Geography Commons^™

Using Remotely Sensed Imagery To Examine Changing Urban Land Cover Across Time And Topography: A Study Of Nepal’S Kathmandu Valley, Rajesh Sigdel

Masters Theses

The Kathmandu Valley, located in Nepal, is the most rapidly growing demographic region in the country. With this demographic transformation, urban land is also expanding within the valley. It is important to understand the rate and extent of urban land cover change for effective land use planning. This study analyzed the urban land cover change in the Kathmandu Valley in 1990, 2006, and 2018 using remote sensing. It also analyzed the shift in the urban topography of the valley during the same period. Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 were used to study the transformation of urban land cover in the …

Understanding Individuals’ Perceptions Of Oak Wilt And Its Implications For Invasive Species Management, Matthew Morrissey

Masters Theses

Oak wilt, a thought-to-be exotic, invasive fungal disease preys upon oak tree species (Quercus sp.) and has begun to cause die-off in oak stands throughout the state of Michigan, with potential for increased cases and subsequent death. Despite efforts to treat the disease, there is no guaranteed treatment for already-infected oak trees. The best option is to control the infection and prevent its spread, by methods such as disconnection of root systems, removal of infected trees, and informed pruning. Given that humans play a role in oak wilt’s artificial spread, it is imperative that the public understands their …

Demystifying Jadeite: An Underwater Maya Discovery At Ek Way Nal, Belize, Heather Mckillop, George Harlow, April Sievert, C. Wayne Smith, Michael C. Wiemann

Faculty Publications

Jadeite artefacts at Maya sites are normally associated with ritual and ceremonial locations, with high-quality jadeite reserved for elite objects. The discovery of a jadeite gouge with a wooden handle at a Classic Maya salt-working site submerged by sea-level rise - Ek Way Nal, Belize - is therefore unexpected and provides new information about the utilitarian use of this stone. The extremely high quality of this jadeite tool is particularly surprising, offering new insight into the Classic Maya exchange systems and the role of salt makers such as those based at Ek Way Nal.

The Use Of High And Medium Resolution Imagery To Detect Agricultural Land Cover In Chinese Cities: A Case Study Of Nanjing 2000 To 2015, Erik Breidinger

Masters Theses

According to McGee and Ginsburg’s desakota hypothesis, rapidly growing Asian cities differ from large Western cities in their land cover/land use (LC/LU) as they retain a significant portion of agricultural land and labor despite rapid urbanization. However, significant amounts of agricultural production within desakotas takes place in plastic greenhouses, causing a unique problem when calculating LC/LU estimates via traditional remote sensing techniques. While greenhouses appear equivalent to developed land spectrally, their purpose is entirely agricultural. This study provides an improved method of calculating greenhouse land-cover as agricultural land-use using Jiangning District in the city of Nanjing as the study area …

The Place In Displacement: Stories Of Loss From The Chan-75 Dam, Patrick Daniel Mckenzie

Senior Theses

In 2008, AES (a U.S.-based, Fortune 500 power company) began construction on the Chan-75 dam in Nance del Risco, Panama. This dam flooded and displaced four indigenous Ngobe communities. However, this displacement represents more than just a relocation of people; it represents a fracturing of families and communities. While some impacts of displacement are obvious, other aspects of day-to-day loss are often ignored. Changes in family relations and sense of control, for example, cannot possibly be compensated by a corporation. This thesis examines both the history of the Chan-75 dam and the impacts its construction has had on one family.

Introduction To Human Geography (2nd Edition), David Dorrell, Joseph Henderson, Todd Lindley, Georgeta Connor

Geological Sciences and Geography Open Textbooks

This partner text with the University of North Georgia Press was created under a Round Eleven Mini-Grant for Ancillary Materials Creation and Revision. New supporting materials for the book were created under a Round Fifteen Mini-Grant and include exercises, lecture slides, and sample questions.

