Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Assessing Mesoscale-Equivalent Temperature In Kentucky, Keri Younger

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this research is to investigate mesoscale-equivalent temperatures (TE) in Kentucky and potential land cover influences. Kentucky presents a unique opportunity to perform a study of this kind because of the observational infrastructure provided by the Kentucky Mesonet (www.kymesonet.org). This network maintains 65 research-grade, in-situ weather and climate observing stations across the Commonwealth. Equivalent temperatures were calculated utilizing high-quality observations from 33 of these stations. In addition, the Kentucky Mesonet offers higher spatial and temporal resolution than previous research on this topic. As expected, the differences (TE-T) were greatest in summer (smallest in winter), with an average of …

Environmental Impact Of Conference Realignment, Bradley Farley

Masters Theses

Sports have a large impact on the environment. While leagues and teams are looking at improving their sustainability at stadiums, they also have increased their travel distances. NCAA Division I athletic conferences have recently endured conference realignments. This expanding geographic footprint of these conferences has led to teams having an increased travel distances for all sports. This research investigates the environmental impact of travel distances that conference realignment has had in NCAA Division I athletics, particularly regarding the Power 5 conferences carbon footprint. The research question examined is, based on travel distances, has the carbon footprint of the conferences changed …

The Demand For Change: A Study Of Recreational Amenities For Ramona Park, Nicholas K. Mucha

Masters Theses

For years, Ramona Park has been a summer destination spot for residents of the City of Portage. With beach access as well as picnic areas and playground structures, Ramona Park has offered visitors a place to beat the summer heat. This thesis looks at what priorities visitors have for potential future developments in the park. Park visitors were surveyed during the summer months of May, June, July, and August of 2014 to see what should be included in future developments of the park, and the potential impacts of those improvements on future park usage. Initial findings indicated that visitors are …

Recent Shoreline Erosion Rates Along Black River Bay, Jamaica: Erosion And Recovery After Hurricane Ivan In 2004, Karen Louise Zelzer

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Rising sea level is threatening coastal areas, particularly those in the Caribbean which rely heavily on tourism and marine resources to support local economies. The purpose of this study is to analyze shoreline position along the south coast of Jamaica to determine the locations and rates of coastal change. IKONOS satellite imagery sets for 2003, 2007 and 2012 were used to monitor land use and shoreline changes along Black River Bay, including Galleon Beach Fish Sanctuary, in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. In particular, the effect of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 on shoreline changes was evaluated. Erosion rates were significantly higher during …

September 2013, Colorado Front Range Flooding, And Impacts On Agriculture And Irrigation Infrastructure: A Case Study In The Left Hand Ditch System, Boulder County, Colorado, Nick Ludolph

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Flooding can cause massive harm to the agricultural sector by flooding fields and damaging the infrastructure that is essential for agricultural activities. Crops are often lost and repairs may be necessary to restore irrigation systems to functional status. This research aims to quantify the damages and losses experienced from the unprecedented September 2013 flooding event in Boulder County Colorado’s Left Hand Ditch Company service area. Damages are cataloged and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies were used to estimate economic impact and determine the landscape characteristics of lands where the highest rates of flooding occurred. Alfalfa and non-alfalfa hays experienced the …

Mapping Ancient Baldcypress Forests For Conservation At Black River, North Carolina, Jordan Nichole Burns

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A few ancient baldcypress-bottomland hardwood forests survive across the southeastern United States in a mosaic of remnant old-growth stands left untouched by extensive logging during the early 20th century. Uncut stands in the Southeast that survived centuries of disturbance following European settlement tended to be too senescent and non-commercial to justify logging. Remnant ancient baldcypress forests at Black River, North Carolina, appear to contain the oldest living trees in eastern North America and The Nature Conservancy has protected several of these stands. However, the full extent of ancient bottomland forests along Black River is not known and many valuable tracts …

Comparative Geomatic Analysis Of Historic Development, Trends, And Functions Of Green Space In Kuwait City From 1982-2014, Yousif Abdullah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research assessed green space morphology in Kuwait City, explaining its evolution from 1982 to 2014, through the use of geo-informatics, including remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and cartography. This research examined archival and contemporary satellite images that show the distribution, size, amount, and type of green spaces in Kuwait City, within the framework of its surrounding urban, exurban, and suburban expansion, and landuse change. Through this integrated analysis, it was found that green space growth passed through three main stages: Early Stage, Growth Stage, and Stable Stage.

