Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Consent Decrees, Fall/Winter 2017, Issue 35

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Human Ecology, Spring/Summer 2016, Issue 34

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Citizen Science, Fall/Winter 2016, Issue 33

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Urban Streams, Spring/Summer 2015, Issue 32

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Unconventional Energy, Fall/Winter 2015, Issue 31

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Carbon Neutral, Spring/Summer 2018, Issue 38

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Political Will, Fall/Winter 2018, Issue 37

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Our Envirome, Spring/Summer 2019, Issue 40

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Plastic Pollution, Fall/Winter 2019, Issue 39.3

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Plastic Pollution, Fall/Winter 2019, Issue 39.2

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Plastic Pollution, Fall/Winter 2019, Issue 39

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Landscape Position Information And Elevation Uncertainty For Barrier Island Habitat Mapping And Modeling, Nicholas Matthew Enwright

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Barrier islands provide important ecosystem services, including storm protection and erosion control to the mainland, habitat for fish and wildlife, and tourism. As a result, natural resource managers are concerned with monitoring changes to these islands and modeling future states of these environments. Landscape position, such as elevation and distance from shore, influences habitat coverage on barrier islands by regulating exposure to abiotic factors, including waves, tides, and salt spray. Geographers commonly use aerial topographic lidar data for extracting landscape position information. However, researchers rarely consider lidar elevation uncertainty when using automated processes for extracting elevation-dependent habitats from lidar data. …

Keeping Pace With Relative Sea Level Rise: Marsh Platform Monitoring Shows Minimal Sediment Deficit Along The Louisiana Coast, Kelly Marie Sanks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent reports estimate that the marshes of the Mississippi Delta receive just 30% of the sediment necessary to sustain current land area1. An extensive monitoring campaign by the USGS and LCPRA provides direct measurements of sediment accumulation, subsidence rates, and deposit characteristics along the coast over the past 10 years2, allowing us to directly evaluate this sediment balance. By interpolating bulk density, organic fraction, and vertical accretion rates from 273 sites, a direct measurement of organic and inorganic sediment accumulation can be made. Results show that a total of 82 MT/year of sediment is delivered to the coast. Using a …

Estimation Of The Relationship Between Satellite-Derived Vegetation Indices And Live Fuel Moisture Towards Wildfire Risk In Southern California, Kristen Whitney, Seung Hee Kim, Shenyue Jia, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Southern California possesses a Mediterranean climate having semi-arid to arid characteristics and contains shrubland areas at high risk to wildfire. To assess wildfire danger, fire agencies have been monitoring the moisture of vegetation, called live fuel moisture (LFM), using field-based sampling. Unfortunately, spatial and temporal resolution of live fuel moisture data are significantly limited because sampling is labor intensive. Remote sensing satellite data has been used to monitor vegetation moisture content and health of shrublands. Therefore, a potential approach to overcome the limitations of manual measurements of live fuel moisture is to use vegetation indices (VIs) derived from satellite data. …

An Assessment Of Atmospheric And Meteorological Factors Regulating Red Sea Phytoplankton Growth, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Mohamed A. Qurban, Emmanouil Proestakis, Michael J. Garay, Olga V. Kalishnikova, Vassilis Amiridis, Antonis Gkikas, Eleni Marinou, Thomas Piechota, K. P. Manikandan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

This study considers the various factors that regulate nutrients supply in the Red Sea. Multi-sensor observation and reanalysis datasets are used to examine the relationships among dust deposition, sea surface temperature (SST), and wind speed, as they may contribute to anomalous phytoplankton blooms, through time-series and correlation analyses. A positive correlation was found at 0–3 months lag between chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) anomalies and dust anomalies over the Red Sea regions. Dust deposition process was further examined with dust aerosols’ vertical distribution using satellite lidar data. Conversely, a negative correlation was found at 0–3 months lag between SST anomalies …

Geochemistry Of Archaeological And Marine Environments In Southwest Maine, Heather L. Bushie

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

Two archaeological excavations for the University of Southern Maine collected sediment columns from select units for geological and chemical analysis. The Spiller Farms site is a Native American site located in Wells, Maine marking a transition period between the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, 12,000 BP. The Malaga Island site was a historic mixed-race community at the north end of Casco Bay where sediment columns were obtained in near-shore and subtidal zones. The samples obtained from Malaga Island have been radiocarbon dated to 3800 +/- 30 BP at 23 meters below the low-tide line. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis is being conducted …

Geomorphic Consequences Of Hydroelectricity And Transportation Development Near Celilo Falls, Lower Mid-Columbia River, Washington, Noah I. Oliver

