Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Assessing Airborne Radar To Map Glacier Elevations In Alpine Terrain Including Estimated Glacier Volume Change, Bryce Allen Glenn

Dissertations and Theses

Alpine glaciers and perennial snowfields (G&PS) are important hydrologically and ecologically, providing meltwater during the hottest and driest summer periods. Climate warming shrinks these natural reservoirs while temporarily providing increased streamflow. To assess regional changes in glacier volume, from which contribution to streamflow can be estimated, I used NASA's Airborne Glacier and Ice Surface Topography Interferometer (GLISTIN). This instrument mapped the surface topography of alpine glaciers; differencing these elevations from historic elevations derived from topographic maps, volume change is calculated. GLISTIN was flown over the glacier-populated mountain ranges of the western U.S. Of the 3289 glaciers and perennial snowfields with …

Use Of Gis To Find Optimum Locations For Anaerobic Digestion Or Composting Facilities In Maine, Usha Humagain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As per US EPA, in 2017, 41 million tons of food waste was generated, but only 6.3% was diverted from landfills (US EPA, 2020). When landfilled or incinerated, organic waste (food waste, sludge, manure, agricultural waste) causes environmental pollution through greenhouse gas emissions, land, water, and air pollution. In contrast, if we compost or digest organic waste, we can generate soil additives and a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide gas to produce electricity or energy. Both digestion and composting reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the land through additives, and boost the economy. Many countries are adopting anaerobic digestion and …

How Can Employers Contribute To Reducing Commuter-Generated Carbon Emissions? Evaluating Employer-Provided Commuter Benefits In Cambridge, Ma, Mary Richards

Masters Theses

Encouraging a more sustainable commuter mode shift and improving urban transportation systems have the potential to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), a major contributor to climate change. Replacing some single-occupancy vehicle (SOV) trips with alternative modes of transportation, such as public transit, walking, or bicycling, represents one approach to begin reducing transportation-related emissions. Collectively, these shifts in transportation patterns would help to reduce the negative social, economic, and environmental costs associated with high rates of personal vehicle use. Employer-provided benefits programs have the potential to influence commuter behavior by making sustainable, alternative commuting choices a more convenient and economically …

Enforcing Higher Standards For Flood Hazard Mitigation In Vermont, Tamsin Flanders

Masters Theses

The state of Vermont faces increasing risk of costly damage from catastrophic flooding events as climate change increases the frequency of heavy rains and cumulative precipitation. In addition to increasing flood inundation risk, extreme precipitation events are leading to high rates damage from fluvial erosion—erosion caused by the force of floodwater and the materials it carries. As in all U.S. states, flood hazard governance in Vermont is shared by multiple levels of government and involves a complex compliance model that relies on local governments to regulate private property owners to achieve community, state, or federal goals.

To encourage municipalities to …

Integrating Local Ecology And Human Dimensions To Understand A Tidally Dynamic Ecosystem In Downeast Maine, Gabriella Marafino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal community resilience requires connecting people with useful information that reflects their needs and interests and empowers them to make informed marine resource decisions. In this thesis, I explore how to effectively integrate disparate data from different disciplines and sources to make information more useful and usable at federal, state, tribal, and local levels in order to support more holistic and integrated management. To accomplish this, I draw on different types of knowledge and approaches, including Western science, local ecological knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, and citizen science, to incorporate the social perspective and community values for holistic marine resource management. …

Immigrant’S Personal Network In The Integration Process: A Case Study Of Ghanaian Immigrants’ In The Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, Emmanuel Kojo Kyeremeh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation focuses on the integration of recent immigrants in receiving societies by analyzing their personal networks' contribution to this process. Although migration studies have stressed the importance of relationships or im/migrant networks in different spatial contexts, gaps exist in understanding this phenomenon. Specifically, studies on immigrants' networks' structure and composition that indicate their integration level in the host society is missing within the literature. This research, therefore, contributes to our understanding of personal networks. It considers the structure of immigrants’ network by examining the role of their migration project and context of reception towards developing ties in the host …