This study also examined the effective use of public parks and …

Sustainability Perceptions In The Brewing Industry: Regional/Regional Craft, Microbreweries And Brewpubs, William B. Pierson

Symposium of Student Scholars

The purpose of this study is to identify sustainability perceptions within the US brewing industry. In 2014, we disseminated an online survey to all regional/regional craft breweries, microbreweries and brewpubs as identified by the Brewer's Association, 2012 (http://www.brewersassociation.org/). We employed statistical analysis to determine if there was a significant difference among the three categories of breweries found in urban and urban clusters regarding their self-assessment of sustainability. Findings indicate that regional/regional craft breweries and microbreweries tend to score higher in their self-assessment when compared to brewpubs.

Environmental Change And The Emergence Of New Livestock Production Systems In Central Gansu Province, China, Gregory Veeck

Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award (FRACAA)

Post-2000 efforts to protect China’s grassland areas are distinct from earlier efforts in that funding for the most recent round of policies and programs is commensurate with the task. Among the most controversial of the current policies is the provision of an annual subsidy ranging from 2 yuan to 20 yuan/mu (1/15 hectare) to herders to not graze livestock contracted by their families for periods from 3-10 years. Many other recent policies, such as fencing programs and hunting and burning bans to protect keystone species are also controversial. Ideally, the policies are intended to protect grassland ecological systems while assuring …

Habitat Suitability Study Of Parcel In Gourdneck State Game Area For Downy Woodpeckers, Emma Fojtik

Honors Theses

This study examines the habitat suitability for Downy woodpecker for a parcel of land in Gourdneck State Game Area, Portage, Michigan. Land within the State Game Area has undergone habitat restoration from forest and shrub to savanna and prairie, intentionally excluding two parcels directly north of the restoration. This study took place on one of the excluded parcels. Using the Habitat Suitability Index Model produced by the Fish and Wildlife Service, basal area and number of snags within the study site were measured to determine suitability of the study site for Downy woodpeckers. Ten-1/10th acre sample plots were randomly chosen …

Habitat Fragmenta-On In The Sebago Lake Watershed, Jared Lank

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

The goal of this research was to evaluate the extent of land use change occurring in the Sebago lake watershed of southern Maine. The primary data set used was Landsat 7 Near Infrared satellite imagery of the region which was analyzed with ESRI’s ArcGIS soQware. Data was clipped to the Portland Water District’s sub watershed shape file and analyzed with the soQware’s image analysis ‘difference’ tool which calculates the differences in pixel values between to raster datasets. The 2013 Landsat reclassifica-on was compared to 1987, 1995 and 2009 reclassifica-ons. NOAA’s Habitat Priority Planner plugin tool was also u-lized in order …

A Contemporary Decennial Examination Of Changing Agricultural Field Sizes Using Landsat Time Series Data, Emma V. White, David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

Field size distributions and their changes have not been studied over large areas as field size change datasets are not available. This study quantifies agricultural field size changes in a consistent manner using Landsat satellite data that also provide geographic context for the observed decadal scale changes. Growing season cloud-free Landsat 30 m resolution images acquired from 9 to 25 years apart were used to extract field object classifications at seven sites located by examination of a global agricultural yield map, agricultural production statistics, literature review, and analysis of the imagery in the US Landsat archive. High spatial resolution data …

On Nine Mile, Allen Morris

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The photographs of On Nine Mile were made to explore my developing relationship with the place I now inhabit. They compare the reality of a place against preconception and actual experience versus idealized expectations. I made this work to help understand a landscape to which I was transplanted and to which I had no connection. This exhibition is comprised of photographs taken at a section of untilled prairie called Nine Mile that most closely resembled my visual preconception of the Great Plains. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest surrounded by the mountains, forests, and shoreline that typify the landscape …

Historical Common Names Of Great Plains Plants, With Scientific Names Index. Volume I: Common Names, Elaine Nowick

Zea E-Books Collection

Containing thousands of entries of both vernacular and scientific names of Great Plains plants, the literature that informs this exhaustive listing spans nearly 300 years. Author Elaine Nowick has drawn from sources as diverse as Linnaeus, Lewis and Clark, and local university extension publications to compile the gamut of practical, and often fanciful, common plant names used over the years. Each common name is accompanied by a definitive scientific name with references and authority information. Interspersed with scientifically-correct botanical line drawings, the entries are written in standard ICBN format, making this a useful volume for scholars as well as lay …

Historical Common Names Of Great Plains Plants, With Scientific Names Index. Volume Ii: Scientific Names Index, Elaine Nowick

Zea E-Books Collection

Containing thousands of entries of both vernacular and scientific names of Great Plains plants, the literature that informs this exhaustive listing spans nearly 300 years. Author Elaine Nowick has drawn from sources as diverse as Linnaeus, Lewis and Clark, and local university extension publications to compile the gamut of practical, and often fanciful, common plant names used over the years. Each common name is accompanied by a definitive scientific name with references and authority information. Interspersed with scientifically-correct botanical line drawings, the entries are written in standard ICBN format, making this a useful volume for scholars as well as lay …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring For Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, 2014 Annual Report, Michael Prowatzke, Stephen K. Wilson

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

This report presents the results of vegetation monitoring efforts in 2014 at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (AGFO) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN).

