Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluation Of Thermal Infrared Imaging From Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles For Arboreal Wildlife Surveillance, Blair Mirka

Shared Knowledge Conference

An important component of wildlife management and conservation is monitoring the health and population size of wildlife species. Monitoring the population size of an animal group can inform researchers of habitat use, potential changes in habitat and the resulting behavioral adaptation, individual health, and the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Arboreal primates are difficult to monitor as their habitat is often poorly accessible and most primate species have some degree of camouflage, making them hard to observe in and below the tree canopy. Surveys conducted using uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with thermal infrared (TIR) cameras can help overcome these limitations …

Estimating Tea Plantation Area Based On Multi-Source Satellite Data, Yanhong Huang

Shared Knowledge Conference

Tea is a characteristic cash crop native to China, mainly distributed in the south of the Yangtze River. Estimating the planting area and spatial distribution of tea gardens is of great significance to improve the economic and ecological benefits of tea. In this paper, a method for extracting tea plantation area based on multi-source remote sensing satellite data was proposed. We collected the Landsat 8 OLI, Sentinel-2, HJ-1A/B, and GF-1 WFV data from 2017 to 2018 in Huzhou City, China. After data pre-processing, we calculated the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and spectral characteristics of each dataset. We also obtained …

Towards Creating Smart Cities In Nepal, Ambika P. Adhikari, Keshav Bhattarai

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Many urban centers in the world are seeking to become smart cities. Nepali city leaders are also aspiring to make their cities smart. A smart city basically has clever improvements made in three sectors of its operations: technological, human, and institutional. Globally, many cities have recently made impressive enhancements in at least one or more of these areas. Nepal’s National Planning Commission (NPC) in 2016 had released a concept paper on smart cities for Nepal, defining smart cities as sustainable, information and technology-based, with high quality services and replicable (NPC 2016). As most Nepali cities still operate with limited infrastructure, …

Coalition For Prisoners' Rights Newsletter, Vol. 46-C, No. 8, Coalition For Prisoners' Rights

Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletters

Anniversaries

George Jackson's Struggle & Death

Attica Prison Uprising

En Apoyo A Cuba

Wall City Nuestra Msion - producida por: San Quentin News escrito por prisioneros - avanzando en la justicia

Intensive Management Unit Challenge

Diversity Accepted: Pride Celebration

UC Davis Books to Prisoners [as published in The Fire Inside of the CCWP, #64]

CA Coalition for Women Prisoners

Weedy Relations: Narratives Of Invasion And Intimacy With Tamarisk In The Chihuahuan Desert, Shannon S. Pepper

Geography ETDs

Tamarix spp., also known as salt cedar or tamarisk, is a shrub that has garnered a notorious reputation in North America as an invasive plant, with widespread policy and research advocating for its eradication in the Southwest U.S. and Northern Mexico. This study examines both governmental conservation documents and news articles to investigate narrative trends on tamarisk in the Southwestern U.S. and Northern Mexico as a contiguous region (the Chihuahuan Desert), expanding on current research to include transborder effects on the perception and management of introduced species. This paper asks: In the last 25 years, how has the movement, …

In Pursuit Of Comparability: Evaluating Influence And Interaction Among Components Of The Home Range Estimation Process In Chimpanzee Datasets, Jillian J. Rutherford

Geography ETDs

The home range (HR) is a fundamental manifestation of an animal’s spatial behavior, but its study has been limited by unclear, unreliable, and unstandardized methodological approaches for measurement. The lack of a comprehensive evaluation of the influence of components of the HR estimation process has hampered consensus over best practices for collecting and analysing movement data. This leads to wide variation in practice, thwarting direct comparability between HR estimates and curtailing the cohesive power of cross-study findings necessary for testing hypotheses and developing appropriate conservation and management strategies. In this thesis I explore the influence of and interaction between common …

