Geography Commons^™

Counting On The Environment: Measuring And Marketing Ecosystem Services In Oregon, Eric Nost

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

New markets for the conservation of so-called ecosystem services, like the ability of a wetland to mitigate floods, are emerging worldwide. According to environmental economists, these markets require some metric - ecological or otherwise - that names the relevant characteristics of the service to be traded as a commodity. But while this is often assumed to be a simple task of science, I argue that the environmental regulators, eco-entrepreneurs, and conservationists who actually design and implement metrics are not so easily brought into agreement. In “rolling-out” revamped metrics and protocols, regulators and their conservationist allies in one market in Oregon …

Security, Development, And (Im)Mobility: The Uneven Geography Of Migration And Border Management In Ukraine, Jonathan Austin Crane

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

As a country of origin, transit, and destination for migrants that now borders four European Union (EU) member countries, Ukraine has seen future integration possibilities with the EU become, in part, conditional upon its willingness to cooperate in controlling cross-border migration. The EU is now “externalizing” aspects of migration and border control to Ukraine through making investments in Ukraine’s capacity to selectively “manage” cross-border flows in line with EU security and economy priorities. In the context of this emerging spatial arrangement of EU externalization, this thesis analyzes how, by whom, and to what effect migration is being managed in and …

Moveable Feasts: Locating Food Trucks In The Cultural Economy, Jessa M. Loomis

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

In this thesis, I consider the emergence of a new generation of food trucks and question their popularity, narration and representation. I examine the economic and cultural discourses that have valorized these food trucks, and pay attention to the everyday material and embodied practices that constitute them. This research is situated in Chicago, where proposed changes to the existing mobile food vending ordinance spurred contentious debates about food safety, regulations, rights to the city and livelihoods. I follow the myriad actors involved in the food truck movement to understand the strategies employed to change the mobile food vending ordinance on …

A Children’S Geography Of Occupation: Imaginary, Emotional, And Everyday Spaces Of Palestinian Childhood, David J. Marshall

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This research examines the political geographies of Palestinian children, and the ways in which their everyday spaces and practices are shaped by broader social and political processes. This research begins with an investigation into the role of the child in the moral geopolitics of humanitarianism and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. From here, the research explores how the competing discourses of Palestinian nationalism and international humanitarianism, and the legacy of forced migration, have shaped the subjectivity of Palestinian children and the spaces of childhood in a West Bank refugee camp, from homes, to schools, streets, and youth centers. Finally, using participant observation, …

Ecological Restoration's Genetic Culture: Participation And Technology In The Making Of Landscapes, Jairus Rossi

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Practitioners of ecological restoration are increasingly adopting a genetic perspective when recreating historical landscapes. Genes are often endowed with the capacity to reveal specific and distinct relationships between organisms and environments. In this dissertation, I examine how genetic technologies and concepts are shaping ecological restoration practices. This research is based on two and a half years of fieldwork in Chicago. I employed participant observation and semi-structured interviews to compare how restorationists in two plant science institutions employ genetic concepts in their projects. One institution uses high-tech genetic methods to guide practice while the other uses lower-tech genetic approaches. Each group …

Change In Location And Amount Of Affordable Housing In Dakota County, Minnesota From 2006 To 2010, Joel Nyhus

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research study is to examine the location and amount of affordable housing in Dakota County, Minnesota for the years 2006 and 2010 and the changes occurring between these years. The analysis is segmented. The research utilizes parcel level data for owner-occupied units, and address-based data for rental units and manufactured housing units. This report uses findings to produce analyses, maps and spreadsheets detailing community-level, and county-level data associated with this research. The maps show all 34 communities in Dakota County and the corresponding location and amount of affordable housing in these communities for the time period …

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 …

An Ice-Core Pollen Record Showing Vegetation Response To Late-Glacial And Holocene Climate Changes At Nevado Sajama, Bolivia, C. A. Reese, K. B. Liu, L. G. Thompson

