the needs of different types of community members. This is often due to lack of research about what it means to build an accessible playground and lack of awareness of the need for this type of play coming from city officials and park planners. Many parents and caregivers are left wondering where accessible playgrounds are located, …

Understanding Delays And Improving Emergency Response With Gis - Evergreen Fire Department In Evergreen, Colorado, Adrien Hoff

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

It is expected that both the PSAP and the responders in the field react quickly and arrive on the scene to emergency events as soon as possible. Fire agencies have been held to standards set in place reflective of where the emergency occurs and how quickly responders are expected to reach that location. Calls that experience delays in meeting these standards should be carefully examined and learned from for future events. Utilizing National Fire Protection (NFPA) population zone recommendations, population zones previously established with 2010 census data and unknown methods were recreated for Evergreen Fire Protection District. Then, utilizing SQL …

The Impact Of Subjective Risk Analysis On Real Estate Prices In The Nisqually Region Following The 2001 Nisqually Earthquake, Ryan Espedal

All Master's Theses

Earthquakes are an environmental hazard that pose great risks to communities almost every day. With earthquakes, the main cause of concern is physical destruction of property, however, there are also psychological effects that are researched and discussed much less. In 2001, the Nisqually area of western Washington experienced a substantial earthquake that produced minimal physical damage but caused a significant decrease in real estate prices. Studying single-family homes from 1986-2012, this research utilizes hedonic property models to measure the change in consumer’s subjective risk calculations with reference to real estate purchases after the Nisqually earthquake, measure the relationship between earthquake …

Comparison Of Gis Methods For Estimating The Social Vulnerability In Response To Natural Hazards In The West Part Of The City Of Tualatin, Alex Troy

Geography Masters Research Papers

The influence of natural hazards on social vulnerability is an important topic in the risk analysis of natural disasters in the human-environment system. Due to the difficulty of directly measuring social vulnerability, composite indexes are used as a surrogate. Social vulnerability indexes attempt to characterize access to societal and local social services during or after disastrous events, using various indicators such as age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, housing organization, access to shelters, and medical facilities. Geographic information systems (GIS) are used for vulnerability analysis due to their visualization methods and demographic data analysis. However, limitations in GIS applications for social …

Production, Best Management Practices, And Market Impacts Of Forest Biomass Harvest And Collection In The Mid-Atlantic Region, William E. Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Time motion studies were conducted at five mid-Atlantic sites that spanned various operations in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The harvest systems included integrated harvests where chips were produced in the forest, roundwood systems where only roundwood was produced, and a centralized chipping system. The study collected overall productivity and machine utilization data at the various harvesting operations. The cost per green ton of woody biomass ranged from $18.46 to $39.8 resulting in an average of $30.33 among the five systems. Hauling had the highest average price per green ton at $9.10, while loading had the lowest at $1.73 per …

Using Extended Two-Step Floating Catchment Area To Map Children’S Level Of Access To Physical Books In West Virginia, Heather A. Maxey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The state of West Virginia lacked a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the availability of physical books across the state. Access to reading material is vital to a child’s educational development as well as lifelong learning beyond childhood. To guide policy decisions and planning for outreach which addresses reading levels and beyond, I mapped levels of access stemming from socioeconomic barriers, spatial barriers, and an integrated index of both types of barriers. To map spatial access, I utilized a modified Extended Two-Step Floating Catchment Area model, deriving techniques from Hong et al’s 2023 article addressing access for health care in WV. …

Synergies Between Residents: Evaluating Support And Concerns Of Recreation And Tourism Economic Development Within The Monongahela National Forest Region, Morgan R. Martin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Tourism has continually been presented as a growing economic sector around the world. Having become an area of increased interest for diversifying rural economies, tourism is an attractive alternative to the declining traditional economic engines of rural communities like agriculture, forestry, and mining. Rural destinations have become increasingly attractive to outside visitors who seek to pursue activities embedded within the local culture and distinctive attractive assets available in rural regions. The USDA has recognized the increasing importance of recreation and tourism economies as an emerging or priority area of national need and an effective means for rural development. Even with …

Adaptation Rationales And Benefits: A Foundation For Understanding Adaptation Impact, Edward R. Carr, Johanna Nalau

