Geography Commons^™

Building A Gis Model To Assess Agritourism Potential, Brian G. Baskerville

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Rural areas of the world are developing and implementing tourism programs to diversify and reinvigorate their local economies. Often, these programs focus on privately-held lands in largely agricultural regions. In some countries, tourism development strategies have combined agriculture and tourism to create a new industry – agritourism. This industry, although not new in the United States, is still in its nascent stages. Before starting an agritourism enterprise, farmers and ranchers must consider the various factors that will likely influence their potential for long-term success. These factors can be grouped into 1) farm-specific factors such as an operator’s personality or the …

Global Digital Elevation Model Accuracy Assessment In The Himalaya, Nepal, Luke G. Miles

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are digital representations of surface topography or terrain. Collection of DEM data can be done directly through surveying and taking ground control point (GCP) data in the field or indirectly with remote sensing using a variety of techniques. The accuracies of DEM data can be problematic, especially in rugged terrain or when differing data acquisition techniques are combined. For the present study, ground data were taken in various protected areas in the mountainous regions of Nepal. Elevation, slope, and aspect were measured at nearly 2000 locations. These ground data were imported into a Geographic Information System …

Unh Library Imls Place Grant News Announcement, Place Project Group

PLACE Project

UNH Library Website News announcement about the IMLS Grant for PLACE, November 7, 2014.

Riga: A Rich Internet Geospatial Analytics Application For Area-Based Data, Tin Seong Kam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this information age, more and more public statistical data such as population census, household living, local economy and business establishment are distributed over the internet within the framework of spatial data infrastructure. By and large, these data are organized geographically such as region, province as well as district. Usually, they are published in the form of digital maps over the internet as simple points, lines and polygons markers limited or no analytical function available to transform these data into useful information. To meet the analytical needs of casual public data users, we contribute RIGA, a rich internet geospatial analytics …

Mobile 2d And 3d Spatial Query Techniques For The Geospatial Web, Junjun Yin

Doctoral

The increasing availability of abundant geographically referenced information in the Geospatial Web provides a variety of opportunities for developing value-added LBS applications. However, large data volumes of the Geospatial Web and small mobile device displays impose a data visualization problem, as the amount of searchable information overwhelms the display when too many query results are returned. Excessive returned results clutter the mobile display, making it harder for users to prioritize information and causes confusion and usability problems. Mobile Spatial Interaction (MSI) research into this “information overload” problem is ongoing where map personalization and other semantic based filtering mechanisms are essential …

Introduction To Gis Using Open Source Software, 4th Ed, Frank Donnelly

Open Educational Resources

This tutorial was created to accompany the GIS Practicum, a day-long workshop offered by the Newman Library at Baruch College CUNY that introduces participants to geographic information systems (GIS) using the open source software QGIS. The practicum introduces GIS as a concept for envisioning information and as a tool for conducting geographic analyses and creating maps. Participants learn how to navigate a GIS interface, how to prepare layers and conduct a basic geographic analysis, and how to create thematic maps. This tutorial was written using QGIS version 1.8 "Lisboa", a cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) desktop GIS software package.

The Application Of Geographic Information Technology And Ground-Penetrating Radar In The Study Of The Evolution Of The Charles River Basin, Lars E. Anderas

Graduate Masters Theses

A two-part study was conducted on the evolution of the shoreline of the Charles River basin on a city-wide scale as well as in finer detail in Magazine Beach Park, along the Cambridge shore of the river. Both parts of the study utilized geographic information technology (GIT) to integrate and analyze data from modern and historical sources, including maps, digital elevation models (DEMs), and orthographic and oblique photography. The city-scale portion of the study produced estimates of the total area of new land made within the study area since Boston's founding in 1630, 14.3 km², of which 6.5 …

Data Storage Alternatives For A Gridded Crop Disease Risk Forecasting System, Paul J. Roehsner

Masters Theses

Three separate storage technologies able to serve gridded data were selected for comparison of performance in terms of providing speed and expandability to a crop disease forecasting system. The three storage technologies chosen were PostgreSQL (a relational database management system), MongoDB (NoSQL system), and netCDF files. Speed tests were performed for each by running two different crop disease risk forecasting models requiring data of different spatiotemporal resolutions. Multiple trials were done using different storage hardware. Systems were then qualitatively compared for expandability by noting the process involved in adding successive crop disease forecasting models.

