Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Scraping The Earth: Testing Ndvi As An Indicator Of Military Ground Maneuver Within The Israeli Invasion Of The Gaza Strip, Thomas A. Bergeron

LSU Master's Theses

The advancement of open-source (OSINT) and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) has allowed independent researchers to study human conflict in new ways, with tools that were previously reserved only for state intelligence agencies. In order to advance methodologies, researchers must continue to evaluate new tools to study war.  Valued for its accessibility and moderate spatial resolution, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is one such tool that has not been widely systematically tested for its use in an open-source GEOINT investigation of modern conflict. This study tests NDVI as an indicator of military maneuver by leveraging a mixed-method approach against open-source kinetic …

Impacts Of Extreme Weather Conditions On Coastal Fisheries Near Bayou Teche, Louisiana From 2019–2023, Georgia C. Davis

LSU Master's Theses

The region of Southcentral Louisiana, particularly around Bayou Teche, thrives on its commercial and recreational fisheries. These fisheries are occasionally subject to events like extreme weather that cause sudden and unexpected losses (NOAA Fisheries, 2024a). Between 2019 and 2023, a series of extreme weather events impacted southcentral Louisiana near Bayou Teche. This series of extreme events includes Hurricane Barry (2019), Hurricane Laura (2020), Hurricane Delta (2020), Hurricane Zeta (2020), Hurricane Ida (2021), and a United States Drought Monitor (USDM) D4 drought (2023). This study analyzes the impacts of the extreme weather series on coastal fish observed species richness (SR) in …

Effects Of Longitudinal Training Walls On Two-Dimensional Flow Structure, Sediment Transport, And Bed Aggredation Using Numerical Methods And Sediment Core Analyses In Grand River, Michigan, Sumaiya Tul Siddique

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Longitudinal training walls (LTWs) are structures oriented parallelly with the main flow and separate the channel into two sub-channels. One channel acts as the main navigational channel and the other is considered a secondary side channel. The long-term effects of the LTWs on morphodynamics and deposition remain poorly understood. This study investigated the long-term effects of the LTWs on flow, sediment transport and long-term deposition of the Grand River using numerical approaches and sediment core analysis. The effects of LTWs on 2D flow dynamics and sediment transport were investigated by using numerical approaches. The long-term deposition under the influence of …

A Stable Isotopic Profile Of Atmospheric River Precipitation Impacting Northern California, Erika Clarise Ornouski

LSU Master's Theses

Atmospheric river (AR) storms are an integral part of California’s hydrologic cycle, providing 30–50% of the state’s annual precipitation. However, “too much of a good thing” can swell

rivers beyond capacity leading to widespread flooding, erosion, and environmental damage. Northern California’s steep topography coupled with its seasonal Sierra Nevada snowpack puts this region at risk for floods and extreme weather hazards that can be triggered by strong ARs. Identifying AR contributions in the water cycle is crucial for informing water resource and emergency management decisions Stable isotope analysis provides a means to understand the movement of precipitation based on fractionation …

Rapid Intensification As A Crucial Hurricane Hazard: Educating And Empowering Young Stakeholders Affected By Hurricanes On The Gulf Coast, Kathleen M. Benedetto

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In recent decades, the scientific ability to project tropical cyclone (TC) intensities and tracks has improved. Hurricanes undergoing the process of rapid intensification (RI) have created new barriers in formulating predictions of TC paths and peak velocities. Current research suggests the warming climate may produce more intense TCs with a higher probability of undergoing RI during their life cycle. The increased likelihood of rapidly intensifying TCs necessitates the development of an RI climatology spanning the current North Atlantic record. A time series count analysis suggests a significant increasing trend of RI events in the Atlantic basin by 29.1% (17%–45%) from …

Mapping, Modeling, And Predicting Extreme Flood Events With Cloud Computing, Dan Tian

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Floods represent one of the most severe natural disasters worldwide. It is crucial to accurately assess flood hazards to mitigate the impact and enhance community resilience. This study focuses on three key components of flood hazard management, including (1) flood frequency estimation, (2) inundation delineation, and (3) flood susceptibility assessment. The first project presents a Bayesian Log-Pearson Type III model with Spatial Priors (BLP3-SP) that utilizes spatial regression priors to enhance the accuracy of flood frequency estimation for sites with limited data. The method is compared with two other algorithms with different priors. The results indicate that BLP3-SP performs the …

Winding Down River Road, Gillian Harper

LSU Master's Theses

As a mechanism to explore my temporary home in Louisiana, Winding Down River Road is a collection of artworks that integrates natural materials collected from landscapes in southern Louisiana with steel and petroleum-based products. My interest in researching environmental issues, ecology, and industry has shaped my vehicles for observation and how I generate data. Through a variety of methodologies, I am considering how climate change is forcing many of us to re-contextualize how our home can be affected by the very industries we rely on. Personal engagement with residents living in the dystopian atmosphere of southern Louisiana’s industrial corridor and …

Local And State Climate Initiatives In Louisiana Since 2005: Content And Thematic Analyses, Jessie F. Parrott