Geography

Efforts to achieve coordinated, effective, and impactful adaptation outcomes are complicated by factors ranging from the local specificity of adaptation needs to the challenges of politics and prioritization that drive funding decisions. However, these and other challenges are perpetuated and exacerbated by poorly constructed, often implicit, and generally institution- or context-specific impact pathways connecting policy/institutional priorities through their materialization in specific actions to their intended outcomes. We call these impact pathways adaptation rationales, as they represent the logic of an adaptation action. The implicit nature of most current adaptation rationales makes it difficult to identify and test the accuracy and …

Teaching Information Literacy In An Undergraduate Class On The Geography Of The Middle East, Reecia Orzeck

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

Geography instructors have a role to play in helping their students to become more information literate. This is especially important today, given the complex and dynamic nature of our informational landscape, and given the evidence that young people lack much of the knowledge that is needed to engage with information critically. This paper reports on the effectiveness of an information literacy module that was included as part of a course on the Geography of the Middle East. It describes the design and rollout of the module, and the results of a study designed to assess the effectiveness of the module …

New Green Revolution In Ghana: Perceived Benefits, Challenges, And Implications For The Environment, Daniel Kpienbaareh, Abubakari Ahmed

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

This paper reflects on Africa's new green revolution (NGR) movement by drawing data from Ghana as an illustrative case to assess the benefits and challenges of NGR and discuss the long-term environmental implications of NGR interventions. We draw insights from agrarian change theory to understand the complexity of local, national, and international factors that interact to produce changes in agricultural systems that affect smallholder farmers in poor settings. Data were collected using qualitative methods based on the lived experiences of farmers and analyzed to understand farmers’ perspectives. We identified increased yield and income levels as crucial benefits of the NGR. …

A Geospatial Approach To Assessing The Impact Of Agroecological Knowledge And Practice On Crop Health In A Smallholder Agricultural Context, Daniel Kpienbaareh, Jinfei Wang, Isaac Luginaah, Rachel Bezner Kerr, Esther Lupafya, Laifolo Dakishoni

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

In the context of food insecurity in resource-poor settings, agroecology (AE) has emerged as an important approach promoted for improving crop productivity, yet few studies have demonstrated how a combination of agroecological methods can improve crop health and thereby crop productivity. Using a geospatial approach, this study investigated whether agroecological practices can improve crop health in smallholder contexts. We compared leaf area indexes (LAIs) of crops on AE and non-AE farms and prospectively predicted the impact of AE using vegetation indexes (VIs). We found that crops on AE farms produced higher average growing season LAIs for maize and pigeon peas …

A Revised Provenance Model For The Elk Mound Group In South-Central Wisconsin Based On Detrital Zircon Analysis, Itai S. Bojdak-Yates

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The Late Cambrian Elk Mound Group consists of three supermature sandstone formations deposited in and on the shores of a shallow, tropical sea: the Mount Simon, Eau Claire, and Wonewoc formations, in ascending order. Workers have used detrital zircon (DZ) U-Pb analysis to constrain the sources of the sand grains and build a regional provenance model. This study considers new samples from the Mount Simon Sandstone in the context of previous DZ studies in Wisconsin and Illinois. The samples reveal a transition from Mesoproterozoic source provinces towards Late Archean source provinces over time, which is understood to represent a shift …

Distributed Energy Infrastructure Development: Geospatial & Economic Feasibility In Rural West Virginia, Xinming Andy Zhang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Energy transition from conventional to centralized power plants, including coal-fired units, is critical for West Virginia’s long-term energy and economic future. The socioeconomic downturn in West Virginia was deeply connected with the dependence on the centralized coal industry and the coal economy. Most traditional coal communities in rural West Virginia struggle to maintain economic viability, potentially leading to outmigrations and poor energy resilience. I investigated the possibility of introducing community-sized distributed energy systems in these rural communities to improve energy resilience and accommodate the future transition from centralized coal-generated energy.

My goal was to identify rural regions where distributed energy …

The Role Of Digital Spaces In Caring For Children With Feeding Tubes: Home, Family, And Community Reconsidered, Sara Gilbert Loftus

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Abstract

This dissertation draws from feminist geographic research to critically examine the landscapes of care traversed by family caregivers of children with feeding tubes and complex medical and long-term care needs. Drawing from theories and methodologies from feminist disability and digital geographies, in combination with feminist science technology studies (STS), I explore the impact of neoliberal policy changes on daily caregiving tasks and how families, in response to these policy changes, (re)create digital spaces and relationships to satisfy their unmet needs. This research examines the growing and shifting roles of digital spaces in the everyday lives of marginalized and/or vulnerable …

Linkages Between Atmospheric Circulation, Weather, Climate, Land Cover And Social Dynamics Of The Tibetan Plateau, Shobha Kumari Yadav

