Geographic Information Sciences Commons^™

Not Everyone Gets A Tree: Housing Values, Street Trees, And Equity In Portland, Matthew Moller

University Honors Theses

Street trees are positively associated with Portland home sale prices, but exposure and capitalization are uneven by race/ethnic neighborhood context. Urban trees are ecological assets, but their economic and equity implications remain uneven. This thesis examines street-tree exposure and 2023 residential sale prices in Portland, Oregon (n = 6,414) using a mixed-methodology hedonic design. Ordinary least squares models measure inventoried street-tree counts within 20m, 50m, and 100m buffers together with structural controls and census-block racial and ethnic context. Trees are positively and significantly associated with logged prices at all radii, with scale-sensitive magnitudes and modestly better fit as wider buffers. …

Mapping Fire Management: A Spatial Social Network Approach, Christoph Neger, Cody Evers, Kapil Yadav, Octavio Romero Cuapio

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Maps are an essential tool to inform fire governance and management. For instance, they can highlight which areas are most vulnerable to adverse fire impacts or be used to plan interventions for risk reduction and prevention. In recent years, several studies have mapped the fire management activities and the networks between the multitude of involved actors. They build upon previous advances to combine quantitative and qualitative social network analysis with geographical analysis and cartography, aiming to highlight areas of opportunity to enhance fire governance. This paper continues this line of research, examining cooperation in fire management within the south-eastern part …

Map Marker Accuracy: Evaluating Spatial Data Quality In A Simplified Mapping Survey, Christopher Sean Ghormley

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

Collecting spatial information using maps is a recurring need in research and policy (Evers, 2020; Gottwald et al., 2016; Hitchins, 2018; Tang & Liu, 2016). Survey participants frequently abandon map-based surveys at the first mapping task (Poplin, 2015). In his survey of wildfire risk management personnel, Evers (2020) applied a simplified web-mapping interface that uses circles as the sole input geometry for all spatial representations. The current project examines an updated version of this web map. An anonymous survey gathered data from participants who completed six mapping exercises within Portland, Oregon, and provided feedback on the survey experience. A working …

Wasted Space: Using Parking Lots & Vacant Land To Improve Neighborhood Completeness, Ryan Martyn

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

This study conducts a spatial analysis of Portland, Oregon, focusing on leveraging underutilized areas like parking lots and vacant land—termed "wasted space"—to improve the city's completeness. Central to this investigation is the concept of a "complete neighborhood," characterized by access to daily necessities within convenient active transportation trip. This comprehensive idea encompasses walkability, equitable access to services, and sustainability.

This paper aims to redefine the concept of a complete neighborhood with precision and delve into its implications. The research looks at five regional, town, and neighborhood centers as defined by the city of Portland. These centers act as pivotal hubs …

Microsoft Access To Sqlite Database Migration For Existing Forest Management Software: Methods And Considerations, Drue Kathryn Lindstrom

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

Bioregional Inventory Originated Simulation Under Management (BioSum) is software from the US Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. It is a complex analysis framework that models and evaluates forest management treatments across multi-decade timeframes. Originally written to work with Microsoft Access databases, BioSum is migrating to the use of SQLite as its database engine. The final module of BioSum, Treatment Optimizer, is the first one to be converted so the changes can be implemented incrementally. This practicum report outlines a workflow for converting the database engine of an existing program from Microsoft Access to SQLite with the example …

The Intersection Of Asset Management And Geographic Information Systems For University Facilities Maintenance, Andrew Westerlund Beland

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

This project describes a proof of concept for developing a digital asset management system dashboard for water backflow assemblies at Portland State University (PSU) using a modified ESRI ArcGIS Online backflow solution. Asset management is crucial for optimizing the lifecycle of tangible assets, which ensures cost-effective operational efficiency and regulatory compliance. PSU manages over 250 backflow assemblies spread across the 50-acre campus and has traditionally relied on manual processes, which can lead to inefficiencies and potential transcription errors.

