Geographic Information Sciences Commons^™

A Gis Analysis Of Potential Wetland Mitigation Opportunities In The Brandywine Creek Watershed, Chester County, Pennsylvania, Shannon Ryan

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Wetlands provide innumerous functions and values that are beneficial to both the natural environment and economic systems. Historically these habitats have suffered significant losses and it is crucial to preserve existing wetlands and plan for future restoration opportunities. This research examines six sub-watersheds within the Brandywine Creek watershed within Chester County, Pennsylvania to determine where potential wetland mitigation opportunities occur. Using a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis, three wetland characteristics including watercourse locations, existing National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) wetlands, and hydric soils were mapped throughout each of the watersheds. Areas of agricultural easements and steep slopes were used to exclude …

Identification Of Poverty Areas By Using Machine Learning Classification Methods From Satellite Imagery In Buraydah City, In The Qassim Region Of Saudi Arabia, Amal Alfawzan

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Saudi Arabia is a wealthy country with its many resources, but it has seen an increase in poverty recently because of a high rate of population growth with a high rate of unemployment. Some estimate that the number of Saudi Arabians living in poverty is between two and four million. This research aims to develop a way to detect poverty through remote sensing. The study area is Buraydah City, the largest city of the Qassim region, an important agricultural center that plays a significant role in the economy of Saudi Arabia. The research hypothesized that there are poor areas within …

Using Structure Location Data To Map The Wildland-Urban Interface In Montana, Usa, Alexander R. Ketchpaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The increasing wildfire activity and rapid population growth in the wildfire-urban interface (WUI) make more Americans exposed to wildfire risk. WUI mapping plays a significant role in wildfire management. This study used the Microsoft building footprint (MBF) and the Montana address/structure framework datasets to map the WUI in Montana. A systematic comparison of the following three types of WUI was performed: the WUI maps derived from the Montana address/structure framework dataset (WUI-P), the WUI maps derived from derived from the MBF dataset (WUI-S), and the Radeloff WUI map derived from census data (WUI-Z). The results show that WUI-S and WUI-P …

Fire Emissions In The Tropical Indonesia: Improved Estimation And Driving Forces Investigation, Xiaoman Lu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Indonesia has experienced frequent fires since the 1970s due to large-scale peatland conversion and extensive drainage for agricultural development. Fire emissions released from these fires have led to Indonesia being the world’s 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases in certain years. Given that fire emissions severely affect climate, weather, and the human environment, numerous approaches have been developed to estimate fire emissions. However, existing emission estimates differ largely by a factor of four in this tropical country because of frequent cloud interferences and low-temperature smoldering fires. Therefore, this dissertation aims to improve the quantification of Indonesian fire emissions through enhanced …

Environmental Racism In Baltimore: A Geographical Study Into The Connections Between Environmental Toxins And Public Health, Genevieve Block

Honors Theses

An investigation into the relationship between environmental toxins and environmental racism in Baltimore City, Maryland.

Three Method Tsunami Vulnerability Analysis Of The United States East Coast, Joshua Knolla

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

The East Coast of the United States could be susceptible to tsunamis or even mega tsunamis. With this in mind it becomes essential to answer the question: Where is vulnerability to a tsunami greatest along the East Coast of the United States? To answer this question the following parameters have been set. First, the study will include county level subdivisions along the USEC that have coasts along the Atlantic Ocean. The possible source regions of a tsunami or mega tsunami are also noted. This analysis includes both social and physical factors with nine and five of them considered respectively. Three …

Arctic Greening: Characterizing Tundra Vegetation From In-Situ And Remotely Sensed Observations, Shira Ann Ellenson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As the Arctic has warmed at twice the rate of the global average, vegetation productivity has also been increasing. While satellite remote sensing is useful for summarizing Arctic-wide trends, changes in tundra species heights, densities, composition, and distribution can be missed at coarse resolution. Smaller, plot-scale studies are necessary to better understand vegetation dynamics at fine scales occurring on the ground.

In 1995, high-resolution traditional aerial photographs and in-situ measurements of vegetation characteristics were taken at a series of plots established on the Alaskan North Slope. Repeat field surveys in 2021 revealed increases in plant cover for deciduous shrubs and …

Lake Huron Shoreline Analysis, Shubham Satish Nandanwar

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Lake Huron is a popular tourist destination and is home to several businesses and residents. Since the shoreline is dynamic and is subject to change over the years due to several factors such as a change in water level, soil type, human encroachment, etc., these locations tend to encounter floods due to increased water levels and wind speed. This causes erosion and loss to the properties along the shoreline.

