Geography Commons^™

Differential Heating In The Indian Ocean Differentially Modulates Precipitation In The Ganges And Brahmaputra Basins, Md Shahriar Pervez, Geoffrey M. Henebry

GSCE Faculty Publications

Indo-Pacific sea surface temperature dynamics play a prominent role in Asian summer monsoon variability. Two interactive climate modes of the Indo-Pacific—the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean dipole mode—modulate the amount of precipitation over India, in addition to precipitation over Africa, Indonesia, and Australia. However, this modulation is not spatially uniform. The precipitation in southern India is strongly forced by the Indian Ocean dipole mode and ENSO. In contrast, across northern India, encompassing the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins, the climate mode influence on precipitation is much less. Understanding the forcing of precipitation in these river basins is vital …

Rapid Land Cover Map Updates Using Change Detection And Robust Random Forest Classifiersrapid Land Cover Map Updates Using Change Detection And Robust Random Forest Classifiers, Konrad J. Wassels, Frans Van Den Bergh, David P. Roy, Brian P. Salmon, Karen C. Steenkemp, Bryan Macalister, Derick Swanepoel, Debbie Jewitt

GSCE Faculty Publications

The paper evaluated the Landsat Automated Land Cover Update Mapping (LALCUM) system designed to rapidly update a land cover map to a desired nominal year using a pre-existing reference land cover map. The system uses the Iteratively Reweighted Multivariate Alteration Detection (IRMAD) to identify areas of change and no change. The system then automatically generates large amounts of training samples (n > 1 million) in the no-change areas as input to an optimized Random Forest classifier. Experiments were conducted in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa using a reference land cover map from 2008, a change mask between 2008 and …

Separability Analysis Of Sentinel-2a Multi-Spectral Instrument (Msi) Data For Burned Area Discrimination, Haiyan Huang, David P. Roy, Luigi Boschetti, Hankui Zhang, Lin Yan Dr., Sanath Sathyachandran Kumar, Jose Gomez-Dans, Jian Li

GSCE Faculty Publications

: Biomass burning is a global phenomenon and systematic burned area mapping is of increasing importance for science and applications. With high spatial resolution and novelty in band design, the recently launched Sentinel-2A satellite provides a new opportunity for moderate spatial resolution burned area mapping. This study examines the performance of the Sentinel-2A Multi Spectral Instrument (MSI) bands and derived spectral indices to differentiate between unburned and burned areas. For this purpose, five pairs of pre-fire and post-fire top of atmosphere (TOA reflectance) and atmospherically corrected (surface reflectance) images were studied. The pixel values of locations that were unburned in …

Independent Study Project: Investigation Into The Implications Of Zooarchaeological Studies For Climate Reconstruction In The North Atlantic; Zooarchaeological Research At The Agricultural University Of Iceland, Reykjavík, Hazel Cashman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Zooarchaeology, the study of animal remains from archaeological sites, is crucial to the understanding of human interaction with the environment in the North Atlantic region and in Iceland, where the archaeological record is quite rich (Dugmore et al., 2005). Since its inception, zooarchaeology has drawn methods and concepts from both the natural and social sciences, as well as from history and the humanities, to inform an interdisciplinary understanding of the interactions between humans and their environments and the consequences of these interactions for humans and animals (Reitz and Wing, 2008). In this way, zooarchaeology can inform discussions about historical anthropogenic …

What Is The Taste Of Co2? The Sustainability Of Icelandic Food Systems In The Face Of Climate Change, Molly Peek

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Food security in the arctic and subarctic is an area of growing research and concern as climate change continues to alter the availability of traditional foods eaten in remote areas, especially as shipping food has questionable sustainability and contributes to rising CO2 levels. Previous research has noted changes in the Icelandic diet making it more reliant on foreign imports, although there is still strong localized agriculture. Because of its geothermal activity, Iceland has a unique advantage over other highlatitude countries in growing food with a minimal carbon footprint, although that potential is unequal throughout the country. This study utilized available …