It was found that due to …

Change And Continuity: Euro-American And Native American Settlement Patterns In The St. Joseph River Valley, Allison M. Kohley

Masters Theses

In recent years there has been a particular interest in the fur trade and colonialism through identification and investigation of Fort St. Joseph. This fort was an 18th century French trading post in the St. Joseph River valley located in southwestern Michigan and northwestern Indiana. This study expands our current understanding of the change and continuity of the Euro- American and Native American settlement patterns in the valley during the periods immediately prior to, during, and after the abandonment of Fort St. Joseph through the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical analyses.

Gis-Based Flood Analysis For Adequate Flood Mitigation In An Unplanned Urban Area; The Case Of Pikine Dagoudane In Dakar County, Senegal, Sokhna Helene Diop

Masters Theses

Since 1989, Pikine Dagoudane, in the suburbs of Dakar City has faced several flooding events, resulting in economic loss, environmental degradation and severe disturbance of the social life of the residents. The mitigation programs implemented have not appeared to provide any relief since 2000. Review of the existing literature on the crisis has revealed that the general scale of the studies, and the insufficient attention to some of the major factors could be accounted for such little efficiency. This thesis applies a different approach, based on a small area and focusing mainly on topographic characteristics, to provide a better understanding …

Mobile Gis: An Economical Approach To View And Edit Gis Data, Daniel Faulk

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Faulk’s capstone project provides specific instructions for the implementation of the My Maps Editor app that allows the city of Taylorsville, Utah employees and residents the ability to view, create, upload, edit, and share their own geographic data on an iPad or iPhone. The project consists of identifying the city’s GIS (Geographic Information System) needs, researching existing GIS capabilities, selecting and installing an app, and providing instructions for system maintenance. The selected app offers many benefits including practical application, functional capabilities, financial feasibility, time saved, and aid in emergency preparedness.

Site Location Modeling And Prehistoric Rock Shelter Selection On The Upper Cumberland Plateau Of Tennessee, Lucinda M. Langston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using data collected from 2 archaeological surveys of the Upper Cumberland Plateau (UCP), Pogue Creek Gorge and East Obey, a site location model was developed for prehistoric rock shelter occupation in the region. Further, the UCP model was used to explore factors related to differential site selection of rock shelters. Different from traditional approaches such as those that use (aspatial) logistic regression, the UCP model was developed using spatial logistic regression. However, models were also generated using other regression-based approaches in an effort to demonstrate the need for a spatial approach to archaeological site location modeling. Based on the UCP …

Location And Competitive Strategy In Retail: The Case Of Gamestop In Michigan, Karl P. Schrantz

Masters Theses

The State of Michigan offers a unique retail environment that offers a diverse arena for firms to interact and compete in. The state has many cities of different size and a multitude of retail chains that operate within them. Over the past two decades this competition has become even stiffer with the rapid growth of big box retailers. In spite of this general notion there are often the less known stories of small retailers that have been able to compete and survive big box retailing. This research aims to assess how a smaller retail chain, GameStop in this case, is …

A Remote Sensing And Gis-Based Wetland Analysis In Canaan Valley, West Virginia, Yisha Shi

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

With the increasing influence in climate change and human activity, more and more people have begun to recognize the benefits of wetlands. However, there was a continuous annual net loss in the wetlands area since 1980s. Many programs have been implemented to monitor the status and trend of wetlands recently. In West Virginia, the wetlands area is a small portion of the State’s land, but it plays a key role in the whole ecosystem. This research aimed to detect the land cover and vegetation changes focusing on Canaan Valley area, which represents the greatest wetlands area of West Virginia. Remote …

A Study Of Habitat Selection By Blanding's Turtles (Emydoidea Blandingii) In Dutchess County, New York, Shannon Rauch

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The Blanding's turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) is a New York State-listed threatened species with several disjunct populations located throughout the state. Blanding's turtles require a variety of habitat types including ponds, wetlands, vernal pools, and the surrounding uplands. Preserving these habitat complexes is necessary to ensure the persistence of Blanding's turtle populations, but this is becoming increasingly challenging in some locations due to significant development pressure. Key components of habitat protection are identifying preferred habitat types and gaining a better understanding of the variables that influence habitat selection. Previous landscape-level studies of turtles have found that land cover type, wetland type, …

Re-Placing Sprawl: Mapping Place In An American Suburb, Ryan M. Cooper

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

In the post-World War II era land development in the United States has largely been focused on the expansion away from urban centers and out into the surrounding suburbs. While the development of suburbs began with utopian ideals of spiritual wholeness, their actual manifestation on the American landscape has been subject to harsh critiques about their long-term economic and environmental feasibility, fostering of social alienation, and general placelessness. In this thesis I address the criticism of suburbs as placeless, asking ―What are the particular practices of place-making in North American suburbs?‖ Examining interviews, cognitive map surveys, participant observation, archival materials, …