This study is based on two areas of interest named Pinery Provincial Park and Sauble Beach which are located on the shoreline of Lake Huron where Pinery Provincial Park is a …

Impacts Of Sea-Level Rise On Urban Properties In Tampa Due To Climate Change, Weiwei Xie

Theses and Dissertations

The fast urbanization produces a large and growing population in coastal areas. However, the rise of sea level, one of the most significant impacts of global warming, makes coastal communities much more vulnerable to flooding than before. This Master’s thesis study investigates sea-level rise impacts on parcel-level property in the specific coastal city of Tampa, Florida, USA. An improved sea-level rise model based on satellite altimeter data is first used to predict future sea levels. Based on high-resolution LiDAR digital elevation data and property map, flooded properties are identified to evaluate property damage cost. This empirical analysis provides an in-depth …

Spatial Proximity Matters: A Study On Collaboration, Arianna Salazar Miranda, Matthew Claudel

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

As scientific research becomes increasingly cross-disciplinary, many universities seek to support collaborative activity through new buildings and institutions. This study examines the impacts of spatial proximity on collaboration at MIT from 2005 to 2015. By exploiting a shift in the location of researchers due to building renovations, we evaluate how discrete changes in physical proximity affect the likelihood that researchers co-author. The findings suggest that moving researchers into the same building increases their propensity to collaborate, with the effect plateauing five years after the move. The effects are large when compared to the average rate of collaboration among pairs of …

Assessment Of The Relationship Between Heavy Metal Concentrations In Soil And Tea Leaves Grown At Amani In Tanga Region By Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (Edxrf), Mohamed Mazunga, Masasi Kamanyola

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Determination of the concentration of heavy metals in tea leaves is important in assessing its quality for human consumption. This study aimed to assess the relationship between the concentration of heavy metals in soil and tea leaves at Kwamkoro tea plantation in Amani, Tanga. The soil and tea leaves samples were analysed by using the Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry. The results of heavy metals mean concentrations in soil were Cr (185.65 ± 27.91 µg/g), Mn (341.15 ± 24.41 µg/g), Ni (25.6 ± 3.27 µg/g), Cu (21.71 ± 2.33 µg/g), Zn (41.29 ± 5.27 µg/g), As (1.25 ± 0.17 µg/g), …

Empowering The Human-Nature Bond, Lightning Talk (7 Min), Valeria Widjaja

GIS Day

What is land? Is it dirt, the Earth, property, a resource? But rarely we ask who is land? When we change the question, it changes the way we think about land. It transforms the way we make decisions about how we might protect land. Through the Deshkan Ziibi Conservation Impact Bond, this story map explores how Carolinian Canada, Chippewas of the Thames First Nations, VERGE Capital, Ivey Business School, Thames Talbot Land Trust, and 3M are striving to heal the landscape. Overall, this story map visualizes both the human-nature and human-human relationships being facilitated by the bond. Learn the about …

Examining The Effectiveness Of “Turn Around Don’T Drown”, Chance D. Bryant

LSU Master's Theses

Extreme heat is the deadliest weather hazard in the U.S. Flooding is the second worst, and flash flooding is the deadliest form of flooding. The nature of these flood deaths contains a human element that deserves greater study. Since 2004, the National Weather Service has attempted to educate the public with its slogan, ``Turn Around Don’t Drown". Vehicle related mortality rates in Texas since 1996 were examined to answer the question of whether ``Turn Around Don’t Drown" has been effective. The slogan has a large footprint on the social media platform Twitter, with most of the Tweets coming from private …

Hispanic Demographics In Cobb County, Ga, Cole Thompson

Symposium of Student Scholars

This research was part of the Direct Applied Research (DAR) GIS: 4100 course. This research was in partnership with the Marietta Museum of History. The objective was to display Hispanic Demographics in Cobb County. Areas focused include education, population, and community. The analysis concluded similar trends in all three topics. Hispanic enrollment has gradually increased in Cobb County public high schools since 2011. High schools with the highest percentage of Hispanic enrollment were located close to interstates or in the southern region of Cobb. The population analysis concluded that zip codes 30008 and 30060 had the highest percentage of Hispanics …

Gis Map Report Of The Robert Porter Allen Natural Area At The Sylvan Dell Environmental Center, Matthew Semeraro

Student Project Reports

No abstract provided.

