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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Identifying Smokestacks In Remotely Sensed Imagery Via Deep Learning Algorithms, Kenneth Moss Aug 2020

Identifying Smokestacks In Remotely Sensed Imagery Via Deep Learning Algorithms, Kenneth Moss

Masters Theses

Locating smokestacks in remote sensing imagery is a crucial first step to calculating smokestack heights, which allows for the accurate modeling of dioxin pollution spread and the study of resulting health impacts. In the interest of automating this process, this thesis examines deep learning networks and how changes in input datasets and network architecture affect image detection accuracy. This initial image detection serves as the first step in automated object recognition and height calculation. While this is applicable to general land use classification, this study specifically addresses detecting smokestack images. Different dataset scenarios are generated from the massive Functional Map …


Deep Learning For Remote Sensing Image Processing, Yan Lu Aug 2020

Deep Learning For Remote Sensing Image Processing, Yan Lu

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Remote sensing images have many applications such as ground object detection, environmental change monitoring, urban growth monitoring and natural disaster damage assessment. As of 2019, there were roughly 700 satellites listing “earth observation” as their primary application. Both spatial and temporal resolutions of satellite images have improved consistently in recent years and provided opportunities in resolving fine details on the Earth's surface. In the past decade, deep learning techniques have revolutionized many applications in the field of computer vision but have not fully been explored in remote sensing image processing. In this dissertation, several state-of-the-art deep learning models have been …


Seeing The Invisible: An Integrated Remote Sensing Approach To Mapping Buried Architecture At Las Colmenas, Virú Valley, Peru, Kayla C. Golay Lausanne Jul 2020

Seeing The Invisible: An Integrated Remote Sensing Approach To Mapping Buried Architecture At Las Colmenas, Virú Valley, Peru, Kayla C. Golay Lausanne

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis reports on the results of a survey project conducted in 2018 and 2019, intending to address two main research questions: (1) What remote sensing technique(s) worked best to identify buried features at Las Colmenas? (2) What combinations of techniques proved to be optimal for identifying buried features, and what are the benefits and limitations of the use of an integrated approach? This project incorporated two scales of analysis: macroscale optical and thermal Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) surveys and microscale Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR), magnetic susceptibility, and magnetometry surveys. A side-by-side comparison proved the thermal UAV, GPR, and magnetic susceptibility …


Airborne Observations Of Thermal Anisotropy From Urban Residential Neighbourhoods In Salt Lake City, Utah, Samantha J. Claessens Jun 2020

Airborne Observations Of Thermal Anisotropy From Urban Residential Neighbourhoods In Salt Lake City, Utah, Samantha J. Claessens

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Urban surface temperatures are important variables in urban climatological processes. This thesis examines the directional variability of remotely sensed urban surface temperatures (thermal anisotropy or Λ) for three vegetated residential neighbourhoods in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Airborne thermal remote sensing using a thermal imager sampled the directional brightness temperature (DBT) at three times within a day for each site. Results indicate that temporal variability over a 20 – 30-minute flight was not negligible. Average DBT were then extracted from atmospherically corrected images and plotted on polar plots. For low density residential neighbourhoods Λ is increased with increasing tree-canopy coverage …


The Urban Morphology Of Hyderabad, India: A Historical Geographic Analysis, Kevin B. Haynes Jun 2020

The Urban Morphology Of Hyderabad, India: A Historical Geographic Analysis, Kevin B. Haynes

Masters Theses

Hyderabad, India has undergone tremendous change over the last three centuries. The study seeks to understand how and why Hyderabad transitioned from a north-south urban morphological directional pattern to east-west during from 1687 to 2019. Satellite-based remote sensing will be used to measure the extent and land classifications of the city throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century using a geographic information science and historical-geographic approach. This approach provides the basis for a structured archival historical-geographic analysis. Focusing on Hyderabad, India from 1687 to 2019, the objectives of this research are to: (1) delineate and quantify the geographic extent of built-up …


Changing Agricultural Landscapes: An Investigation Of Dragon Fruit Production In Southern Vietnam., Laura Krauser May 2020

