Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Development Of A Multiband Remote Sensing System For Determination Of Unsaturated Soil Properties, Cyrus D. Garner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A multiband system including active microwave sensing and visible-near infrared reflectance spectroscopy was developed to measure unsaturated soil properties in both field and laboratory environments. Remote measurements of soil volumetric water content (θv), soil water matric potential (ψ), and soil index properties (liquid limit [LL], plastic limit [PL], and clay fraction [CF]) were conducted. Field-based measurement of θv was conducted using a ground-based radar system and field measurements within 10 percentage points of measurements acquired with traditional sampling techniques were obtained. Laboratory-based, visible and near infrared spectroscopy was found to be capable of obtaining empirical, soil specific regression functions (partial …

Remote Sensing Insights Into Storage Capacities Among Plains Village Horticulturalists, Adam Wiewel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Maize was a fundamental component of the diet and economy of Middle Missouri Plains Village groups, sedentary farmers with settlements along the Missouri River during the last millennia. More than a century of study has contributed to our understanding of agricultural production among these peoples, but little effort has been made to consider temporal variation in production. Such an understanding is crucial to examining changes that occurred before and after the arrival of colonists and their trade goods in the seventeenth century. Plains archaeologists have suggested that the storage capacity of Middle Missouri villages increased during the sixteenth through the …

Environmental And Climatic Constraints On Large-Scale Camelina Production In Eastern Arkansas, Benjamin Robert Tracy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Camelina sativa is a cold weather crop that is typically grown in semi-arid environments in the Western United States, usually as a spring crop, but sometimes during the winter. Research analyzing climate data and soil hydrology is important to better understand the environmental and terrain conditions necessary for Camelina farming wherever it is proposed for large-scale production. This study focused on various conditions and constraints pertaining to the potential for Camelina as a crop biofuel in Eastern Arkansas. Due to interest in the economic potential of crop biofuels in this area, and in particular the low input costs for Camelina, …

A Gis Approach To Modeling Groundwater Levels In The Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer, Josef Orion Lilly

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Groundwater depletion, a subject of growing concern for a significant portion of Arkansas, may lead to future economic challenges for the Arkansas Delta region. The Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer is the uppermost aquifer and features the largest groundwater capacity in the Mississippi Embayment Aquifer System. The Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer, commonly referred to as the “alluvial aquifer”, spans 53,000〖 km〗^2 underlying portions of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, and Tennessee. As the alluvial aquifer trends southward for approximately 250 miles alongside the Mississippi River, its geographical extent ranges from 50 to 125 miles wide. There is a …

Lidar-Assisted Extraction Of Old Growth Baldcypress Stands Along The Black River Of North Carolina, Weston Pierce Murch

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The remnants of ancient baldcypress forests continue to grow across the Southeastern United States. These long lived trees are invaluable for biodiversity along riverine ecosystems, provide habitat to a myriad of animal species, and augment the proxy climate record for North America. While extensive logging of the areas along the Black River in North Carolina has mostly decimated ancient forests of many species including the baldcypress, conservation efforts from The Nature Conservancy and other partners are under way. In order to more efficiently find and study these enduring stands of baldcypress, some of which are estimated to be more than …

Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry Analysis Of Ground Deformation Within The Coso Geothermal Site, California, Erik Vaughn Brawner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Earth’s surface movement may cause as a potential hazard to infrastructure and people. Associated earthquake hazards pose a potential side effect of geothermal activity. Modern remote sensing techniques known as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) can measure surface change with a high degree of precision to mm scale movements. Previous work has identified a deformation anomaly within the Coso Geothermal site in eastern California. Surface changes have not been analyzed since the 1990s, allowing a decade of geothermal production impact to occur since previously assessed. In this study, InSAR data was acquired and analyzed between the years 2005 and 2010. …

Trade And Transport In Late Roman Syria, Christopher Wade Fletcher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the relative notoriety and miraculous level of preservation of the Dead Cities of Syria, fundamental questions of economic and subsistence viability remain unanswered. In the 1950s Georges Tchalenko theorized that these sites relied on intensive olive monoculture to mass export olive oil to urban centers. Later excavations discovered widespread cultivation of grains, fruit, and beans which directly contradicted Tchalenko’s assertion of sole reliance on oleoculture. However, innumerable olive presses in and around the Dead Cities still speak to a strong tradition of olive production. This thesis tests the logistical viability of olive oil transportation from the Dead Cities to …

Geospatial Analysis Of Droughts, Rice And Wheat Production, And Agrarian Vulnerability: A District-Level Study Of The Self-Calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index In India, Aaron Michael Shew