Geolocation Of Monitoring Wells Using Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Joel Deyoung

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Groundwater monitoring wells are commonly installed on a property as part of an environmental investigation to observe hydrological subsurface conditions, facilitate the collection of groundwater samples, and predict the flow of groundwater across a site. In addition to their installation, monitoring wells should be surveyed or mapped as accurately as possible. Traditional surveying techniques have employed the use of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) technologies or other surveying equipment. A common surveying approach is to use real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS to accurately measure the coordinates of each monitoring well on the site.In recent years, drones, or small unmanned aircraft systems …

Machine Learning & Big Data Analyses For Wildfire & Air Pollution Incorporating Gis & Google Earth Engine, Abdullah Al Saim

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The climatic condition, the vegetation type, and the landscape of the United States have made it susceptible to wildfires. This research is divided into two parts based on the analysis of two different aspects of wildfires of two distinct regions. The first part of the study investigates the wildfire susceptibility in Arkansas. Arkansas is a natural state, and it is heavily dependent on its forest and agricultural resources. During the last 30 years, more than 1,000 wildfires occurred in Arkansas and caused more than 10,000 acres of burned areas. Therefore, identifying wildfire-susceptible areas is crucial for ensuring sustainable forest and …

El Atlas De Las Carreteras Propuestas En La Zona Transfronteriza Ucayali, Perú-Acre, Brasil, David S. Salisbury, Stephanie A. Spera, Elspeth Collard*, Anna Frisbie*, M. R. Place*, Yunuen Reygadas Langarica, Elizabeth Zizzamia

Multimedia

El Atlas de las Carreteras Propuestas en la Zona Transfronteriza Ucayali, Perú-Acre, Brasil incluye una serie de 15 mapas de dos carreteras propuestas: 1) Pucallpa, Perú-Cruzeiro do Sul, Brasil; 2) Nuevo Italia-Puerto Breu, Perú. El objetivo del atlas es presentar los mapas, posters, e información geográfica para dar una perspectiva geográfica de las propuestas de carreteras y entender mejor los posibles impactos socio-ambientales en estas áreas fronterizas con altos índices en diversidad ambiental y cultural. Los mapas y posters son de acceso público.

Digital Earth: The Impact Of Geographic Technology Through The Ages, Mishka Vance Huq

Theses and Dissertations

Geographic technology encompasses a wide range of geographic knowledge, concepts, processes, and artifacts. Because of its interdisciplinarity and integration with other technologies, the paper examines the diffuse impacts of geographic technology within the evolving relationship between technological and societal developments over time.

The Role Of Elevation As A Control On Salt Marsh-Upland Ecotones Along The Mississippi Gulf Coast, Carlton P. Anderson

Dissertations

Salt marshes are critical ecological gems that serve as habitat for many specialized species of flora and fauna, while providing a natural buffer to human populations from tropical cyclone impacts. However, rises growth of coastal populations has led to greater strain on the natural services these ecosystems provide. To better understand and project the future of coastal evolution, the physical, mechanical, and biological feedbacks between the natural and human coupled systems need to be more defined and thoroughly understood. Human encroachment towards naturally retreating shorelines will lead to coastal communities being more susceptible to nuisance tidal flooding and minor tropical …

A Spatial Analysis Of Supply-Demand Of Public Transportation In Jefferson County, Kentucky., Nastaran Abdoli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public transportation is important as it serves individuals, especially the transit-dependent population, by providing a basic mobility service to these people and all others who rely on public transportation. This research utilized estimating public transportation demand and supply to analyze the spatial patterns of public transportation in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The study focuses on the transit-dependent population, and it considers indicators of age, poverty status, vehicle ownership, and foreign-born population with less than five years residency in the United States. This study conducted a public transit supply-demand analysis to identify areas with imbalanced supply and demand in Jefferson County at …

Evaluating Urban Parks Accessibility And Equity: A Case Study Of Hartford, Ct And New Haven, Ct, Natalie Roach, Mara Tu

Honors Scholar Theses

Public parks provide cities with environmental benefits, positive health effects, recreational opportunities, community building, educational spaces, and public amenities. However, certain populations have been systematically denied their fair share of these benefits because of unjust practices in the creation and maintenance of urban parks. With a lens of environmental justice, the goal of this research was to assess park quality and accessibility of two Connecticut cities, Hartford and New Haven, by gathering publicly available information as well as using GIS tools.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has an existing ParkScore rating system that evaluates the quality of a city’s …

331— Temporal Trends In The Receding Glaciers In Glacier National Park, Montana, 1904 To 2020, Emily Keenan

GREAT Day Posters

Glacier National Park, located in Montana along the Canadian border, was comprised of approximately 80 glaciers following the Little Ice Age. During this time, the glaciers hit their peak; however, over the years, many of these glaciers have decreased drastically in size. As of 2015, only 26 of these glaciers still remain and meet the requirement to be considered an active glacier (being larger than 0.1 km²). As a result of climate change, both natural and anthropogenic, the glaciers are shrinking and the number is decreasing more and more each year. The purpose of this research was to …

