Nature and Society Relations Commons^™

(Re)Localizing Finland’S Foodshed: Grassroots Movements In Food Distribution And Urban Agriculture, Sophia E. Albov

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Finland’s agricultural landscape and food production systems have deep societal roots and intimate connections to the Finnish cultural identity. The thesis explores this cultural heritage through an examination of grassroots food distribution networks rapidly diffusing across Finland and an examination of urban agricultural practices in the capital city of Helsinki. This thesis aims to address the following questions: (1) What is the role of grassroots food distribution networks in Finland, and to what extent are they creating alternative farmer-consumer linkages that support eating local? (2) How is urban agriculture structured and organized in Helsinki and within the broader context of …

Transformando La Educación Superior Para Una Amazonía Cambiante, David S. Salisbury, Elizabeth Anderson, Richard Bilsborrow, Connie Campbell, Javier Maldonado-Ocampo, Stephen Perz, Edgar Díaz-Zúñiga

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

El tesista tiene un desafío. ¿Cómo puede construir una metodología para que su trabajo de tesis ayude a una comunidad indígena a enfrentarse a una Amazonía cambiante? Afortunadamente, él es uno de los 21 estudiantes universitarios peruanos que participan en un proyecto que combina la ciencia de vanguardia y la formación tecnológica con la investigación participativa en comunidades indígenas biodiversas. Este Proyecto de Cooperación es un Consorcio entre la Universidad Nacional de Ucayali, Pucallpa, Perú, y la University of Richmond, EE.UU, apoyado por el Programa de Educación Superior para el Desarrollo (HED) del Consejo Americano de Educación (ACE). Esta asociación, …

Environmental Governance In The Carbon Economy: Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions In California's Cap-And-Trade Program, Patrick M. Bigger

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Since 2006 California has been pursuing the most ambitious climate change policy in the United States, implementing a suite of greenhouse gas reduction measures ranging from automobile refrigerant disposal rules to clean energy standards for electric power utilities. The most significant of these measures is the creation of a cap‐and‐trade program. Through this program, regulators seek to create a knowable price‐signal to incentivize emissions reductions among polluters. Using a suite of ethnographic methods, this dissertation looks at the people, ideas, and institutions that have been mobilized in the creation of California’s cap‐and‐ trade program.

Substantively, the dissertation engages with three …

Geography Standard Posters: The Use Of Geography, Center For Spatial Analysis And Research. Portland State University

Instructional Materials

The poster looks at applying geography to interpret the past and applying geography to interpret the present and plan for the future.

Geography Standard Posters: Human Systems, Center For Spatial Analysis And Research. Portland State University

Instructional Materials

The poster looks at characteristics of human populations, the complexity of earth's cultural mosaics, patterns of economic independence, patterns of human settlement, how do urban and rural areas differ, and the division and control of Earth's surface.

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 …

The Use Of Improved Technology And Market-Based Incentives To Increase Forest Resource And Biodiversity Conservation In Rwanda, Kelly M. Rayens

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

This study evaluated the effectiveness of two distinct approaches to ecosystem conservation in Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park: cookstove technology adoption and market-based policy instruments. A June 2014 survey of 250 households revealed that use of improved cookstove technology dramatically decreased fuelwood consumption for households in rural Rwanda, but that design, engineering and conflicting policy issues can hamper the widespread use of energy-efficient cooking technology. The second component of this research used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) within a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) framework to explore the options for designing and implementing market-based instruments around the country’s conservation targets, particularly the highly …

Grassroots Planning: An Actor-Network Study Of Surfing Waves In Missoula, Montana, Alexander S. Pichacz Jr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Brennan’s Wave, in downtown Missoula, has become an iconic feature of the town. Through the diligent work of a group of community advocates a dangerous and unsightly irrigation diversion structure was repurposed to include a recreation feature in the middle of the river that improved safety while simultaneously maintaining the integrity of the structure. The success of Brennan’s Wave has led to its replication through the planning of another memorial wave, the Max Wave, to be built downstream at the site of a similar irrigation structure. This study investigates how these structures are planned for and built by utilizing an …

The Economic Impacts Of Forest Pathogens In Washington State: A Hedonic Approach, Logan Blair

All Master's Theses

An increase in the incidence of forest pathogens in the Western US has created new resource management issues. In this research I employ a dataset of 170,141 housing transactions in twelve Western Washington counties to quantify the impacts of parasitic forest damage on the proxy real estate market. Specifically, I estimate a set of hedonic fixed effects models to control for omitted variable bias and spatial autocorrelation. Results show statistically significant impacts on property values in the presence of species specific and aggregate defoliation, suggesting new information for forestry management and policy.