A Novel Spatio-Temporal Examination Of Children's Accessibility, Exposure, And Engagement To Parks And Recreation Spaces In Middlesex-London, Ontario, Malcolm K. Little

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Children are spending more free time engaged in activities indoors, rather than in outdoor environments such as parks and recreation spaces. Parks and recreation spaces provide amenities that promote physical, cognitive, and social health among children. As it relates to the complexities of children’s living situations, properly measuring children’s levels of interactions with these spaces is poorly understood in geography research.

By examining various attributes of children, this thesis improves on the measurement of children’s levels of interactions with parks and recreation spaces. Research herein utilized household survey data, a high-resolution GIS dataset of environmental factors, and GPS logs from …

A Methodological Framework To Evaluate Community Perceptions Of Economic And Safety Impacts Attributed To Highway Bypass And Widening Projects, Karla Diaz-Corro

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Transportation practitioners have proposed the construction of highway bypass and widening projects in rural communities to address traffic-related problems that include noise pollution and congestion, among others. In the past, the construction of bypass projects has led community residents to raise concerns about potential decreases in business activity for businesses located along the bypassed road. For transportation organizations, it is essential to understand the economic, social, and safety impacts of transportation projects in terms of public perceptions as public input is a required part of the project planning phase. Moreover, it is recommended that agencies perform retrospective analyses of project …

A Radar And Model Based Synopsis Of Surface Soil Moisture State As It Relates To Back-Building Thunderstorm Behavior: Northern Great Plains, Skye Leake

Masters Theses

Severe thunderstorm behavior across the Great Plains of North America can result in negative economic impact, put infrastructure at risk, and pose a hazard to the lives of those calling the area home. Substantial research has been conducted throughout the Great Plains on a variety of severe weather conditions such as extreme wind, hail, tornadoes, and flash flooding, however such research is limited in the northern portion of the Great Plains. Some research has been conducted on these severe phenomena produced by thunderstorms in the northern Great Plains; however, little has been done in the realm of training/back-building of storms. …

Placemaking And The Loss Of Place: Perceptions Of Tourism-Induced Neighborhood Change In South Korea’S Disadvantaged Neighborhoods, Minji Kim

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation research uncovers how seemingly beneficial urban projects associated with tourism reinforce inequitable urban environments and loss of place by examining different perceptions and experiences of tourism-induced neighborhood change in disadvantaged neighborhoods in South Korea. I investigate how public art projects implemented by the government to regenerate daldongnes—informal hillside settlements—have brought economic and social disruption to residents and generated a series of contest outcomes. In this research, I examine how tourists’ perceptions and representation of the neighborhood in social media contribute to the (re)construction of the neighborhood, how the growth of tourism has influenced place attachment, and how residents …

Quantifying The Simultaneous Effect Of Socio-Economic Predictors And Build Environment On Spatial Crime Trends, Alfieri Daniel Ek

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Proper allocation of law enforcement agencies falls under the umbrella of risk terrainmodeling (Caplan et al., 2011, 2015; Drawve, 2016) that primarily focuses on crime prediction and prevention by spatially aggregating response and predictor variables of interest. Although mental health incidents demand resource allocation from law enforcement agencies and the city, relatively less emphasis has been placed on building spatial models for mental health incidents events. Analyzing spatial mental health events in Little Rock, AR over 2015 to 2018, we found evidence of spatial heterogeneity via Moran’s I statistic. A spatial modeling framework is then built using generalized linear models, …

Gentrification And Income Segregation In Fayetteville, Arkansas, Willie Benson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gentrification and income segregation are both poorly understood phenomena in terms of their causes and effects as is the relationship between the two topics. Even less is known in the context of small cities and over the time period spanning the last few decades. In this study public data from the U.S. Census, the American Community Survey and the Washington County Assessor's office has been used to measure economic gentrification in Fayetteville, Arkansas using an index based on property values and median rent prices and how much they have changed between 2000 and 2015. Then, using U.S. Census and American …