The system links spatial data with asset attributes for backflow devices, enabling field staff to update inspection results directly from mobile devices. …

In The Hot Seat: Acquiring Kernel Density Heat Map Design Guidance Through Delphi And Survey Methods, Lauren Eileen Mckinney-Wise

Dissertations and Theses

Kernel density heat maps have emerged as a new, popular thematic map type. Yet, unlike other thematic map types, little if any published guidance exists for effective heat map design. This is significant because maps are highly persuasive objects that are often utilized to communicate important information, but maps can also be misleading and misunderstood. Therefore, proper guidance for heat map creation is critical for cartographers to create maps that convey geographic information successfully.

To address this literature gap, I used a modified Delphi method and an online survey to investigate several questions, including understanding what cartographic experts think are …

The Impact Of Climate Change On Selected Pnw Watersheds Through The Lens Of Western Red Cedar Habitat, Jordan T. Hamann

Dissertations and Theses

Climate change is a real phenomenon that is exacerbating existing natural processes and developing into a new normal for the planet. This change may be devastating for Pacific Northwest populations of Western Red Cedar (WRC) west of the Cascade Mountain range in the states of Oregon and Washington. WRC is a valuable tree species for reasons both economic and cultural. Dieback among WRC is following an accelerating trend. Since dieback is usually followed by tree mortality, understanding its causes and distribution is beneficial to the overall success of the species going into the future.

Through the use of ESRI's ArcGIS …

An Integrated Analysis Of Urban Sustainability In Portland: Issues, Indicators, Stakeholders, And Geospatial Assessment, Arun Kumar Pallathadka

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation presents three individual studies that collectively explore the concept of urban sustainability. The research is grounded in the recognition that many cities worldwide are striving to achieve sustainable development, yet existing sustainability frameworks often lack comprehensive definition and consideration. Moreover, the existing sustainability frameworks and methods are often not clearly structured to allow for their replication and adaptation to meet the unique needs of diverse local settings. To address this gap, the dissertation utilizes the Social-Ecological-Technological Framework, with particular emphasis on equity, to investigate key issues in urban sustainability, such as indicators, stakeholder engagement, tradeoffs, and assessment. The …

Risk Analysis For Asset Protection In Hoyt Arboretum, Portland, Or, Nathan Kossnar

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

In order to fulfill Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (TRAQ) certification obligations to the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA), this project delineated areas within Hoyt Arboretum where tree hazards have the potential to fall on important infrastructure and areas of frequent use. The project utilized Metro’s RLIS lidar data to generate a canopy height model which was then applied to a variable window filter (vwf) algorithm to determine individual tree heights and locations throughout the park. Previously defined protection areas were used to determine which surrounding trees have the potential to damage structures or injure park visitors in the chance of …

Community Gis Workshop Design & Delivery: Columbia County Geographic Workshop At Scappoose Public Library, Marty Marquis

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

Geographic information systems (GIS) provide tools for industry, government, and the public to describe, visualize and organize space both conceptually and materially. Because the technology is complicated and potentially expensive, it is often out of the reach of those communities that might most benefit from its use, even as it’s routinely wielded by business interests, bureaucrats, and representative bodies to identify and legitimize administrative boundaries, potential areas for growth and profit, spatially oriented legislation (restricted areas, zoning), and so forth. Communities whose members know how to use a GIS gain potential advantages in deploying narratives that contest official plans for …

Developing A Standard Operating Procedure For Irrigated Agricultural Field Delineation And Irrigation Identification Using Examples From The Oregon-Idaho Border And Central California, Scott Milleson

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

This practicum draws from experience working as an intern for The Freshwater Trust (an environmental nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon) from June to December of 2022. The work performed in this internship involved the delineation of agricultural fields using ArcGIS Online, an online collaborative mapping tool, as well as identifying and assigning irrigation type attributes on the Oregon-Idaho border along the Snake River, and the Deschutes Basin.