The UNG Press also hosts a version of the text on their site:

https://ung.edu/university-press/books/introduction-to-human-geography.php

Authors' Description:

"Geography is a diverse discipline that has some sort of connection to most every other academic discipline. This connection is the spatial perspective, which essentially means if a phenomenon can be mapped, it has some kind of relationship to geography. …

The Effects Of Deforestation On Carbon Storage In Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, Rowan E. Cole

Masters Theses

With over one-fifth of the planet’s forested area, Russia has become a major source of round wood and wood products. In 2003, the Russian government established an energy policy aimed at reducing the negative impacts of industry on the environment and improving the nation’s environments as a whole. This study analyzes deforestation and logging activities in the forests along the Amur River in Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian Far East to determine the effectiveness of Russian government policy in achieving the goals put forward in the 2003 energy policy. Changes in land-use and land-cover will be assessed using 500-meter resolution …

A History Of America In 100 Maps, Susan Schulten, University Of Chicago Press, Chicago (2018), 256 Pages, Us$35.00 Hardcover, Christina E. Dando

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

Several years ago, browsing in the British Museum's gift shop, I noticed A History of the World in 100 Objects (2010). The idea of capturing history using material culture is an appealing one, offering readers opportunities to learn about fascinating artifacts in short, easy-to-digest essays. It often sparks similar projects such as The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects (2016). Susan Schulten's A History of America in 100 Maps appears to be such a popular, coffee table book, pairing map images with explanatory vignettes, but do not be taken in: this is a very skillfully constructed narrative of American …

Understanding The Construction Of Accessibility And Mobility: Non-Car Transportation In St. Louis, Missouri, Hannah N. Shumway

Geography Honors Projects

This research examines disadvantaged populations’ accessibility and mobility in the non-car transportation system in St. Louis. By employing mixed methods, this research investigates accessibility and mobility through three distinct scholarly lenses: physical infrastructure and proximity, individual experiences, and political processes. The thesis synthesizes the analyses from these three approaches in order to provide holistic policy recommendations for creating more equitable transportation systems in St. Louis and beyond. Empirical findings show that neighborhoods with lower median incomes and lower percentages of white population in St. Louis are less accessible for biking and walking, with highly variable public transit accessibility. Bike system …

Prototyping A Social Media Flooding Photo Screening System Based On Deep Learning And Crowdsourcing, Huan Ning

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to implement a prototype system to screen flooding photos from social media. These photos, associated with their geographic locations, can provide free, timely, and reliable visual information about flood events to the decision makers. This system is designed for the application to the real social media images, including several key functions: tweets downloading, image downloading, flooding photo detection, and human verification via a WebGIS application. In this study, a training dataset of 5,000 flooding photos was built based on an iterative method; a convolutional neural network (CNN) was then trained and applied to detect flooding photos. Also, …

Contrasting Local And Long-Range-Transported Warm Ice-Nucleating Particles During An Atmospheric River In Coastal California, Usa, Andrew C. Martin, Gavin Cornwell, Charlotte M. Beall, Forest Cannon, Sean Reilly, Bas Schapp, Dolan Lucero, Jessie Creamean, F. Martin Ralph, Hari T. Mix, Kimberly Prather

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) have been found to influence the amount, phase and efficiency of precipitation from winter storms, including atmospheric rivers. Warm INPs, those that initiate freezing at temperatures warmer than −10ºC, are thought to be particularly impactful because they can create primary ice in mixed-phase clouds, enhancing precipitation efficiency. The dominant sources of warm INPs during atmospheric rivers, the role of meteorology in modulating transport and injection of warm INPs into atmospheric river clouds, and the impact of warm INPs on mixed-phase cloud properties are not well-understood. In this case study, time-resolved precipitation samples were collected during an atmospheric …

The Social Logic Of Space In Early Horizon Peru: 3d Reconstructions Of Residential Compounds At Caylán, Nepeña Valley, Ashleigh V. Passafume

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Impacts Of Warming Coffee: The Climate Change-Coffee-Migration Nexus In The Northern Triangle Of Central America, Connor Lynch

