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Articles 1 - 19 of 19
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Negotiating The Sacred: Understanding Impacts To Iks And Itek From Use Of Remote Sensing And Gis Technologies Within Tribal Landscapes, Renelda R. Freeman
Negotiating The Sacred: Understanding Impacts To Iks And Itek From Use Of Remote Sensing And Gis Technologies Within Tribal Landscapes, Renelda R. Freeman
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
How we see the world and ourselves in relation to it is largely achieved by the lens we are looking through and associated experiences within this relationship. This is additionally true when considering the acknowledged fact that Indigenous Knowledges are derived from natural and cultural sources and these assist in constituting the cultural identities of those Peoples associated with these sources. Presently there is a hunger for access and use of Indigenous Knowledges (IK) as never before seen in public ways, through a national Call for collaborative means to apply these knowledges to such as the issues we globally face …
Re-Modeling The Interior: Spatial Methods And Policy Revisions To Improve Inventory And Designation Of Blm’S Areas Of Critical Environmental Concern, Amy H. Katz
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages a vast amount of public land in the western United States, most of which they currently manage for multiple uses. Specific conservation and management of these lands could mitigate climate change impacts and contribute to the global initiative to conserve 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030. Particularly, the agency can achieve this through more effective administration of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), a designation that is prioritized under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). To do so requires updated regulations that set clear parameters around inventory and designation, …
Mapping Ethnophysiographies: An Investigation Of Toponyms And Land Cover Of Missoula County, Montana, Emily L. Cahoon
Mapping Ethnophysiographies: An Investigation Of Toponyms And Land Cover Of Missoula County, Montana, Emily L. Cahoon
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
This thesis investigates the ethnophysiography of Missoula County, Montana via place names. Toponyms and landscape have been observed to have a relationship that can be studied through many lenses. Ethnophysiography, the study of how language and landscape relate to each other via human conceptualization, is a lens that was applied to this thesis because it recognizes the embodied information that toponyms carry and investigates landscape accordingly. Thus, the following research seeks to understand if ethnophysiographic diversity exists between toponyms in the Salish and English languages of Missoula County, Montana by analyzing place names and land cover in GIS and analyzing …
Buffalo In The Mountains: Mapping Evidence Of Historical Bison Prescence And Bison Hunting In Glacier National Park, Kyle Langley
Buffalo In The Mountains: Mapping Evidence Of Historical Bison Prescence And Bison Hunting In Glacier National Park, Kyle Langley
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
This study explores 10,000+ years of bison presence and bison hunting within Glacier National Park. Despite significant faunal evidence of bison presence in the area, few people today associate bison with Glacier National Park. Previous archaeological studies have found bison faunal remains and evidence of bison hunting throughout the eastern half of the park going back thousands of years. Furthermore, local tribes such as the Kootenai and Blackfeet maintain oral traditions that detail ancestral hunting strategies and practice in the region. This project reviews all of these sources to contextualize the archaeological signatures of bison and tell the story of …
Change Is The Only Constant: A Snowpack Retention Analysis And Climate Vulnerability Road Map For The Skalkaho Creek Sub-Basin, Zachary Freeman Goodwin
Change Is The Only Constant: A Snowpack Retention Analysis And Climate Vulnerability Road Map For The Skalkaho Creek Sub-Basin, Zachary Freeman Goodwin
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Climate change is impacting the whole of North America, although the impacts differ depending on regional geography. In the Intermountain West, climate change is contributing to lower overall snowpack totals and diminished late season streamflows. These changes will likely contribute to vulnerabilities in how much water is available to irrigators, municipalities, and fisheries dependent upon a consistent yearly flow of meltwater. This paper explores how snowpack retention has changed via the NASA dataset Daymet, which provides gridded estimates of weather parameters including Snow Water Equivalent in the Bitterroot River Basin of western Montana. This analysis showed that snowpack retention from …
Chipping Through Time: The Evolution Of Lithic Spatial Organization At The Bridge River Pithouse Village, British Columbia, Ethan P. Ryan
Chipping Through Time: The Evolution Of Lithic Spatial Organization At The Bridge River Pithouse Village, British Columbia, Ethan P. Ryan
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Archaeological investigations at Housepit 54 within the Bridge River site have, to date, exposed 15 discreet floors primarily dating to ca. 1500-1000 cal. B.P. In this thesis, the spatial distributions of lithic artifacts from every floor are examined. Questions will be addressed specifically towards formation processes and the potential relationships between the patterning of lithic distributions as they relate to hearth-centered activity areas or domestic areas and fluctuations in estimated population. In addition, this thesis explores spatial organization as a cultural trait or concept that can be transmitted through time. Using the same methodological and theoretical approach for each floor, …
A Cartographic Workflow Manual For Endangered Species Conservation, Martin P. Viereckl
A Cartographic Workflow Manual For Endangered Species Conservation, Martin P. Viereckl
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
