Geography Commons^™

Baseline Survey For Street Dogs In Guam, John D. Boone

Stray and Feral Animal Populations Collection

As is the case for many inhabited islands in Pacific region, dogs are common, including freeroaming street dogs that may be owned or unowned. Reproduction among dogs is largely unchecked, and many owned dogs do not receive adequate levels of basic care in the home or veterinary care when needed. For all of these reasons, Humane Society International (HSI) is exploring options for improving the management of street dog populations and promoting better treatment and care of all dogs on Guam and on the nearby islands of Rota and Saipan. One of the initial steps in this process was to …

Commensality, Sustainability, And Restaurant Clustering In A Suburban Community, Lenore L. Newman

Suburban Sustainability

A study of a restaurant cluster on the suburban fringe of Vancouver, Canada demonstrates how commensality can play a role in the creation of more sustainable suburban environments sustainability by fostering a walkable suburban environment that encourages commensal behavior. With sixty restaurants within a few blocks of each other, the historic village of Steveston serves as an important site of social relations within the larger suburban community. Such a cluster supports the argument that commensality is an important component of the dining experience, and that the ability to eat together is a source of social capital to surrounding residents. The …

Religious Tourism And Tv Serials: The Case Of Two Italian Papal Birthplaces, Lorenzo Bagnoli, Rita Capurro

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

In this paper the authors examine two of Italy’s lesser religious tourism destinations: Sotto il Monte and Concesio, small towns in northern Italy which have the distinction of being the birthplaces of Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. In 2002 and 2008 respectively, two of the country’s national television networks broadcast during prime time short television serials dedicated to the two popes. Despite being very successful with the viewing public, the serials proved to have little impact in terms of tourism, as demonstrated by comprehensive tourist surveys and in-depth conversations with the parties concerned. The aim of the present …

A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of Weekend–Trips In Religious Tourism: Insights From Two Cultures, Two Countries (India And Italy), Kiran A. Shinde, Katia Rizello

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper explains peculiarities, significance, and universality of weekend-trips as significant form of religious tourism using a comparative analysis of this phenomenon in two pilgrimage sites from two different cultures (and countries), namely, Vrindavan in India and the Shrine of Santimissi Medici in Italy. The findings derived from a case-study approach and visitors’ survey method confirm that religious tourism falls under the more general category of leisure and that visitors who flock to these places on weekends do not coincide either with general models proposed in the extant literature, nor can they be assimilated to the conventional categories of pilgrims …

The Museumification Of Rumi’S Tomb: Deconstructing Sacred Space At The Mevlana Museum, Rose Aslan

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Tourists and pilgrims from across Turkey and around the world flock to the tomb of Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), one of the greatest poets and Sufi masters in Islam. Since 1925, the Turkish government has relentlessly struggled to control Islamic influences in society and to channel people’s devotion to the memory of Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938) and his secular ideology. This article argues that by restructuring the layout and presentation of the tomb complex of Rumi, and putting the sacred space through the process of museumification, the Turkish state has attempted to regulate the place in order to control …

Fifty Years Of Weathering The Storm: Are The Louisiana Gulf Coastal Parishes Prepared For Another Major Hurricane?, Danielle L. Boudreau

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study examines ten major storms that have affected Louisiana in the last fifty years, beginning with Hurricane Betsy in 1965. The goal is to determine if the nine coastal parishes are prepared adequately for another major hurricane impact. It examines storms that have affected the state physically, in terms of property and ecological damages. It also considers storms that provided non-physical influences, by way of mitigation policy changes and social, economical, ecological, and political policy alterations. The main focus is on the transformations, if any, of social vulnerability in light of emergency preparedness in the areas impacted, particularly along …

Scale As A Key Factor For Sustainable Water Management In Northwest Honduras, E. Christian Wells, Karla L. Davis-Salazar, Jose E. Moreno-Cortes

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

In northwest Honduras, community-based interventions by outside development agencies seeking to assist communities with the treatment and delivery of potable water have been largely ineffective. This article examines the social, economic, ecological, and engineered contexts of gravity-fed water systems in the Palmarejo Valley of this region, identifying key barriers to long-term sustainability. Drawing from the results of our mixed-methods research in the valley incorporating ethnographic and spatial analyses along with water quality testing, we outline the limitations of community-based development approaches that ignore the broader social and political scales of resource inequalities. We find that water provisioning often requires coordination …

Pattern Extraction From Spatial Data - Statistical And Modeling Approches, Hu Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Exploratory and statistical spatial data analyses are commonly used in a wide range of research fields, such as epidemiology, disease surveillance and crime analysis. Spatial epidemiology, for example, needs to detect significant spatial clusters of disease incidents to help epidemiologists identify environmental factors and spreading patterns associated with certain diseases. Existing spatial analysis approaches mostly focus on the analysis of spatial lattice data, i.e., observations organized by locations such as county or census tract. With the wide spread of location-aware technologies such as GPS and smart phones, spatial interaction data have become increasingly available, e.g., human daily mobility, traveling and …