LSU Master's Theses

Louisiana is uniquely exposed to severe weather because of its geography and climate. Louisiana’s extreme weather is exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change, which will worsen in the future. The risks its population and environment are exposed to has generated several policies and planning documents, nine of which are analyzed in this thesis. Three plans are from the state level, three are from the parish level, and three are from the urban (New Orleans) level. These planning documents pose various adaptation and mitigation actions to ameliorate and address multiple climate issues. These actions utilize specific mitigation strategies. The content and thematic …

Shocking: Using Machine Learning Techniques To Nowcast Lightning Strikes From Station Level Data, Michael D. Broussard

LSU Master's Theses

Lightning strikes are incredibly common and potentially hazardous. Lightning can lead to loss of life, property damage, or can trigger other hazardous events like wildfires. They are also the result of incredibly complex physical processes in the atmosphere, making it challenging to predict strikes. However, given the extensive data and robust analytical techniques available, machine learning methods could be used to establish data relationships between lightning strikes and ground-level atmospheric measurements. Such a model could be used to provide any surface-based weather station with a method for predicting incoming strikes, making it easier to avoid the potentially hazardous effects of …

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 …

Sea-Level Rise And Settlement At Ta’Ab Nuk Na, Belize: Analyses Of Marine Sediment From The I-Line, 4m Transect, Conner B. Flynt

LSU Master's Theses

The ancient Maya of Mesoamerica created a culture with writing, religion, and vast trade networks. These trade networks are evident on the southern coast of Belize, where archaeologists have found sites dedicated to salt making. One of these sites, Ta’ab Nuk Na, was the subject of this thesis. Sediment and charcoal samples were collected from this site by the Underwater Maya Research Group led by Heather McKillop and E. Cory Sills. For my thesis research, I subjected these samples and components within them to loss-on ignition, radiometric dating, and microscopic analysis. Loss-on ignition was used to ascertain organic material percentage …

Typing Tornadoes By Storm Mode In The Southeast United States, Marisa R. Karpinski

LSU Master's Theses

Existing work has noted three major, radar-derived, storm modes associated with tornadoes: supercell, quasi-linear convective systems, and tropical systems. I examine the long-term frequency and seasonality of each storm mode between 1996 and 2017 in the Southeast United States. The Southeast is chosen as a focus for this work due to its well-known and unique combination of tornado vulnerability and exposure. Expanding our knowledge of the radar presentation of tornado-producing thunderstorms in this region could assist in the operational interpretation of these events. In this study, a climatology of F/EF1+ tornadoes (1996 - 2017) is generated for the study area …

Urban Crime Mapping And Analysis Using Gis, Alina Ristea, Michael Leitner

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Southwest Pacific Tropical Cyclone Frequency And Intensity Related To Observed And Modeled Geophysical And Aerosol Variables, Rupsa Bhowmick

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation focuses on western region of Southwest Pacific Ocean (SWPO)

basin (135E - 180, and 5S - 35S) tropical cyclone (TC) climatology using observed

and modeled data. The classification-based machine learning approach

identifies the synoptic geophysical and aerosol environment favorable or unfavorable

for TC intensification and intensity change prior to landfall incorporating

observational and satellite data. A multiple poisson regression model with varying

temporal monthly lags was used to build a relationship between the number of

monthly TC days with basin wide average dust aerosol optical depth (AOD), sea

surface temperature (SST), and upper ocean temperature (UOT). This idea …

Analyzing Climate Risk To Maritime Cypress Swamps And Pine Savannas Of The Gulf Of Mexico Coastal Plain, Clay Stephens Tucker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As sea levels rise, coastal trees are increasingly stressed by saltwater inundation, and stressed trees are ideal for studying changes in the environment through time. Dendrochronology has been used for more than a century to explain changes in past environments using tree rings. Using ring widths and stable isotopes from coastal trees, the effects of tropical cyclones and freshwater moisture availability are shown in regard to tree growth and ultimately are discussed in terms of change to the environment as a whole. Changes in tree growth as they relate to various climate parameters are measured using superposed epoch analysis, moving-window …

Automatic Features Extraction From Time Series Of Passive Microwave Images For Snowmelt Detection Using Deep-Learning – A Bidirectional Long-Short Term Memory Autoencoder (Bi-Lstm-Ae) Approach., Bienvenu Sedin Massamba

LSU Master's Theses

The Antarctic surface snowmelt is prone to the polar climate and is common in its coastal regions. With about 90 percent of the planet's glaciers, if all of the Antarctica glaciers melted, sea levels will rise about 58 meters around the planet. The development of an effective automated ice-sheet snowmelt monitoring system is therefore crucial.

