Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Analysis Of Flickr, Snapchat, And Twitter Use For The Modeling Of Visitor Activity In Florida State Parks, Hartwig H. Hochmair, Levente Juhasz

Levente Juhasz

Spatio-temporal information attached to social media posts allows analysts to study human activity and travel behavior. This study analyzes contribution patterns to the Flickr, Snapchat, and Twitter platforms in over 100 state parks in Central and Northern Florida. The first part of the study correlates monthly visitor count data with the number of Flickr images, snaps, or tweets, contributed within the park areas. It provides insight into the suitability of these different social media platforms to be used as a proxy for the prediction of visitor numbers in state parks. The second part of the study analyzes the spatial distribution …

No More Hidden Secrets: Human Rights Violations And Remote Sensing, Tommy O'Connell, Stephen Young

Stephen Young

Aim: This study used both high resolution and medium resolution satellite imagery to test three semi-automated remote sensing methods, in an attempt to identify useful tools to support eye-witness testimony and reports on human rights violations. As huts are routinely burned down during attacks on a village, particularly in Sudan, the number of huts and villages burned can be used to corroborate on-the-ground reports.

Methods: Three remote sensing methods (Supervised Classification, Change Detection, and Feature Extraction) were performed on imagery from both before the attacks in February 2006 and after the attacks to examine any useful trends that could be …

Segmenting Human Trajectory Data By Movement States While Addressing Signal Loss And Signal Noise, Sungsoon Hwang, Cynthia Vandemark, Navdeep Dhatt, Sai Yalla, Ryan Crews

Sungsoon Hwang

The Evolution Of A Volunteer Lake Protection Program, Maggie Shannon, Alexa A.E. Junker, Philip J. Nyhus, Cathy R. Bevier, Russell Cole

Philip J. Nyhus

No abstract provided.

Sequias En El Sur De La Peninsula De Yucatan: Analisis De La Variabilidad Anual Y Estacional De La Precipitacion (Droughts In The Southern Yucatan Peninsula: Analysis Of The Annual And Seasonal Precipitation Variability), Sofia Mardero, Elsa Nickl, Birgit Schmook, Laura Schneider, John Rogan, Zachary Christman, Deborah Lawrence

Zachary Christman

Paper is in Spanish. English abstract: This study analyzes the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation across the Southern Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, addressing the anomalies and trends of annual and seasonal precipitation as well as the occurrence of meteorological droughts, using rainfall data from nine weather stations during the period 1953-2007. Linear regression in the annual and seasonal rainfall were used to analyze the increase or decrease in precipitation trends over this period. Precipitation anomalies enabled the evaluation of the stability, deficit, or surplus of precipitation for each year or season, and a quintile method was used to …

Enhancing Public Engagement On Offshore Wind Energy Using Genius Loci: A Case Study From A Lake Michigan Coastal Community, Erik Edward Nordman, Daniel O'Keefe, Erika Arndt

Erik Edward Nordman

Prototype For Monitoring And Forecasting Fall Foliage Coloration In Real Time From Satellite Data, Xiaoyang Zhang, Mitchell D. Goldberg, Yunyue Yu

Xiaoyang Zhang

While determining vegetation phenology from the time series of historical satellite data has been widely investigated throughout the last decade, little effort has been devoted to real-time monitoring and short-term forecasting. The latter is more important for numerical weather modeling, ecosystem forecasting, forest and crop management, and health risk warning. In this study we developed a prototype approach for the real-time monitoring and short-term forecasting of fall foliage status (including low coloration, moderate coloration, near-peak coloration, peak coloration, and post-peak coloration) using temporal satellite observations. The algorithm combined the climatology of vegetation phenology and temporally available satellite observations to establish …

Interannual Variations And Trends In Global Land Surface Phenology Derived From Enhanced Vegetation Index During 1982–2010, Xiaoyang Zhang, Bin Tan, Yunyue Yu

Xiaoyang Zhang

Land surface phenology is widely retrieved from satellite observations at regional and global scales, and its long-term record has been demonstrated to be a valuable tool for reconstructing past climate variations, monitoring the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems in response to climate impacts, and predicting biological responses to future climate scenarios. This study detected global land surface phenology from the advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data from 1982 to 2010. Based on daily enhanced vegetation index at a spatial resolution of 0.05 degrees, we simulated the seasonal vegetative trajectory for each individual pixel …

Estimation Of Crop Gross Primary Production (Gpp): Ii. Do Scaled Modis Vegetation Indices Improve Performance?, Qingyuan Zhang, Yen-Ben Cheng, Alexei I. Lyapustin, Yujie Wang, Xiaoyang Zhang, Andrew Suyker, Shashi Verma, Yanmin Shuai, Elizabeth M. Middleton