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As climate change continues to threaten every corner of the world, one of the key features of the 21st century is migration, as a response to the myriad of effects related to a warming planet. This paper seeks to analyze the role of climate change as a motive for migration. The climate change-migration nexus is illustrated in this paper by revealing how slow-onset effects of climate change jeopardize the production of coffee in the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA), a region that is particularly vulnerable to the many effects. Thousands of people who depend on coffee production around Guatemala, …

Empleo Regional Y Transporte Público: Un Estudio De Caso Comparado De Accesibilidad Al Transporte De Parques Industriales En El Gran Buenos Aires Basado En La Medida De Sistema De Información Geográfica, Clara Wang

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La accesibilidad al transporte es considerada como un elemento crítico del desarrollo urbano y además la clave del empleo. Este informe intenta analizar el problema de la baja tasa del empleo local enfrente de Malvinas Argentinas (MA)en relación con el bajo nivel de conectividad entre la zona industrial y residencial del municipio. Para contextualizar el problema de este desequilibrio en la región metropolitana de Buenos Aires, La Matanza (LM) será el caso de estudio por tratarse de un municipio similar en localización y estructura industrial. El Sistema de Información Geográfica (SIG) se utiliza para análisis de espacio y visualización de …

Ammani Youth- Paradoxical Citizens On The Margins, Holly L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Cities are complex social environments representing a convergence of many physical and human processes which influence how young people form their identities and plan for their futures. The role of urban environments on social processes has received substantial attention. However, significantly less attention has been focused on how urban youth are impacted specifically as political actors. Youth are particularly exposed to feeling the impacts of historical and on-going geopolitical issues in and surrounding their urban environments. Amman, Jordan is a compelling location to examine urban impacts on young political actors because of the clear geopolitical changes taking place in and …

Cognitive Biases About Climate Variability In Smallholder Farming Systems In Zambia, Kurt B. Waldman, Noemi Vergopolan, Shahzeen Z. Attari, Justin Sheffield, Lyndon Estes, Kelly K. Caylor, Tom P. Evans

Geography

Given the varying manifestations of climate change over time and the influence of climate perceptions on adaptation, it is important to understand whether farmer perceptions match patterns of environmental change from observational data. We use a combination of social and environmental data to understand farmer perceptions related to rainy season onset. Household surveys were conducted with 1171 farmers across Zambia at the end of the 2015/16 growing season eliciting their perceptions of historic changes in rainy season onset and their heuristics about when rain onset occurs. We compare farmers' perceptions with satellite-gauge-derived rainfall data from the Climate Hazards Group Infrared …

Habitat Suitability Of The Mountain Pine Beetle In Alberta, Canada Under Future Climate Scenarios, Nathalie Woloszyn

Masters Theses

Mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) is the most destructive insect currently devastating North American forests (Safranyik & Carroll, 2006). Native to western North America, the mountain pine beetle has recently expanded beyond its historic range, into the novel territory of Alberta, Canada. Since its arrival in the mid-2000s, the mountain pine beetle has diffused eastward at an average rate of 80km/year (Cooke & Carroll, 2017). Poised at the doorstep of the boreal forest, current concern anticipates the potential diffusion of the mountain pine beetle to eastern North America.

The Maxent (maximum entropy) model, a presence-only spatial distribution model, …

"La Llorona": Evolución, Ideología Y Uso En El Mundo Hispano, Raquel Sáenz-Llano

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis studies the evolution, ideology and use of the myth of La Llorona through time in the Hispanic World. Considering this myth as one of the most known traditional narratives of the American continent, I begin by providing visual, ethnohistorical and ethnographical insights of weeping in Mesoamerica and South America and the specific mention of a weeping woman in some Spanish chronicles to say how western values were stablished in “the new continent” through this legend. I suggest that during the postcolonialism the legend did not tell anymore about a mother that cries and search a place for their …

Using Residential Location To Assess The Environmental Value-Action Gap Of Students At James Madison University, Emma Martin

