Geographic Information Sciences Commons^™

Improved Time Series Land Cover Classification By Missing-Observation-Adaptive Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction, David P. Roy, L. Yan

GSCE Faculty Publications

Dimensionality reduction (DR) is a widely used technique to address the curse of dimensionality when high-dimensional remotely sensed data, such as multi-temporal or hyperspectral imagery, are analyzed. Nonlinear DR algorithms, also referred to as manifold learning algorithms, have been successfully applied to hyperspectral data and provide improved performance compared with linear DR algorithms. However, DR algorithms cannot handle missing data that are common in multi-temporal imagery. In this paper, the Laplacian Eigenmaps (LE) nonlinear DR algorithm was refined for application to multi-temporal satellite data with large proportions of missing data. Refined LE algorithms were applied to 52-week Landsat time series …

Station Exposure And Resulting Bias In Temperature Observations: A Comparison Of He Kentucky Mesonet And Asos Data, James Kyle Thompson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Station siting, exposure, instrumentation, and time of observations influence longterm climatic records. This thesis compared and analyzed temperature data from four Kentucky Mesonet stations located in Fayette (LXGN), Franklin (LSML), Clark (WNCH), and Bullitt (CRMT) counties to two nearby Automated Surface Observation Systems (ASOS) stations in Kentucky. The ASOS stations are located at Louisville International Airport (Standiford Field - KSDF) and at Lexington Airport (Blue Grass Field - KLEX). The null hypothesis states that there is no significant difference in temperature measurements between the two types of stations. To quantify the differences in temperature measurements, geoprofiles and the following statistical …

Structure, Aboveground Biomass, And Soil Characterization Of Avicennia Marina In Eastern Mangrove Lagoon National Park, Abu Dhabi, Tareefa Alsumaiti

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mangrove forests are national treasures of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other arid countries with limited forested areas. Mangroves form a crucial part of the coastal ecosystem and provide numerous benefits to society, economy, and especially the environment. Mangrove trees, specifically Avicennia marina, are studied in their native habitat in order to characterize their population structure, aboveground biomass, and soil properties. This study focused on Eastern Mangrove Lagoon National Park in Abu Dhabi, which was the first mangrove protected area to be designated in UAE. In situ measurements were collected to estimate Avicennia marina status, mortality rate (%), …

An Lntegrated Approach (Remote Sensing, Gls, Engineering, Datamining) For Modeling, Assessing And Mitigating Slope Stability Hazards In Mountainous Environments, Racha El Kadiri

Dissertations

Mountainous areas are quite often subjected to hazards related to their steep relief and intense precipitation events. These hazards (e.g., debris flows, mudflows, rockfalls) pose serious threats to settlements and structures that support transportation, agriculture, tourism, and other economic activities.

This study applies and develops a wide range of methodologies and tools that take advantage of readily available remote-sensing datasets, geographic information system technologies, and artificial intelligence techniques. The developed approaches allow the characterization of both spatial and temporal conditions that controlled mass movement occurrences and use these characteristics to model and mitigate future occurrences. The Jazan area in the …

Vinoflot Rs Unification Of Unmanned Aerial Systems And Remote Sensing Practices To Better Analyze Grapevine Health, James M. White

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Success in agriculture is derived from nutrient-rich soil, well-tilled earth and hands-on attention. In order to meet the needs of increasing food demand, agricultural practices have endured a growing use of chemical and fertilization methods in order to produce higher yields. While the transition to an entirely chemical-free agricultural model is not achievable with regard to the quantity of crop yield, the integration of new technology and updated practices can lessen the amount of chemical and fertilizer adjuncts needed. The purpose of this plan is to offer a lightweight, customizable GIS solution to better understand crop health, in particular grapevines …

A New Forensics: Developing Standard Remote Sensing Methodologies To Detect And Document Mass Atrocities, Nathaniel A. Raymond, Brittany L. Card, Isaac L. Baker

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Aim: The aim of this article is to highlight potential methods applicable to a standard forensic approach for the analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery that may contain evidence of alleged mass atrocities.