Xiaoyang Zhang

Satellite remote sensing estimates of gross primary production (GPP) have routinely been made using spectral vegetation indices (VIs) over the past two decades. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), the green band Wide Dynamic Range Vegetation Index (WDRVI_green), and the green band Chlorophyll Index (CI_green) have been employed to estimate GPP under the assumption that GPP is proportional to the product of VI and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) (where VI is one of four VIs: NDVI, EVI, WDRVI_green, or CI_green). However, the empirical regressions between VI*PAR and …

Daily Modis 500 M Reflectance Anisotropy Direct Broadcast (Db) Products For Monitoring Vegetation Phenology Dynamics, Yanmin Shuai, Crystal Schaaf, Xiaoyang Zhang, Alan Strahler, David P. Roy, Jeffery Morisette, Zhuosen Wang, Joanne Nightingale, Jaime Nickerson, Andrew D. Richardson, Donghui Xie, Jindi Wang, Xiaowen Li, Kathleen Strabala, James E. Davies

Xiaoyang Zhang

Land surface vegetation phenology is an efficient bio-indicator for monitoring ecosystem variation in response to changes in climatic factors. The primary objective of the current article is to examine the utility of the daily MODIS 500 m reflectance anisotropy direct broadcast (DB) product for monitoring the evolution of vegetation phenological trends over selected crop, orchard, and forest regions. Although numerous model-fitted satellite data have been widely used to assess the spatio-temporal distribution of land surface phenological patterns to understand phenological process and phenomena, current efforts to investigate the details of phenological trends, especially for natural phenological variations that occur on …

A Comparison Of Tropical Rainforest Phenology Retrieved From Geostationary (Seviri) And Polar-Orbiting (Modis) Sensors Across The Congo Basin, Dong Yan, Xiaoyang Zhang, Yunyue Yu, Wei Guo

Xiaoyang Zhang

The seasonal and interannual dynamics of tropical rainforests play a critical role in the global carbon cycle and climate change. This paper retrieved and compared land surface phenology from observations acquired by the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) onboard geostationary satellites and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on polar-orbiting satellites over the Congo Basin. To achieve this,we first retrieved canopy greenness cycles (CGCs) and their transition timing from two-band enhanced vegetation index (EVI2) derived from SEVIRI and MODIS data between 2006 and 2013.We then assessed the influences of SEVIRI and MODIS data quality on the reconstruction of …

A Cross Comparison Of Spatiotemporally Enhanced Springtime Phenological Measurements From Satellites And Ground In A Northern U.S. Mixed Forest, Liang Liang, Mark D. Schwartz, Zhuosen Wang, Feng Gao, Crystal B. Schaaf, Bin Tan, Jeffrey T. Morisette, Xiaoyang Zhang

Xiaoyang Zhang

Cross comparison of satellite-derived land surface phenology (LSP) and ground measurements is useful to ensure the relevance of detected seasonal vegetation change to the underlying biophysical processes. While standard 16-day and 250-m Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation index (VI)-based springtime LSP has been evaluated in previous studies, it remains unclear whether LSP with enhanced temporal and spatial resolutions can capture additional details of ground phenology. In this paper, we compared LSP derived from 500-m daily MODIS and 30-m MODIS-Landsat fused VI data with landscape phenology (LP) in a northern U.S. mixed forest. LP was previously developed from intensively observed …

Sensitivity Of Mesoscale Modeling Of Smoke Direct Radiative Effect To The Emission Inventory: A Case Study In Northern Sub-Saharan African Region, Feng Zhang, Jun Wang, Charles Ichoku, Edward J. Hyer, Zhifeng Yang, Cui Ge, Shenjian Su, Xiaoyang Zhang, Shobha Kondragunta, Christine Wiedinmyer, Johannes W. Kaiser, Arlindo Da Silva

Xiaoyang Zhang

An ensemble approach is used to examine the sensitivity of smoke loading and smoke direct radiative effect in the atmosphere to uncertainties in smoke emission estimates. Seven different fire emission inventories are applied independently to WRF-Chem model (v3.5) with the same model configuration (excluding dust and other emission sources) over the northern sub-Saharan African (NSSA) biomass-burning region. Results for November and February 2010 are analyzed, respectively representing the start and end of the biomass burning season in the study region. For February 2010, estimates of total smoke emission vary by a factor of 12, but only differences by factors of …

Interannual Variation In Biomass Burning And Fire Seasonality Derived From Geostationary Satellite Data Across The Contiguous United States From 1995 To 2011, Xiaoyang Zhang, Shobha Kondragunta, David Roy