Land Surface Anomalies Preceding The 2010 Russian Heat Wave And A Link To The North Atlantic Oscillation, C. K. Wright, K. M. De Beurs, G. M. Henebry

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

The Eurasian wheat belt (EWB) spans a region across Eastern Ukraine, Southern Russia, and Northern Kazakhstan; accounting for nearly 15% of global wheat production. We assessed land surface conditions across the EWB during the early growing season (April–May–June; AMJ) leading up to the 2010 Russian heat wave, and over a longer-term period from 2000 to 2010. A substantial reduction in early season values of the normalized difference vegetation index occurred prior to the Russian heat wave, continuing a decadal decline in early season primary production in the region. In 2010, an anomalously cold winter followed by an abrupt shift to …

Mitigating The Effects Of Climate Change With Wind Energy And Gis, Rachael Isphording, Richard Snow, Mary Snow

Publications

The climate is changing, and humans are heavily exacerbating these changes. As the effects of climate change are being felt across the planet, scientists and policy makers are uniting to increase mitigation efforts and are researching renewable, clean energy sources to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere during energy production. Of the different renewable energy technologies, wind energy is one of the most researched and implemented. Over the past twenty years, researchers have been applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to their climate change studies. GIS allows the user to spatially view, manipulate, and analyze data …

Understanding Geo-Social Network Patterns: Computation, Visualization, And Usability, Caglar Koylu

Theses and Dissertations

Geo-social networks are formed by flows of physical entities (e.g., humans, vehicles, sensors, animals), and communication (e.g., information, ideas, innovation) that connect places to places and individuals to individuals. Several major problems remain to be addressed for understanding the complex patterns in geo-social networks. This dissertation makes the following contributions to the theory and methodologies that aim at understanding complex geo-social data by integrating methods of computation, visualization and usability evaluation. Chapter 2 introduces a novel network-based smoothing approach that addresses the size-difference and small area problem in calculating and mapping locational (graph) measures in spatial interaction networks. The new …

Situating Belonging Through Multi-Sited Identities: Community Building Among Middle Eastern Christians In Upstate South Carolina, Amelia Ayoob

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a Human Geography perspective on immigrant identity and integration. Using the case of a diverse, multigenerational Middle Eastern Christian population in the Upstate region of South Carolina, I explore how Middle Eastern immigrants and their descendants have negotiated belonging and identity in the United States by simultaneously building new social networks in the Upstate and maintaining ties to the Middle East. The focus on a single case allowed for an in-depth exploration of how geographic and historical contexts have shaped the present-day dynamics of the community (broadly defined) constructed around two Catholic churches, one Latin and one …

Into The Red: A Look Into The Reasons Why Refugees Decide To Flee, Settle Or Migrate To And From Morocco, Fadeelah E. Holivay

Master's Theses

This research paper explores some of the main reasons why refugees and asylum seekers, particularly from sub-Saharan African countries, embark on a journey and decide to settle, flee or migrate to and from Morocco. Because of this phenomenon, Morocco has seen a 96% increase of refugees migrating to the borders of Morocco each year for the past three years. Many say that this astonishing increase of migrants choosing Morocco is due to such factors as: wars breaking out regionally across central African and Middle Eastern countries causing them to flee; Morocco being a culturaly diverse francophone country whose laws and …

Navy, Russian (1991-), Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview and analysis of events affecting the Russian Navy from 1991-present. Emphasizes how this force still has mammoth strategic ambitions despite limited resources and an obsolete infrastructure. Stresses the ongoing presence of nuclear weapons, the increasing importance of the Northern Sea Route in Russian and international trade and strategy, and how U.S. and NATO countries budget constraints may make it hard for them to resist Russian assertiveness in areas such as Ukraine.

Army, Russian (1991-), Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a history of the Russian Army from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until the "annexation" of Crimea in 2014. Places emphasis on this force's strengths and weaknesses, military operations during this period, and emerging security challenges.