Monitoring Salt Diapir Related Land Deformation And Distribution: A Geophysical And Remote Sensing Approach Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia, Hannah G. Pankratz

Dissertations

Salt diapirs are rarely preserved on the surface and seldom considered as environmental hazards. The Jazan city diapir (JZD) is located in southwest Saudi Arabia along the Red Sea coastal plain and outcrops in the middle of a rapidly growing port city. The intrusion of the diapir (~ 2 km²) into the overburden sediments continues to cause uneven surfaces, compromises building foundations and infrastructure, caused dissolution sinkholes, and limits the expansion of the city along the coastline. This research aims to better understand the distribution and deformation associated with salt diapirs in arid environments.

Using integrated Interferometric Synthetic …

Atmospheric Turbulence Distortion In Video: Restoration Utilizing Sparse Analysis, Benjamin J. Sanda

Dissertations

The removal of atmospheric turbulence (AT) distortion in long range imaging is one of the most challenging areas of research in imaging processing with an immediate need for solutions in several applications such as in military and transportation systems. AT exacerbates distortion due to non-linear geometric blur and scintillations in long-distance images and videos, severely reducing image quality and information interpretation. AT negatively impacts both human and computer vision systems, compromising visibility essential for accurate object identification and tracking.

In this dissertation, a novel sparse analysis framework is developed to address efficient AT blur and scintillation removal in video. Operating …

Tweet Diffusion Over Space And Time: A Comparison Of A Winter-Weather And Tornado-Outbreak Case Study, Alyssa Margaret Cannistraci

Masters Theses

Social media allows people to receive, engage in, and share weather information. Users of the social media platform Twitter actively share weather content via tweets, which researchers can acquire through an Application Programming Interface (API). APIs return tweet content, as well as temporal and spatial characteristics (latitude and longitude coordinates). Tweets can then be mapped and studied spatiotemporally through Geographic Information System (GIS) software. For this work, I compared how tweets spread (“diffuse”) over space and time during two natural hazard events in the United States. The first case study is a winter weather event that The Weather Channel named …

A Spatial And Multivariate Approach To Examining Effects Of Urbanization On Nitrogen Sources, Organic Matter Inputs, And Trophic Structure In Streams Of Cobb And Paulding Counties, Georgia., Katharine Horning

Master of Science in Integrative Biology Theses

Urbanization and land use changes have a negative effect on streams often causing numerous physical changes in stream morphology, a change in nutrient concentrations, and altered ecosystems contributing to a loss of habitat, decreased biodiversity, and loss of stability for ecosystem function (Walsh et al., 2005; Meyer et al., 2005; Cardinale and Palmer, 2012). The use of stable isotope analysis for monitoring could be valuable because it accounts for temporal integration from anthropogenic wastewater inputs, characterized by a shift in the abundance of ¹⁵N. This project had three main objectives: (1) to examine how nitrogen and carbon sources are …

Energy Access And Extreme Heat Events: A Case Study Of Seniors In Ottawa, Ontario, Samantha N. Doris

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Energy poverty, or not having access to sufficient energy to meet one’s needs, is a serious problem in Canada and around the world. While the current literature on energy poverty largely focuses on the experiences of people utilizing energy services to stay warm during cold winter temperatures, little is known about experiences of energy poverty during summertime heat. This gap is especially urgent since current climate models suggest that cities are likely to experience extreme heat conditions more frequently in the future. This research investigates how people use energy services, such as air conditioning and fans, among other strategies to …

Typing Tornadoes By Storm Mode In The Southeast United States, Marisa R. Karpinski