Microwave remote sensing instruments, on the one hand, are very sensitive to snowmelt and can see day and night through clouds, allowing us to distinguish melting from dry snow and to better understand when, where, and for how long melting has taken place. On the …

Spatial And Topological Analysis Of Urban Land Cover Structure In New Orleans Using Multispectral Aerial Image And Lidar Data, Shuxian Liu

LSU Master's Theses

Urban land use and land cover (LULC) mapping has been one of the major applications in remote sensing of the urban environment. Land cover refers to the biophysical materials at the surface of the earth (i.e. grass, trees, soils, concrete, water), while land use indicates the socio-economic function of the land (i.e., residential, industrial, commercial land uses). This study addresses the technical issue of how to computationally infer urban land use types based on the urban land cover structures from remote sensing data. In this research, a multispectral aerial image and high-resolution LiDAR topographic data have been integrated to investigate …

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. …

Climatology, Variability, And Return Periods Of Tropical Cyclone Strikes In The Northeastern And Central Pacific Basins, Nicholas S. Grondin

LSU Master's Theses

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are among the most destructive meteorological phenomena and impact the lives of people who reside along the coast. The American Pacific Coastline borders the second most active TC development region in the world, the northeastern Pacific (NE Pac) basin. This region, along with the Central Pacific (C Pac)-bordering Hawaii is home to a growing population and cities engaged in a variety of economic activities, most prominently agriculture, fishing, and tourism. This study analyzes fifty-two (1966-2017) years of NE Pac and C Pac TCs through applying track data from the National Hurricane Center’s HURDAT2 and a TC size …

Vulnerability Of Industrial Facilities In The Lower Mississippi River Industrial Corridor To Relative Sea Level Rise And Tropical Cyclone Storm Surge, Joseph Blake Harris

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Relative sea level rise (RSLR) and tropical cyclone-induced storm surge are major threats to the Lower Mississippi River Industrial Corridor (LMRIC) which has approximately 120 industrial complexes located within the corridor. Spatial interpolation methods were applied to the 2004 National Oceanic and Atmospheric published Technical Report #50 subsidence dataset and cross-validation techniques were used to determine the accuracy of each method. Digital elevation models (DEMs) were created for the years 2025, 2050, and 2075, based on these predictive surface of subsidence rates. Future DEMs were utilized to model RSLR and determine the extent of storm surge on the LMRIC by …

Construction Of A Tropical Cyclone Size Dataset Using Retroactive Analysis Data With A Damage Application, Derek Trent Thompson

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis introduces a new tropical cyclone (TC) size dataset. Using the radius of the outermost closed isobar (ROCI) as the size metric of focus, a comprehensive record of TC size at landfall was constructed for tropical storms and hurricanes that made landfall in the United States along the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The ROCI information was derived from mean sea level pressure maps generated using the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis I dataset over a 69-year period (1948 – 2016). Construction of the dataset involved using two methodologies, one based on hourly interpolated HURDAT2 best tracks and the …

A Climatology Of Precipitation Days Throughout The Continguous United States, Rudy J. Bartels

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Over the last century, scientists have raised questions about climate change and one of the more important variables that may undergo change is precipitation. Precipitation can affect many sectors including agriculture, socio-economic activities and hazard management. This dissertation addresses the temporal aspect of precipitation using 167 first order stations in the contiguous United States from 1951-2015. The three objectives of this dissertation are to perform (1) an annual analysis of the frequency of rain days in the United States and changing magnitudes of daily rainfall, (2) seasonal rain day frequency in the United States, and (3) use an artificial neural …

Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction Using Coral Microatolls (Sp. Siderastrea Siderea) From The Gulf Of Gonâve, Haiti, Gilman Reno Ouellette Jr.

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Natural and anthropogenic climate changes present unique and serious risks to society. In order to plan and implement adaptation and mitigation strategies successfully, regional manifestations of broad-scale climate changes must be understood robustly. The Caribbean region contains part of the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP), a major sea surface temperature (SST) feature that plays a key role in North Atlantic climate. Climate variability in the Caribbean is captured poorly by climate models, due in part to a lack of continuous, multidecadal instrumental climate records from the region. I explored three research questions in this dissertation: Does non-systematic bias exist in …

Human-Environment Interactions: Sea-Level Rise And Marine Resource Use At Eleanor Betty, An Underwater Maya Salt Work, Belize, Valerie Renae Feathers

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Dissertation excavations were performed in the spring of 2013 at the underwater site of Eleanor Betty in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize. The marine environment preserved wooden architecture associated with the salt works. Excavation goals included: 1) excavating and defining the boundaries of the submerged shell midden; 2) collecting sediment samples for paleoenvironmental analyses; and 3) recovering cultural remains to determine the site’s purpose (residence versus production workshop).

Four transects were added to the existing transect from excavations performed during the 2011 field season. The shell midden measured 5 meters in length (north-to-south throughout all transects) by 0.5-to-1 meters in …

Weather Communication On Twitter: Identifying Popular Content And Optimal Warning Format Via Case Studies And A Survey Analysis, Joshua D. Eachus

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The use of Twitter as a channel for weather information inspires a deeper analysis of key information nodes during episodes of high impact weather, especially local meteorologists. To optimize communication on the channel, it is important to understand what kinds of messages produce exposure and attention among users—which translates to knowledge that could improve the reach of a warning. Literature identifies two key models that well describe the cognitive processing of tweets and warnings. The Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) describes risk perception and the factors that enable or disable one from acting on a warning. Particularly through environmental and …