All Master's Theses

Along the Columbia River, hundreds of miles of transportation infrastructure and over sixty hydroelectric dams have been constructed. This altered a rich cultural landscape with evidence of 10,000 years of continuous occupation. Researchers have attempted to understand the impacts of anthropogenic factors on the Columbia River, focusing on the riverine environment. However, the effect of transportation and hydroelectricity developments to eolian landforms on the floodplains and adjoining slopes have not been studied. Focusing on 2,800 acres near Celilo Falls, this study 1) establishes a baseline condition of eolian landforms from 1805 to 1900; 2) conducts an air photo increment analysis …

Quantifying Resilience Of Multiple Ecosystem Services And Biodiversity In A Temperate Forest Landscape, Elena Cantarello, Adrian C. Newton, Phillip A. Martin, Paul M. Evans, Arjan Gosal, Melissa S. Lucash

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Resilience is increasingly being considered as a new paradigm of forest management among scientists, practitioners, and policymakers. However, metrics of resilience to environmental change are lacking. Faced with novel disturbances, forests may be able to sustain existing ecosystem services and biodiversity by exhibiting resilience, or alternatively these attributes may undergo either a linear or nonlinear decline. Here we provide a novel quantitative approach for assessing forest resilience that focuses on three components of resilience, namely resistance, recovery, and net change, using a spatially explicit model of forest dynamics. Under the pulse set scenarios, we explored the resilience of nine ecosystem …

Finding Water Scarcity Amid Abundance Using Human–Natural System Models, William K. Jaeger, Adell Amos, Daniel P. Bigelow, Heejun Chang, David R. Conklin, Roy Haggerty, Christian Langpap, Kathleen Moore, Philip Mote, Anne W. Nolin, Andrew J. Plantinga, Cynthia L. Schwartz, Desiree Tullos, David P. Turner

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water scarcity afflicts societies worldwide. Anticipating water shortages is vital because of water’s indispensable role in social-ecological systems. But the challenge is daunting due to heterogeneity, feedbacks, and water’s spatial-temporal sequencing throughout such systems. Regional system models with sufficient detail can help address this challenge. In our study, a detailed coupled human–natural system model of one such region identifies how climate change and socioeconomic growth will alter the availability and use of water in coming decades. Results demonstrate how water scarcity varies greatly across small distances and brief time periods, even in basins where water may be relatively abundant overall. …

Textural Analysis Of Historical Aerial Photography To Determine Change In Coastal Marsh Extent: Site Of The Present-Day Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (Gbnerr), Mississippi, 1955-2014, Heather Michelle Nicholson

Master's Theses

Coastal marshlands are among the world’s most highly productive ecosystems but they have diminished greatly in the past several decades owing to sea-level rise and direct anthropogenic influences. An effective means of quantifying loss or gain in marsh area is through the use of aerial image data, which offers synoptic views of the landscape at decadal-scale sampling frequencies. However, a potential problem with older panchromatic, or black-and-white, imagery is the absence of multispectral information that might be used otherwise in remote identification of vegetation types. Nevertheless, the analysis of horizontal variability in image brightness values, or image texture, can be …

Homestead National Monument Of America, Bat Acoustic Monitoring, September 2016, Daniel S. Licht

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

Homestead National Monument of America is a 211-acre park located in an agrarian landscape in southeastern Nebraska. From September 16 to October 1, 2016, park staff deployed acoustic monitors at three sites in the park for purposes of monitoring night-time bat activity. The three sites averaged 179, 48, and 33 bat detections per night. Night-time bat activity was generally highest in the 1-2 hours following sunset.

Based on the acoustic surveys the big brown (Eptesicus fuscus), eastern red (Lasiurus borealis), northern long-eared (Myotis septentrionalis) and evening bats (Nycticeius humeralis) were present at the …

Land Change History Of Oil Palm Plantations In Northern Bengkulu Province, Sumatra Island, Reconstructed From Landsat Satellite Archives, Atsushi Tomita

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this study is to reconstruct the history of land conversion to oil palm plantation in tropical Asia using multi-temporal satellite data. A new method was constructed with a newly developed computer model, Land Change Detection and Land Definition Model (LC/LD Model) to map out spatio-temporal distribution of land changes. A comprehensive, cloud-free Landsat dataset was created from all the available Landsat data from 1988 to 2015. The pixel-based dataset was converted into a polygon-based dataset by applying the multi-temporal image segmentation method. The representation of the spectral information was also reduced to a single index of IB45, …

Evaluating Hourly Rainfall Characteristics Over The U.S. Great Plains In Dynamically Downscaled Climate Model Simulations Using Nasa-Unified Wrf, Huikyo Lee, Duane E. Waliser, Robert Ferraro, Takamichi Iguchi, Christa D. Peters-Lidard, Baijun Tian, Paul C. Loikith, Daniel B. Wright

