Geography Commons^™

An Analysis Of Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Estimation Methods And Microclimate Heat Variability In Columbia, South Carolina, Stafford Mullin

Theses and Dissertations

Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States and poses major health risks in the wake of rising global average temperatures. Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is a holistic measure of human heat stress, but is not feasible to implement in most settings because the equipment is expensive and troublesome to operate. This research evaluates the performance of WBGT estimation methods using more standard meteorological variables, measured in-situ and a local National Weather Service Automated Surface Observing Station, and examines how WBGT and its components vary across two distinct microclimates in Columbia, SC. Results indicate …

Capital City Ventures Towards An Equitable Clean Energy Transition: A Case Study Comparison Between Columbia, South Carolina And Richmond, Virginia, Claire Windsor

Senior Theses

Combatting climate change requires a rapid transition to renewable sources for energy generation. In the United States, the electricity sector alone accounts for 28% of greenhouse gas emissions (28%), with about 63% of electricity generation derived from burning of fossil fuels (EPA, 2020). In order to lower greenhouse emissions from the energy sector, federal, state, and local policies must pave the way for renewable energy and energy efficiency innovations and policies. However, political action to address the effects and combat the causes of climate change have been limited due to political gridlock at the federal level. In addition, under neoliberalism, …

Off-Peak Ndvi Correction To Reconstruct Landsat Time Series For Post-Fire Recovery In High-Latitude Forests, Cuizhen Wang, Aiai Wang, Dianfan Guo, Haibo Li, Shuying Zang

Faculty Publications

Collecting long-term satellite image series in high latitudes has been challenging due to its short growing season. For off-peak imagery, its reflective properties need to be corrected to maintain the spectral consistency. This study compares three statistical approaches to reconstructing a 30-year normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) series for forest recovery assessment after the 1987 Black Dragon Fire in the Greater Hinggan Mountains Forest, Northeast China. To correct the off-peak NDVI to peak NDVI, the Landsat paired regression takes advantage of the scene-to-scene linear relationship between the two images, the GIMMS booster approach compensates the NDVI increment rate based on …

Teaching The “Wicked” In Geography: Educational Structure, Standards, And Teacher Training As Obstacles To Teaching About Climate Change, Jerry T. Mitchell

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Deep Learning Of High-Resolution Aerial Imagery For Coastal Marsh Change Detection: A Comparative Study, Grayson R. Morgan, Cuizhen Wang, Zhenlong Li, Steven R. Schill, Daniel R. Morgan

Faculty Publications

Deep learning techniques are increasingly being recognized as effective image classifiers. Aside from their successful performance in past studies, the accuracies have varied in complex environments, in comparison with the popularly of applied machine learning classifiers. This study seeks to explore the feasibility of using a U-Net deep learning architecture to classify bi-temporal, high-resolution, county-scale aerial images to determine the spatial extent and changes of land cover classes that directly or indirectly impact tidal marsh. The image set used in the analysis is a collection of a 1-m resolution collection of National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) tiles from 2009 and …

The Times, They Are A-Changin’: Tracking Shifts In Mental Health Signals From Early Phase To Later Phase Of The Covid-19 Pandemic In Australia, Siqin Wang, Xiao Huang, Tao Hu, Mengxi Zhang, Zhenlong Li, Huan Ning, Jonathan Corcoran, Asaduzzaman Khan, Yan Liu, Jiajia Zhang Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Introduction Widespread problems of psychological distress have been observed in many countries following the outbreak of COVID-19, including Australia. What is lacking from current scholarship is a national-scale assessment that tracks the shifts in mental health during the pandemic timeline and across geographic contexts.

Methods Drawing on 244 406 geotagged tweets in Australia from 1 January 2020 to 31 May 2021, we employed machine learning and spatial mapping techniques to classify, measure and map changes in the Australian public’s mental health signals, and track their change across the different phases of the pandemic in eight Australian capital cities.