427— Understanding The Spatial Distribution Of Avalanche Fatalities In Utah, 2010-2020, Jackson Ferguson

GREAT Day Posters

This project continues the work of building knowledge about avalanches by creating a database that maps avalanche fatalities in Utah. The primary vector layer is a point layer that marks the precise location of avalanche fatalities, which has the potential to capture spatial trends in such occurrences.The mapping in this project confirms that there is a strong spatial pattern to avalanche fatalities in Utah, with a high density of accidents in the Salt Lake county. A likely explanation for why there are higher numbers of fatalities in this region is simply population density. A statistical analysis exposes the complexity of …

Análisis De Los Impactos Socio-Ambientales De Dos Rutas De La Carretera Propuesta Entre Pucallpa, Perú Y Cruzeiro Do Sul, Brasil., A. Frisbie *, E. Collard *, E. Zizzamia, D. S. Salisbury, V. Galati, S. Spera

Conference Presentations and Posters

À medida que a construção de estradas na Amazônia continua a ser proposta e promovida por governos do Brasil e do Peru, torna-se cada vez mais importante considerar os efeitos que essa infraestrutura pode ter nas diversas culturas e ecossistemas da Amazônia. Uma das propostas em discussão é uma rodovia de 200 km que ligaria as cidades de Pucallpa, no Peru, e Cruzeiro do Sul, no Brasil. Embora a estrada seja promovida como economicamente vantajosa, a rota passará perto, se não cruzar, territórios indígenas e áreas de conservação protegidas, notadamente o Parque Nacional Sierra del Divisor. A região de Sierra …

Sustainable And Ethical Development In Africa: A Perspective From Ghana, Frank Hanson

Arts & Sciences Student Symposium

This research period sought to try to understand the role of China, a growing superpower in the world, in global interactions. I investigated their increasing role in the world by tracking different investments they have made in Africa, and seeing if they correlated with changing voting patterns and narratives across the African continent.

A Better Breath, So Myung Kim, Kavon Valesquez Thompson

Arts & Sciences Student Symposium

Pollution and poor air quality can damage the health of people and their surrounding environments and are often tied to societal factors. This study collected spatial and temporal variability in air quality in the Greater Richmond Area to examine the connections between spatial patterns of pollution and demographic and economic variables. Air quality sensors were used to analyze the particulate matter as we examined the patterns in varying areas around the city and identified communities who were most vulnerable to these health concerns.

Análisis De Los Impactos Socio-Ambientales De Las Carretera Propuesta Trocha Uc-105 Entre Nuevo Italia Y Puerto Breu, Ucayali, Perú, M. R. Place *, E. Zizzamia, D. S. Salisbury, V. Galati, S. Spera

Conference Presentations and Posters

A construção de estradas é cada vez mais promovida nas fronteiras compartilhadas pelo Peru e pelo Brasil, apesar de uma compreensão incompleta dos impactos socioambientais da infraestrutura de transporte na região. As estradas amazônicas geralmente se expandem informalmente, sem processo oficial do governo, consulta prévia das populações indígenas e declarações de impacto ambiental. A expansão das estradas na Amazônia também freqüentemente segue um ciclo de feedback progressivo, com novas estradas não planejadas gerando caminhos ilegais de extração de madeira e expansão agrícola que, por sua vez, expande e formaliza os sistemas de estradas. Um sistema de estradas em expansão está …

Digitization Of Ecological History In The Driftless Area Of Minnesota, St. Mary's University Of Minnesota-Geospatial Services, Winona State University-Library Special Collections

Ecological History StoryMaps

The Winona County Historical Society (WCHS) and Winona State University (WSU) collaborated on applying for a Heritage Partnership grant to produce shared resources with the goal to educate the Winona community about the local ecological history of the area. The grant provided the opportunity to hire St. Mary's University of Minnesota - GeoSpatial Services to reconstruct a map fo the vegetative communities in the city of Winona based on a 1855 land survey and other available data. An 1862 transcription of the 1855 of the land survey was found in the WCHS Laird Norton Archive, which was the starting point …

Examining Patterns And Drivers Of Spatial And Temporal Variability In Playa Hydroperiod In The High Plains Region Of Western Kansas, Luis Lepe

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Playa wetlands are some of the most important natural features of the High Plains of the central United States. Playas provide a range of ecosystem services such as groundwater recharge, surface water storage, and wetland habitat. However, playa functions are declining due to land cover change, climate change, and playa and watershed modifications. There are only a few studies that have examined the variability and controls on playa water storage. This project aims to determine how playa and watershed morphology, watershed land cover, and precipitation patterns affect timing and duration of water storage in 92 playas distributed throughout a 10-county …