Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Gis Aided Archaeological Research Of El Camino Real De Los Tejas With Focus On The Landscape And River Crossings Along El Camino Carretera., Jeffrey M. Williams

Faculty Publications

Many generations of indigenous pathways through the forests of eastern Texas have their origins obscured in antiquity. Utilized by early European explorers, these pathways became modified through heavy use and the expansions and improvements needed to accommodate easy passage of European horses and carts and finally the heavy wagons of Anglo-American settlers. The first road through Texas, El Camino Real de Los Tejas, utilized portions of these early trails.

El Camino Carretera (known as the cart road) is an early segment of El Camino Real de los Tejas that crossed the Sabine River at the boundary between Texas and Louisiana. …

The Scope And Nature Of Panhandling And The Related Crime In Denver, Colorado, Megan A. Gall

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Nationally, increases in the number of panhandlers and homeless people are associated with social and economic issues and are the subject of public policy debate, sociological inquiry and public interest (DHPG 2003). Panhandlers and homeless people are collectively called transients for this research. In the 1950s, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill caused the first major influx of homelessness. Discrepancies between affordable housing and wages grew through the 1960s and 1970s and the problem did not gain national attention until the 1980s (DCEH n.d.). The increased attention is primarily due to the continued scarcity of housing, increasing discrepancies between housing …

Session 7 - A Comparative Geographic Analysis Of The Impact Of Scale On Hazards And Vulnerability In Industrialized Continental Lands And Small Pacific Islands, William J. Smith Jr.

International Symposium on Technology and Society

Geography, specifically scale, has significant impacts in terms of hazards and vulnerability. Small islands, such as those found in the Pacific, experience the impacts of their relatively unique geography and scale in terms of hazards and vulnerability in at least five ways: 1) Perception and communication; 2) Impact and escape from impact; 3) Technology; 4) Recovery; and 5) Socio-environmental justice. Comparative analysis in these five areas between the Pacific’s small islands and industrialized continental regions illuminates differences regarding the way hazards and vulnerability should be conceptualized in the under-treated small islands of the world. Lessons from this analysis will aid …

Large Seasonal Swings In Leaf Area Of Amazon Rainforests, Ranga B. Myneni, Wenze Yang, Ramakrishna R. Nemani, Alfredo R. Huete, Robert E. Dickinson, Yuri Knyazikhin, Kamel Didan, Rong Fu, Robinson I. Negron Juarez, Sasan S. Saatchi, Hirofumi Hashimoto, Kazuhito Ichii, Nikolay V. Shabanov, Bin Tan, Piyachat Ratana, Jeffrey L. Privette, Jeffrey T. Morisette, Eric F. Vermote, David P. Roy, Robert E. Wolfe, Mark A. Friedl, Steven W. Running, Petr Votava, Nazmi El-Saleous, Sadashiva Devadiga, Yin Su, Vincent V. Salomonson

GSCE Faculty Publications

Despite early speculation to the contrary, all tropical forests studied to date display seasonal variations in the presence of new leaves, flowers, and fruits. Past studies were focused on the timing of phenological events and their cues but not on the accompanying changes in leaf area that regulate vegetation–atmosphere exchanges of energy, momentum, and mass. Here we report, from analysis of 5 years of recent satellite data, seasonal swings in green leaf area of ~25% in a majority of the Amazon rainforests. This seasonal cycle is timed to the seasonality of solar radiation in a manner that is suggestive of …

Hydrologic Impacts Of Climate Change In The Upper Clackamas River Basin, Oregon, Usa, David Graves, Heejun Chang

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Pacific Northwest of the USA is dependent on seasonal snowmelt for water resources that support its economy and aquatic ecosystems. Increased temperatures resulting from higher concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases may cause disruptions to these resources because of reductions in the annual snowpack and the earlier occurrence of seasonal snowmelt. We applied a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based distributed hydrologic model at a monthly scale to assess the effects of future climate change on runoff from the Upper Clackamas River Basin (UCB; located near Portland, Oregon, USA). Once validated using historic flow data, the model was run for 2 future …

A Historical Geography Of Lake Kampeska In The City Of Watertown, South Dakota, Joanita M. Kant

Geography Faculty Publications

Many alterations in the hydrology of Lake Kampeska began with the arrival of masses of Anglo settlers in the 1870s. Why the lake has been altered is a complex issue linked to various natural physical processes which would have occurred even without the introduction of those settlers into the ecosystem. Those processes include weather, climate, sedimentation rates, lakebank erosion, chemical and mineral transport from soils, and flooding, among others. Besides those natural physical processes, mankind’s cultural processes have been at work. Disturbances in the lake’s hydrology are linked to land use changes associated with cultural values, such as the introduction …

Estimation Of The Effects Of Vegetation On Local Climate Using Gis And Remote Sensing Data, Won Hoi Hwang

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

As one of the effective methods to control urban temperatures, the effects of trees and other vegetation have come into focus. Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing data, Digital Orthophoto Quarter-Quadrangle (DOQQ) and Landsat Thematic Mapper (Landsat TM), have been applied in this study to analyze the UHI. The effect of road-side trees on local micro-climate was examined with in-situ temperature measurement and simulated shade. Regression analyses revealed significant negative slopes for all time periods. This trend continued throughout the entire night until sunrise the next morning. The relationship between thermal patterns and vegetation distributions was investigated using the …

Notable Environmental Features In Some Historical Aerial Photographs From Ashley County, Arkansas, Don C. Bragg, Robert C. Weir Jr.