Results Australians’ …

Unmanned Aerial Remote Sensing Of Coastal Vegetation: A Review, Grayson R. Morgan, Michael E. Hodgson, Cuizhen Wang, Steven R. Schill

Faculty Publications

Coastal wetlands contribute greatly to our coasts economically and ecologically. The utility of coastal wetland vegetation, along with the multitude of dynamic forces they encounter, suggests the need of regular monitoring for sustainable management. While traditional in situ survey methods and remote sensing from space and manned platforms have provided means to monitor and study the coastal zone thus far, the recent developments of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) fill a small void between traditional in situ survey methods and the high spatial resolution of manned aircraft imagery. As an on-demand personal remote sensing device, an sUAS can be deployed …

How To Map Soil Sealing, Land Take And Impervious Surfaces? A Systematic Review, Francesca Peroni, Salvatore Eugenio Pappalardo, Francesco Facchinelli, Edoardo Crescini, Michele Munafò, Michael E. Hodgson, Massimo De Marchi

Faculty Publications

Soil degradation is one of the main environmental issues within the international agendas on sustainability and climate adaptation. Among degradation processes, soil sealing represents the major threat, as ecosystem services dramatically decrease or are even nullified. The increasing use of big open data from satellites combined with AI algorithms are making geodata mining and mapping techniques essential to quantify soil sealing. Different keywords are adopted to define the phenomenon. However, at present, review articles presenting the state-of-the-art on mapping soil sealing by including the most common definitions are currently not available. Hence, we analyzed: (a) impervious surface, (b) soil sealing, …

At-Sensor Radiometric Correction Of A Multispectral Camera (Rededge) For Suas Vegetation Mapping, Cuizhen Wang

Faculty Publications

Rapid advancement of drone technology enables small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) for quantitative applications in public and private sectors. The drone-mounted 5-band MicaSense RedEdge cameras, for example, have been popularly adopted in the agroindustry for assessment of crop healthiness. The camera extracts surface reflectance by referring to a pre-calibrated reflectance panel (CRP). This study tests the performance of a Matrace100/RedEdge-M camera in extracting surface reflectance orthoimages. Exploring multiple flights and field experiments, an at-sensor radiometric correction model was developed that integrated the default CRP and a Downwelling Light Sensor (DLS). Results at three vegetated sites reveal that the current CRP-only …

A Novel Big Data Approach To Measure And Visualize Urban Accessibility, Yuqin Jiang, Diansheng Guo, Zhenlong Li, Michael E. Hodgson

Faculty Publications

Accessibility is a topic of interest to multiple disciplines for a long time. In the last decade, the increasing availability of data may have exceeded the development of accessibility modeling approaches, resulting in a modeling gap. In part, this modeling gap may have resulted from the differences needed for single versus multimodal opportunities for access to services. With a focus on large volumes of transportation data, a new measurement approach, called Urban Accessibility Relative Index (UARI), was developed for the integration of multi-mode transportation big data, including taxi, bus, and subway, to quantify, visualize and understand the spatiotemporal patterns of …

Assessing Population Exposure To Coastal Flooding Due To Sea Level Rise, Matthew E. Hauer, Dean Hardy, Scott A. Kulp, Valerie Mueller, David J. Wrathall, Peter U. Clark

Faculty Publications

The exposure of populations to sea-level rise (SLR) is a leading indicator assessing the impact of future climate change on coastal regions. SLR exposes coastal populations to a spectrum of impacts with broad spatial and temporal heterogeneity, but exposure assessments often narrowly define the spatial zone of flooding. Here we show how choice of zone results in differential exposure estimates across space and time. Further, we apply a spatio-temporal flood-modeling approach that integrates across these spatial zones to assess the annual probability of population exposure. We apply our model to the coastal United States to demonstrate a more robust assessment …

Revealing Public Opinion Towards Covid-19 Vaccines With Twitter Data In The United States: Spatiotemporal Perspective, Tao Hu, Siqin Wang, Wei Luo, Mengxi Zhang, Xiao Huang, Yingwei Yan, Regina Liu, Kelly Ly, Viraj Kacker, Bing She, Zhenlong Li

Faculty Publications

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the United States and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance.