Xiaoyang Zhang

Wildfires exhibit a strong seasonality that is driven by climatic factors and human activities. Although the fire seasonality is commonly determined using burned area and fire frequency, it could also be quantified using biomass consumption estimates that directly represent biomass loss (a combination of the area burned and the fuel loading). Therefore, in this study a data set of long-term biomass consumed was derived from geostationary satellite data to explore the interannual variation in the fire seasonality and the possible impacts of climate change and land management practices across the Contiguous United States (CONUS). Specifically, daily biomass consumed data were …

Near-Real-Time Global Biomass Burning Emissions Product From Geostationary Satellite Constellation, Xiaoyang Zhang, Shobha Kondragunta, Jessica Ram, Christopher Schmidt, Ho-Chung Huang

Xiaoyang Zhang

Near-real-time estimates of biomass burning emissions are crucial for air quality monitoring and forecasting. We present here the first near-real-time global biomass burning emission product from geostationary satellites (GBBEP-Geo) produced from satellite-derived fire radiative power (FRP) for individual fire pixels. Specifically, the FRP is retrieved using WF_ABBA V65 (wildfire automated biomass burning algorithm) from a network of multiple geostationary satellites. The network consists of two Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) which are operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Meteosat second-generation satellites (Meteosat-09) operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, and the Multifunctional Transport …

Pan-Baltic Stakeholders’ Dialogue On Msp : Synthesis Report From Partiseapate Single-Sector Workshops Held In 2013, Anda Ruskele, Ilze Kalvane, Kristina Veidemane, Joanna Przedrzymirska, Angela Schultz-Zehden, Daniel Depellegrin, Nerijus BlažAuskas, Peter Askman, Henrik Nilsson, Jonas Pålsson, Bettina Käppeler, ElīNa Veidemane

Jonas Pålsson

For a sustainable and integrated planning of the sea space across the Baltic Sea region, planners and stakeholders have to be engaged in holistic, pan-Baltic thinking where the whole Baltic Sea is considered as one ecosystem and one planning space. However MSP related experiences so far shows that interests are often expressed from one sector or one national or regional perspective only. There is a lack of information exchange between the different maritime sectors as well MSP support structures (i.e. data providers and researchers) and spatial planners. And at the same time there is insufficient communication within the sectors at …

Pan-Baltic Stakeholders’ Dialogue On Msp : Synthesis Report From Partiseapate Single-Sector Workshops Held In 2013, Anda Ruskele, Ilze Kalvane, Kristina Veidemane, Joanna Przedrzymirska, Angela Schultz-Zehden, Daniel Depellegrin, Nerijus BlažAuskas, Peter Askman, Henrik Nilsson, Jonas Pålsson, Bettina Käppeler, ElīNa Veidemane

Jonas Pålsson

For a sustainable and integrated planning of the sea space across the Baltic Sea region, planners and stakeholders have to be engaged in holistic, pan-Baltic thinking where the whole Baltic Sea is considered as one ecosystem and one planning space. However MSP related experiences so far shows that interests are often expressed from one sector or one national or regional perspective only. There is a lack of information exchange between the different maritime sectors as well MSP support structures (i.e. data providers and researchers) and spatial planners. And at the same time there is insufficient communication within the sectors at …

Human–Wildlife Conflict And Coexistence, Philip J. Nyhus

Philip J. Nyhus

Climb To The Ice, Richard Vaughan

Richard Vaughan

The article, originally presented as a lecture, discusses George Bird Grinnell's 1887 climb of the Montana glacier that eventually become known as Grinnell Glacier. Grinnell’s efforts to establish Glacier National Park are detailed. Grinnell's previously unpublished descriptions of the glacier and its surrounding area are analyzed by the author. Originally delivered as a lecture at the Montana History Conference, October 2, 2010. Full issue available at: http://issuu.com/um_crown_gye/docs/crownofthecontinent-autumn2012

To The Ice: George Bird Grinnell's 1887 Ascent Of Grinnell Glacier, Richard Vaughan

Richard Vaughan

This article discusses a climbing expedition undertaken by U.S. conservationist George Bird Grinnell to ascend what would come to be known as Grinnell Glacier in Montana. Grinnell’s efforts to establish Glacier National Park are detailed. Grinnell’s previously unpublished descriptions of the glacier and its surrounding area are analyzed by the author.