Methods: The primary method employed is the retrospective analysis of a case study involving the use of high-resolution satellite imagery analysis to document alleged mass atrocities. The case study utilized herein is the Satellite Sentinel Project’s reporting on the May 2011 sacking of Abyei Town by Government of Sudan-aligned armed actors. In the brief case study, categories of objects, patterns of activities, and types of alleged mass atrocity …

Grid: A Methodology Integrating Witness Testimony And Satellite Imagery Analysis For Documenting Alleged Mass Atrocities, Brittany L. Card, Isaac L. Baker

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Aim: This article documents the development and initial use case of the GRID (Ground Reporting through Imagery Delivery) methodology by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). GRID was created to support corroboration of witness testimony of mass atrocity related-events using satellite imagery analysis. A repeating analytic limitation of employing imagery for this purpose is that differences in the geographic knowledge of a witness and an imagery analyst can limit or impede corroboration.

Methods: The primary method used in this article is a case study of HHI’s development and use of GRID. The GRID methodology was designed during HHI’s work with the …

Mapping Forest Canopy Structure With On-Demand Fusion Of Remotely Sensed Data, Gordon M. Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Current methods of mapping forest canopy structure often result in data products that are limited in resolution, coverage, or ease of access. On-demand processing introduces several new ways in which existing data products can be combined and re-purposed, mitigating some of these limitations. In this research, we investigate several methods of extending the spatial and temporal resolution, coverage, and accessibility of existing forest canopy datasets by processing them on demand. These methods include downscaling coarse-resolution canopy height data dynamically to estimate height at 30 m and 1 m resolution for any location within the contiguous United States. A related method …

Integrated (Remote Sensing, Gis, And Modeling) Hydrological Investigation And Landslide Susceptibility Studies In The Arabian Shield, Talal Ghazi Alharbi

Dissertations

An integrated approach (remote sensing, geographical information systems [GIS], and modeling) was applied to conduct a number of hydrologic and environmental investigations in the Arabian Peninsula (AP) aimed at: (1) identifying the spatial and temporal climate change–related variations in precipitation over the AP using readily available, remotely acquired global precipitation data sets; (2) investigating the nature of the factors controlling the observed climatic variations; (3) estimating the partitioning of precipitation over the Red Sea Hills watersheds into runoff , recharge, and initial losses using calibrated continuous rainfall runoff models (Soil Water Assessment Tool [SWAT]); (4) identifying landslide (largely caused by …

Mapping And Analyzing Historical Sanborn Maps Of San Luis Obispo From 1905 And 1950, Troy A. Lawson

Social Sciences

This project was conducted to map, analyze, and determine historical changes in the city of San Luis Obispo, California. Sanborn maps from 1905 and 1950 were drawn showing streets, parcels, creeks, and buildings of the city. These publications had limited use because they were in a physical format without any geographic reference. Here, these maps were digitized into a GIS format to analyze building trends and identify cultural and historical buildings not on the City’s list of Historic and Culturally Contributing Buildings, as well as published online on the City of San Luis Obispo’s website and on ArcGIS Online. Additionally, …

Landsat-8: Science And Product Vision For Terrestrial Global Change Research, David P. Roy, M. A. Wulder, T. R. Loveland, C. E. Woodcock, R. G. Allen, M. C. Anderson, D. Helder, J. R. Irons, D. M. Johnson, R. Kennedy, T. A. Scambos, C. B. Schaaf, J. R. Schott, Y. Sheng, E. F. Vermote, A. S. Belward, R. Bindchadler, W. B. Cohen, F. Gao, J. D. Hipple, P. Hostert, J. Huntington, C. O. Justice, A. Kilic, V Kovalskyy, Z. P. Lee, L. Lymburner, J. G. Masek, J. Mccorkel, Y. Shuai, R. Trezza, J. Vogelmann, R. H. Wynne, Z. Zhu

