Geography Commons^™

Tradition Or Technology?: The Impact Of Paper Versus Digital Map Technology On Students’ Spatial Thinking Skill Acquisition, Larianne Collins

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates whether spatial learning outcomes differ with respect to different instructional media. Specifically, it examines traditional, paper aerial imagery as compared to digital imagery visualized with 3D globes. Two research questions provided the focus: 1) Does spatial thinking skill development differ between analog (paper) and digital map media; 2) Does spatial thinking skill development differ based on attitudes toward geography, past travel experience, or demographic variables such as gender, and are there interaction effects among them related to the different media?

Spatial thinking skill development was measured as students received instruction using either paper or digital maps. Spatial …

A Comprehensive Disaster Risk Index For The United States, Michael E. Senn

Theses and Dissertations

Risks to life, property, infrastructure and even environmental security emanate from a variety of hazard sources. Key to reducing this risk is the ability to measure it and present it decision-makers and stakeholders in a meaningful and understandable way. Currently, there exist no comprehensive hazard risk indices for the United States that have the ability to capture and convey a contemporary conceptualization of risk to hazards. Such an index, the World Risk Index, exists at the global level. The World Risk Index serves as an analog for further research on risk at various scales.

The purpose of this dissertation is …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Esri Story Maps As Effective Teaching Tools, Caitlin Strachan

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of Esri Story Maps as effective teaching tools. Story Maps are a relatively new web application within Esri’s web-based GIS platform, ArcGIS Online. They combine digitized, dynamic maps with other story elements (i.e., title, text, legend, popups, and other visuals) to help the creator effectively convey a message. The relative ease associated with using and creating a Story Map as well as the simple, non-technical interface makes them ideal for use as an educational technology. Survey data were collected at several professional development events in the spring of 2014 in …

Potential Of X-Band Images From High-Resolution Satellite Sar Sensors To Assess Growth And Yield In Paddy Rice, Yoshio Inoue, Eiji Sakaiya, Cuizhen Wang

Faculty Publications

The comprehensive relationship of backscattering coefficient (σ⁰) values from two current X-band SAR sensors (COSMO-SkyMed and TerraSAR-X) with canopy biophysical variables were investigated using the SAR images acquired at VV polarization and shallow incidence angles. The difference and consistency of the two sensors were also examined. The chrono-sequential change of σ⁰ in rice paddies during the transplanting season revealed that σ⁰ reached the value of nearby water surfaces a day before transplanting, and increased significantly just after transplanting event (3 dB). Despite a clear systematic shift (6.6 dB) between the two sensors, the differences in σ …

Birds And Beaches: The Affective Geographies And Sense Of Place Of Participants In The Coasst Citizen Science Program, Benjamin Kent Haywood

Theses and Dissertations

Participatory science research initiatives within the natural sciences like citizen science or crowd sourcing have enjoyed a recent explosion in popularity due to the efficient and expansive data collection processes they foster and the opportunities for general science outreach and education they provide. Now often the tool of choice among informal science outreach practitioners, Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) programs are purported to expand knowledge and understanding of science and ecology, increase the relevancy of science for society, and cultivate more environmentally sustainable attitudes and behaviors. Despite such claims, the influence and impact of participatory science engagement is still …

Comparison Of Ground-To-Air Visibility Analysis Methods, Erica Pfister-Altschul

Theses and Dissertations

When a disaster occurs, remotely sensed imagery is critical for emergency responders. Aircraft collect digital images of damaged areas to assist with damage assessment and response planning. Such airborne imagery can be transmitted directly from the plane to ground antennae and internet-connected dispersal, allowing for faster acquisition of data. However, air-to-ground transmission of images requires near-constant visibility between the aircraft transmitter and ground station antenna. This research uses GIS-based models to identify the ground station locations that can reliably receive data from aircraft, using a variety of visibility analysis methods and a comparison of their performance. A custom algorithm is …

Youth Citizenship, Civic Education, And Spaces Of Belonging In Tallinn, Estonia, Catherine Michelle Cottrell

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigated the ways that young people in Tallinn, Estonia conceptualize citizenships, identities, and belongings in national and post-national communities. Focus groups were conducted with 29 students from ethnic Estonian and Russophone backgrounds in their final year of secondary school; in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 civic education teachers from the students' schools. Theories of citizenship and nationalism, as well as civic education research, were used to explore the ways in which young people conceptualize the terms of belonging and negotiate cultural difference as they move within and through their everyday spaces, particularly in the school. The study demonstrated …

Determining The Differences In Hurricane Perception And Evacuation Behavior In The Elderly Of South Carolina, Gregg C. Bowser