LSU Master's Theses

Existing work has noted three major, radar-derived, storm modes associated with tornadoes: supercell, quasi-linear convective systems, and tropical systems. I examine the long-term frequency and seasonality of each storm mode between 1996 and 2017 in the Southeast United States. The Southeast is chosen as a focus for this work due to its well-known and unique combination of tornado vulnerability and exposure. Expanding our knowledge of the radar presentation of tornado-producing thunderstorms in this region could assist in the operational interpretation of these events. In this study, a climatology of F/EF1+ tornadoes (1996 - 2017) is generated for the study area …

Leave It To The People: Position And Positioning Of Stakeholders In Top-Down Sustainable Development And Risk Reduction Frameworks From Global To Local Levels, Bethany Bille Garfield

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Dissertation concerning design, contents, priorities, and outcomes of development and disaster risk reduction (DRR) global indicator frameworks. Historical review of United Nations (UN) multilateral agreements and organizational dynamics precedes analysis of indicator data reported for Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets shared by the 2015 Paris Agreement and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR). Background on the planning of UN frameworks is considered along with results of indicator data analysis to identify actors and processes that steer the focus of frameworks hence influence selection of targets and indicators, and corresponding framework agendas. Fundamental flaws in resolution frameworks preventing global goal …

The Use Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Based Photogrammetric Point Cloud Data For Winter Wheat Intra-Field Variable Retrieval And Yield Estimation In Southwestern Ontario, Yang Song

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Precision agriculture uses high spatial and temporal resolution soil and crop information to control the crop intra-field variability to achieve optimal economic benefit and environmental resources sustainable development. As a new imagery collection platform between airborne and ground measurements, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is used to collect high spatial resolution images at a user selected period for precision agriculture. Most studies extract crop parameters from the UAV-based orthomosaic imagery using spectral methods derived from the satellite and airborne based remote sensing. The new dataset, photogrammetric point cloud data (PCD), generated from the Structure from Motion (SfM) methods using the UAV-based …

Examination Of Institutional Investment In The United States Of America From 1999 To 2018, Martin R. Lefebvre

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the evolution of spatial preference of institutional investors located in the United States of America for the time period of 1999 to 2018 using a mix of exploratory data analysis techniques and more sophisticated space-time and machine learning techniques such as ESRI Space-Time cube and Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling. This thesis concludes that despite having the appearance of a footloose industry due to almost negligible fixed costs, institutional investors are attracted to highly dynamic urban centres and on the 20 year time horizon, appear surprisingly sticky in their location preference. This is consistent with the belief …

Seeking Stakeholder’S Perspectives Of The Marine Spatial Planning Process In Kenya To Inform Its Evaluation, Maureen Kanini Kitheka

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Using Geospatial Data To Predict The Locations Of Groundwater Discharge To Salmon-Bearing Streams, Alaska, Mary Gerlach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Identification and protection of groundwater resources are considerations of increasing interest as climate shifts but can be challenging to accomplish in remote areas. To that end, a series of GIS techniques and weight of evidence approach were applied to determine the feasibility of remotely identifying likely areas of ground discharge. Through the confluence of topographic analyses and a novel geologic dataset, these techniques were found to consistently identify areas characterized by either shallow subsurface or aquifer-fed groundwater discharge or evidence of ephemeral surficial water features. Two distinct GIS techniques to build spatial proxies of the effects of topography and geology …

A Sustainability Machine: The Incineration-Based Waste Regime In Tampa, Fl, Usa, Kevin P. Martyn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent history has seen some significant changes in terms of how society thinks about and deals with its wastes. Increasingly troubling indications of the immediacy of ecological concerns, now often described by the Anthropocene concept, have been provocative of a reinvigorated fervor for a sustainability transition. As a result, sustainability has become well-established as both an urgent pursuit and an eminently pliable buzzword. This research describes and explains one key aspect of society’s pursuit of some version of sustainability: our relationship with waste.