Faculty Publications

We present the results of pollen analysis performed on an ice core recovered from Nevado Sajama, Bolivia, dated to 25 ka BP. Low pollen concentrations from 25 to 15 ka BP are consistent with the scenario of an expanded ice cap surrounded by sparse vegetation and cold conditions on the Altiplano during the Last Glacial Maximum. After 15 ka BP, more pollen is present and percentages show vegetation response to climate fluctuations during the late Pleistocene. Initially, high concentrations of Poaceae pollen are replaced by Asteraceae pollen, suggesting the occurrence of dry conditions towards the end of the Bolling-Allerod/Guantiva interstadial. …

The Geography Of Global Urban Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Exploratory Analysis, Jochen Albrecht, Peter Marcotullio, Amdrea Sarzynski, Niels Schulz, Jake Garcia

Publications and Research

The purpose of this paper is to describe global urban greenhouse gas emissions by region and sector, examine the distribution of emissions through the urban-to-rural gradient, and identify covariates of emission levels for our baseline year, 2000.We usemultiple existing spatial databases to identify urban extent, greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, N2O, CH4 and SF6) and covariates of emissions in a “top-down” analysis. The results indicate that urban activities are significant sources of total greenhouse gas emissions (36.8 and 48.6 % of total). The urban energy sector accounts for between 41.5 and 66.3 % of total energy emissions. Significant differences exist in …

“Damning The Dams”: A Study Of Cost Benefit Analysis In Large Dams Through The Lens Of India's Sardar Sarovar Project, Evelyn Wong

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the evaluation of the economic, environmental and social effects of dams, and lessons learned from previous dams. It then focuses on cost benefit analysis as a decision-making tool pre-project for evaluating the potential gains and losses of building a dam; and as a framework for evaluating dams in operation. It reviews the basic assumptions required for a legitimate cost benefit analysis, and the inherent limitations of this method. It uses the Sardar Sarovar dam as a case study for the use and abuse of cost benefit analysis in decision-making, interstate politics, propaganda and activism. It also illustrates …

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 …

Disinvestment And Suburban Decline, Robert Streetar

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Beginning in the mid-1970s, U.S. suburbs started to experience many of the same problems typically associated with earlier inner-city decline including accelerating income decline, increasing family poverty, falling housing prices, growing income polarization, escalating crime, and increasing racial and ethnic diversity.

Conventional wisdom often lays the blame for neighborhood decline on who moves in and who moves out. This is understandable, as neighborhood migration is easily observable. It is the hypothesis of this research, though, that the less visible disinvestment of capital from suburban neighborhoods is an initial cause of suburban decline that precedes and coincides with the more observable …

Uncovering The Structures In Ecological Networks: Multiple Techniques For Multiple Purposes, Peng Gao

Theses and Dissertations

Ecosystem structure and function are the product of biological and ecological elements and their connections and interactions. Understanding structure and process in ecosystems is critical to ecological studies. Ecological networks, based on simple concepts in which biological and ecological elements are depicted as nodes with relationships between them described as links, have been recognized as a valuable means of clarifying the relationship between structures and process in ecosystems. Ecological network analysis has benefited from the advancement of techniques in social science, computer science, and mathematics, but attention must be paid to whether the designs of these techniques follow ecological principles …

I Can Be Silent And Be Saying A Lot: Teachers' Racial Literacy In A Southern Elementary School, Kimberly J. Howard

Theses and Dissertations

In order to better understand how teachers make sense of race in schools today, this ethnographic study explores the following research question: How do teachers in this school make sense of race, and how does the spatiality of the school inform this process? The study was conducted over a 14-month period in a southern elementary school and is presented as a poetic, narrative, and thematic analysis of the connections between the geographic location of this particular school and the teachers' practices, pedagogies, and conversations about race both inside their classrooms and in other school spaces. This study demonstrates how teachers' …

Correlation Between Literacy Rates In Africa And Latin America And Economic Stability, Shawn Jordan

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Literacy rates in Africa and Latin America are on different ends of the spectrum. Africa is home to some of the poorest countries in the world and Latin America is not too far behind. Literacy rates generally correlate to wealth as a country. The plights of Africa and Latin America are a no different. In general, Africa has some of the lowest literacy rates in the world and has been the place for horrific fighting for decades. This epidemic has hit the women and children especially hard. Women in Africa have an illiteracy rate of 50% (allafrica.com 2010). This is …