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Accurate simulation of extreme precipitation events remains a challenge in climate models. This study utilizes hourly precipitation data from ground stations and satellite instruments to evaluate rainfall characteristics simulated by the NASA-Unified Weather Research and Forecasting (NU-WRF) regional climate model at horizontal resolutions of 4, 12, and 24 km over the Great Plains of the United States. We also examined the sensitivity of the simulated precipitation to different spectral nudging approaches and the cumulus parameterizations. The rainfall characteristics in the observations and simulations were defined as an hourly diurnal cycle of precipitation and a joint probability distribution function (JPDF) between …

Land Cover Data For The Mississippi-Alabama Barrier Islands, 2010-2011 Arcgis V10.3 Geodatabase, Gregory A. Carter, Carlton P. Anderson, Kelly L. Lucas, Nathan L. Hopper

Land Cover Data for the Mississippi-Alabama Barrier Islands, 2010-2011

Land cover on the Mississippi-Alabama barrier islands was surveyed in 2010-2011 as part of continuing research on island geomorphic and vegetation dynamics following the 2005 impact of Hurricane Katrina. Results of the survey include sub-meter GPS location, a listing of dominant vegetation species and field photographs recorded at 375 sampling locations distributed among Cat, West Ship, East Ship, Horn, Sand, Petit Bois and West Dauphin Islands. The survey was conducted in a period of intensive remote sensing data acquisition over the northern Gulf of Mexico by federal, state and commercial organizations in response to the 2010 Macondo Well (Deepwater Horizon) …

Aquifer Vulnerability Modeling In New Jersey Through The Use Of Modified Drastic Methodology, Clement Uduk, Tanja Hopmans

Student Research Symposium

Due to the global average increase in temperature over the last 50 years, sea levels have been rising and making coastal aquifers more susceptible to saltwater intrusion. The average rate of sea level rise has increased from 2 mm/year to 3.5 mm/year during the twentieth century. The state of New Jersey is not only densely populated but the development along coastlines makes inundation a potential serious threat. New Jersey is diverse in aquifer types, in addition to the types of water bodies surrounding New Jersey, and makes for an interesting case study for groundwater vulnerability. The EPA has a universal …

Tracking Of Karst Contamination Using Alternative Monitoring Technologies: Hidden River Cave Kentucky, Caren Raedts, Christopher Smart

Sinkhole Conference 2015

Karst groundwater contamination presents great challenges for efficient monitoring because of rapid, discrete transport and the diversity of contaminants. Here a low cost approach is described and applied to Hidden River Cave, Kentucky, where a long history of contamination has been experienced. Local knowledge was acquired through informal interviews and coupled with observations of contaminant residues, faunal distributions and fluorescence spectra in the cave. The resulting patterns were interpreted using Google Earth and Street View to identify specific contaminant sources in the affected sub-catchment of the cave. Despite success in matching contaminant sources with the contamination history and pattern, the …

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 …

Spatial Analysis Of Post-Hurricane Katrina Thermal Pattern And Intensity In Greater New Orleans: Implications For Urban Heat Island Research, Aram P. Lief

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina’s diverse impacts on the Greater New Orleans area included damaged and destroyed trees, and other despoiled vegetation, which also increased the exposure of artificial and bare surfaces, known factors that contribute to the climatic phenomenon known as the urban heat island (UHI). This is an investigation of UHI in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which entails the analysis of pre and post-hurricane Katrina thermal imagery of the study area, including changes to surface heat patterns and vegetative cover. Imagery from Landsat TM was used to show changes to the pattern and intensity of the UHI effect, …

Getting Salmon Back In Salmon Creek: Systematizing Comparative Water Quality Analysis For Targeted Restoration, Zbigniew J. Grabowski, Sarah Janjua, Michael Swamer, Heejun Chang, Eric Watson

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

This presentation focuses on water quality restoration efforts in Salmon Creek

Arsenic Contamination In Groundwater In Vietnam: An Overview And Analysis Of The Historical, Cultural, Economic, And Political Parameters In The Success Of Various Mitigation Options, Thuy M. Ly

Pomona Senior Theses

Although arsenic is naturally present in the environment, 99% of human exposure to arsenic is through ingestion. Throughout history, arsenic is known as “the king of poisons”; it is mutagenic, carcinogenic, and teratogenic. Even in smaller concentrations, it accumulates in the body and takes decades before any physical symptoms of arsenic poisoning shows. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the safe concentration of arsenic in drinking water is 10 µg/L. However, this limit is often times ignored until it is decades too late and people begin showing symptoms of having been poisoned.

This is the current situation for Vietnam, …