The site of this research is Tampa, Florida, a sunbelt city with a unique waste management system. …

On The Importance Of Context: Examining The Applicability Of Infertility Insurance Mandates In The United States Using A Mixed-Methods Study Design, Nathanael B. Stanley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Accessibility of infertility services is disproportionately experienced in the United States. Although there exist state-based health insurance mandates for infertility services, these mandates contain language that disqualify people from using them. In order to better understand why these mandates are not able to reduce the financial burden and bridge the income disparity for using infertility services, the purpose of this study is to add context to the applicability of these insurance mandates through qualitative and quantitative inquiry. Using the Glass and McAtee model of risk regulators as an operational paradigm, this research explores the role of environmental context, or “place”, …

Treasure Amongst The Ruins: The Policy And Practices Of Adaptive Reuse Of Urban Industrial Buildings In Ontario, Marcello Vecchio

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The practice of adaptive reuse is a unique concept of city building, where demolition and traditional brownfield redevelopment have been common practice. Though an already established method, adaptive reuse is becoming increasingly popular due to a greater intensity to protect heritage, reuse materials and structures, and offer unique architectural spaces. To achieve this, there must be sufficient policy in place to incentivize and mitigate the increase cost and risk which are usually associated with this type of development. This thesis combines a province-wide content analysis of Official Plans in Ontario’s 51 cities, with a more in-depth case study investigation on …

Using Spatial Analysis And Machine Learning Techniques To Develop A Comprehensive Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Consolidation Model, Samira Soleimani

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The safety of highway-railroad grade crossings (HRGC) is still an issue in the United States of America (USA). The grade crossing is where a railroad crosses a road at the same level without any over or underpass. To improve the safety of crossings, the crossings’ condition should be explored from several aspects such as engineering design (speed limit, warning signs, etc.), road condition (number of lanes, surface markings, etc.), rail design (the type of track, ballast, etc.), temporal variables (weather, visibility, time of day, lightning, etc.), social variables (population, race, etc.), and last but not least, spatial variables (the type …

Hiv Vulnerability And Resilience Among Heterosexual African, Caribbean And Black Men In London Ontario, Canada, Roger Antabe

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Since Canada’s first HIV diagnosis in 1981, prevalence rates have remained below endemic levels. This, however, tends to mask realities of HIV infection among sub-populations like heterosexual men of African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) descent, who experience increased risk of infection compared to other groups. Research to unpack ACB men’s vulnerability to HIV has prioritized behavioral risk factors, including the endorsement of traditional masculinity, partner concurrency, condomless sex, and poor use of preventive health services. As such, recommendations from these studies have centered on behavioral changes, which understate the role of structural risk factors in ACB men’s HIV vulnerability. Furthermore, …

Linking Irrigation To Landslides In Franklin County, Washington, Eric Savaria

Student Research Submissions

Landslides occur when a slope is unstable and collapses with different contributing and mediating factors to slope instability, including human activity. This study evaluates the association between the occurrence of landslides and irrigation in Franklin County, Washington. The study sought to evaluate whether irrigation can be linked to an increase in the occurrence of landslide events within Franklin County. The study area was divided into a ‘treatment site’ and several ‘control sites.’ The treatment site is located in Franklin County where irrigation has occurred near the cliff, while the control sites are sloped and non-irrigated areas outside of Franklin County. …

Ground Warming Leads To Changes In Carbon Cycling In Northern Fen Peatlands: Implications For Carbon Storage, Ericka James

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Northern peatlands store one third of the world’s soil carbon (C), as they remove more C from the atmosphere via photosynthesis than they release to the atmosphere through ecosystem respiration and methane (CH₄) production. Climate change threatens this function by stimulating C release from peatland stores as peat temperatures warm and soil moisture is reduced. Ground heating of +4 °C above ambient peat temperatures was initiated in a Sphagnum moss-dominated, nutrient poor fen and a Carex sedge-dominated, intermediate nutrient fen. Over one growing season, Carex fen heated plots had increases in photosynthesis (+23%), ecosystem respiration (+22%), and CH …