Urban Growth Patterns And Effectiveness Of The Metropolitan Urban Service Areas In Woodbury, Minnesota, Danielle Thomas

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a specific urban sprawl containment strategy called the Metropolitan Urban Service Areas (MUSA). MUSA was developed for Minneapolis/St. Paul in order to ensure organized and practical development in areas that already had pre-built roads and sewer system infrastructures. Currently, MUSA is not an urban boundary; its specific goal is to, "synchronize urban growth with the provision of infrastructure needed to accommodate growth" (Council, August 2006). To evaluate the rigidity of the MUSA boundaries, the sample years of 1990, 2000, 2010 and the projected 2020 boundaries were subjected to spatial analysis utilizing three different software …

From Mounds To Maps To Models: Visualizing Ancient Architecture Across Landscapes, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Since the onset of settlement pattern studies in the 1950s, landscape mapping projects have become an archaeological mainstay. Remote sensing technologies such as lidar, photogrammetry, and SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) steadily reveal new archaeological sites. For landscape archaeology, the detection and mapping of small architectural complexes and households offers important data to contextualize larger (often already known) sites and perform regional analyses. However, because the majority of sites remain unexcavated, analysis is limited, and yet Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and 3D Visualization are expanding the possible uses for older and newly-acquired data on unexcavated mounds. This paper describes a GIS …

Gis Prototype Modeling Of Landslide Susceptibility And Risk Perception - Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu Pueblo), Peru: An Exploratory Approach, Alicia Felice Tyson

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Tourism is an increasingly important and developing sector of the Peruvian economy and the country is fast-tracking development to accommodate an influx of tourists, reportedly over 1.8 million/year. Situated in the southwest region of Peru, Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu Pueblo) continues to develop infrastructure to keep pace with this burgeoning tourism industry. Regional geology and hydrology are importation factors influencing the ability to accommodate tourism in Aguas Calientes. Located at the confluence of three rivers, the town is also situated in a watershed with high return intervals for flooding and mass wasting triggered by the sudden, intense rainfall characterizing the …

Ecological Diversity In Hillsborough County, Florida: Correlations Between Landscape Metrics And Socio-Demographic Variables, David Godfrey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Landscape metrics, a means of quantifying landscape attributes, are frequently used in landscape ecology to describe the spatial characteristics of a landscape, but they have been less often used in anthropology. Using geographic information system (GIS) software, this study tests a method that investigates statistical correlations between groundcover landscape metrics and socio-demographic variables in Hillsborough County, Florida. Statistically significant correlations were found, illustrating the potential utility of this exploratory method. Wealthier areas with fewer ethnic minorities tend to be more fragmented and diverse in terms of groundcover; these areas also tend to have a lower percentage of impervious surfaces. The …

Agriculture, Influence, And Instability Under The Ancien Régime: 1708-1768, Adam J. Polk

Masters Theses

The French Revolution has been studied from myriad perspectives. The majority of scholarship focuses on the political and urban chaos of the times. Agricultural conditions and the influence of onerous taxation and stagnant agricultural options are given only a cursory examination in most research. This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between agronomic and environmental conditions and the eruption of violence in urban centers during the French Revolution and the years leading up to it (1708-1768). This period prior to the French Revolution serves as a template to investigate the nature of the rural-agricultural influences, with a particular focus paid …

Visualization For Anomaly Detection And Data Management By Leveraging Network, Sensor And Gis Techniques, Zhaoxia Wang, Chee Seng Chong, Rick S. M. Goh, Wanqing Zhou, Dan Peng, Hoong Chor Chin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper studies the importance of visualization for discerning and interpreting patterns of data and its application for solving real problems, such as anomaly detection and data management. There are various ways to realize visualization to cater to the needs of numerous real life applications. Depending on needs, a combination of some of these ways may be required for presenting an effective visualization. The authors present visualization schemes for anomaly detection/condition monitoring and data management by leveraging network techniques and combining them with modern techniques such as sensor, database, mobile communication, GPS and GIS techniques. Two case studies are presented …

Creation Of A Spatial Decision Support System As A Risk Assessment Tool Based On Kentucky Tornado Climatology, Christopher Michael Blinn