The purpose of this practicum project is to create a generalized guide for the delineation of agricultural fields and identification of irrigation type using a standard operating procedure for GIS interns, mapathon …

Comparison Of Gis Methods For Estimating The Social Vulnerability In Response To Natural Hazards In The West Part Of The City Of Tualatin, Alex Troy

Geography Masters Research Papers

The influence of natural hazards on social vulnerability is an important topic in the risk analysis of natural disasters in the human-environment system. Due to the difficulty of directly measuring social vulnerability, composite indexes are used as a surrogate. Social vulnerability indexes attempt to characterize access to societal and local social services during or after disastrous events, using various indicators such as age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, housing organization, access to shelters, and medical facilities. Geographic information systems (GIS) are used for vulnerability analysis due to their visualization methods and demographic data analysis. However, limitations in GIS applications for social …

Building Roseburg Public Library’S Community Demographics Dashboard, Spencer Keller

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

In a globally connected society becoming increasingly reliant on data, community GIS practitioners help bring spatial data to community organizations and other community partners in the form of data acquisition, collection, analytics, visualization, and presentation. Many Community GIS practitioners help their community partners better serve their community by harnessing the power of GIS, including community partners who advocate for and provide services to their community. Public libraries are one such service-providing entity that has been struggling in modern times, especially in rural areas. The Center for Geography Education in Oregon received grant funding in 2020 from the Institute of Museum …

Assessment Of Vertical Accuracy From Uav-Lidar And Structure From Motion Point Clouds In Floodplain Terrain Mapping, Andrew Muller

Dissertations and Theses

Remote sensing technologies are being applied to a variety of uses because of the increase in access to various products (digital sensors, UAVs, software) and its ability to model relatively large areas in a short amount of time. While these new technologies are beginning to be adopted, validation of their merit in floodplain terrain mapping is lacking. The main goal of this study is to evaluate the vertical accuracy of digital elevation models (DEMs) generated with UAV-based LiDAR and Structure from Motion (SfM), also known as photographic LiDAR or PhoDAR. Airborne (manned aircraft) LiDAR has been applied to river research …

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 …

Mapping The Publics: The Production Of Spatial Knowledge And Public Interest, Paul Thomas Manson

Dissertations and Theses

Over the past decades, calls for comprehensively managing and planning ocean resources have emerged internationally and within the United States. Central to these calls is a drive to expand coastal and marine spatial planning with a particular focus on technologically mediated public involvement. These new public involvement technologies aim, more quickly and thoroughly, to solicit and analyze public values and existing uses of the coastal and marine environments. One particular technological innovation is the use of participatory geographic information systems (PGIS). These new tools allow for stakeholders, members of the public, and planning entities to collect, visualize, and interact with …

Wayfinding Tools For People With Visual Impairments In Real-World Settings: A Literature Review Of Recent Studies, Amy T. Parker, Martin Swobodzinski, Julie D. Wright, Kyrsten Hansen, Becky Morton, Elizabeth Schaller

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

A review of 35 peer reviewed articles dated from 2016 to February, 2021 was conducted to identify and describe the types of wayfinding devices that people who are blind, visually impaired or deafblind use while navigating indoors and/or outdoors in dynamic travel contexts. Within this investigation, we discovered some characteristics of participants with visual impairments, routes traveled, and real-world environments that have been included in recent wayfinding research as well as information regarding the institutions, agencies, and funding sources that enable these investigations. Results showed that 33 out of the 35 studies which met inclusionary criteria integrated the use of …

Seamless Wayfinding By A Deafblind Adult On An Urban College Campus: A Case Study On Wayfinding Performance, Information Preferences, And Technology Requirements, Martin Swobodzinski, Amy T. Parker, Julie D. Wright, Kyrsten Hansen, Becky Morton