During the fourth full year of field work, crew members from NGPN visited six plant community monitoring plots to collect data on the vegetation at AGFO. This is part of a long-term monitoring effort that will sample six of 15 randomly located upland plots every year, so that each plot is visited for two consecutive years and then rested for three years, on a five-year rotating basis. NGPN staff captured data …

Using Historic Maps From The Congressional Serial Set And Nineteenth Century Collections Online, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Creative Materials

Historic maps can be used to document all kinds of history: political, military, economic, business, scientific, religious, cultural, genealogy, diplomatic etc. Databases such as ProQuest Congressional and Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) offer many ways to help users study the past through maps.

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring For Scotts Bluff National Monument, 2014 Annual Report, Michael Prowatzke, Stephen K. Wilson

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

This report presents the results of vegetation monitoring efforts in 2014 at Scotts Bluff National Monument (SCBL) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN).

During the fourth full year of field work, crew members from NGPN visited eight plant community monitoring plots to collect data on the vegetation at SCBL. This is part of a long-term monitoring effort that will sample eight of 20 randomly located upland plots every year, so that each plot is visited for two consecutive years and then rested for three years, on a five-year rotating basis. Additionally, NGPN staff also visited …

Towards A Collective Spatial Form:An Analysis Of Achill’S Deserted Village, Noel Brady

Conference papers

This paper examines an earlier study by Bob Kingston and along with onsite observations develops an environmental theory behind the particular siting and location of the deserted village in Achill, Ireland. The paper relies on the survey conducted by Kingston in the first instance but then by translating the material into a different format has concluded on statistically significant evidence of willful and careful planning and design in the construction of the houses.

Spatial And Seasonal Responses Of Precipitation In The Ganges And Brahmaputra River Basins To Enso And Indian Ocean Dipole Modes: Implications For Flooding And Drought, M. S. Pervez, G. M. Henebry

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

We evaluated the spatial and seasonal responses of precipitation in the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins as modulated by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) modes using Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) full data reanalysis of monthly global land-surface precipitation data from 1901 to 2010 with a spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5°. The GPCC monthly total precipitation climatology targeting the period 1951–2000 was used to compute gridded monthly anomalies for the entire time period. The gridded monthly anomalies were averaged for the years influenced by combinations of climate modes. Occurrences of El Niño alone significantly …

Community-Engaged Public Health Research To Inform Hospital Campus Planning In A Low Socioeconomic Status Urban Neighborhood, Jeri Brittin, Sheila Elijah-Barnwell, Yunwoo Nam, Ozgur Araz, Bethany Friedow, Andrew Jameton, Wayne Drummond, Terry T.-K. Huang

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Objective: To compare sociodemographic and motivational factors for healthcare use and identify desirable health-promoting resources among groups in a low socioeconomic status (SES) community in Chicago, IL. Background: Disparities in health services and outcomes are well established in low SES urban neighborhoods in the United States and many factors beyond service availability and quality impact community health. Yet there is no clear process for engaging communities in building resources to improve population-level health in such locales. Methods: A hospital building project led to a partnership of public health researchers, architects, and planners who conducted community-engaged research. We collected resident data …

Pedestrian Mobility In Denver: A Mixed Methods Approach, Meghan Elizabeth Mooney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is rooted in the bigger issues of climate change, urban sustainability, and the drive to make Denver more pedestrian centered despite sprawled conditions. More specifically, this research is driven by (1) the need for a holistic, multi-dimensional, and mixed geographic perspective of pedestrian mobility, (2) the lack of qualitative data regarding pedestrian mobility and (3) a need for a better understanding of the feedback between physical and perceived space and how this influences walking behavior. Given these motivations, I deploy a multidimensional framework for assessing pedestrian mobility in Denver’s Transit Oriented Development (TOD) sites, whereby there are two …

A One Year Landsat 8 Conterminous United States Study Of Cirrus And Non-Cirrus Clouds, Valeriy Kovalskyy, David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

The first year of available Landsat 8 data over the conterminous United States (CONUS), composed of 11,296 acquisitions sensed over more than 11 thousand million 30 m pixel locations, was analyzed comparing the spatial and temporal incidence of 30 m cloud and cirrus states available in the standard Landsat 8 Level 1 product suite. This comprehensive data analysis revealed that on average over a year of CONUS observations (i) 35.9% were detected with high confidence cloud, with spatio-temporal patterns similar to those observed by previous Landsat 5 and 7 cloud analyses; (ii) 28.2% were high confidence cirrus; (iii) 20.1% were …

Green Gold- A Cannabis Sativa L. Lucis Suitability Analysis For West Virginia, Delbert Christopher Cannoy

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Appalachia needs a way to sustainably develop. Cannabis Sativa L. may be a possible source of sustainable development for West Virginia. The goal of this study is the identification of possible sites for industrial hemp fiber cultivation areas, both the total agricultural potential and with current land use land cover classification limits, and which of these sites have the potential for acid mine drainage phytoremediation.