Mapa De Desafios Cartográficos 2013, Gtaso, David S. Salisbury

Geography and the Environment Maps

Mapa de Desafios Cartográficos 2013

Map of Cartographic Challenges 2013

Mapa De Territorios Indígenas Y Áreas Naturales Protegidas En Las Fronteras Amazónicas Entre Ucayali Y Madre De Dios (Perú), Acre (Brasil) Y Pando (Bolivia), Gtaso, David S. Salisbury

Geography and the Environment Maps

Mapa de Territorios Indígenas y Áreas Naturales Protegidas en las Fronteras Amazónicas entre Ucayali y Madre de Dios (Perú), Acre (Brasil) y Pando (Bolivia)

Map of Indigenous Territories and Protected Areas in the Amazon Borders between Ucayali and Madre de Dios (Peru), Acre (Brazil), and Pando (Bolivia)

Mapa De Amenazas En Las Cuencas De Las Fronteras Amazónicas Entre Ucayali Y Madre De Dios (Perú), Pando (Bolivia) Y Acre (Brasil), Gtaso, David S. Salisbury

Geography and the Environment Maps

Mapa de Amenazas en las Cuencas de las Fronteras Amazónicas entre Ucayali y Madre de Dios (Perú), Pando (Bolivia) y Acre (Brasil)

Map of Threatened Borders of the Amazon Basin between Ucayali and Madre de Dios (Peru), Pando (Bolivia) and Acre (Brazil)

Mapa Del Corredor Socioambiental De Las Fronteras Amazónicas Entre Ucayali, Madre De Dios (Perú), Acre (Brasil) Y Pando (Bolivia), Gtaso, David S. Salisbury

Geography and the Environment Maps

Mapa del Corredor Socioambiental de las Fronteras Amazónicas entre Ucayali, Madre de Dios (Perú), Acre (Brasil) y Pando (Bolivia).

Map of the Amazonian boundaries between Ucayali, Madre de Dios (Peru), Acre (Brazil) and Pando (Bolivia).

The Elwha River Restoration: Landscape Change, Salmon, And Sense Of Place, Kelseyanne Johnson

All Master's Theses

Removal of the Elwha River dams to restore the ecosystem and salmon fisheries is the largest project of its kind in the history of the United States. Spanning decades and affecting generations, this project has changed and will continue to change the landscape. This research examined the influence of the anticipated return of salmon on 18 key stakeholders' sense of place of the Elwha River. For almost all stakeholders, changes to the Elwha landscape are welcomed as they expect that salmon will restore the ecosystem to its natural state. Narrative data revealed dominant themes in participants' sense of place expressed …

Lamar, Mirabeau Buonaparte, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a biographical portrait and career overview of Mirabeau Lamar (1798-1859) who served as the second President of the Republic of Texas from 1838-1841.

Hunger Strike: The Body As Resource, Reecia Orzeck

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

[In the absence of an abstract the beginning of the Introduction is provided.] The first coordinated hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility began in February of 2002, and the last of these strikers were the first to be fed against their will by the United States Department of Defense (Dao 2002). During the June/ July 2005 strike, approximately 50 of the 52 to 200 detainees on strike were fed intravenously (Gutierrez 2005: 9, 11). When the strike recommenced in August as many as 20 of its 76 to 210 participants were being kept at the camp hospital and …

Rice, Tobacco, And Agricultural Globalization: Exploring The Narrative Of The Chinese Agricultural Colony In Sub-Saharan Africa, Hunter Bradley

Geography Honors Projects

According to media outlets, China's involvement in the Sub-Saharan African agricultural sector is part of a colonial land grab to meet the needs of a modernizing China. This paper challenges this narrative by examining the two constituent narrative elements: 1) China actively purchases land or land rights to meet the food needs at home and 2) that this process has led to decreased food security for African states. Using Zimbabwe and Mozambique as cases, this paper demonstrates China's participation is not part of a long-term food security strategy and is better understood in light of the "Go Out Policy." However, …