In response to global consumer demand for rare and exotic wildlife products, poaching of endangered species has become pervasive around the world (Eliason 1999). Despite the enactment of CITES, and other international efforts to protect vulnerable species from overexploitation, the global market for illegal wildlife products is estimated as high as $20-billion a year industry (Wyler 2008). Within important wildlife habitat sites, law enforcement struggle to curb rampant poaching that threatens the ultimate survival of many endangered species (Jachmann 2008; Rowcliffe 2004). Law-enforcement agencies responsible for protecting wildlife from poachers often lack geospatial tools that could greatly improve the effectiveness …
Coupling Biophysical Complexity And Forest Metabolism In A Floodplain Landscape, Peter Davis
Coupling Biophysical Complexity And Forest Metabolism In A Floodplain Landscape, Peter Davis
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Floodplains are biophysically complex systems that are considered among the most productive and biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. Until recently, quantitative assessment of the relationship between complexity and terrestrial production has been constrained by technological limitation. To address how floodplain biophysical complexity and ecosystem function are related, I employed remote sensing, GIS, and spatial analyses to quantify and couple metrics of complexity and terrestrial production, as well as explore the relationship among complexity, vegetation structural diversity, and terrestrial primary productivity. The study site is a 6.75-km by 1.75-km portion of the Bitterroot River floodplain near Carlton, MT upon which 551 sample …
Before Abandonment: Social Change In Pre-Colonial Housepit 54, Bridge River Site (Eerl4), British Columbia, Kathryn L. Bobolinski
Before Abandonment: Social Change In Pre-Colonial Housepit 54, Bridge River Site (Eerl4), British Columbia, Kathryn L. Bobolinski
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Housepit 54 at the Bridge River pithouse village in south-central British Columbia provides a glimpse into the complex cultural practices that occurred in this area in the past. This village, which includes approximately 80 semi-subterranean structures, was occupied during four periods, approximately 1800- 1600 cal. B.P., 1600-1300 cal. B.P., 1300-1000 cal. B.P. and 500-100 cal. B.P, firmly placing the site within both a historic and a pre-Colonial context. The two pre-Colonial floors, IIb (1288-1058 cal B.P.) and IIa (1184-1050 cal B.P.), that represent the occupation of Housepit 54 directly prior to the pre-Colonial villages abandonment are the focus of this …
Exploring The Potential For Geographic Transportation Modeling To Improve Food Assistance: A Case Study Of The Missoula Food Bank, Mary Buford French
Exploring The Potential For Geographic Transportation Modeling To Improve Food Assistance: A Case Study Of The Missoula Food Bank, Mary Buford French
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Over the last ten years, the Missoula Food Bank has seen a greater need for its services leading to funding shortfalls. To meet the needs of an increasing number of clients with a limited budget, the Missoula Food Bank must look for ways to modify its operations while increasing efficiency of its services. As the Food Bank budget is used to acquire food and currently also transport it from warehouse locations to the food pantry in a crowded space, reducing distances and transport cost of hauling food would in turn free up funds to obtain more food. At the same …
Spatial Patterns And Physical Factors Of Smokejumper Utilization Since 2004, Tyson A. Atkinson
Spatial Patterns And Physical Factors Of Smokejumper Utilization Since 2004, Tyson A. Atkinson
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
This research examines patterns of aerial smokejumper usage in the United States. I assess landscape and environmental factors of their deployment using a detailed nine-year record of smokejumper activity in combination with terrain, fuels, and transportation network data. Specifically, the research seeks to identify commonalities in location (proximity), terrain, fuels, fire occurrence, and accessibility of smokejumper actions that inform current usage and identify opportunities for improved utilization. Terrain parameters (steep, rugged, inaccessible) of the western U.S. were classified and a baseline travel time grid was created (30 meter resolution). Fires in which smokejumpers responded were compared with all fires that …
Inventory Of Mongolian Glaciers For The Global Land Ice Measurements From Space (Glims) Program, Caleb Gikai Pan
Inventory Of Mongolian Glaciers For The Global Land Ice Measurements From Space (Glims) Program, Caleb Gikai Pan
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Glaciers in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia provide an estimated 10 % of the total water resources within the country. Yet, the number and area of glaciers within the Altai Mountains is inconsistent and conflicting. Glacier mapping attempts by previous author groups did not mention their mapping methods, data source, and/or date of analysis. Therefore, making it difficult to analyze and compare glacier base data. Due to a combination of climate change and land use management practices, the necessity of inventorying glaciers in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia is of great importance. The practice of glacier monitoring using remote sensing …
The Influence Of Environmental Variables On Predicting Rare-Plant Habitat In The Nez Perce National Forest, Thor Burbach
The Influence Of Environmental Variables On Predicting Rare-Plant Habitat In The Nez Perce National Forest, Thor Burbach
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Habitat suitability modeling is widely-used in both biogeography and ecology to characterize the biophysical requirements and distribution of plant and animal species. Many of these modeling efforts use different variants of essentially the same topo-climatic variables (elevation, slope, aspect, precipitation, and temperature). However, these commonly used variables may not sufficiently explain the distribution of rare-plant species, which may have additional habitat needs. The aim of this project was to determine guidelines for selection of variables to include in statistical modeling efforts to predict suitable rare-plant habitat. Additionally, how background extent, data resolution, sample size, and various ranking criteria effect environmental …