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Droughts have affected more people than any other natural disaster in the last century, causing billions in economic damages and millions of deaths. As the Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) have heated in the Indian Ocean, drought patterns across South Asia have changed; the Indian monsoon has become more volatile and less predictable. In this study, monthly self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (sc-PDSI) data for the time period between 1950 and 2009 were interpolated to India’s districts; then the data were analyzed for changes in frequency and severity. The data were further evaluated using Anselin’s Local Moran’s I Statistic to elicit …

Towards Systematic Selection Of Terrain- And Ground Cover-Specific Lidar Filtering Parameters, Vance Green

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Accurate automated classification of LiDAR point clouds is a well-known problem and proper parameterization of the classification algorithm is essential to creating useful bare-earth terrain models. Parameterization is particularly important in areas characterized by extremely low relief, such as the Little Red River Irrigation Project Area in central Arkansas. In this kind of landscape, analyses such as hydrological flow models are sensitive to small changes in the topography, and therefore prone to errors in the classification of the LiDAR point cloud and the digital elevation models (DEMs) derived from it. Developing effective project-specific parameters requires a high degree of knowledge …

Thermodynamic Modeling Of Aqueous Geochemistry Of Chlorine Salts: Application To Stability And Habitability Of Liquid Brines On Mars, Amira Elsenousy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The WCL (Wet Chemistry Lab) instrument on board the Mars’s Phoenix Lander has identified the soluble ionic composition of the soil at the landing site. Two important ions were detected at the landing site; perchlorates (ClO4-) with a concentration of ~ 2.4 wt% and chlorides (Cl-) with a concentration of 0.54 wt%. Between chloride and perchlorate ions three other oxidized ions exist and called chlorine ions: hypochlorite ClO - (ox. state +1), chlorite ClO2- (ox. state +3) and chlorate ClO3- (ox. state +5). These oxidized ions might be existed as intermediate species on the surface of Mars but remained undetected. …

Solubility And Detectability Of Hydrocarbons On The Surface Of Titan, Sandeep Singh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Titan’s thick atmosphere is enriched with organic compounds and its surface holds reservoirs of hydrocarbons. This makes Titan the only other candidate in our solar system (apart from Earth) to have stable liquid at the surface. The stability and characteristics of liquid and ices on the surface of Titan are of high importance in understanding its surface-atmosphere interactions. Titan’s hydrological cycle is similar to what we see on Earth, with the exception of methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6) taking the place of water. The smoggy atmosphere veils the surface of Titan from the view of Cassini spacecraft, except at seven …

Lidar And Machine Learning Estimation Of Hardwood Forest Biomass In Mountainous And Bottomland Environments, Bowei Xue

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Light detection and ranging (lidar) has been applied in various forest applications, such as to retrieve forest structural information, to build statistical models for identification of tree species, and to monitor forest growth. However, despite significant progress in these areas, the choice of regression approach and parameter tuning remains an ongoing critical question. This study focused on choosing the right spatial generalization level to transform lidar point clouds to 2D images which can be further processed by mature image processing and pattern recognition approaches. It also compared the prediction ability of popular machine learning algorithms applied to aboveground forest biomass …

Aerial Thermography In Archaeological Prospection: Applications & Processing, Autumn Chrysantha Cool

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Aerial thermography is one of the least utilized archaeological prospection methods, yet it has great potential for detecting anthropogenic anomalies. Thermal infrared radiation is absorbed and reemitted at varying rates by all objects on and within the ground depending upon their density, composition, and moisture content. If an area containing archaeological features is recorded at the moment when their thermal signatures most strongly contrast with that of the surrounding matrix, they can be visually identified in thermal images.

Research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s established a few basic rules for conducting thermal survey, but the expense associated with the …

Mapping Ancient Baldcypress Forests For Conservation At Black River, North Carolina, Jordan Nichole Burns

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A few ancient baldcypress-bottomland hardwood forests survive across the southeastern United States in a mosaic of remnant old-growth stands left untouched by extensive logging during the early 20th century. Uncut stands in the Southeast that survived centuries of disturbance following European settlement tended to be too senescent and non-commercial to justify logging. Remnant ancient baldcypress forests at Black River, North Carolina, appear to contain the oldest living trees in eastern North America and The Nature Conservancy has protected several of these stands. However, the full extent of ancient bottomland forests along Black River is not known and many valuable tracts …

Bedrock Geological Map Of The Rockhouse Quadrangle, Carroll And Madison Counties, Arkansas, Douglas Eben Jones

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A digital geologic map of the Rockhouse quadrangle, Carroll and Madison counties, Arkansas, was created on a 1:24,000 scale using ArcMap 10 and Photoshop CS4. The data obtained in the field are digitized onto the United States Geological Survey (USGS) digital raster graphic (DRG) of the Rockhouse quadrangle. The geology in the Rockhouse quadrangle consist entirely of sedimentary rocks that are Paleozoic ranging from Lower Ordovician to Mississippian in age. The Ordovician System is represented by the Cotter, Powell, Everton, and St. Peter Formations. The Cotter and Powell are the prominent bluff forming units throughout the quadrangle and along the …

A Geomechanical Study Of The Mississippian Boone Formation, Karen Nicole Mason Buckland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Boone Formation in northwest Arkansas is a chert-limestone sequence analogous to the subsurface Mississippi Lime reservoir in parts of Oklahoma and Kansas. It has low permeability and produces via horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The response to stimulation by fracturing is dependent on the quantity of chert in the area. Chert nodules and laterally extensive chert layers in the sequence are variable. Locally, cm- to dm-scale chert bedding is continuous and comprises up to 50% of the outcrop. Elsewhere, the chert is nodular and intermittent.