Theses and Dissertations

The United States is becoming a "grayer" nation. U.S. Administration of Aging projections indicate that by 2030 nearly 20 percent of the national population will be aged 65 or older, with a significant portion of this growth occurring along the hurricane-prone Atlantic and Gulf coasts. This demographic shift creates new challenges for emergency management. Previous research shows that the elderly do not perceive risks and warnings the same way as other groups, and as a result may react differently to risk. Disproportionately high fatality rates for the elderly in recent disasters indicate that these differences are a key determinant of …

Uncovering The Structures In Ecological Networks: Multiple Techniques For Multiple Purposes, Peng Gao

Theses and Dissertations

Ecosystem structure and function are the product of biological and ecological elements and their connections and interactions. Understanding structure and process in ecosystems is critical to ecological studies. Ecological networks, based on simple concepts in which biological and ecological elements are depicted as nodes with relationships between them described as links, have been recognized as a valuable means of clarifying the relationship between structures and process in ecosystems. Ecological network analysis has benefited from the advancement of techniques in social science, computer science, and mathematics, but attention must be paid to whether the designs of these techniques follow ecological principles …

I Can Be Silent And Be Saying A Lot: Teachers' Racial Literacy In A Southern Elementary School, Kimberly J. Howard

Theses and Dissertations

In order to better understand how teachers make sense of race in schools today, this ethnographic study explores the following research question: How do teachers in this school make sense of race, and how does the spatiality of the school inform this process? The study was conducted over a 14-month period in a southern elementary school and is presented as a poetic, narrative, and thematic analysis of the connections between the geographic location of this particular school and the teachers' practices, pedagogies, and conversations about race both inside their classrooms and in other school spaces. This study demonstrates how teachers' …

Geomorphic Variation Of A Transitional River: Blue Ridge To Piedmont, South Carolina, Tanner Arrington

Theses and Dissertations

Field data was collected systematically to characterize the geomorphic variations in a river transition from the southern Blue Ridge to the Piedmont physiographic regions in South Carolina. Ten study reaches were surveyed for cross-sections and longitudinal profiles. Surface grid samples of bed material collected. Downstream hydraulic geometry and downstream fining of bed material were analyzed using traditional power functions and exponential decay relationships. Reach-scale channel bed morphology (bedforms) was analyzed under the assumption that the transition in bedforms is related to changes in hydraulic geometry and sediment characteristics. Well-developed downstream trends of hydraulic geometry variables (width, depth and velocity) and …

Complexity And Salience: Evaluating The Inter-Scene Variability Of Animated Choropleth Maps, Michael Dubois

Theses and Dissertations

Animated choropleth maps allow for the compilation of potentially massive time-series datasets which can portray space-time change in a congruent manner. They are also becoming increasingly common for data visualization. When users view and interact with these maps, however, there is the likelihood that the human cognitive-perceptual system may be overwhelmed by a large number of simultaneous changes in each scene: this so-called `change blindness' is a common malady when viewing successive scenes, unless scene-to-scene graphical changes are salient enough to attract the fixation of the user. Even then, there may be a limit to the number of simultaneous changes …

An Assessment Of Technology Adoptability In Sugarcane Burning Smoke Plume Mitigation, Sara Flecher

Theses and Dissertations

The adverse health effects of sugarcane burning emissions on surrounding communities are well documented. Sugarcane farmers in Louisiana, a major sugarcane producing state with 385,000 acres dedicated to sugarcane farming throughout, attempt to mitigate the effects of burn emissions by estimating the characteristics of the resultant smoke plume using meteorological variables as parameters. The current mitigation method designed by the LSU AgCenter, the American Sugar Cane League, and the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry is a manual process requiring the tedious look-up of atmospheric variables from multiple sources and physically drawing a predicted smoke plume on a paper map, …

Contested Identities And Language Education: Inculcating Nationalist Ideologies In The Basque Region, William Joseph Hogan

Theses and Dissertations

Nationalist sentiment has a long history in the Basque regions of northern Spain. Culturally separate from the dominant Castilian society, separatists have for many years advocated for an independent Basque state. Following democratic reforms under the Constitution of 1978, regional cultures and languages were explicitly recognized and protected in Spain. This allowed for the current set of language laws in the Autonomous Community of Pa├â┬¡s Vasco in which Castilian Spanish and the Basque language of Euskara are held in equal status and recognition. Furthermore, Euskara has been recognized as a defining characteristic of Basque identity. The regional government has instituted …

A Geographic Modeling Framework For Assessing Critical Infrastructure Vulnerability: Energy Infrastructure Case Study, Leanne Sulewski

Theses and Dissertations

Vulnerability of critical infrastructure systems is of the utmost importance to a nation's national security interests, especially the electric grid. Despite the importance of these systems, disruptions continue to occur at an alarming rate, thus indicating that there is a fundamental flaw in the way critical infrastructure systems are analyzed for vulnerability.