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Tornadoes are one of Mother Nature’s deadliest phenomena. They affect a large region of the United States. The risk of tornadoes is contingent on dynamic atmospheric conditions that are most likely during spring but which can occur anytime of the year, making the storms challenging to forecast. Using geographical information systems (GIS), a web-based spatial decision support system (SDSS) was created to help understand the spatial dimension of tornado risk assessment. The risk values are calculated using Tornado Days rather than taking a crude density measurement. The SDSS hosts GIS web services that are displayed on an Adobe Flex application. …

Creating A Pedestrian Level-Of-Service Index For Transit Stops: Evidence From Denver’S Light Rail System, Patrick Gallagher

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

An Integrated Approach For Developing Adaptation Strategies In Climate Planning: A Case Study Of Vulnerability In Dukes County, Massachusetts, Jonathan Pollak

Master's Theses

Climate Action Plans (CAP’s) are recent innovations in policy that have been catalyzed by a need to adjust the relationship between human activity and the Earth’s climate system. CAP’s often are composed of methods to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in addition to adaptation strategies. Research indicates, however, that many plans focus on mitigation strategies while adaptation policies related to predicted changes caused by climate change are often overlooked. This thesis presents an integrative framework for locating areas that are in need of adaptation strategies through a GIS based decision support system that visualizes vulnerability. It is operationalized through an empirical …

Gis Collaborations In Saskatchewan: Sgic And The University Of Saskatchewan Library (Accepted Manuscript Version), Jasmine R. Hoover

Library Research and Publications

GIS (Geographic Information System) libraries face challenges at both ends of the spectrum when it comes to acquiring GIS data. On one hand, the increase in popularity of GIS driven by services like Google Earth, Bing maps, and open data has made large amounts of GIS data freely available to users. On the other hand, specialty GIS data products, often needed by researchers, industry, and government, can be so costly that they are impossible for a library to purchase on its own. In situations like the latter, collaborations often provide the solution for acquiring the necessary GIS data. This report …

Agbufferbuilder: A Filter Strip Design Tool For Gis, Surendran Neelakantan, Tom Mueller, Michael G. Dosskey, Todd Kellerman, Eduardo Abel Rienzi

Plant and Soil Sciences Research Tools

AgBufferBuilder is a GIS-based computer program for designing vegetative filter strips around agricultural fields that utilizes terrain analysis to account for spatially non-uniform runoff (Figure 1). The core model is derived from the process-based Vegetative Filter Strip Modeling System (VFSMOD-W). A detailed description of the core model and its development is provided in Dosskey et al. (2011). The GIS program runs with ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA).

Social Interaction At The Maya Site Of Copan, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach To Configurational Analysis, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

In this article, I employ least cost paths using GIS to measure the relationship between site configuration and social connectivity at the ancient Maya site of Copan, Honduras. I investigate two questions. First, did people of different social classes experience varying degrees of social connectivity? Second, did people living in different parts of the city experience difference degrees of social connectivity? Ultimately, the goal is modify traditional configurational analysis using least cost analysis (LCA) to identify how social hierarchy was embedded in landscapes and how ancient people may have strategically manipulated landscapes to structure social interaction and community organization.

Applying Gis Metrics To Determine Degree Of Glacial Modification In Mountainous Landscapes, Carl Delbert Swanson Ii

All Master's Theses

The ability to quantitatively assess the degree of glaciation in mountainous areas can be a powerful tool in unraveling the evolution of landscapes, and provide key insights in regions where field research is difficult. Here we determine, test, and apply metrics that assess the relative degree of past glacial modification in mountainous landscapes. Results show that slope results can be used to quantitatively assess the degree to which an area is modified by glaciation. In particular, analysis of basins using slope frequency distribution curves and slope vs. elevation plots capture steeper slopes, flatter valley bottoms, cirques, and arêtes of glaciated …

Transboundary Political Ecology In The Peru-Brazil Borderlands: Mapping Workshops, Geographic Information, And Socio-Environmental Impacts, David S. Salisbury, A. William Flores De Melo, Pedro Tipula Tipula

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

Development, resource, and settlement frontiers inspired by national policies and global demand continue to expand into the international boundary lands of Amazonia. National policies promote development and conservation projects on lands already inhabited and managed. Regional governments are increasingly frustrated by the inadequate and outdated geographic information available to solve overlapping claims and improve planning in sensitive border regions. The resulting combination of inappropriate policies, contested resources, and poor geographic information in the borderlands create impacts not only for national, regional, and local landscapes and livelihoods but also foreign relations due to transboundary effects. This article uses a transboundary political …