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is an important landmass that plays a significant role in both regional and global climates. In recent decades, the TP has undergone significant changes due to climate and human activities. Since the 1980s anthropogenic activities, such as the stocking of livestock, land cover change, permafrost degradation, urbanization, highway construction, deforestation and desertification, and unsustainable land management practices, have greatly increased over the TP. As a result, grasslands have undergone rapid degradation and have altered the land surface which in turn has altered the exchange of heat and moisture properties between land and the atmosphere. But gaps …

An Analysis Of Urban Land Use Land Cover (Lulc) Changes In Lilongwe City, Central Malawi (2002–2022), Zola Manyungwa

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city, has grown nearly tenfold in the last 40 years with a 4-5% annual population growth rate, and the city’s population is projected to double over the next decade. Rural to urban migration and natural increase are the driving factors of the city’s urban expansion. Characterised by the urbanisation of poverty, Lilongwe is experiencing uncontrolled and unplanned urban expansion that has led to the growth of informal settlements. Urbanisation leads to land use land cover (LULC) changes that negatively impact the quality of life and the environment. Lilongwe faces many challenges, including high levels of poverty, inequality, …

Disaster Risk Assessment In The Context Of Social Justice Using Geospatial Data Analytics, Behrang Bidadian

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Disaster Risk Assessment in the Context of Social Justice Using Geospatial Data Analytics

Behrang Bidadian

In recent decades, urban areas have witnessed a rise in floods which have posed a significant threat to human life and wealth, due to the effects of global warming. While researchers have conducted extensive studies on natural disaster risk focusing on components such as hazard, exposure, and vulnerability, certain aspects of this field have remained inadequately understood. To fulfill this need, the primary objective of this dissertation was to enhance our understanding of flood risk in urban areas, considering it a crucial example of natural …

Mapping Landcover Change And Population Displacement Of Lakshmipur District, Bangladesh Due To Riverbank Erosion From 2001-2021: A Geospatial Approach, Israt Jahan

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Due to the geographical setting, the Lakshmipur district of Bangladesh experiences adverse effects of global climate change that include but are not limited to natural disasters such as tropical cyclones, storm surges, coastal flooding, and riverbank erosion. While riverbank erosion is an implicit impact of climate change, it directly affects human settlements, agricultural activity, and the overall livelihoods of people in this area. Examining the spatiotemporal changes in land cover and population due to riverbank erosion in this region could help us better understand the dynamics of human-environmental relations. This study aimed to classify land cover for every five years …

The Influence Of Urban Forms And Street Infrastructure On Pedestrian-Motorist Collisions, Taylor J. Foreman

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Unwalkable cities are afflicted by serious issues such as increasing rates of pedestrian traffic accidents, public health concerns, and the denied right to have an accessible city. This study examines how different types of urban forms and street infrastructure contribute to the prevalence of traffic accidents in two major metropolitan cities in the United States: Atlanta, Georgia, and Boston, Massachusetts. This study utilizes geospatial analysis through the Average Nearest Neighbor and Optimized Hot Spot Analysis tools to determine the spatial distribution of traffic accidents throughout both cities. Additionally, statistical tests were conducted to explore the relationships between the number of …

Reflections On A Career Unplanned, Robert A. Glazer

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Sometimes life takes unexpected turns. I never planned to be a marine biologist; yet, after a long and unpredictable journey, that’s exactly where I found myself. After obtaining my B.S. in Fishery Biology from Colorado State University, I found myself meandering from job to job like a golden retriever following some vague scent. At first, I was hired by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to work seasonally in Grand Teton National Park on the freshwater trout fisheries. Soon thereafter, I found myself cultivating oysters, clams, and other shellfish in California. The skills I developed there as an algologist led …

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 …

Airport Ground Access Choice Between Transportation Network Companies And Parking: A Case Study Of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Sen Wang, Yichen Zheng, Yi Gao

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The segment between home and airports is an essential component in all air transportation trips. Travelers normally have different ground access options to commence their journeys. Using Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as a special case, this study proposes a theoretical framework for quantifying and comparing the overall cost of driving and parking at airport and the use of Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) ridesharing services such as Uber. Based on the cost comparison, we design an interactive web application to visualize the utility advantage area and summarize the corresponding demographic information. Our study has the potential to benefit airports, TNC operators, …

Assessing The Impact Of The Yellowstone Tv Series On Montana's Tourism Economy, Patrick Barkey, Melissa Weddell