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

A collection of 1939 aerial photographs from Ashley County, Arkansas was analyzed for its environmental information. Taken by the US Department of Defense (USDOD), these images show a number of features now either obscured or completely eliminated over the passage of time. One notable feature is the widespread coverage of "sand blows" in the eastern quarter of the county, suggesting a major soil liquefaction field consistent with strong seismic activity (magnitude 6.0 on the Richter Scale). Also seen in these photographs are the vestiges of the large prairies once found on the Pleistocene terraces of southern and eastern Arkansas. The …

Biodiversity In Space And Time: Towards A Grid Mapping For Mongolia, Michael Stubbe, Annegret Stubbe, Henrik Von Wehrden, Nayamsuren Batsaikhan, Ravčigijn Samjaa

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

In the future, grid mapping of animal and plant organisms will also play a major role in Mongolia. Based on geographical coordinates, a grid with a resolution of 100 x 100 km was created, which contained 561 cells. Methods and level of current understanding are exemplified by means of two raptors and three mammal species. This establishes a basis for an initial project, which will summarize all breeding occurrences of raptors based on all records, publications, or diary notes. For the first time, the short toed eagle was verified in Mongolia as a breeding bird in 2004. By 2006, ten …

Conceptualizing Wilderness Through Gis, Sarah Stevens

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

The word “wilderness” in America is generally identified with pristine places where humans are not among the primary influences on the land and its ecology. The American wilderness ethic creates a strict dichotomy between humans and nature. The Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964 defines wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain” (wilderness.net). This statutory definition of wilderness is essentially the functional embodiment of the American wilderness ethic. Wilderness can also be interpreted in ways that incorporate humans as active players in …

Visual Signatures In The Irish Neolithic Landscape: A Wider Perspective On Irish Passage Tombs, Frank Prendergast

Conference Papers

Arising from archaeoastronomical surveys undertaken as part of continuing doctoral research on Irish passage tombs by the author, extended tomb intervisibility has emerged as a frequent and potentially significant cultural factor, warranting further investigation and analysis. This new data type is discussed in terms of its potential to contribute towards a broader understanding of the motivation and symbolism behind the siting of these Neolithic monuments.

Downscaling Daily Maximum And Minimum Air Temperature In The Midwestern Usa: A Hybrid Empirical Approach, Justin T. Schoof, S C. Pryor, S M. Robeson

Publications

A new hybrid empirical downscaling technique is presented and applied to assess 21st century projections of maximum and minimum daily surface air temperatures (Tmax, Tmin) over the Midwestern USA. Our approach uses multiple linear regression to downscale the seasonal variations of the mean and standard deviation of daily Tmax and Tmin and the lag-0 and lag-1 correlations between daily Tmax and Tmin based on GCM simulation of the large-scale climate. These downscaled parameters are then used as inputs to a stochastic weather generator to produce time series of the daily Tmax and Tmin at 26 surface stations, in three time …

Dynamically And Statistically Downscaled Seasonal Simulations Of Maximum Surface Air Temperature Over The Southeastern United States, Young-Kwon Lim, D W. Shin, Steven Cocke, T E. Larow, Justin T. Schoof, James J. O'Brien, Eric P. Chassignet

Publications

Coarsely resolved surface air temperature (2 m height) seasonal integrations from the Florida State University/Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies Global Spectral Model (FSU/COAPS GSM) (~1.8º lon.-lat. (T63)) for the period of 1994 to 2002 (March through September each year) are downscaled to a fine spatial scale of ~20 km. Dynamical and statistical downscaling methods are applied for the southeastern United States region, covering Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Dynamical downscaling is conducted by running the FSU/COAPS Nested Regional Spectral Model (NRSM), which is nested into the domain of the FSU/COAPS GSM. We additionally present a new statistical downscaling method. The rationale …

Spatial Relationships Of Carbon Dioxide Exchange In An Upland Forested Wetland Complex In The Western Boreal Plain, Alberta, Canada, Danielle M. Solondz

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study examined the midday (10:00 - 16:00) growing season (April - October) surface cover CO₂ relationships with different canopy closures and microtopography (lawn and depression) in a forested upland - peatland - pond complex in the Western Boreal Plain, north - central Alberta, Canada. A dynamic - closed chamber technique was used to: evaluate the relative contributions of heterotrophic and autotrophic respiration and photosynthesis and assess the relative roles of substrate, plant communities, hydrology, and microclimates on CO₂ exchange.

Large differences were observed among the forest floors of landscape units with different canopy covers with respect to …

Evapotranspirative Controls In A Low Arctic Tundra Environment, Daring Lake, Nwt, Canada, Shawn Lecompte

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Determining the extent to which changes in vegetation assemblages influence evapotranspiration in the Arctic could potentially contribute to a more realistic estimation of evaporation in a warming climate.

This project aims to determine whether variations in PET and AET rates measured at six tundra vegetation communities can be attributed to the differing vegetation. This will provide a more realistic estimate of change in the water and energy cycles, as well as evaporative processes for a warmer future, caused by enhanced global warming. Predictions of temperature and precipitation regarding future climate in Canada’s Western low Arctic vary greatly. The majority of …