GSCE Faculty Publications

Landsat 8, a NASA and USGS collaboration, acquires global moderate-resolution measurements of the Earth's terrestrial and polar regions in the visible, near-infrared, short wave, and thermal infrared. Landsat 8 extends the remarkable 40 year Landsat record and has enhanced capabilities including new spectral bands in the blue and cirrus cloud-detection portion of the spectrum, twothermal bands, improved sensor signal-to-noise performance and associated improvements in radiometric resolution, and an improved duty cycle that allows collection of a significantly greater number of images per day. This paper introduces the current (2012–2017) Landsat Science Team's efforts to establish an initial understanding of Landsat …

Geographic Analysis Of West Nile Virus In The Upper Minnesota River Valley: A Gis And Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing Approach, Matthew Moore

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Throughout human evolution civilizations have been faced with implications from infectious diseases caused by various environmental factors. This connection was recognized as far back as the 5th century by Hippocrates and since several key advances have been realized and will be addressed in this an environmental and physical geography of disease. Arthropod or vector-borne viruses are among the most common pathogens introduced into the modern human population. West Nile Virus is considered endemic in most parts of the world and appeared in the United States in 1999 with 62 confirmed cases in an urban New York location. Since its first …

Evaluation And Application Of A New Shape-Sensitive Metric Useful For Characterizing Both Spectral Curves And Lidar Waveforms, Eric Ariel L. Salas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to investigate hyperspectral and waveform LiDAR datasets through a new analytical framework called Moment Distance method that uses a metric derived from the shape of the curve (spectral or waveform). In the case of hyperspectral data, the shape of the reflectance curve should unmask fine points of the spectra usually not considered by existing band-specific indices. To explore the advantages and shortcomings of this new approach, leaf and canopy hyperspectral reflectance samples were simulated using the physicallybased models PROSPECT (a leaf model) and SAIL (a canopy model). Sensitivity analysis was conducted with the goal of understanding the …

Convergence Of Dune Topography Among Multiple Barrier Island Morphologies, Jackie Ann Monge

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Wave-dominated and mixed tidal and wave energy barrier islands are assumed to have characteristic dune topographies that link to their macroscale form. However, there has been no systematic attempt to describe the linkage between barrier island macroscale form and dune topography. The goal of this thesis was to investigate how dune topographies correspond to a number of barrier island morphologies found along the southeastern U.S. Atlantic coast. Macroscale process-form variables were used to classify 77 islands into seven morphologic clusters. Islands from each cluster were selected and sites characteristic of the range of dune topographies within islands were characterized using …

The Cost Of Hauling Timber: A Comparison Of Raster- And Vector- Based Travel-Time Estimates In Gis, Sara M. Loreno

Geography Masters Research Papers

The cost of transporting forest products from harvest site to processing facility is a critical indicator of timber project feasibility. In order to accurately assess these timber haul costs, least-cost travel-time estimates among the site and the facility can be estimated using vector- or raster-based GIS methods. This study explores the applicability of both the raster- and vector-techniques within a variety of landscapes, including forested areas where comprehensive transportation data is limited. A comparison between the travel-time estimates derived from both methods was performed on three study sites using real-world data. The comparison also tested the effect of resolution on …

Beyond Roots Alone: Novel Methodologies For Analyzing Complex Soil And Minirhizotron Imagery Using Image Processing And Gis Tools, Justina A. Silva

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Quantifying belowground dynamics is critical to our understanding of plant and ecosystem function and belowground carbon cycling, yet currently available tools for complex belowground image analyses are insufficient. We introduce novel techniques combining digital image processing tools and geographic information systems (GIS) analysis to permit semi-automated analysis of complex root and soil dynamics. We illustrate methodologies with imagery from microcosms, minirhizotrons, and a rhizotron, in upland and peatland soils. We provide guidelines for correct image capture, a method that automatically stitches together numerous minirhizotron images into one seamless image, and image analysis using image segmentation and classification in SPRING or …

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 …

Using Remotely Sensed Data To Detect Tamarisk Along Colorado’S San Miguel River, William E. Johnson

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Tamarisk, an invasive tree native to Eurasia, has become widespread in river corridors across the southwestern United States. Accused of excessive water consumption and degradation of native habitats, it has been the target of extensive eradication and restoration efforts. Identifying its ever-changing distribution and extent benefits natural resource managers tasked with planning and prioritizing invasive plant management activities.