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

The hugely successful and popular dramatic television show Yellowstone, which portrays the fictional Dutton family ranch in Montana, has sparked the interest of a worldwide audience in our state. In addition to its critical and commercial success, the show has emerged as a significant factor in the marketing of Montana, with its more than 10 million viewers treated to storylines, characters and scenery of the mountain west. How has the show’s success affected the arrival and subsequent spending of visitors to the state? A new study jointly produced by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) and the Institute …

A Comprehensive Satellite-Based Assessment Across The Pacific Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory Shows Widespread Late-Season Sea Surface Warming And Sea Ice Declines With Significant Influences On Primary Productivity, Karen E. Frey, Josefino C. Comiso, Larry V. Stock, Luisa N C Young, Lee W. Cooper, Jacqueline M. Grebmeier

Geography

Massive declines in sea ice cover and widespread warming seawaters across the Pacific Arctic region over the past several decades have resulted in profound shifts in marine ecosystems that have cascaded throughout all trophic levels. The Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) provides sampling infrastructure for a latitudinal gradient of biological "hotspot" regions across the Pacific Arctic region, with eight sites spanning the northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas. The purpose of this study is two-fold: (a) to provide an assessment of satellite-based environmental variables for the eight DBO sites (including sea surface temperature (SST), sea ice concentration, annual sea ice persistence …

Four Fundamental Questions To Evaluate Land Change Models With An Illustration Of A Cellular Automata–Markov Model, Cláudia M. Viana, Robert Gilmore Pontius, Jorge Rocha

Geography

Numerous models exist for users to simulate land change to communicate with an audience concerning future land change. This article raises four fundamental questions to help model users decide whether to use any model: (1) Can the user understand the model? (2) Can the audience understand the model? (3) Can the user control the model? (4) Does the model address the goals of the specific application? This article applies these questions to the popular cellular automata–Markov (CA–Markov) model as IDRISI’s CA–Markov module expresses. Sensitivity analysis examines 120 ways to set the module’s parameters. Verification compares the module’s behavior to the …

Situational Analysis And Urban Theory, Mark Davidson

Geography

Urban geographers have been pursuing divergent theoretical projects. Some have pushed urban theory to become ageographical, the goal being to search out and explain of a globally omnipotent urbanization process. Others have moved in a different direction, seeking to detail how singular constellations of processes produce only particular urban places. This theoretical divergence has led some to question whether middle-range urban theories continue to have purchase today. This paper seeks to contribute to this attempt to rekindle an interest in middle-range urban theory by examining the relevance of Karl Popper’s situational analysis to how we understand contemporary urbanization. © The …

Carnivore And Ungulate Occurrence In A Fire-Prone Region, Sara J. Moriarty-Graves

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Increasing fire size and severity in the western United States causes changes to ecosystems, species’ habitat use, and interspecific interactions. Wide-ranging carnivore and ungulate mammalian species and their interactions may be influenced by an increase in fire activity in northern California. Depending on the fire characteristics, ungulates may benefit from burned habitat due to an increase in forage availability, while carnivore species may be differentially impacted, but ultimately driven by bottom-up processes from a shift in prey availability. I used a three-step approach to estimate the single-species occupancy of four large mammal species: mountain lion (Puma concolor), coyote …

Toxic Timescapes: Examining Toxicity Across Time And Space, Simone M. Müller, May-Brith Ohman Nielsen

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

An interdisciplinary environmental humanities volume that explores human-environment relationships on our permanently polluted planet.

While toxicity and pollution are ever present in modern daily life, politicians, juridical systems, media outlets, scholars, and the public alike show great difficulty in detecting, defining, monitoring, or generally coming to terms with them. This volume’s contributors argue that the source of this difficulty lies in the struggle to make sense of the intersecting temporal and spatial scales working on the human and more-than-human body, while continuing to acknowledge race, class, and gender in terms of global environmental justice and social inequality.

The term toxic …

Artistic Engagement With Monadnock: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study, Jonathan W. Coffin

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This hermeneutic phenomenological study discloses the lived experience of creating art in association with New Hampshire’s Mount Monadnock. This study reveals the potential for artistic invention in association with place gradually to undermine an established sense of separation from environment and to prompt conscious awareness of continuity with environment. A series of interviews with four artists who create art of or in the presence of Monadnock revealed in the lived experience of creating Monadnock art a process that consists of five phases: first encounter, abstract appreciation, existential understanding, sustained attention, and continuity. A hermeneutic circular method of interpretation based upon …