Objective:The aim of this study was to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines in the United …

Satellite Observations And Spatiotemporal Assessment Of Salt Marsh /Dieback Along Coastal South Carolina (1990-2019), Huixuan Li

Theses and Dissertations

Coastal wetland mapping is often difficult because of the heterogeneous vegetation compositions and associated tidal effects. Past studies in the Gulf/Atlantic coast states have reported acute marsh dieback events in which marsh rapidly browned and thinned, leaving stubble of dead stems or mudflad with damaged ecosystem services. Reported marsh dieback in South Carolina (SC), USA, however, have been limited. Previous studies have suggested a suite of possibly abiotic and biotic attributes responsible for salt marsh dieback. However, there are no consensus answers in current literature explaining what led to marsh dieback in past decades, especially from the spatiotemporal perspective. In …

Gap-Filling Of 8-Day Terra Modis Daytime Land Surface Temperature In High-Latitude Cold Region With Generalized Additive Models (Gam), Dianfan Guo, Cuizhen Wang, Shuying Zang, Jinxi Hua, Zhenghan Lv, Yue Lin

Faculty Publications

Land surface temperature (LST) is a crucial parameter driving the dynamics of the thermal state on land surface. In high-latitude cold region, a long-term, stable LST product is of great importance in examining the distribution and degradation of permafrost under pressure of global warming. In this study, a generalized additive model (GAM) approach was developed to fill the missing pixels of the MODIS/Terra 8-day Land Surface Temperature (MODIS LST) daytime products with the ERA5 Land Skin Temperature (ERA5ST) dataset in a high-latitude watershed in Eurasia. Comparison at valid pixels revealed that the MODIS LST was 4.8–13.0 °C higher than ERA5ST, …

Rgb Indices And Canopy Height Modelling For Mapping Tidal Marsh Biomass From A Small Unmanned Aerial System, Grayson R. Morgan, Cuizhen Wang, James T. Morris

Faculty Publications

Coastal tidal marshes are essential ecosystems for both economic and ecological reasons. They necessitate regular monitoring as the effects of climate change begin to be manifested in changes to marsh vegetation healthiness. Small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) build upon previously established remote sensing techniques to monitor a variety of vegetation health metrics, including biomass, with improved flexibility and affordability of data acquisition. The goal of this study was to establish the use of RGB-based vegetation indices for mapping and monitoring tidal marsh vegetation (i.e., Spartina alterniflora) biomass. Flights over tidal marsh study sites were conducted using a multi-spectral camera on …

Odt Flow: Extracting, Analyzing, And Sharing Multi-Source Multi-Scale Human Mobility, Zhenlong Li, Xiao Huang, Tao Hu, Huan Ning, Xinyue Ye, Binghu Huang, Xiaoming Li

Faculty Publications

In response to the soaring needs of human mobility data, especially during disaster events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated big data challenges, we develop a scalable online platform for extracting, analyzing, and sharing multi-source multi-scale human mobility flows. Within the platform, an origin-destination-time (ODT) data model is proposed to work with scalable query engines to handle heterogenous mobility data in large volumes with extensive spatial coverage, which allows for efficient extraction, query, and aggregation of billion-level origin-destination (OD) flows in parallel at the server-side. An interactive spatial web portal, ODT Flow Explorer, is developed to allow users …

Spatial Disparities Of Covid-19 Cases And Fatalities In United States Counties, Sarah L. Jackson, Sahar Derakhshan, Leah Blackwood, Logan Lee, Qian Huang, Margot Habets, Susan L. Cutter

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the spatial and temporal trends in county-level COVID-19 cases and fatalities in the United States during the first year of the pandemic (January 2020–January 2021). Statistical and geospatial analyses highlight greater impacts in the Great Plains, Southwestern and Southern regions based on cases and fatalities per 100,000 population. Significant case and fatality spatial clusters were most prevalent between November 2020 and January 2021. Distinct urban–rural differences in COVID-19 experiences uncovered higher rural cases and fatalities per 100,000 population and fewer government mitigation actions enacted in rural counties. High levels of social vulnerability and the absence of mitigation …

Measuring Global Multi-Scale Place Connectivity Using Geotagged Social Media Data, Zhenlong Li, Xiao Huang, Xinyue Ye, Yuqin Jiang, Yago Martin, Huan Ning, Michael E. Hodgson, Xiaoming Li

Faculty Publications

Shaped by human movement, place connectivity is quantified by the strength of spatial interactions among locations. For decades, spatial scientists have researched place connectivity, applications, and metrics. The growing popularity of social media provides a new data stream where spatial social interaction measures are largely devoid of privacy issues, easily assessable, and harmonized. In this study, we introduced a global multi-scale place connectivity index (PCI) based on spatial interactions among places revealed by geotagged tweets as a spatiotemporal-continuous and easy-to-implement measurement. The multi-scale PCI, demonstrated at the US county level, exhibits a strong positive association with SafeGraph population movement records …