Glacier Monitoring In Ladakh And Zanskar, Northwestern India, Martin Edward Byrne
Glacier Monitoring In Ladakh And Zanskar, Northwestern India, Martin Edward Byrne
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Glaciers in the Himalaya are often heavily covered with supraglacial debris, making them difficult to study with remotely-sensed imagery alone. Various methods such as band ratios can be used effectively to map clean-ice glaciers; however, a thicker layer of debris often makes it impossible to distinguish between supraglacial debris and the surrounding terrain. Previously, a morphometric approach employing an ASTER-derived digital elevation model (DEM) has been used to map glaciers in the Khumbu Himal and the Tien Shan. This project aims first to test the ability of the morphometric procedure to map small glaciers; second, to use the morphometric approach …
Spatio-Temporal Dynamics Of Biomes In The Northwestern United States (9000 Ybp To The Present), Christopher Caleb Stump
Spatio-Temporal Dynamics Of Biomes In The Northwestern United States (9000 Ybp To The Present), Christopher Caleb Stump
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
The goal of this study was to quantitatively analyze and map the vegetation composition of forest, grassland, and steppe ecosystems in the northwestern United States in the present and through the last 9,000 years. The modern analysis used canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) on pollen percentages from recent sediment cores reflecting modern vegetation assemblages and climates to evaluate the amount of influence of selected environmental variables on present species distributions. The fossil analysis used non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) on a merged database containing relative pollen percentages from the last 9000 years. A predefined list of environmental parameters and floristically and ecologically …
Geomorphological Mapping Of The K2 Area, Pakistan Using Gis And Remote Sensing, Deborah Jeanne Belden
Geomorphological Mapping Of The K2 Area, Pakistan Using Gis And Remote Sensing, Deborah Jeanne Belden
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Geomorphological mapping assists in evaluating the polygenetic role of glaciation, mass movement denudation, and fluvial erosion in landscape development. A series of thirteen 1:100,000 geomorphological maps covering the area between Skardu and K2 were produced using field mapping and photography, GPS measurements, ASTER satellite imagery, and digital elevation model (DEM) analyses. Satellite and morphometric analyses were performed using GIS software. The landforms are described in relation to geology, geomorphological processes, and altitudinal zones. Case studies include flash flood deposits, active landslide areas, sackungen, and rock avalanches. The Skardu Basin has tills preserved on many higher slopes, and sand dunes cover …
Impacts Of A Teacher Geospatial Technologies Professional Development Project On Student Spatial Literacy Skills And Interests In Science And Technology In Grade 5 – 12 Classrooms Across Montana, Jeffrey Willard Crews
Impacts Of A Teacher Geospatial Technologies Professional Development Project On Student Spatial Literacy Skills And Interests In Science And Technology In Grade 5 – 12 Classrooms Across Montana, Jeffrey Willard Crews
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
This study utilized participants in a teacher geospatial technologies professional development project. Data was collected on the impact this professional development model, and the corresponding classroom implementation of the curriculum, had on student spatial literacy skills and students' interest in science and technology. Twenty teachers from across Montana with demonstrated competency in the use of geospatial technologies were selected for participation in this project. These twenty teachers were broken into two cohorts, cohort one served as the experimental group and cohort two served as the control group. Students within these classrooms ranging in grades 5 - 12, took two assessments, …
Landslide Susceptibility Zonation Gis For The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake Affected Region, Benjamin Growley
Landslide Susceptibility Zonation Gis For The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake Affected Region, Benjamin Growley
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
The October 8, 2005 Kashmir earthquake triggered several thousand landslides throughout the Himalaya of northern Pakistan and India. A spatial database, which included 2252 landslides, was developed and analyzed using ASTER satellite imagery and geographical information system (GIS) technology. A multi-criterion evaluation was applied to determine the significance of event-controlling parameters in triggering the landslides. The parameters included lithology, faults, slope gradient, slope aspect, elevation, land cover, rivers and roads. The results were broken down into four classes of landslide susceptibility. The results indicated that lithology had the strongest influence on landsliding, particularly when the rock is highly fractured, such …
Geodatabase Design For Resource And Land Management Gis: Missoula Field Office Blm Case Study, Mark English
Geodatabase Design For Resource And Land Management Gis: Missoula Field Office Blm Case Study, Mark English
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is in the process of improving their geographic information system (GIS). The main intention is to upgrade their data and present their employees with the geospatial means necessary to accomplish their resource and land management responsibilities. Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI„µ) designed the geodatabase model, which provides multiple advantages in organization, management, and maintenance of geographic data. The geodatabase model implements advanced relationships between geospatial features and database tables, creates platforms available in organization and editing, and instills GIS functionality to ensure data integrity. The main goal of this work is to investigate the …