A Modeling Approach To Determine The Impacts Of Land Use And Climate Change Scenarios On The Water Flux Of The Upper Mara River, L. M. Mango, Assefa Melesse, M. E. Mcclain, Daniel Gann, S. G. Setegn

Daniel Gann

With the flow of the Mara River becoming increasingly erratic especially in the upper reaches, attention has been directed to land use change as the major cause of this problem. The semi-distributed hydrological model Soil and Water Assessment Tool 5 (SWAT) and Landsat imagery were utilized in the upper Mara River Basin in order to 1) map existing field scale land use practices in order to determine their impact 2) determine the impacts of land use change on water flux; and 3) determine the impacts of rainfall (0%, ±10% and ±20%) and air temperature variations (0% and +5%) based on …

Bringing Football Back To Los Angeles, Gabriel Leiner

Gabriel Leiner

Identifying a suitable parcel for a large scale professional football stadium in the greater Los Angeles, CA area, which does not conflict with current uses, environmental protection codes, or airspace rights, and also has adequate transportation access and nearby populated neighborhoods.

Do Zoos And Aquariums Promote Attitude Change In Visitors? A Critical Evaluation Of The American Zoo And Aquarium Study, Lori Marino, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Randy Malamud, Nathan Nobis, Ron Broglio

Lori Marino, PhD

Modern-day zoos and aquariums market themselves as places of education and conservation. A recent study conducted by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) (Falk et al., 2007) is being widely heralded as the first direct evidence that visits to zoos and aquariums produce long-term positive effects on people’s attitudes toward other animals. In this paper, we address whether this conclusion is warranted by analyzing the study’s methodological soundness. We conclude that Falk et al. (2007) contains at least six major threats to methodological validity that undermine the authors’ conclusions. There remains no compelling evidence for the claim that zoos …

April 2015 - Urban Sprawl In Kane, Kendall, Will And Mchenry Counties, Illinois, 1987 And 2007, Elisa Addlesperger

Elisa E. Addlesperger

Elisa Addlesperger’s map, created as part of a final project for GEO 243 Remote Sensing, shows the impact of development on availability of farmland in four collar counties in northeastern Illinois: Kane, Kendall, Will and McHenry. Landsat 5 multi-band spectral images from 1987 and 2007 were processed to create classes showing development density in each respective year. Open or agricultural land is indicated with a bright green. Based on this visual analysis, substantial amounts of arable land have been lost to development in Chicago’s collar counties. According to the state Department of Agriculture, Illinois has lost over 3.6 million acres …

The Impact Of Hurricane Katrina On The Environmental Security Of The Us Gulf Coast Region And Beyond, John Lanicci, James Ramsay

John M Lanicci

No abstract provided.

Do Zoos And Aquariums Promote Attitude Change In Visitors? A Critical Evaluation Of The American Zoo And Aquarium Study, Lori Marino, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Randy Malamud, Nathan Nobis, Ron Broglio

Nathan M. Nobis, PhD

Modern-day zoos and aquariums market themselves as places of education and conservation. A recent study conducted by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) (Falk et al., 2007) is being widely heralded as the first direct evidence that visits to zoos and aquariums produce long-term positive effects on people’s attitudes toward other animals. In this paper, we address whether this conclusion is warranted by analyzing the study’s methodological soundness. We conclude that Falk et al. (2007) contains at least six major threats to methodological validity that undermine the authors’ conclusions. There remains no compelling evidence for the claim that zoos …

Communicating The Science Of Igcp 591 To The Public, Lewandowski J. Katherine

Katherine J. Lewandowski

Selling the broader impacts of science to funding agencies has become a necessity in a time when competition for grant money is high. While involving students in research is still important for maintaining a pipeline of trained scientists, the bar has been raised and it is increasingly incumbent on us to communicate to the public what is so important about our work. To be competitive in the search for funds, there must be a plan for the science funded to be disseminated to the public. The education and outreach plan for IGCP 591 attempts to appeal to this broader audience …

Linkages Between Water Challenges And Land Use Planning In Megacities, Enjie Li, Joanna Endter-Wada, Shujuan Li

Joanna Endter-Wada

No abstract provided.

Linkages Between Water Challenges And Land Use Planning In Megacities, Enjie Li, Joanna Endter-Wada, Shujuan Li

Enjie Li

No abstract provided.

An Assessment Of South China Tiger Reintroduction Potential In Hupingshan And Houhe National Nature Reserves, China, Yiyuan Qin, Philip J. Nyhus, Courtney L. Larson, Charles J.W. Carroll, Jeff Muntifering, Thomas D. Dahmer, Lu Jun, Ronald L. Tilson

Philip J. Nyhus

Human-caused biodiversity loss is a global problem, large carnivores are particularly threatened, and the tiger (Panthera tigris) is among the world’s most endangered large carnivores. The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) is the most critically endangered tiger subspecies and is considered functionally extinct in the wild. The government of China has expressed its intent to reintroduce a small population of South China tigers into a portion of their historic range as part of a larger goal to recover wild tiger populations in China. This would be the world’s first major tiger reintroduction program. A free-ranging population of 15–20 tigers …