Changing Agricultural Landscapes: An Investigation Of Dragon Fruit Production In Southern Vietnam., Laura Krauser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Agricultural transition represents an essential component of land-use and land-cover change in developing countries across the world, as economic and social factors pressure agriculturalists out of traditional subsistence farming into food commodity production. Modernization has altered modes of income, land ownership, and livelihood in Southeast Asia drastically in recent years. The Bình Thuận Province of southern Vietnam experienced a particularly radical transformation with the introduction of dragon fruit cultivation, which has been profoundly encouraged by outside markets in China, Australia, and Japan. This research combines remote sensing and qualitative research to examine and characterize a changing agricultural landscape in rural …


Responses Of Land Surface Phenology To Wildfire Disturbances In The Western United States Forests, Jianmin Wang Jan 2020

Responses Of Land Surface Phenology To Wildfire Disturbances In The Western United States Forests, Jianmin Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Land surface phenology (LSP) characterizes the seasonal dynamics in the vegetation communities observed for a satellite pixel and it has been widely associated with global climate change. However, LSP and its long-term trend can be influenced by land disturbance events, which could greatly interrupt the LSP responses to climate change. Wildfire is one of the main disturbance agents in the western United States (US) forests, but its impacts on LSP have not been investigated yet. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the LSP responses to wildfires in the western US forests, this dissertation focused on three research objectives: (1) to …


Deep Learning For Overhead Imagery: Algorithms And Applications, Anthony Manuel Ortiz Cepeda Jan 2020

Deep Learning For Overhead Imagery: Algorithms And Applications, Anthony Manuel Ortiz Cepeda

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Remote sensing using overhead imagery has critical impact to the way we understand our environment and offers crucial information for scene understanding, climate change research, disaster response, urban planning, forest management, and many other applications. At present, deep learning is increasingly used in remote sensing, but mostly borrowing algorithms developed for natural images in the computer vision community. Specific challenges arise while applying deep learning to remote sensing. These challenges include issues related to the high dimensionality and limited labeled data, security and robustness to adversarial attacks, and model generalization. In this Thesis we focus on tackling these key challenges. …


Burning With Potential: Understanding The Relationship Between Biochar And Agriculture Of The Northern Glaciated Plains Ecoregion, Kaitlyn Abrahamson Jan 2020

Burning With Potential: Understanding The Relationship Between Biochar And Agriculture Of The Northern Glaciated Plains Ecoregion, Kaitlyn Abrahamson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Achieving global sustainable agriculture is one of the most incredible challenges of this century, yet many continue to try to solve this problem through the development of precision technologies. Biotechnologies, such as biochar, can perform like a precision technology while protecting agricultural land from soil erosion and fertility loss. The Northern Glaciated Plains ecoregion of the United States is little researched in the benefits from the use of biochar through improved soil nutrient capture and water retention, crop health improvements, and yield increases. The study plot has four sections of corn stover biochar and eight sections of control sections. This …


Characterizing Burn Severity Of Beetle-Killed Forest Stands Leveraging Google Earth Engine-Derived Normalized Burn Ratios, Sofronio Catalino Propios Iii Jan 2020

Characterizing Burn Severity Of Beetle-Killed Forest Stands Leveraging Google Earth Engine-Derived Normalized Burn Ratios, Sofronio Catalino Propios Iii

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Following numerous studies, a general consensus on burn severity in forests affected by bark beetle outbreaks has not yet been achieved. The purpose of this study is to characterize burn severities in forest stands affected by mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreaks, especially in relation to “time since outbreak”, vegetation cover, and topographic factors. This study focuses on wildfires that occurred in the northern Rocky Mountains of Idaho and Montana during the 2012 fire season within forested areas that had previously experienced prior MPB outbreaks. Remote sensing techniques were used to quantify and compare the burn severities of MPB-outbreak stands with …


Remote Sensing Approaches To Predict Forest Characteristics In Northwest Montana, Ryan P. Rock Jan 2020

Remote Sensing Approaches To Predict Forest Characteristics In Northwest Montana, Ryan P. Rock

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Remote sensing can be utilized by land management organizations to save money and time. Mapping vegetation using either aerial photographs or satellite imagery and the applications for forest management are of particular interest to the Montana Department of Natural Resources. In 2018, the organization began a pilot program to test the incorporation of raster analysis of remotely sensed data into their inventory program and had limited success. This analysis identified two areas of improvement: the selection method of inventory plots and the imagery used for classification and metrics. This study found that selecting inventory plots using a generalized random tessellation …