Investigating Effects Of Climate Change On Glaciers And Proglacial Landscapes In Southeast Iceland: Fluvioglacial Behavior Of Sólheimajökull And Seljavallajökull, Roberta B.C. Miller

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Seljavallajökull glacier, part of the Eyjafjallajökull glacier system, and Sólheimajökull, part of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier system, are two glaciers that extend into valleys in the southeast part of Iceland. Due to climate warming, both of these glaciers are part of a melting ice cap. They are located nearby to one another, and Sólheimajökull has been extensively studied for its outwash plain sedimentology, retreat history, pro-glacial geomorphology and has been steadily monitored by the Glaciological Society of Iceland. Seljavallajökull has also been monitored by this group, but it has not been studied for sediment profiles and landscape chronology as Sólheimajökull …

Geospasial Indonesia: The Utilization Of Spatial Data Through Geographic Information Systems Across Indonesia In Various Environmental Contexts, Kaitlyn Bretz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Spatial planning and mapping in Indonesia have had a precarious history for the past several decades. Laws controlling the creation of maps for land use planning have fluctuated greatly between executive administrations and the country is still struggling to create a single, unified national map. With the One Map Policy the future of mapping is optimistic, but in the meantime spatial data analyses are lacking. Geographic information systems (GIS) is a computerized system for the capture, storage, querying, analysis, and display of spatial data, and is used predominately by the government, private companies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) across Indonesia. Community …

Urban Heat Islands As Viewed By Microwave Radiometers And Thermal Time Indices, Lan H. Nguyen, Geoffrey M. Henebry

GSCE Faculty Publications

Urban heat islands (UHIs) have been long studied using both ground-based observations of air temperature and remotely sensed thermal infrared (TIR) data. While ground-based observations lack spatial detail even in the occasional “dense” urban network, skin temperature retrievals using TIR data have lower temporal coverage due to revisit frequency, limited swath width, and cloud cover. Algorithms have recently been developed to retrieve near-surface air temperatures using microwave radiometer data, which enables characterization of UHIs in metropolitan areas, major conurbations, and global megacities at regional to continental scales using temporally denser time series than those that have been available from TIR …

Proxy Dating In Iceland Testing The Validity Of Silene Acaulis As A Phytometric Proxy, Madelyn Grant

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Climate change is causing drastic changes in the cryosphere, particularly in the Arctic region where average warming is 1.9 times greater than in the rest of the world due to Arctic amplification. Understanding the response of essential climate variables such as glaciers and ice caps to rapid Arctic warming is essential to predicting future changes in the Arctic region and around the world. Proxy dating methods can help construct a record of warming-induced glacial retreat in areas where long-term monitoring systems are not in place. In Arctic regions, the cushion plant Silene acaulis represents one of the only feasible proxies …

Water Resource Change And Management: Implications Of Climate Change And Water Resource Management For Pastoral Herders In Bayan Ulgii, Rachel Ryan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mongolia is the 8th most vulnerable country in the world to climate change. The water regime of Mongolia is therefore experiencing intensive change with significant effects in the availability, distribution, and security of water resources. The implications of this change are exacerbated when aligned with poor water resource management, an issue that is prevalent as water regime change challenges current water management systems. These implications specifically affect the vulnerable rural population of Mongolian herders who maintain the practice of nomadic pastoralism. In the western province of Bayan Ulgii, the change in the numerous glaciers and other water resources that are …

Enhancing Planning And Preparedness Capacities For Climate Change Resilience In Wawa, Ontario: A Community-Based Photovoice Approach, Samantha Russo

Geography and Environmental Studies Major Research Papers

The integration of local community and Indigenous Knowledge in disaster planning and management has the potential to increase resilience in rural and Aboriginal communities across Ontario. This research incorporates findings from a literature review, and builds on the existing gaps within community-based participatory action research, through a case study of the 2012 Wawa-Michipicoten First Nation flooding event. Ten local citizen community participants from Wawa, Ontario and the Michipicoten First Nations were involved in a photovoice project to visually document their experiences and understandings of the flooding event. This research project seeks to document community perceptions and understandings to the flooding’s …