Critical infrastructure systems are typically analyzed using mathematical approaches such as graph theory, which strip systems of their important geographic information, and only look at their connections to each other. While these relationships and metrics provide useful information, they cannot provide the entire picture. As such, this research …

Spatial And Temporal Characterization Of A Cold Seep-Hydrate System (Woolsey Mound, Deep-Water Gulf Of Mexico), Antonello Simonetti

Theses and Dissertations

Cold seeps are areas where methane is transferred from the lithosphere into the hydrosphere, accounting for the major source of hydrocarbons in seawaters. Formation of gas hydrate in cold seeps modulates the global discharge of methane to the environment. However, cold seeps are dynamic settings where hydrates dissociate on short and long time-scales triggering substantial methane fluxes to the oceans. These methane vents sustain unique ecosystems at the ocean floors and contribute to ocean acidification. Also, the methane can potentially reach the sea surface and be exchanged with the atmosphere contributing to global warming. Understanding how cold seep-hydrate systems (CSHSs) …

Modeling Intermittent And Perennial Headwater Stream Origins In North Carolina., Kevin Macleod

Theses and Dissertations

Low-order headwater streams, a link between the upland landscape and larger streams within a watershed, affect watershed hydrology. Yet current widely available maps inadequately depict headwater streams, underestimating channel length or omitting channels entirely. Intermittent and perennial headwater streams each provide unique habitat. Until recently, it has not been possible to accurately delineate these streams or predict channel flow durations without fieldwork. Recent advances in remote sensing may allow more accurate headwater stream mapping.

Methods for mapping intermittent and perennial headwater streams with a GIS-based modeling approach coupled with field verification were adapted, tested, and evaluated. Four models were developed …

Spatial Resolution Imagery Requirements For Identifying Structure Damage In A Hurricane Disaster: A Cognitive Approach, Sarah E. Battersby, Michael E. Hodgson, Jiayu Wang

Faculty Publications

In disaster response, timely collection and exploitation of remotely sensed imagery is of increasing importance. Image exploitation approaches during the immediate (first few days) aftermath of a disaster are predominantly through visual analysis rather than automated classification methods. While the temporal needs for obtaining the imagery are fairly clear (within a one- to three-day window), there have only been educated guesses about the spatial resolution requirements necessary for the imagery for visual analysis. In this paper, we report results from an empirical study to identify the coarsest spatial resolution that is adequate for tasks required immediately following a major disaster. …

Introduction: Why A Political Ecology Of The U.S. South?, P. T. Hurley, Edward R. Carr

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Remote Sensing And Gis-Assisted Spatial Decision Support System For Hazardous Waste Site Monitoring, John R. Jensen, Michael E. Hodgson, Maria Garcia-Quijano, Jungho Im, Jason A. Tullis

Faculty Publications

Humans produce large amounts of waste that must be processed or stored so that it does not contaminate the environment. When hazardous wastes are stored, waste site monitoring is typically conducted in situ which can lead to a serious time lag between the onset of a problem and detection. A Remote Sensing and GIS-assisted Spatial Decision Support System for Hazardous Waste Site Monitoring was developed to improve hazardous waste site management. The system was designed to be recursive, flexible, and integrative. It is recursive because the system is implemented iteratively until the risk assessment subsystem determines that an event is …

Minimum Flow Rules For South Carolina Rivers, William L. Graf

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Significance Of Altitude And Posting Density On Lidar-Derived Elevation Accuracy On Hazardous Waste Sites, María J. García-Quijano, John R. Jensen, Michael E. Hodgson, Brian C. Hadley, John B. Gladden, Lewis A. Lapine

Faculty Publications

This research evaluated the vertical accuracy of two lidar-derived elevation datasets acquired from two different altitudes over a clay-capped hazardous waste site located on the Savannah River Site (SRS), South Carolina, using the same Optech ALTM 2050 lidar sensor and Cessna 337 platform. Both missions provided adequate elevation estimates (low-altitude RMSEz ≈ 6 cm; high-altitude RMSEz ≈ 14 cm.) A quantitative comparison was performed to determine how decreasing platform altitude and increasing lidar posting density affected the vertical elevation accuracy. Higher posting densities did not significantly improve the vertical accuracy of lidar-derived elevation data. Conversely, acquiring the lidar-derived elevation data …

Impact Of Lidar Nominal Post-Spacing On Dem Accuracy And Flood Zone Delineation, George T. Raber, John R. Jensen, Michael E. Hodgson, Jason A. Tullis, Bruce A. Davis, Judith Berglund

Faculty Publications

Lidar data have become a major source of digital terrain information for use in many applications including hydraulic modeling and flood plane mapping. Based on established relationships between sampling intensity and error, nominal post-spacing likely contributes significantly to the error budget. Post-spacing is also a major cost factor during lidar data collection. This research presents methods for establishing a relationship between nominal post-spacing and its effects on hydraulic modeling for flood zone delineation. Lidar data collected at a low post-spacing (approximately 1 to 2 m) over a piedmont study area in North Carolina was systematically decimated to simulate datasets with …