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article reports on an empirical evaluation of the experience, performance, and perception of a deafblind adult participant in an experimental case study on pedestrian travel in an urban environment. The case study assessed the degree of seamlessness of the wayfinding experience pertaining to routes that traverse both indoor and outdoor spaces under different modalities of technology-aided pedestrian travel. Specifically, an adult deafblind pedestrian traveler completed three indoor/outdoor routes on an urban college campus using three supplemental wayfinding support tools: a mobile application, written directions, and a tactile map. A convergent parallel mixed-methods approach was used to synthesize insights from …

Relationship Between Image Spectroscopy Spatial Resolution And Crown Level Tree Species Classification Accuracy, Andrew Richard Fritter

Dissertations and Theses

Hyperspectral imagery has become a common remote sensing data type used in tree species classifications because of its rich spectral signals that allow the detection of the variations in canopy reflectance. While high spatial resolution hyperspectral imagery provides fine spatial resolution for discerning surface objects, it has the inherent drawbacks of expensive acquisition costs, large data sizes, and can be computationally taxing to use. This study attempts to determine a relationship between crown level tree species classification accuracy and hyperspectral spatial resolution. Future tree species classification projects can make use of this relationship by targeting a spatial resolution that best …

Socio-Ecological Interactions In The National Forests And Grasslands Of Central Oregon: A Summary Of Human Ecology Mapping Results, David Banis, Rebecca Mclain, Alicia Milligan, Krystle N. Harrell, Lee Cerveny

Occasional Papers in Geography

Occasional Papers in Geography Publication No. 8

In 2015, Portland State University, the US Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station, Deschutes National Forest (DNF), Ochoco National Forest (ONF), US Forest Service Region 6, and Discover Your Forest embarked on a collaborative project to understand spatial patterns of public use on the national forests and grasslands of Central Oregon and the ecosystem benefits attached to those places. At the time the project began, the DNF and ONF anticipated that they would be revising their forest/grassland plans in the near future. This human ecology mapping project generated socio-spatial data layers describing the …

Homelessness In Portland, Oregon: An Analysis Of Homeless Campsite Spatial Patterns And Spatial Relationships, Krystle N. Harrell

Geography Masters Research Papers

Homelessness is a complex American social issue. Understanding the homeless population, including how many people experience homelessness, how they entered the experience, their demographics, how they survive, and where they survive, aids policymakers, planners, and advocates in developing the appropriate approaches and solutions to end and prevent homelessness. Analysis of homeless spatial patterns and distributions across different locales provides a more in-depth understandings of this population and how best to support them, from the local to national level. Using geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical methods, this study examines the spatial patterns of homeless campsites and their relationship with urban …

Assessing Ppgis Usability And Its Relationship To Spatial Data Production: A Case Study, Timothy Michael Hitchins

Dissertations and Theses

Modern Geoweb-enabled PPGIS methodologies incorporate interactive map applications as the main driver for public engagement and data collection. However, little research explores exactly how the public interact with these applications to produce spatial data, a fact that contributes to criticisms of final data quality. Usability evaluation offers a solution for developing better PPGIS data production systems by identifying problems in the application interface for which the public engage. Drawing on a case study example of a PPGIS application developed to collect socio-spatial data from members of a random public, this paper addresses usability in a three-stage approach. First, controlled experimentation …

Simultaneous Regional Detection Of Land-Use Changes And Elevated Ghg Levels: The Case Of Spring Precipitation In Tropical South America, Armineh Barkhordarian, Hans Von Storch, Ali Behrangi, Paul C. Loikith, Carlos R. Mechoso, Judah Detzer

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

A decline in dry season precipitation over tropical South America has a large impact on ecosystem health of the region. Results here indicate that the magnitude of negative trends in dry season precipitation in the past decades exceeds the estimated range of trends due to natural variability of the climate system defined in both the preindustrial climate and during the 850–1850 millennium. The observed drying is associated with an increase in vapor pressure deficit. The univariate detection analysis shows that greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing has a systematic influence in negative 30-year trends of precipitation ending in 1998 and later on. …