Using LUCIS classification and binary analysis, three major separate outputs were created answering the three study questions. The agricultural layer revealed that West Virginia can utilize hemp farming for 23.48% of the state. The second …

The Relationship Between Particle Travel Distance And Channel Morphology: Results Fromphysicalmodels Of Braided Rivers, Alan Kasprak, Joseph Wheaton, Peter Ashmore, James Hensleigh, Sarah Peirce

Geography & Environment Publications

Channel form and sediment transport are closely linked in alluvial rivers, and as such the development of a conceptual framework for the downstream controls on particle mobility and likely deposition sites has immense value in terms of the way we understand and predictively model rivers. Despite the development of conceptual models which frame flood-scale particle transport distance (termed path length) as a function of channel bar locations, an understanding of the controls on such path lengths in braided rivers remains especially elusive, in large part due to the difficulty in explicitly linking morphology and particle transport distances in the field. …

The Biogeography And Diversity Of Termites In Southern Africa, Brianna Lind

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Termites (Blattodea: Termitoidae) are socially complex insects that are morphologically diverse and live in colonies. They represent a highly specialized form of cockroach that organizes into castes (distinct social groups including workers, soldiers, queen, etc.) that have specific roles within the colony (Eggleton 2010). Globally more than 2,600 species of termites have been described in over 280 genera and, while termites can occur in most climatic zones warmer than tundra, their greatest abundance and ecological significance is in the tropics (Kambhampti and Eggleton 2000). Termites impact many processes, including nutrient cycling, water dynamics, and soil porosity; in African savannas it …

Snow Cover Variability In A Forest Ecotone Of The Oregon Cascades Via Modis Terra Products, Tihomir Sabinov Kostadinov, Todd R. Lookingbill

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

Snowcover pattern and persistence have important implications for planetary energy balance, climate sensitivity to forcings, and vegetation structure, function, and composition. Variability in snow cover within mountainous regions of the Pacific Northwest, USA is attributable to a combination of anthropogenic climate change and climate oscillations. However, snowcovered areas can be heterogeneous and patchy, requiring more detailed mapping of snow trends to understand their potential influences on montane forests. We used standard dailyMODIS snow products (MOD10A1.5) to investigate the 15-year record (2000–2014) of snow cover in the predominant forest ecotone of the Oregon Western Cascades. We modeled the ecotone using field …

Overcoming Uncertainty And Barriers To Adoption Of Blue-Green Infrastructure For Urban Flood Risk Management, Colin R. Thorne, E. C. Lawson, Connie P. Ozawa, Samantha Hamlin, Leonard A. Smith

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) and Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) are increasingly recognised as vital components of urban flood risk management. However, uncertainty regarding their hydrologic performance and lack of confidence concerning their public acceptability create concerns and challenges that limit their widespread adoption. This paper investigates barriers to implementation of BGI in Portland, Oregon, using the Relevant Dominant Uncertainty (RDU) approach. Two types of RDU are identified: scientific RDUs related to physical processes that affect infrastructure performance and service provision, and socio-political RDUs that reflect a lack of confidence in socio-political structures and public preferences for BGI. We find that socio-political …

Monitoring Soil Response To Decreasing Acidic Deposition In A Western Adirondack Tributary Over A 16 Year Period, Michael Robert Antidormi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

Changing States: Using State-And-Transition Models To Evaluate Channel Evolution Following Dam Removal Along The Clark Fork River, Montana, Christopher Van Dyke

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Located just east of Missoula, Montana, Milltown Dam stood from 1908 to 2008 immediately downstream of the Clark Fork River’s confluence with the Blackfoot River. After the discovery of arsenic-contaminated groundwater in the nearby community of Milltown, as well as extensive deposits of contaminated sediment in the dam’s upstream reservoir, in 1981, the area was designated a Superfund site – along with much of the Upper Clark Fork Watershed. This motivated the eventual decision to remove the dam, perform environmental remediation, and reconstruct approximately five kilometers of the Clark Fork River and its floodplain. This study is part conceptual and …