Individual Exposure Potential Assessment For Livestock Based On Spatial-Temporal Analysis Of Gps Data And Behavior Patterns Classification In Cove Wash Watershed, Arizona, Zhuoming Liu

Geography ETDs

This thesis examined the geospatial and temporal grazing patterns of domesticated livestock to model individual-level exposure potential to abandoned uranium mine (AUM) waste in a tribal community in the Southwest United States. Lotek Litetrack Global Positioning System (GPS) collars collected data at 20-minute-intervals for 2 flocks of sheep and goats during the Spring and Summer of 2019. Depending on the flock and individual animals, tracking time ranges from 10 days to four months. This research developed a GIS-based exposure potential framework that built on existing methodologies in time geography, GIS, and exposure mapping. This thesis aims to: 1) classify GPS …

Assessing The Environmental Impacts Of Urbanization In Siddharthanagar, Nepal, Bishal Raj Khanal

Economics ETDs

Rapid and haphazard infrastructural expansion often contributes to large negative externalities in cities. Environmental problems like air pollution and degradation of quality-of-life elements in an urban settlement are attributed to urban sprawl. Evidence based planning tools need to be developed which can help manage the rapid urbanization that is taking place in the developing world. In this context, we examine the relationship between health outcomes and the different spatial- temporal aspects of an urban-built environment in Siddharthanagar Metropolitan City which is a major settlement in southwestern Nepal. We attempt to identify the aspects of built environment which are closely associated …

Assessing Drought Vegetation Dynamics At The Landscape Scale In Semiarid Grass- And Shrubland Using Mesma, Rowan Converse

Geography ETDs

New Mexico experienced substantial impacts of regional-scale drought from 2011-2014. Global climate change may make such events a new normal for the southwest: drought events are expected to increase in both frequency and severity over the coming century. While semiarid grasslands recover quickly from short-term drought, the cumulative impacts of climate change may reduce the resiliency of these systems over time. Remote sensing methods can allow efficient and cost-effective comparison of ecosystem recovery from drought events over time using long-running imaging systems like Landsat. We investigate the efficacy of using multi-endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA) to quantify the impacts of …

Drinking Water Governance For Whom? An Institutional Analysis Of Rural Drinking Water Systems In New Mexico, Tucker Colvin

Geography ETDs

Rural community drinking water systems in New Mexico are facing many challenges, including a lack of personnel, deteriorating infrastructure, lack of funds, overly burdensome and confusing regulation, environmental concerns, and concerns over water rights. Governing agencies are creating vulnerability by making managers prioritize some issues and neglect others. Water systems designated a Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Associations are especially problematic because they are small and managed by volunteers but have as much regulatory burden as larger municipalities. I use the theory of institutional work to explain how an institution that was originally designed to help low-income and rural communities is …

Backyard Wildlife Refuges In Albuquerque, Nm: An Urban Land Ethic In Practice, Laurel E. Ladwig

Geography ETDs

In the urban setting, biodiversity conservation requires intentionally creating spaces humans and wildlife can share. An urban land ethic can guide this process. Developing and practicing this ethic requires asking questions that consider approaches from multiple disciplines and avoid anthropocentric framing. Both More-Than-Human and Critical Physical Geography bring multiple knowledges into conversation to make complex realities visible. This project explores these fields of scholarship as guides for reconciling the needs of the land community.

Sharing familiar spaces creates opportunities for developing ethical relationships between humans, non-humans, and natural systems. Wildlife gardening creates habitat in our residential and community areas, providing …

Climate Change Adaptation In Highland Ecuador: Intersections Of Gender, Geography, And Knowledge In Farming Communities, Dinka Natali Caceres Arteaga

Latin American Studies ETDs

This dissertation uses a feminist political ecology perspective to explore the socioeconomic impacts of climate change in Ecuador, especially but not limited to the agriculture sector. It is based on the use of mixed methods that allowed the participation and validation of the local population, surpassing their role as beneficiaries to co-authors of this research.