Regional Climate Model Evaluation System Powered By Apache Open Climate Workbench V1.3.0: An Enabling Tool For Facilitating Regional Climate Studies, Huikyo Lee, Alexander Goodman, Lewis Mcgibbney, Duane E. Waliser, Jinwon Kim, Paul C. Loikith, Peter B. Gibson, Elias C. Massoud

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Regional Climate Model Evaluation System (RCMES) is an enabling tool of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to support the United States National Climate Assessment. As a comprehensive system for evaluating climate models on regional and continental scales using observational datasets from a variety of sources, RCMES is designed to yield information on the performance of climate models and guide their improvement. Here, we present a user-oriented document describing the latest version of RCMES, its development process, and future plans for improvements. The main objective of RCMES is to facilitate the climate model evaluation process at regional scales. RCMES …

Gis Spatial Analysis Of Arctic Settlement Patterns: A Case Study In Northwest Alaska, Justin Andrew Junge

Dissertations and Theses

In northwest Alaska, archaeologists hypothesize that environmental variability was a major factor in both growing coastal population density, with large aggregated villages and large houses, between 1000 and 500 years ago (ya), and subsequent decreasing population density between 500 ya and the contact era. After 500 ya people are thought to have dispersed to smaller settlements with smaller house sizes in coastal areas, and perhaps, upriver. This settlement pattern was identified through research at four site locations over 30 years ago. The changing geographic distribution of sites, associated settlement size, and house size has not been examined in detail. A …

Mapping Meaningful Places On Washington’S Olympic Peninsula: Toward A Deeper Understanding Of Landscape Values, Lee Cerveny, Kelly Biedenweg, Rebecca J. Mclain

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Landscape values mapping has been widely employed as a form of public participation GIS (PPGIS) in natural resource planning and decision-making to capture the complex array of values, uses, and interactions between people and landscapes. A landscape values typology has been commonly employed in the mapping of social and environmental values in a variety of management settings and scales. We explore how people attribute meanings and assign values to special places on the Olympic Peninsula (Washington, USA) using both a landscape values typology and qualitative responses about residents’ placerelationships. Using geographically referenced social values data collected in community meetings (n …

Participation Is Not A Panacea, Britta Ricker

Resistance GIS

Britta Ricker is an Assistant Professor in the Urban Studies program at the University Washington Tacoma. Ricker teaches a wide variety of courses related to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Science and Urban Research Methods. Her research interests convergence around spatial information collection and dissemination opportunities afforded by mobile computers. She is interested in applying these tools for spatial learning related to emergency preparedness and environmental communication initiatives. Her professional experience includes acting as a Hazard Mapping Analyst for Dewberry and Davis, a consultant for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). She has also acted as a cartographic consultation for …

Gis As A Tool For Neighborhood, Adam Brunelle

Resistance GIS

Adam Brunelle is a community organizer and advocacy planner with experience incubating communityprojects and programs at the grassroots level, including his work on climate change as a co-founder of nonprofit 350PDX and more recently engage Portland’s Lents community on livability issues through local nonprofit Green Lents. Brunelle is committed to bottom-up change and community-led advocacy, focusing his work on improving livability, preserving affordability, and fostering community control in the Lents area. He received his Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University in 2016, and was awarded the Excellence in Sustainability: Inspiring Student Award in 2016 by the …

Ground-Truthing: Geographic Information Systems (Gis) As Community-Based And Anti-Racist Praxis, Verónica N. Vélez

Resistance GIS

Dr. Verónica Nelly Vélez is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Education and Social Justice Minor at Western Washington University (WWU). Before joining WWU, Verónica worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and the Director of Public Programming at the Center for Latino Policy Research at UC Berkeley. Her research interests include Critical Race Theory and Latina/o Critical Theory in Education, the politics of parent engagement in educational reform, particularly for Latina/o (im)migrant families, participatory action and community-based models of research, and the use of GIS technologies to further a critical race research agenda on the study of space …