Resettlement Capacity Assessments For Climate Induced Displacements: Evidence From Ethiopia, Solomon Zena Walelign, Susan L. Cutter, Paivi Lujala

Faculty Publications

Climate change migration is increasing and necessitates a re-examination of resettlement planning and processes. Although evidence-based selection of host places would improve climate change resettlement outcomes, few methods for the selection of host communities exist. Consequently, the information base on which most resettlement programs select a host place is often inadequate. This article proposes an empirical methodology to assess resettlement capacity. The methodology uses a hierarchical aggregation approach, where resettlement capacity indicator values are aggregated first into sub-dimension resettlement capacity scores, then further into dimension resettlement capacity scores, and finally into an overall resettlement capacity index. The aggregation allows for …

Measuring Global Multi-Scale Place Connectivity Using Geotagged Social Media Data, Zhenlong Li, Xiao Huang, Yuqin Jiang, Yago Martin, Huan Ning, Michael E. Hodgson, Xiaoming Li

Faculty Publications

Shaped by human movement, place connectivity is quantified by the strength of spatial interactions among locations. For decades, spatial scientists have researched place connectivity, applications, and metrics. The growing popularity of social media provides a new data stream where spatial social interaction measures are largely devoid of privacy issues, easily assessable, and harmonized. In this study, we introduced a global multi-scale place connectivity index (PCI) based on spatial interactions among places revealed by geotagged tweets as a spatiotemporal-continuous and easy-to-implement measurement. The multi-scale PCI, demonstrated at the US county level, exhibits a strong positive association with SafeGraph population movement records …

Taking The Pulse Of Undergraduate Introductory Geographic Information Systems Courses, Christopher Krause

Theses and Dissertations

As colleges and universities expand their geographic information systems (GIS) course offerings, the pedagogies involved in teaching such courses ought to be critically evaluated. Existing research concerning the teaching of geospatial technologies has been characterized as “sparse, inconsistent, and overly anecdotal” (Baker et al., 2015, p. 118). Answering the call for “more systematic and replicable” (p. 118) GIS education research, this study adopted a suite of mixed methods used within other discipline-based education research (DBER) and deployed them in introductory GIS courses. These methods included classroom observation protocols, interview protocols, focus group protocols, and student questionnaires.

This research had three …

Suas For 3d Tree Surveying: Comparative Experiments On A Closed-Canopy Earthen Dam, Cuizhen Wang, Grayson R. Morgan, Michael E. Hodgson

Faculty Publications

Defined as “personal remote sensing”, small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) have been increasingly utilized for landscape mapping. This study tests a sUAS procedure of 3D tree surveying of a closed-canopy woodland on an earthen dam. Three DJI drones—Mavic Pro, Phantom 4 Pro, and M100/RedEdge-M assembly—were used to collect imagery in six missions in 2019–2020. A canopy height model was built from the sUAS-extracted point cloud and LiDAR bare earth surface. Treetops were delineated in a variable-sized local maxima filter, and tree crowns were outlined via inverted watershed segmentation. The outputs include a tree inventory that contains 238 to 284 trees …

Spatiotemporal Patterns Of Human Mobility And Its Association With Land Use Types During Covid-19 In New York City, Yuqin Jiang, Xiao Huang, Zhenlong Li

Faculty Publications

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted every facet of society. One of the non-pharmacological measures to contain the COVID-19 infection is social distancing. Federal, state, and local governments have placed multiple executive orders for human mobility reduction to slow down the spread of COVID-19. This paper uses geotagged tweets data to reveal the spatiotemporal human mobility patterns during this COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. With New York City open data, human mobility pattern changes were detected by different categories of land use, including residential, parks, transportation facilities, and workplaces. This study further compares human mobility patterns by …

The Eviction Landscape In South Carolina, Ethan Magnuson

Senior Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the South Carolinian eviction crisis from the perspective of radical geography. South Carolina was chosen for the severity of its crisis and the lack of research at a sub-state level. Court records of eviction filings from 2019 were geocoded and tested for spatial clustering, which was clearly visible. Plaintiff names were used to identify the most frequent filers and distinguish landlords by type. At the census tract level, eviction filing counts were compared with neighborhood characteristics using negative binomial regression, and most were found to be significant in South Carolina. …