The significance of this study relies on the position the local population holds in the fields of human geography, under a community local-planning perspective, as they attempted to collaborate in the process of adaptation to climate change by presenting analysis and calculation of an index …

Who Decides: Is Water Life Or Capital? Contesting Visions Of Western Water Management In The 21st Century, Ceorl

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

There is an ideological divide between the goal of universal access to clean water and the outcomes of how water regulations are implemented. John Fleck, author of Water is for Fighting Over: and Other Myths about Water in the West and Sivas, et al. in California Water Governance in the 21st Century present contesting prescriptions for Western water management. The ideologies advocated by Fleck and Sivas, et al. differ as to who enacts and profits from each and exemplify the divide between the goals of water regulations and how they are implemented. Fleck regards water as property and an economic …

Sustainability, Urban Planning And Development: Sustainable And Self-Reliant Urban Development In Post- Pandemic Nepal, Ambika P. Adhikari, Keshav Bhattarai

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

COVID-19 pandemic is affecting many aspects of the society, economy and the way people live. The pandemic is also disrupting the process of physical planning and development in the cities. It will perhaps permanently change the way planners and policy makers think about the city and plan for its development. The residents and visitors will also find the city to be different from the pre-COVID-19 era. The emerging situation would likely require new ways of moving, working and living in the city, and building the different physical components of the city.

Cities around the world are experiencing varieties of unexpected …

Issues And Perspective On The Covid-19 And Nepal: An Introduction, Ambika P. Adhikari, Basu Sharma

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Even though Nepal has relatively fewer Covid-19 cases as of 24 September 2020 (about 70,000 cases and more than 450 deaths), the numbers are on the rise. If this trend continues for a while, the likely consequences of the Pandemic would be no less severe than elsewhere. Further, Nepal’s next-door neighbor India is now experiencing a rapid rise in the virus infection rate and virus-related death toll. In fact, as of 24 September, 2020, India is seeing some about six million total Covid-19 cases, and more than 92,000 deaths. As India and Nepal have open borders, and as India is …

Latinx/@ Immigrant Inclusion Trajectories: Individual Agency, Structural Constraints, And The Role Of Community-Based Organizations In Immigrant Mobilities., Cirila Estela Vasquez Guzman, Julia Meredith Hess, Norma Casas, Dulce Medina, Margarita Galvis, Diana Anahi Torres, Alexis J. Handal, Annette Carreon-Fuentes, Alexandra Hernandez-Vallant, Mario J. Chavez, Felipe Rodriguez, Jessica R. Goodkind

Pediatrics Research and Scholarship

Immigration is at the forefront of national, state, and local policy struggles in the United States, and Latinx/@ immigrants have experienced increased deportations, detention, and individual threats. A mobilities perspective allows analysis to extend our view of migration beyond frameworks confined to pre- and postmigration, examining trajectories of social inclusion and exclusion that are influenced by multiple factors in the receiving country. The Immigrant Well-being Project, a community-based participatory research project involving university faculty, students, staff, and representatives from 4 community-based organizations (CBOs), was initiated in New Mexico in 2017 to better understand and promote Latinx/@ immigrant mental health and …

Implications Of The Modifiable Areal Unit Problem For Wildfire Analyses, Timothy P. Nagle-Mcnaughton, Xi Gong, Jose A. Constantine

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Wildfires pose a danger to both ecologies and communities. To this end, many large-scale analyses of wildfire patterns and behavior rely on the aggregation of point data to polygons, typically those based on distinct disparate ecological areas. However, the sizes, shapes, andorientations of the polygons to which data are aggregated are not neutral factors in the resulting analysis. The influence of the aggregation polygons on calculated results is known as the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP), which is well-documented in the spatial statistics literature. Despite the documentation of the MAUP, relatively few wildfire studies consider the effects of the MAUP …

Governance And Status Of New Mexico's Rural Drinking Water Systems, Tucker Colvin