Distinguished Historical Geography Lecture: Carceral Space And The Usable Past, Karen M. Morin

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Geographical Literacies And Their Publics: Reflections On The American Scene, Karen M. Morin

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

We Have Never Been "Post-Political", James Mccarthy

Geography

The Progressive Era attempt to 'depoliticize' environmental governance was of course an utter failure for a host of reasons: powerful economic and political interests found or made entry points into supposedly sealed-off arenas, eventually culminating in the phenomenon of agency capture. Scientists and technocrats carried their own politics into their work, consciously or unconsciously; the people affected by new property relations and management regimes resisted and reconfigured the newly emergent socionatures in their areas in a variety of ways, producing a reality more complicated than, and often at odds with, the superficially clear official policy; and so on. It is …

Global Land Governance: From Territory To Flow?, Thomas Sikor, Graeme Auld, Anthony J. Bebbington, Tor A. Benjaminsen, Bradford S. Gentry, Carol Hunsberger, Anne Marie Izac, Matias E. Margulis, Tobias Plieninger, Heike Schroeder, Caroline Upton

Geography

This article reviews recent research on contemporary transformations of global land governance. It shows how changes in global governance have facilitated and responded to radical revalorizations of land, together driving the intensified competition and struggles over land observed in many other contributions to this special issue. The rules in place to govern land use are shifting from 'territorial' toward 'flow-centered' arrangements, the latter referring to governance that targets particular flows of resources or goods, such as certification of agricultural or wood products. The intensifying competition over land coupled with shifts toward flow-centered governance has generated land uses involving new forms …

Improving Operational Land Surface Model Canopy Evapotranspiration In Africa Using A Direct Remote Sensing Approach, M. Marshall, K. Tu, C. Funk, J. Michaelsen, P. Williams, Christopher A. Williams, J. Ardö, M. Boucher, B. Cappelaere, A. De Grandcourt, A. Nickless, Y. Nouvellon, R. Scholes, W. Kutsch

Geography

Climate change is expected to have the greatest impact on the world's economically poor. In the Sahel, a climatically sensitive region where rain-fed agriculture is the primary livelihood, expected decreases in water supply will increase food insecurity. Studies on climate change and the intensification of the water cycle in sub-Saharan Africa are few. This is due in part to poor calibration of modeled evapotranspiration (ET), a key input in continental-scale hydrologic models. In this study, a remote sensing model of transpiration (the primary component of ET), driven by a time series of vegetation indices, was used to substitute transpiration from …

Satellite-Based Estimates Of Antarctic Surface Meltwater Fluxes, Luke D. Trusel, Karen E. Frey, Sarah B. Das, Peter Kuipers Munneke, Michiel R. Van Den Broeke

Geography

This study generates novel satellite-derived estimates of Antarctic-wide annual (1999-2009) surface meltwater production using an empirical relationship between radar backscatter from the QuikSCAT (QSCAT) satellite and melt calculated from in situ energy balance observations. The resulting QSCAT-derived melt fluxes significantly agree with output from the regional climate model RACMO2.1 and with independent ground-based observations. The high-resolution (4.45 km) QSCAT-based melt fluxes uniquely detect interannually persistent and intense melt (>400 mm water equivalent (w.e.) year-1) on interior Larsen C Ice Shelf that is not simulated by RACMO2.1. This supports a growing understanding of the importance of a föhn effect in …

Global Trends In Seasonality Of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (Ndvi), 1982-2011, J. Ronald Eastman, Florencia Sangermano, Elia A. Machado, John Rogan, Assaf Anyamba

Geography

A 30-year series of global monthly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) imagery derived from the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) NDVI3g archive was analyzed for the presence of trends in changing seasonality. Using the Seasonal Trend Analysis (STA) procedure, over half (56.30%) of land surfaces were found to exhibit significant trends. Almost half (46.10%) of the significant trends belonged to three classes of seasonal trends (or changes). Class 1 consisted of areas that experienced a uniform increase in NDVI throughout the year, and was primarily associated with forested areas, particularly broadleaf forests. Class 2 consisted of areas experiencing …