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

This study focuses on the environmental value-action gap of students at James Madison University (JMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia. An environmental value-action gap occurs when a person has pro-environmental beliefs but does not have congruent actions. Over 1,000 JMU students completed a survey of their residence location, environmental values, and environmental actions. Students’ preservation and utilization values were assessed using a 2-Dimensional Model of Ecological Values (2-MEV), and their frequency of environmental actions was assessed through a series of Likert-scaled statements. It was hypothesized that any value-action gap would be wider in students who resided in off-campus housing compared to students …

Geoannotator: A Collaborative Semi-Automatic Platform For Constructing Geo-Annotated Text Corpora, Morteza Karimzadeh, Alan M. Maceachren

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Ground-truth datasets are essential for the training and evaluation of any automated algorithm. As such, gold-standard annotated corpora underlie most advances in natural language processing (NLP). However, only a few relatively small (geo-)annotated datasets are available for geoparsing, i.e., the automatic recognition and geolocation of place references in unstructured text. The creation of geoparsing corpora that include both the recognition of place names in text and matching of those names to toponyms in a geographic gazetteer (a process we call geo-annotation), is a laborious, time-consuming and expensive task. The field lacks efficient geo-annotation tools to support corpus building and lacks …

Twitter Use In Hurricane Isaac And Its Implications To Disaster Resilience, Kejin Wang

LSU Master's Theses

Disaster Resilience is the capacity of a community to ‘bounce back’ from disastrous events. Most studies rely on traditional data such as census data to study community resilience. With the advent of social media era, the new data source gives us an opportunity to explore the application of Twitter data to better understand disaster resilience. A research question is: does Twitter use correlate with disaster resilience? In other words, will communities with more Twitter users be more resilient to disasters, presumably because they are more likely to be better informed? The underlying issue is that if there are social and …

Lidar Predictive Modeling Of Kalapuya Mound Sites In The Calapooia Watershed, Oregon, Tia Rachelle Cody

Dissertations and Theses

Archaeologists grapple with the problematic nature of archaeological discovery. Certain types of sites are difficult to see even in the best environmental conditions (e.g., low-density lithic scatters) and performing traditional archaeological survey is challenging in some environments, such as the dense temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest. Archaeologists need another method of survey to assess large areas and overcome environmental and archaeological barriers to site discovery in regions like the Pacific Northwest. LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology, a method for digitally clearing away swaths of vegetation and surveying the landscape, is one possible solution to some of these …

Multi-Sensor Data Fusion Between Radio Tomographic Imaging And Noise Radar, Christopher Vergara

Theses and Dissertations

The lack of situational awareness within an operational environment is a problem that carries high risk and expensive consequences. Radio Tomographic Imaging (RTI) and noise radar are two proven technologies capable of through-wall imaging and foliage penetration. The intent of this thesis is to provide a proof of concept for the fusion of data from RTI and noise radar. The output of this thesis will consist of a performance comparison between the two technologies followed by the derivation of a fusion technique to produce a single image. Proposals have been made for the integration of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar with …

Assessing Palm Decline In Florida By Using Advanced Remote Sensing With Machine Learning Technologies And Algorithms., Christopher B. Hanni

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Native palms, such as the Sabal palmetto, play an important role in maintaining the ecological balance in Florida. As a side-effect of modern globalization, new phytopathogens like Texas Phoenix Palm Decline have been introduced into forest systems that threaten native palms. This presents new challenges for forestry managers and geographers. Advances in remote sensing has assisted the practice of forestry by providing spatial metrics regarding the type, quantity, location, and the state of heath for trees for many years. This study provides spatial details regarding the general palm decline in Florida by taking advantage of the new developments in deep …

Flood Resilience Assessment Of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina Based On Thermal And Vegetation Index Image Time Series, Yirui Deng