Quantifying Undisturbed (Native) Lands In Eastern South Dakota: 2013, Pete Bauman, Benjamin Carlson, Tanner Butler

Quantifying Undisturbed (Native) Lands in Eastern South Dakota: 2013

We employed simple GIS methods primarily utilizing the South Dakota Farm Service Agency’s Common Land Unit (CLU) data layers from 2013, along with 2012 US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) county mosaic aerial imagery, to evaluate approximately 22.6 million acres of land in the 44 counties that comprise eastern South Dakota. Mapping of this total project area was done in three distinct project phases from 2014 through 2016. We utilized the CLU data layer, queried to show current and former cropland, to first identify and remove any areas with a cropping history, regardless of current land …

Variability Of Lacustrine Sediment Proxy Responses To Late Holocene Climate Change As Modified By Lake Specific Processes: A Review Of Ecological And Geophysical Processes Across Northern And Eastern Iceland, Mallory Mintz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Consistenly-deposited lake sediments provide some of the highest resolution records of local and global climates in the past, offering the potential to better understand modern climate change in the context of past climate variability. In relating proxies to their respective climate regimes, the environmental cues that the specific proxies reacted to must be isolated from the general noise of possible local influences. In this investigation, biogenic silica (BSi), total organic carbon (TOC), δ13C values, and carbon: nitrogen ratios were analyzed between lakes through northern Iceland, to review possible complicating factors specific to the use of lacustrine proxies in the interpretation …

Enso Controls Interannual Fire Activity In Southeast Australia, Michela Mariani, Michael-Shawn Fletcher, Andrés Holz, Petter Nyman

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the main mode controlling the variability in the ocean-atmosphere system in the South Pacific. While the ENSO influence on rainfall regimes in the South Pacific is well documented, its role in driving spatiotemporal trends in fire activity in this region has not been rigorously investigated. This is particularly the case for the highly flammable and densely populated southeast Australian sector, where ENSO is a major control over climatic variability. Here we conduct the first region-wide analysis of how ENSO controls fire activity in southeast Australia. We identify a significant relationship between ENSO and both fire …

Merging Volunteered Geographic Information Systems, James Mcandrew

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

This project determines how two different systems based on geographic user-generated content can work together to allow the content to be made more accessible. This project’s objective is to determine the technical and social issues involved with allowing information to be transferred between systems.

Specifically, this project works with information from two volunteer systems: 1) The United States Geological Survey’s National Map Corps, 2) A global volunteer mapping project called OpenStreetMap.

This project discusses the history of both systems and how they have dealt with importing data in the past. It reviews what has worked well with previous imports and …

Space, Region & Society: Geographical Essays In Honor Of Robert H. Stoddard, Michael R. Hill, Carl Ritter, Nainie Lenora Robertson Stoddard, Thomas Doering, Steve Kale, Carolyn V. Prorok, Surinder M. Bhardwaj, Robert H. Stoddard

Zea E-Books Collection

As an expression of their friendship and esteem, the authors dedicate these essays to Robert H. Stoddard in honor of his many years of exemplary service to the people of Nebraska, the World, and the discipline of Geography. After earning the BA at Nebraska Wesleyan (1950), an MA at the University of Nebraska (1960), and the PhD at the University of Iowa (1966), Dr. Stoddard taught for some forty combined years at Nebraska Wesleyan University (1961-67) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1967 to the present, where he is now Professor Emeritus). He also taught high school in India (1952-57), and …

Coastal Groundwater Watch: A Citizen Science Project - Report No. 477, Alex Manda, Thomas Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The goals of this study were to utilize citizen scientists in groundwater research in a coastal community where groundwater plays a large role in sustainable water resources management, and assess the extent of groundwater and marine inundation in response to future sea-level rise scenarios. A total of 7 citizen scientists participated in the study by measuring water levels from 15 groundwater monitoring wells using water level meters once a week over a 10-week period. Automated water level loggers were deployed in three of the same wells to assess the quality of the data collected by the citizen scientists. Additional water …