How The Presence Of Plastic In The North Pacific Gyre Affects The Growth Of Thalassiosira Through Remote Sensing And Laboratory Replication, Jordynn Brennan, Hesham El-Askary

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Through the use of remote sensing, we are able to determine the approximate location of the garbage patch in the North Pacific Gyre. Though remote sensing does not penetrate the surface of the ocean, monthly satellite images can be analyzed to determine the rate of growth or rate of decrease of certain parameters, such as atmospheric gases, phytoplankton, and dissolved organic matter. Over the past decade, data from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (Giovanni program) has shown a significant increase in dissolved organic matter and chlorophyll a content in the area of the North Pacific Garbage …

Avian Diversity Across Three Distinct Agricultural Landscapes In Guadalupe, Chiriquí Highlands, Panama, Jarred Jones

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Deforestation of tropical forest for agricultural purposes threatens habitat loss of native species. The value of various agricultural landscapes in conserving avian populations is useful in determining diversity-conscious development plans. However, generalized results from regionalscale studies cannot be implemented to insular avian habitats. This study serves as the only current avian diversity study of the Chiriquí Highlands. To determine the effect of agricultural land use within an insular avian habitat, I compared avian diversity and site population similarity in Guadalupe, Chiriquí Highlands of the Talamanca Range, Panama. I hypothesized that avian diversity is greatest at forest edge followed by forest …

Improved Time Series Land Cover Classification By Missing-Observation-Adaptive Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction, David P. Roy, L. Yan

GSCE Faculty Publications

Dimensionality reduction (DR) is a widely used technique to address the curse of dimensionality when high-dimensional remotely sensed data, such as multi-temporal or hyperspectral imagery, are analyzed. Nonlinear DR algorithms, also referred to as manifold learning algorithms, have been successfully applied to hyperspectral data and provide improved performance compared with linear DR algorithms. However, DR algorithms cannot handle missing data that are common in multi-temporal imagery. In this paper, the Laplacian Eigenmaps (LE) nonlinear DR algorithm was refined for application to multi-temporal satellite data with large proportions of missing data. Refined LE algorithms were applied to 52-week Landsat time series …

Digital Cinema, Montage And Other Visualities, Shaun Huston

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Digital technology is enabling a reconceptualization of film and cinema. The pliability of digital media opens up, particularly, the theory and practice of montage to revision. This pliability allows for cheap and easy copying and combining of images, and, relatedly, the transition from film frame to digital screen provides a less precious and more flexible creative space for filmmakers. In this article, I use my documentary, Comic Book City, Portland, Oregon USA (2012), to demonstrate and discuss how digital production can be used to construct new forms of montage, particularly in the combination of creative norms and practices traditionally associated …

A Cross Comparison Of Spatiotemporally Enhanced Springtime Phenological Measurements From Satellites And Ground In A Northern U.S. Mixed Forest, Liang Liang, Mark D. Schwartz, Zhuosen Wang, Feng Gao, Crystal B. Schaaf, Bin Tan, Jeffrey T. Morisette, Xiaoyang Zhang

GSCE Faculty Publications

Cross comparison of satellite-derived land surface phenology (LSP) and ground measurements is useful to ensure the relevance of detected seasonal vegetation change to the underlying biophysical processes. While standard 16-day and 250-m Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation index (VI)-based springtime LSP has been evaluated in previous studies, it remains unclear whether LSP with enhanced temporal and spatial resolutions can capture additional details of ground phenology. In this paper, we compared LSP derived from 500-m daily MODIS and 30-m MODIS-Landsat fused VI data with landscape phenology (LP) in a northern U.S. mixed forest. LP was previously developed from intensively observed …

Station Exposure And Resulting Bias In Temperature Observations: A Comparison Of He Kentucky Mesonet And Asos Data, James Kyle Thompson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Station siting, exposure, instrumentation, and time of observations influence longterm climatic records. This thesis compared and analyzed temperature data from four Kentucky Mesonet stations located in Fayette (LXGN), Franklin (LSML), Clark (WNCH), and Bullitt (CRMT) counties to two nearby Automated Surface Observation Systems (ASOS) stations in Kentucky. The ASOS stations are located at Louisville International Airport (Standiford Field - KSDF) and at Lexington Airport (Blue Grass Field - KLEX). The null hypothesis states that there is no significant difference in temperature measurements between the two types of stations. To quantify the differences in temperature measurements, geoprofiles and the following statistical …

Geopolitics, Borders, And Federalism: Challenges For Post-War Iraq, Paul G. Lockhart

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I enabled the victorious Western powers to implement the Sykes-Picot Treaty and reshape the geopolitical structure of the Middle East. The imposition of arbitrary borders on the Middle East region, specifically the state of Iraq, would lead to significant conflicts over the course of the 20th century. In 2003, a US-led invasion would further compound the instability and sectarian conflict within Iraq by completely dismantling the state. In the years after the invasion, the United States has been directly involved unsuccessfully in trying to rebuild and stabilize the …

Structure, Aboveground Biomass, And Soil Characterization Of Avicennia Marina In Eastern Mangrove Lagoon National Park, Abu Dhabi, Tareefa Alsumaiti