Shared Knowledge Conference

This research project examines aspects of rural drinking water systems across New Mexico, specifically how they are governed, who manages them, and what their needs and concerns are. For the qualitative portion of this mixed methods project, I interview managers of rural drinking water systems to get their perspective on current issues and to learn how their systems are managed. For the quantitative portion, I look at the spatial distribution of different characteristics of drinking water systems using data from the New Mexico Environment Department and US Census. I especially look at the distribution of their organizational structures and how …

Classifying Livestock Grazing Behavior And Gis-Modeling Potential Cumulative Risks From Exposure To Abandoned Uranium Mine Waste In The Cove Wash Watershed, Arizona, Usa, Zhuoming Liu

Shared Knowledge Conference

Abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) are sources of metals and radioactive substances that are harmful to human health. There are 50 AUMs in the Cove Wash Watershed; as a result, community members are concerned that when domesticated sheep, goat and cattle graze on or near these features they are exposed to harmful substances. Sheep in particular are culturally important and consumption of meat and organs may result in human exposure and potential health impacts. As part of a larger ongoing research project, this thesis examines the geospatial and temporal grazing patterns of domesticated livestock to use GIS to model potential for …

Water Resources Program 2019 Apr Self-Study & Documents, University Of New Mexico

UNM Academic Program Review

No abstract provided.

Forty Years Of Change In Southwestern Bee Assemblages, Catherine Cumberland

Biology ETDs

Changes in a regional bee assemblage were investigated by repeating a 1970s study from the U.S. Southwest of bees visiting native sunflower (Helianthus annuus). Results showed declines in abundance and species richness of native bees and increases in non-native Apis mellifera. Climate data indicate drought increased over the 40-year period, favoring introduced and generalist species. Experimental placement of A. mellifera in an area of low A. mellifera density in New Mexico reduced native bee visitation, but improved reproduction in H. annuus plants. Meta-analytic models comparing pollination effectiveness in specialist versus generalist, native versus non-native, and native pollinators …

Evaluating Future Reservoir Storage In The Rio Grande Using Normalized Climate Projections And A Water Balance Model, Nolan T. Townsend

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

We develop and implement new tools for assessing the future of surface water supplies in downstream reaches of the Rio Grande, for which Elephant Butte Reservoir is the major storage reservoir. First, a normalization procedure is developed to adjust natural Rio Grande streamflows simulated by dynamical models in downstream reaches. The normalization accounts for upstream anthropogenic impairments to flow that are not considered in the model, thereby yielding downstream flows closer to observed values and more appropriate for use in assessments of future flows in downstream reaches. The normalization is applied to assess the potential effects of climate change on …

Teacher Perceptions Of Environmental Science In Rural Northwestern New Mexico Public Schools, Marie Quiahuitl Julienne

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

In this study, I explored what teachers perceive as the factors that impact their teaching of environmental science in rural secondary level schools in northwestern New Mexico. I adapted Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) ecological systems model, based on four environmental subsystem levels (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem), as the conceptual framework to address the major research question of this study, and developed 18 interview questions to explore teachers’ perceptions of factors that influence their teaching of environmental science. I investigated the perspectives science teachers have about environmental science topics and the influences they perceive that affect how they teach environmental science, and …

A Cartography Of Roots: An Exploration Of Plant Communication, Place, And Story, Mariko Oyama Thomas

Communication ETDs

This study uses oral history and auto-ethnography to collect thematic data on relationships and communication between plants and people in New Mexico, USA. Western and industrial cultures tend to be plant-blind, which is extremely dangerous in the wake of climate disruption and associated loss of plant biodiversity. This study works to collect and produce a generative landscape of narratives of non-binary relationships between humans and plants. These narratives show a range of hopeful, relational connections between human and more-than-human worlds. Overall results indicated the existence of many positive relationships between plants and people in the Western world, and that these …

Market And Non-Market Valuation Of Renewable Energy, Jamal Mamkhezri

Economics ETDs

This dissertation is an assessment of market and non-market valuation of renewable energy, specifically within the electricity sector. It contributes to the energy and economics literature through a battery of three chapters. This dissertation utilizes New Mexico as a case study, which is an economically poor and natural-resource rich state that produces and consumes electricity in the southwestern United States. It is also one of the four states that have adopted a policy for 100% clean energy by 2045.