Aerosols Size Distribution Characteristics And Role Of Precipitation During Dust Storm Formation Over Saudi Arabia, Ashraf Farahat, Hesham El-Askary, A. Umran Dogan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region are frequently exposed to major dust storms and anthropogenic emissions from rapidly growing industrial activities that affect aerosols optical and physical characteristics. This paper integrates observations from space-borne sensors namely MODIS and CALIPSO, together with AERONET ground observations to examine eight years aerosols characteristics during the (March–May) season of 2003 to 2010 over Saudi Arabia. Aerosol analysis from the interdependent data assessment show comparable aerosols characteristics over the eight year period with higher aerosols mean optical depths over enhanced dust load region, (46–50°E, 25–29°N), during March–May of 2009 and 2010. The mean …

Un Nuevo Fenómeno En Un Mundo De Tradición: Percepciones Del Cambio Climático En La Isla De Taquile / 99/5000 A New Phenomenon In A World Of Tradition: Perceptions Of Climate Change On The Island Of Taquile, Daniel Meagher

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El cambio climático amenaza el estilo de vida tradicional de los agricultores de subsistencia de los Andes. Este trabajo resume y analiza las percepciones del cambio climático de los Taquileños, una comunidad de 2.500 campesinos indígenas de subsistencia que viven en la isla de Taquile en el Lago Titicaca. Esta comunidad no está aislada del mundo exterior, y hay una fuerte presencia de la iglesia cristiana y el turismo.

Los datos fueron recolectados a través de entrevistas y observación participante entre las fechas del 2 de noviembre al 15 de noviembre, 2016. Las veinte entrevistas contienen las perspectivas de siete …

Women In The Gis Profession, Livia Betancourt-Mazur, Jochen Albrecht

Publications and Research

In many technical professions, women are underrepresented. While a gender imbalance also has been assumed to exist in the realm of professional GIS, no data existed to corroborate it. The original survey presented here was developed by the authors to add both quantitative and qualitative research about the numbers and current experience of women in GIS to address this knowledge gap. A total of 484 women responded to the survey, providing a healthy sample size and a reliable and informative data set.

A key finding is that some 42 percent of women are, overall, not grossly underrepresented in the GIS …

Community Schools: A Public Health Opportunity, Catherine Diamond

Dissertations and Theses

Community schools link students, families, and communities to educate children and strengthen neighborhoods. They have become a popular model for education in many U.S. cities in part because they build on community assets and address multiple determinants of educational disadvantage. Since community schools seek to have an impact on populations, not just the students enrolled, they provide an opportunity to improve community health. It has been proposed that community schools influence the health and education of the area residents through three pathways: building trust, establishing norms, and linking people to networks and services. However, no research has been published exploring …

Land Cover Data For The Mississippi-Alabama Barrier Islands, 2010-2011, Gregory A. Carter, Carlton P. Anderson, Kelly L. Lucas, Nathan L. Hopper

Faculty Publications

Land cover on the Mississippi–Alabama barrier islands was surveyed in 2010–2011 as part of continuing research on island geomorphic and vegetation dynamics following the 2005 impact of Hurricane Katrina. Results of the survey include sub-meter GPS location, a listing of dominant vegetation species and field photographs recorded at 375 sampling locations distributed among Cat, West Ship, East Ship, Horn, Sand, Petit Bois and Dauphin Islands. The survey was conducted in a period of intensive remote sensing data acquisition over the northern Gulf of Mexico by federal, state and commercial organizations in response to the 2010 Macondo Well (Deepwater Horizon) oil …

Negotiating And Navigating Invisible Food Deserts: An Exploratory Study On Foodways Of Adults On The Autism Spectrum, Jungja Park Cardoso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I explored foodways of adults on the autism spectrum in order to understand how they negotiate and navigate their food environments. Foodways are beliefs and practices involved in food production, preparation, distribution and consumption (Counihan 2008). In an effort to hear marginalized voices in autism discourse, I conducted an online survey and interviews in modes chosen by participants to accommodate the communication needs of a wide range of autistic adults. The primary participants were highly educated adults with a formal autism diagnosis (n = 23) and self-diagnosed adults (n = 6). Out of the 29 autistic participants who …