LSU Master's Theses

Resilience is a concept with increasing importance in modern risk management because of its role in reducing risks of unpreventable disasters. Previous resilience assessment studies often require extensive surveys of various social, economic, and psychological data or incorporate remote sensing data as one of the complicated physical and social parameters for assessment models. Limited data accessibility to such data due to funding, time, and labor intensity is a major challenge for their wider applications. Therefore, this study proposes the hypothesis that the overall resilience of an urban area to disturbances of natural disasters can be reflected through the time series …

Climatology, Variability, And Return Periods Of Tropical Cyclone Strikes In The Northeastern And Central Pacific Basins, Nicholas S. Grondin

LSU Master's Theses

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are among the most destructive meteorological phenomena and impact the lives of people who reside along the coast. The American Pacific Coastline borders the second most active TC development region in the world, the northeastern Pacific (NE Pac) basin. This region, along with the Central Pacific (C Pac)-bordering Hawaii is home to a growing population and cities engaged in a variety of economic activities, most prominently agriculture, fishing, and tourism. This study analyzes fifty-two (1966-2017) years of NE Pac and C Pac TCs through applying track data from the National Hurricane Center’s HURDAT2 and a TC size …

Stratospheric Polar Vortex Variability In The Northern Hemisphere: The Effects Of Climate Change On Polar Vortex Trends And Future Projections, John Earl Rogers

Dissertations and Theses

Regions that have experienced recent successive cold winters such as the Northeast of North America and Siberia have endured critical social and economic impacts from anomalous low temperatures in recent years, despite warming global temperatures. It is well known that the Tropospheric Polar Vortex (TPV), or jet stream, is a primary influence on many mid-latitude winter weather patterns. However, the strong circumpolar westerlies that maximize at around 60° latitude just above the tropopause, known as the Stratospheric Polar Vortex (SPV), can affect tropospheric circulation and thus winter weather in the Northern Hemisphere. Strong upward propagating waves can affect the geographic …

Vulnerability Of Industrial Facilities In The Lower Mississippi River Industrial Corridor To Relative Sea Level Rise And Tropical Cyclone Storm Surge, Joseph Blake Harris

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Relative sea level rise (RSLR) and tropical cyclone-induced storm surge are major threats to the Lower Mississippi River Industrial Corridor (LMRIC) which has approximately 120 industrial complexes located within the corridor. Spatial interpolation methods were applied to the 2004 National Oceanic and Atmospheric published Technical Report #50 subsidence dataset and cross-validation techniques were used to determine the accuracy of each method. Digital elevation models (DEMs) were created for the years 2025, 2050, and 2075, based on these predictive surface of subsidence rates. Future DEMs were utilized to model RSLR and determine the extent of storm surge on the LMRIC by …

Use Of A Behavioral Health Framework To Assess Perceptions Of Hurricane Evacuation Support Services In New Orleans, Louisiana, Aubry Kyle

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents research conducted during the hurricane seasons of 2017 and 2018 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The research’s purpose was to assess citizen perceptions of evacuation support services offered during mandatory evacuation events. A prospective quantitative survey and qualitative, open-ended, semi-structured interview assessed perceptions. Both research methods were designed and assessed using the constructs of the Health Belief Model, a public health model created to assess perceived barriers, benefits, risks, severity, self-efficacy, and cues to action regarding health programming. Quantitative research yielded 211 surveys, representing opinions of New Orleans residents within 1-km Euclidian distance of an evacuation pick-up marker. …

The Garbage That We Eat: Metabolizing Food-Waste In New Orleans, Louisiana, Kelly L. Haggerty

LSU Master's Theses

The 2017 Climate Action for a Resilient New Orleans report strives to divert 50 percent of waste by 2030. In the same year, waste companies had only managed to divert 5 percent of the total annual waste in Orleans Parish. Nearly a decade away from 2030, city officials have not even tested or implemented strategies to reach this goal. While city officials scramble to launch pilot projects, community and grassroots organizations center around recovering and transforming garbage and food waste. Using interviews and surveys with food-waste organizers from May to August 2018, this paper reveals that managing food-waste on a …