The first chapter models state- and county-level economic (e.g., employment, economic output, etc.) and environmental (e.g., externality, health impact, water use, …

Assessing How Terrain Representations And Scale Affect The Accuracy Of Distance Estimates, Kristian Mueller

Geography ETDs

Terrain is often displayed on maps either as background or foreground. Although terrain representations are ubiquitous, there is not a thorough understanding of map-readers’ cognition of geographic surfaces from various terrain representations. The research described in this thesis empirically assessed map users’ abilities at estimating straight-line distance using maps with two different types of terrain representations and at three different scales. The objective of this research was to assess how accurately map users estimate distance on the ground taking into account variations in elevation. Participant data in the form of demographics and distance estimates were statistically analyzed to determine if …

La Gota Que Colma La Caguama: Cummulative Tensions Transformed Into The Defense Of Water, Anthony J. Meluso

Geography ETDs

Making water management decisions is often where dreams and visions about potential futures are constructed and contested (Swengedouw 2015). However, in a globalized world, it is not well understood how people can challenge dominant paradigms to shape desirable futures when they are also complicit in, and dependent on existing structures (Arts & Buizer 2009; Emery, Perks, & Bracken 2013: Kleinschmit, Böcher, & Giessen 2009). This project examines a brewery conflict in the Mexicali Valley that provides an example of how protesters were able to challenge dominant assumptions about water management in a complex, globalized environment. I draw on Laclau’s (2005) …

Engaging Sacred Space And Experiencing God In The Mountains: A Study Of The Non-Traditional Worship Environment Of Mountain Cathedrals, An Ecumenical Meetup Group Based In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Brendan Isaiah Nixon

Geography ETDs

This paper focuses on the non-traditional Christian worship site of Mountain Cathedrals in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I argue that affectual and emotional responses are elicited from the congregants of Mountain Cathedrals through the process of sacralization. It is shown that Christian worship in a non-traditional outdoor setting affects the ways in which the congregants engage with, participate in, and create sacred space. I survey current literatures of sacred space, the contemporary Christian church, and non-traditional worships spaces. Using the literature as a backdrop, I utilize Mountain Cathedrals as a case study for understanding the ways in which sacred space is …

Climate In Architecture: Revision Of Early Origins, Ursula Anna Freire Castro

Latin American Studies ETDs

This dissertation expands the comprehension of the history of climate in architecture by examining the evolution of the architectural meanings, uses, representations, and simulations of climate between 1800 and the present by means of a historical critical analysis of two scientific artifacts that attempted to model climate for the first time in the fields of geography and architecture. The Naturgemälde (1799 – Alexander von Humboldt) was a type of infographic image that simulated conceptually climate as a global system. The Climatron (1954 – Victor Olgyay) was a laboratory machine that physically simulated climate to test building scaled-models.

Primary data was …

Adjudication And The Adaptive Capacity Of Pecan Farmers In The Lower Rio Grande, Daniel R. Beene

Geography ETDs

Despite growing uncertainty of water availability in the future and popular understandings of water conservation in agriculture, a growing number of farmers in the Lower Rio Grande Basin are rapidly transitioning to pecan orchards, a long-term and highly water-dependent crop. Drivers of landscape change can be environmental, historic, socioeconomic, or institutional. Adaptation to change is understood as responses to external stimuli and is limited to a threshold by which an actor can meet their goals. Much of the current scholarship focuses on a given population’s adaptive capacity toward global climate change, however, most water policy in the western United States …