Institutionalizing Environmental Justice: Race, Place, And The National Environmental Policy Act, Keith K. Miyake

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I examine ways that the US National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and its primary enforcement mechanism, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, have reshaped the state as a site for racial and environmental conflict by institutionalizing a particular form of environmental justice within governmental decision making processes. Combining archival methods and legal analysis, I develop three case studies involving community struggles over the social production of space that each engage the EIA process to different effect. The case studies were selected based on what they reveal about the ways that the environmental justice framework intersects …

Transnational Indigenous Migration: Racialized Geographies And Power In Southern Highland Ecuador, Victoria Stone-Cadena

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines the shifting landscape of social and economic inequalities in the remittance-dominated region of southern highland Ecuador, focusing on the transformations brought about by increased international migration since the early 2000s. The broader question is whether or not transnational migration has facilitated political and social upward mobility among indigenous communities. More specifically I ask: in what ways does indigenous identity figure in contemporary international migration practices, how does transnational indigenous migration complicate bounded notions of rural indigenous life, and how might the strategies employed by indigenous migrants transform social and economic inequalities in two small towns in the …

Cartographic Potential Of New Technologies: Hu:Care, William B. Moore

September 29, 2016: Adaptive Structures and Innovative Solutions

No abstract provided.

Cartographic Potential Of New Technologies: Aerial Data Collection, Todd Broward

September 29, 2016: Adaptive Structures and Innovative Solutions

No abstract provided.

An Iterative Approach To Ground Penetrating Radar At The Maya Site Of Pacbitun, Belize, Sheldon Skaggs, Terry G. Powis, Clara R. Rucker, George Micheletti

Publications and Research

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys provide distinct advantages for archaeological prospection in ancient, complex, urban Maya sites, particularly where dense foliage or modern debris may preclude other remote sensing or geophysical techniques. Unidirectional GPR surveys using a 500 MHz shielded antenna were performed at the Middle Preclassic Maya site of Pacbitun, Belize. The survey in 2012 identified numerous linear and circular anomalies between 1 m and 2 m deep. Based on these anomalies, one 1 m × 4 m unit and three smaller units were excavated in 2013. These test units revealed a curved plaster surface not previously found at …

Erosion And Sedimentation During The September 2015 Flooding Of The Kinu River, Central Japan, Dan Matsumoto, Yuki Sawai, Masaki Yamada, Yuichi Namegaya, Tetsuya Shinozaki, Daisuke Takeda, Shigehiro Fujino, Koichiro Tanigawa, Atsunori Nakamura, Jessica E. Pilarczyk

Faculty Publications

Erosional and sedimentary features associated with flooding have been documented in both modern and past cases. However, only a few studies have demonstrated the relationship between these features and the corresponding hydraulic conditions that produced them, making it difficult to evaluate the magnitude of paleo-flooding. This study describes the characteristics associated with inundation depth and flow direction, as well as the erosional and sedimentary features resulting from the disastrous flooding of the Kinu River, central Japan, in September 2015. Water levels rose rapidly due to heavy rainfall that eventually overtopped, and subsequently breached, a levee in Joso City, causing destructive …

Automatic Scaling Hadoop In The Cloud For Efficient Process Of Big Geospatial Data, Zhenlong Li, Chaoweikai Yang, Kai Liu, Fei Hu, Baoxuan Jin

Faculty Publications

Efficient processing of big geospatial data is crucial for tackling global and regional challenges such as climate change and natural disasters, but it is challenging not only due to the massive data volume but also due to the intrinsic complexity and high dimensions of the geospatial datasets. While traditional computing infrastructure does not scale well with the rapidly increasing data volume, Hadoop has attracted increasing attention in geoscience communities for handling big geospatial data. Recently, many studies were carried out to investigate adopting Hadoop for processing big geospatial data, but how to adjust the computing resources to efficiently handle the …