Samples collected from representative outcrops spanning the thickness and aerial extent of the formation …

Classification Of Satellite Time Series-Derived Land Surface Phenology Focused On The Northern Fertile Crescent, Brian Embree Bunker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Land surface phenology describes events in a seasonal vegetation cycle and can be used in a variety of applications from predicting onset of future drought conditions, to revealing potential limits of historical dry farming, to guiding more accurate dating of archeological sites. Traditional methods of monitoring vegetation phenology use data collected in situ. However, vegetation health indices derived from satellite remote sensor data, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), have been used as proxy for vegetation phenology due to their repeated acquisition and broad area coverage. Land surface phenology is accessible in the NDVI satellite record when images …

Agricultural Production And Stability Of Settlement Systems In Upper Mesopotamia During The Early Bronze Age (Third Millennium Bce), Tuna Kalayci

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the relationship between rainfall variation and rain-fed agricultural production in Upper Mesopotamia with a specific focus on Early Bronze Age urban settlements. In return, the variation in production is used to explore stability of urban settlement systems. The organization of the flow of agricultural goods is the key to sustaining the total settlement system.

The vulnerability of a settlement system increases due to the increased demand for more output from agricultural lands. This demand is the key for the success of urbanization project. However, without estimating how many foodstuffs were available at the end of a production …

Landscape Epidemiology And Machine Learning: A Geospatial Approach To Modeling West Nile Virus Risk In The United States, Sean Gregory Young

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The complex interactions between human health and the physical landscape and environment have been recognized, if not fully understood, since the ancient Greeks. Landscape epidemiology, sometimes called spatial epidemiology, is a sub-discipline of medical geography that uses environmental conditions as explanatory variables in the study of disease or other health phenomena. This theory suggests that pathogenic organisms (whether germs or larger vector and host species) are subject to environmental conditions that can be observed on the landscape, and by identifying where such organisms are likely to exist, areas at greatest risk of the disease can be derived. Machine learning is …

Prehistoric Human Ecodynamics In The Rub Al-Khali Desert: Results Of Remote Sensing And Excavations In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Jason T. Herrmann

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Archaeological investigations in the Emirate of Dubai, UAE conducted by the Dubai Department of Archaeology and the University of Arkansas demonstrate that the desert inland of the Oman Peninsula was occupied not only during the Arabian Neolithic (8000-4400 BC), when the region experienced a moist period referred to as the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO), but also during the more arid millennia following the decline of the HCO into the Christian Era. During this period, desert settlement clustered near a band of oases, in contrast to the more widespread spatial distribution of remains of nomadic pastoralists from the Neolithic. Excavations at …

Mapping Xenophobic Violence In South Africa: Modeling Spatial Relationships Between Group Grievances And Opportunities To Measure The Propensity For Xenophobic Violence, Eric Holder

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Xenophobia can be defined as the hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers or of their politics or culture (Ngwane et al., 2008). This sentiment reached its tipping point in urban areas across the Republic of South Africa in May 2008 when mass, widespread and systematic attacks against African non-nationals took place across the country. Although previous research agrees on who played the various roles during this crisis event (Everatt, 2010), little research has been carried out to create a predictive model to assess where future violence could occur based on a set of conflict indicators. The purpose of this …

Kites For Low Cost Near Earth Aerial Archaeological Photography, Robert Joseph Brandon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an overview of kite aerial photography (KAP) as a platform for archaeologists to acquire time sensitive unmanned near earth aerial photography for archaeological research. The methods and tools reviewed in this thesis are limited to those that make this technology accessible to the typical poorly funded archaeologists working in remote locations. The KAP methods detailed here have a low start up cost, are easy to transport, and a can be easily learned by archaeologists. The goal of this thesis is to promote KAP as a significant and regularly utilized tool for archaeological projects.