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mangrove forests are national treasures of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other arid countries with limited forested areas. Mangroves form a crucial part of the coastal ecosystem and provide numerous benefits to society, economy, and especially the environment. Mangrove trees, specifically Avicennia marina, are studied in their native habitat in order to characterize their population structure, aboveground biomass, and soil properties. This study focused on Eastern Mangrove Lagoon National Park in Abu Dhabi, which was the first mangrove protected area to be designated in UAE. In situ measurements were collected to estimate Avicennia marina status, mortality rate (%), …

Review: The Wilderness Writings Of Howard Zahniser, Jillian M. Slater

Marian Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Using Gis To Prioritize Green Infrastructure Installation Strategies In An Urban Watershed, Lauren Owen

All Theses

This study seeks to quantify runoff volume generation and peak flow rates from the urban Sand River Headwaters to determine the most effective placement of additional green infrastructure in Aiken, SC. ArcMap 10.1, HEC-GeoHMS, and HEC-HMS were used to delineate a total outlet watershed along with subwatershed(s) for urban stormwater infrastructure system by 'burning' the stormwater system at an artificial elevation below the existing topologically-based Digital Elevation Model (DEM). The result was a higher resolution DEM that allowed for storm routing and subsequent volume and flow predictions compared to that based on the original DEM created by using Light Detecting …

Geographic Assessment Of The Perception Of Nature Reserves And National Parks In Kuwait, Meshari S. Alenezi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Arabian Gulf countries have passed strict laws to preserve their environment. Kuwait has a strong history with preserving natural areas. The ecological value and richness of Kuwait's ecosystems have increased since the nature reserves were built. This research has evaluated the perceptions that Kuwaitis have of the design, creation, and development of nature reserves in Kuwait. It involved the use of survey instruments (questionnaires) and interviews with respondents of both urban and rural communities. Data from these surveys and interviews analyzed regarding perceptions of nature reserves' needs, sizes, functions, and future plans.

The results of examinations (surveys) demonstrate that …

An Lntegrated Approach (Remote Sensing, Gls, Engineering, Datamining) For Modeling, Assessing And Mitigating Slope Stability Hazards In Mountainous Environments, Racha El Kadiri

Dissertations

Mountainous areas are quite often subjected to hazards related to their steep relief and intense precipitation events. These hazards (e.g., debris flows, mudflows, rockfalls) pose serious threats to settlements and structures that support transportation, agriculture, tourism, and other economic activities.

This study applies and develops a wide range of methodologies and tools that take advantage of readily available remote-sensing datasets, geographic information system technologies, and artificial intelligence techniques. The developed approaches allow the characterization of both spatial and temporal conditions that controlled mass movement occurrences and use these characteristics to model and mitigate future occurrences. The Jazan area in the …

Mapping The Distribution Of Barrier Island Slash Pine Woodland And Determining Growth Responses Of Pinus Elliottii To Hurricane Katrina (2005) On Cat Island, Mississippi, William Richard Funderburk

Master's Theses

Barrier islands are ubiquitous features along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico North American coastline and are subjected disturbances such as extreme episodic events. The wind, waves, and storm surges of Hurricane Katrina heavily impacted the Mississippi–Alabama barrier island chain on August 29, 2005. Cat Island experienced a 7-m storm surge, the highest wind energy in the chain, but was estimated to have the least amount of forest mortality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the distribution of Pinus elliottii on Cat Island Mississippi and evaluate relationships of elevation with mean radial growth rate (mm y ̄ ˡ), …

Index-Based Insurance And Risk Management Among Nomadic Mongolian Herders , Kelsey Larson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mongolian herders must contend with the risk of dzuds, harsh winters that can kill large numbers of livestock. To do so, they use a mixture of formal financial tools and traditional risk mitigation techniques. This paper is a study of the interaction between the Mongolian Index-based Livestock Insurance Program and traditional informal risk mitigation techniques. The researcher interviews herders in Bulgan soum, Arhangai aimag and Galuut soum, Bayanhongor aimag to compare the IBLI program’s impact in a community that has had IBLI since 2006 and one that only received IBLI in 2012. This study finds that insurance purchase is positively …

Exploring The Preservation Of Pastoralism And The Natural World In Western Mongolia , Josephine Brownell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

At a time when Mongolia is experiencing the intense effects of land degradation, human activity, and climate change, it is crucial that a new land management framework is developed with conservation in mind. Pastoralism’s unique relationship with the land serves as a method of protecting the natural world for the future. This study focuses on a pastoral community in Western Mongolia while considering a main research question: Is a herder’s historically deep connection with the land enough to protect the modern pastoral lifestyle in Mongolia for years to come? In answering this question, a review of related previous studies on …