The use of GIS tools and remotely sensed data offers the potential to speed and improve our ability to locate tamarisk distributions. This project searches for tamarisk by classifying land cover vegetation (including tamarisk) based on spectral reflectance values from three-band natural …

Agricultural Production And Stability Of Settlement Systems In Upper Mesopotamia During The Early Bronze Age (Third Millennium Bce), Tuna Kalayci

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the relationship between rainfall variation and rain-fed agricultural production in Upper Mesopotamia with a specific focus on Early Bronze Age urban settlements. In return, the variation in production is used to explore stability of urban settlement systems. The organization of the flow of agricultural goods is the key to sustaining the total settlement system.

The vulnerability of a settlement system increases due to the increased demand for more output from agricultural lands. This demand is the key for the success of urbanization project. However, without estimating how many foodstuffs were available at the end of a production …

Classification Of Satellite Time Series-Derived Land Surface Phenology Focused On The Northern Fertile Crescent, Brian Embree Bunker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Land surface phenology describes events in a seasonal vegetation cycle and can be used in a variety of applications from predicting onset of future drought conditions, to revealing potential limits of historical dry farming, to guiding more accurate dating of archeological sites. Traditional methods of monitoring vegetation phenology use data collected in situ. However, vegetation health indices derived from satellite remote sensor data, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), have been used as proxy for vegetation phenology due to their repeated acquisition and broad area coverage. Land surface phenology is accessible in the NDVI satellite record when images …

Proximal Sensing As A Means Of Characterizing Phragmites Australis, Travis Yeik

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Phragmites australis is an invasive wetland weed found throughout much of the United States. Documenting and mapping the growth and spread of this emergent macrophyte can be an important step in developing and implementing successful management strategies. Characterizing the phenology of a vegetation species with a sensor capable of hyperspectral resolution, positioned at close proximity to the canopy of interest, is often a first step necessary for understanding the basic species-specific reflectance patterns, and for quantifying the manner in which light interacts with the plants comprising particular communities. Spectral data over a P. australis canopy were collected during 22 …

Tandem-X High Resolution Dems And Their Applications To Flow Modeling, Kelly M. Wooten

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Lava flow modeling can be a powerful tool in hazard assessments; however, the ability to produce accurate models is usually limited by a lack of high resolution, up-to-date Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). This is especially obvious in places such as Kilauea Volcano (Hawaii), where active lava flows frequently alter the terrain. In this study, we use a new technique to create high resolution DEMs on Kilauea using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the TanDEM-X (TDX) satellite. We convert raw TDX SAR data into a geocoded DEM using GAMMA software [Werner et al., 2000]. This process can be completed in …

Sagebrush Ecosystem Characterization, Monitoring, And Forecasting With Remote Sensing: Quantifying Future Climate And Wildlife Habitat Change, Collin G. Homer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems constitute the largest single North American shrub ecosystem and provide vital ecological, hydrological, biological, agricultural, and recreational ecosystem services. Disturbances continue to alter this ecosystem, with climate change possibly representing the greatest future disturbance risk. Improved ways to characterize and monitor gradual change in this ecosystem are vital to its future management. A new remote sensing sagebrush characterization approach was developed in Wyoming which integrates three scales of remote sensing to derive four primary continuous field components (bare ground, herbaceousness, litter, and shrub), and four secondary components (sagebrush, big sagebrush, Wyoming sagebrush, and shrub …

Using Gis And Remote Sensing Applications To Determine Recovery From Disaster: Seven Years Post-Katrina In Residential Communities Of Hancock County, Carlton P. Anderson

Honors Theses

Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast states of Louisiana and Mississippi on August 29th, 2005. The communities of Shoreline Park and Waveland in Hancock County, Mississippi were used in this study to analyze land use change post-Hurricane Katrina using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing. These two communities are experiencing slower recovery than their counterparts along the coast. By examining high-resolution aerial imagery from 2007 and 2012, there can be comparisons that show the timeline of recovery for these two communities post-Katrina. Shoreline Park has seen 30% of its total parcels change their structural footprints from 2007 – 2012 …