Slope Stability Monitoring Using Remote Sensing Techniques, Omar Alberto Conte Robles

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the past six years the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD) has spent over nine million dollars repairing slope failures that have occurred in the state of Arkansas. Specifically, higher than average precipitation in 2004 and 2008 led to large quantities of slides, all of which were repaired. Two highways, within the state of Arkansas, with known historical movements along or across the highways are being monitored using traditional surveying techniques and advanced remote sensing techniques. These slides, both of which are located in fill slopes. One a 500-foot long slide located north of Chester, Arkansas, within the …

Navigation And Accessibility For Persons With Disabilities: An Anthropological Study Using Gis On The University Of Arkansas Campus, Deborah Jean Raiees-Dana

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The University of Arkansas was founded in 1871 on the top of a hill overlooking the Ozark Mountains, resulting in a campus that has steep slopes and numerous historical buildings that were not designed with ADA regulations in mind. This makes getting around campus especially difficult for students with limited mobility, and no campus maps exist that include handicapped accessibility features to help navigate the terrain and limited parking options. This study examines this issue using a holistic approach that explores cultural and technological factors to produce a map of the Historic Core District of campus.

Geographical Information Systems enable …

Assessment Of Land Use Suitability Based On Water Erosion Susceptibility In Medium-Sized Urban Areas Of The Metropolitan Region Of Santiago, Central Chile, Roberto Fernandez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban areas constitute complex spatial entities where biophysical and socioeconomic environments interact through processes that determine the distribution of land use in the territory. Given Chile's variety of landscapes, water erosion, and mass movement, and rapid expansion of its medium-sized cities, straightforward techniques for assessment of land use suitability are essential. Through evaluation of water erosion susceptibility, it is possible to efficiently determine suitability of land use in medium-sized cities and their adjacent environments. The adaptation and application of the Erosion Response Units (ERU) concept (Märker et al., 2001) in the cities of Colina and Melipilla, Metropolitan Region of …

An Alternate Approach To Ecosystem Mapping: Fusing Orthophotography With Landsat Etm+ Data For A Object-Based Classification, South Eastern Arkansas., David Mcfee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Maintaining representative sampling of biologically rich and rare ecosystems has become an important means to preventing biodiversity loss. A limitation in indentifying and quantifying ecosystems is the cost of obtaining high resolution imagery necessary for a high resolution land cover assessment. This research shows how free, different resolution imagery (orthoimages and LANDSAT ETM+) could be combined to produce a hybrid dataset with enhanced spectral, spectral and temporal properties, and processed to obtain a object-based classification of land cover of bottomland and pine hardwood forest in south eastern Arkansas. Three classification techniques were evaluated: 1) a human derived, rule based method, …

Reappraising The Land Behind Baghdad: Using Corona Satellite Imagery To Reassess The Archaeological Landscape Of The Diyala Plain, Iraq, James Henry Wesolowski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High-resolution low-cost declassified CORONA spy satellite imagery is used to detect archaeological sites and relict canals in the Diyala Plain to the east of Baghdad, Iraq. This project seeks to improve upon the ground survey conducted there in the 1950s by providing better geographic control and discovering sites and canals that were not included in the original survey. CORONA imagery provides a sub-2-meter spatial resolution and was acquired shortly after the original ground survey was conducted, providing an excellent medium for comparison. CORONA imagery is subject to significant spatial distortions because of its camera technology and the LPS package for …

Role Of Vegetation And Environmental Characteristics On Slope Stability In Northwest Arkansas, Michael Maguigan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Slope failure continues to pose risks to society because knowledge of environmental factors and their interactions are unclear and possibly misunderstood. This misunderstanding leads to generalizations about slope failure susceptibility mapping, despite knowing that slope failures are likely the result of an extensively complex set of interactions among a number of environmental, edaphic, and geomorphic characteristics. Therefore a series of experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of slope, soil texture, vegetation cover, bedrock permeability, and compaction,. A wooden flume with a slope face 1 m wide by 1.5 m long with a 10 cm toe was constructed to contain …

Identifying Optimal Cellulosic Biomass Feedstock Supply Areas For Potential Biorefineries In Arkansas, Mark Cooper

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In February 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the revised Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2), mandating at least 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be produced annually in America, and blended into all on/off road, locomotive, and marine gasoline and diesel by the year 2022. America's existing biorefineries fall significantly short of being able to meet this mandate, resulting in the need for rapid expansion in the near future if this goal is to be met. The state of Arkansas has abundant resources to offer the renewable energy industry, if properly utilized. The goal of this thesis is to …

Analyzing Spring Freeze Impacts On Deciduous Forest Productivity Using Modis Satellite Imagery, Karl Lintvedt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The impacts of an April 2007 spring freeze event on the productivity of deciduous broadleaf forest were analyzed using geographic information system (GIS) tools. Forest productivity was modeled using the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), as recorded by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite sensor. Measures of spatial autocorrelation were used to quantify the degree of spatial congruence between a map depicting the severity of the freeze event, and maps modeling forest productivity throughout the year. The results show a geographic correlation between the unseasonably low minimum temperatures sustained during the freeze and the unusually low forest productivity that followed. …