Military Communities And Natural Hazards In The United States, Logan Lee

Theses and Dissertations

The vulnerability and resilience of communities to hazards is a concept that has gained traction in the research community in recent decades. Climate change, combined with increasing damages from natural hazards, has energized researchers and practitioners alike to identify the risks to people and places from future losses. Military communities support large military bases and are composed of service members, their families, and civilian populations alike. Due to the presence of military installations and military populations, the characteristics of the population and influences in military communities are unique. However, there is a gap in current research to assess whether the …

Politics Of Belonging: Identity, Integration, And Spatial Practices Of Algerian Immigrants And Their Descendants In Paris, France, Elizabeth Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Using a geographic framework, this dissertation explores how Algerian immigrants and their descendants perform identity and negotiate belonging in French society. Bringing together critical theorizations of race, identity, space, and place, this work investigates what it means to be a racialized minority in a postcolonial context and to learn and experience the boundaries of ‘Frenchness.’ It is based on the narratives of Algerian immigrants who have migrated to Paris, France, and their French-born children. The empirical evidence of the case studies highlights the myriad ways in which Algerian immigrants and their descendants encounter and structure their interactions with French society, …

Using Aeolian Depositional Lag Times To Relate Dune Vegetation And Topographic Change, Jacquelyn Brianna Ferguson

Theses and Dissertations

Sediment deposition impacts dune morphology and is a product of many environmental factors. Dune vegetation is related to post-storm dune recovery and morphology. Though it is widely agreed that vegetation impacts sediment deposition, this relationship has not yet been quantified in the field. This research was conducted at Isle of Palms, a meso-tidal barrier island in South Carolina, where we collected topographic and vegetation data over an incipient foredune. Vegetation data were classified by functional type (dune-builder or dune-stabilizer) or land cover (sand, wrack). We identified land cover changes resulting in greater surface roughness. To relate land cover change to …

High-Latitude Snowfall As A Sensitive Indicator Of Climate Warming: A Case Study Of Heilongjiang Province, China, Lijuan Zhang, Cuizhen Wang, Yongshen Li, Yutao Huang, Fan Zhang, Tao Pan

Faculty Publications

While global distribution and dynamics of snow extent and snow depth have been intensely studied, the response of snowfall events to global warming is complex and remains unclear in current literature. This study explores historical snowfall records since the 1960s at 62 meteorological stations in Heilongjiang Province, and examines the snowfall responses in this most northerly high-latitude snow zone of China. Results confirm a significant increase of annual average temperature with a turn-over year in 1987, representing a shift of a cooler to warmer climate. Our study reports five most sensitive snowfall indicators of the warmer climate: snow intensity, snow …

Synoptic Atmospheric Circulation Patterns Associated With Deep Persistent Slab Avalanches In The Western United States, Andrew R. Schauer, Jordy Hendrikx, Karl W. Birkeland, Cary J. Mock

Faculty Publications

Deep persistent slab avalanches are capable of destroying infrastructure and are usually unsurvivable for those who are caught. Formation of a snowpack conducive to deep persistent slab avalanches is typically driven by meteorological conditions occurring in the beginning weeks to months of the winter season, and yet the avalanche event may not occur for several weeks to months later. While predicting the exact timing of the release of deep persistent slab avalanches is difficult, onset of avalanche activity is commonly preceded by rapid warming, heavy precipitation, or high winds. This work investigates the synoptic drivers of deep persistent slab avalanches …

Urban-Rural Differences In Covid-19 Exposures And Outcomes In The South: A Preliminary Analysis Of South Carolina, Qian Huang, Sarah Jackson, Sahar Derakhshan, Logan Lee, Erika Pham, Amber Jackson, Susan L. Cutter

Faculty Publications

As the COVID-19 pandemic moved beyond the initial heavily impacted and urbanized Northeast region of the United States, hotspots of cases in other urban areas ensued across the country in early 2020. In South Carolina, the spatial and temporal patterns were different, initially concentrating in small towns within metro counties, then diffusing to centralized urban areas and rural areas. When mitigation restrictions were relaxed, hotspots reappeared in the major cities. This paper examines the county-scale spatial and temporal patterns of confirmed cases of COVID-19 for South Carolina from March 1st—September 5th, 2020. We first describe the initial diffusion of the …