Using Landscape Pattern Metrics To Characterize Ecoregions, Martha Isabel Posada Posada

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Ecological regions, or ecoregions, are areas that exhibit “relative homogeneity in ecosystems”. The principal objective of this research was to determine if and how landscape structure (quantified by landscape pattern metrics) may be related to ecoregions defined using Omernik’s approach to ecoregionalization. Nine key landscape pattern metrics (number or LULC classes and the proportion of each class, number of patches, mean patch size and area-weighted fractal dimension, perimeter-area fractal dimension, contagion, mean Euclidean nearest neighbor distance and interspersion and juxtaposition index) where used to asses landscape structure in a sample of 26 Omernik Level III ecoregions located in the central …

Kites For Low Cost Near Earth Aerial Archaeological Photography, Robert Joseph Brandon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an overview of kite aerial photography (KAP) as a platform for archaeologists to acquire time sensitive unmanned near earth aerial photography for archaeological research. The methods and tools reviewed in this thesis are limited to those that make this technology accessible to the typical poorly funded archaeologists working in remote locations. The KAP methods detailed here have a low start up cost, are easy to transport, and a can be easily learned by archaeologists. The goal of this thesis is to promote KAP as a significant and regularly utilized tool for archaeological projects.

Sub-Pixel Classification Of Forest Cover Types In East Texas, Joey Westbrook, I-Kuai Hung, Daniel Unger, Yanli Zhang

Faculty Publications

Sub-pixel classification is the extraction of information about the proportion of individual materials of interest within a pixel. Landcover classification at the sub-pixel scale provides more discrimination than traditional per-pixel multispectral classifiers for pixels where the material of interest is mixed with other materials. It allows for the un-mixing of pixels to show the proportion of each material of interest. The materials of interest for this study are pine, hardwood, mixed forest and non-forest. The goal of this project was to perform a sub-pixel classification, which allows a pixel to have multiple labels, and compare the result to a traditional …

An Alternate Approach To Ecosystem Mapping: Fusing Orthophotography With Landsat Etm+ Data For A Object-Based Classification, South Eastern Arkansas., David Mcfee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Maintaining representative sampling of biologically rich and rare ecosystems has become an important means to preventing biodiversity loss. A limitation in indentifying and quantifying ecosystems is the cost of obtaining high resolution imagery necessary for a high resolution land cover assessment. This research shows how free, different resolution imagery (orthoimages and LANDSAT ETM+) could be combined to produce a hybrid dataset with enhanced spectral, spectral and temporal properties, and processed to obtain a object-based classification of land cover of bottomland and pine hardwood forest in south eastern Arkansas. Three classification techniques were evaluated: 1) a human derived, rule based method, …

Prospects For An International Charter "Space And Major Disaster" Remote Sensing Response To Drought Disasters - An Anhui, China Case Study, Joseph Burkhead

Masters Theses

Remote sensing is often leveraged during the response phase of disaster management to improve the situational awareness of decision-makers. The International Charter "Space and Major Disaster" (Charter) provides remote sensing support to non-spacefaring nations facing disasters such as earthquakes, floods and tsunamis. However, the Charter has never activated for a major drought disaster. Since droughts affect over half of the nearly 3 billion people that suffer from natural disasters annually, this study seeks to determine whether satellite remote sensing can be effectively employed according to the intent, capabilities, and limitations of the Charter to benefit officials responding to a major …

Identifying Well Pads In The Haynesville Shale Region, Louisiana And Texas, With Digital Imagery, Darinda Dans, Daniel Unger, Kenneth W. Farrish, I-Kuai Hung

Faculty Publications

The Haynesville Shale is an underlying rock formation in northwest Louisiana and northeast Texas that contains vast quantities of natural gas. With new technology has come the ability to extract more natural gas from one of the largest gas deposits in the United States. With increased production, increased change in the local ecosystem will occur. It is necessary to examine oil and gas exploration effects on the local ecosystem due to changes in land cover, such as habitat loss and increased soil erosion. Remotely sensed imagery were utilized to ascertain the use of various digital image processing techniques to determine …