Coherent Structures And Aeolian Saltation, Jean Taylor Ellis

Faculty Publications

Aeolian sand transport models, widely employed by coastal scientists and managers, assume temporal and spatial homogeneity within the saltation field. This research questions that assumption by demonstrating that the saltation field is event-driven, therefore indicating that the saltation field is not temporally steady. The findings from this research may explain a portion of the conclusions from previous studies that indicated inequalities between model-estimated and field-measured aeolian sand transport. The relationship between unsteadiness in a turbulent wind field and pulses in a sand transport field was investigated on a beach near Shoalhaven Heads, New South Wales, Australia. Microphone-based saltation sensors, “miniphones,” …

Topographies Of Home And Citizenship: Arab American Activists, Lynn A. Staeheli, Caroline R. Nagel

Faculty Publications

Home and citizenship carry contradictory and ambiguous meanings for immigrants as they negotiate lives ‘here’ and ‘there’. We use the concept of topography to analyze the ways in which activists in the Arab-American community draw connections between homes in the United States and in the Middle East. In intensive interviews, we ask activists about how their understanding of home influences their activism and positioning as citizens within the United States. Activists often bring to their work conceptualizations of home and citizenship that are open, and that connect home to broader forces operating at various scales and in more than one …

An Evaluation Of Lidar-Derived Elevation And Terrain Slope In Leaf-Off Conditions, Michael E. Hodgson, John Jensen, George Raber, Jason Tullis, Bruce A. Davis, Gary Thompson, Karen Schuckman

Faculty Publications

The effects of land cover and surface slope on lidar-derived elevation data were examined for a watershed in the piedmont of North Carolina. Lidar data were collected over the study area in a winter (leaf-off) overflight. Survey-grade elevation points (1,225) for six different land cover classes were used as reference points. Root mean squared error (RMSE) for land cover classes ranged from 14.5 cm to 36.1 cm. Land cover with taller canopy vegetation exhibited the largest errors. The largest mean error (36.1 cm RMSE) was in the scrub-shrub cover class. Over the small slope range (0° to 10°) in this …

‘We’Re Just Like The Irish’: Narratives Of Assimilation, Belonging, And Citizenship Among Arab American Activists, Caroline R. Nagel, Lynn A. Staeheli

Faculty Publications

This paper examines narratives of assimilation and belonging as activists attempt to position Arab-Americans as citizens and full members of the American polity. In interviews with activists, the experience of the Irish as immigrants and citizens was often invoked as the paradigmatic example of how immigrants are incorporated as citizens—an example that activists promoted as one that Arabs would follow. By invoking the Irish experience, activists hope to remind Americans that immigration history is not one of effortless assimilation, but is rather characterized by systematic exclusion and marginalization. In so doing, they articulate narratives of assimilation and belonging that draw …

Citizenship, Identity, And Transnational Migration: Arab Immigrants To The Us, Caroline R. Nagel, Lynn A. Staeheli

Faculty Publications

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the changing relationships between identities, citizenship and the state in the context of globalisation. We first examine the ways in which scholars discuss changes in the ways in which citizenship and political identity are expressed in the context of international migration. We argue that much of the discussion of transnationalism and diaspora cling to an assumption that citizenship remains an important—though not defining—element of identity. Our position, by contrast, is that migration is one of a number of processes that transform the relationship between citizenship and identity. More specifically, we argue that …

Accuracy Of Airborne Lidar-Derived Elevation: Empirical Assessment And Error Budget, Michael E. Hodgson, Patrick Bresnahan

Faculty Publications

As part of a countywide large-scale mapping effort for Richland County, South Carolina, an accuracy assessment of a recently acquired lidar-derived data set was conducted. Airborne lidar (2-m nominal posting) was collected at a flying height of 1207 meters above ground level (AGL) using an Optech ALTM (Airborne Laser Terrain Mapper) 1210 system. Unique to this study are the reference point elevations. Rather than using an interpolation approach for gathering observed elevations at reference points, the x-y coordinates of lidar points were located in the field and these elevations were surveyed. Using both total-station-based and rapid-static GPS techniques, observed vertical …

A Parameterization Model For Transportation Feature Extraction, Michael E. Hodgson, Xingong Li, Yang Cheng

Faculty Publications

This article presents one solution to the parameterization problem for automated road feature extraction models. Using a line-length buffer approach, a measure of agreement between extracted road features and reference road features is defined. An automated approach for deriving this agreement index is presented and implemented as a parameterization model. Coupling the implemented parameterization model with an existing transportation feature extraction model is demonstrated. Although the solution was designed for a road feature extraction model (FEM), the conceptual design could be applied to other linear FEMs, such as models for streams, fault lines, and isolines.