Let's Learn: All About Maps - Teacher Guide, Center For Spatial Analysis And Research. Portland State University, Teresa L. Bulman, Morgan Josef, Gwyneth Genevieve Mckee Manser

Instructional Materials

Teacher activity book. Inside you will find fun activities to help you learn about maps and how they are used in everyday life.

The student guide can be found here: https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/27717

May You Walk In Beauty: The Decline Of Navajo Land And Culture, Jocelyn Catterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The Navajo homeland, Dinetah, is bordered by four mountains that are sacred to the Navajo people: two in Colorado, one in New Mexico, and one in Arizona. Historically, Navajo medicine men have traveled to these mountains to renew prayers and collect medicinal herbs. Today, the mountains, which exist outside of the reservation boundaries, are used for resource extraction and various recreational pursuits. While many Navajo are fighting for the protection of these sacred lands and their traditional culture, others are disinterested. Traditional practices and beliefs are slowly disappearing within the Navajo Nation. The land-use issues associated with these sacred mountains …

Examining The Effects Of Ecotourism In The Lashi Lake Wetlands, China, Caitlin K. Toner

Geography Honors Projects

The rapid development of ecotourism in Asia encourages new strategies to simultaneously attract tourists and preserve natural environments in formerly isolated and underdeveloped regions. Since the introduction of China’s policy of an open economy in 1978, China has recognized the opportunity to promote tourism in order to foster economic development. Compared to China’s coastal cities, the inland provinces contain few industrial cities and transportation infrastructure. For economic development, inland provinces have taken advantage of their natural areas and ethnic minorities as a commodity to attract foreign and domestic tourists in their region. While the literature addressing ecotourism often focuses on …

‘Water Is Life’: Exploring The Relationship Between Place Identity, Water And Adaptive Capacity In Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories, Canada, Jennifer A. Fresque-Baxter

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Water is recognised as a fundamental human right in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT). However, the current and potential effects of climate change coupled with resource development pressures are leading to concerns about maintaining the health and viability of freshwater in the NWT. These intersecting multiple exposures can have far-reaching impacts for NWT residents who rely on water for cultural, spiritual, economic and social purposes. Ongoing changes (e.g., to water quantity, water quality, weather, precipitation and ice dynamics, for example) will increasingly require NWT residents to adapt, seek ways to plan for the future, identify opportunities, and moderate the effects of …

Intra- And Inter-Seasonal Variability Of Supra-Glacial 1 Streams And Lakes Over The West Greenland Ice Sheet 2 From High-Resolution Satellite Optical Data, Michael Gregory Brown

Dissertations and Theses

The Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is one of the largest glacial ice masses on Earth, second only to the Antarctic ice sheet. The surface hydrology of the GrIS plays a crucial role on the surface energy and mass balance budgets of the ice sheet as a whole. Surface water, known as supra-glacial water, is seasonally found in the ablation zone and feeds the en-glacial and sub-glacial hydrological environments of the ice sheet. The spatial distribution of surface streams is poorly understood and their temporal variability is (to our knowledge) unknown. One of the reasons for the lack of knowledge on …

The Hazardous Effects Of Ship Scrapping And Recycling On Workers' Rights And The Environment, Maytee Gomez Salgueiro

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The San Antonio Wash: Addressing The Gap Between Claremont And Upland, Benjamin C. Hackenberger

Pomona Senior Theses

Access to water from San Antonio Creek was critical in Claremont’s growth from a small stop on the Santa Fe Railroad to an agricultural powerhouse and an elite college town. While Claremont has sought to distinguish itself from surrounding communities since its founding in 1882, the innovative Pomona Valley Protective Association (PVPA) aligned Claremont with the City of Pomona and its other neighbors in a scheme to conserve the Creek’s resources at the turn of the century. Organized around the discovery of local confined aquifers and the development of a strategy to recharge them with water from the San Antonio …

Geography Standard Posters: The World In Spatial Terms, Center For Spatial Analysis And Research. Portland State University

Instructional Materials

The poster looks at how to use maps, using mental maps, and how to analyze spatial organization.

Pushing The Limits: International Land Acquisitions In Comparative Perspective, Ariane Goetz

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The role of investor countries in large-scale land acquisitions is poorly understood in the contemporary “land grab” literature. Orthodox explanations largely build on deductive analyses that deviate from the emerging empirical evidence, and/or face analytical difficulties when trying to capture why large-scale land acquisitions happen. This thesis investigates the global phenomenon of “land grabbing” from the comparative perspective of two major investor countries: the UK and China. The regional focus is on Sub-Saharan Africa, a major target of land-consuming investments since 2000.

The dissertation advances three arguments: Firstly, the specific details of the home country’s industrial set-up, development challenges, ideological …

A Research Framework For The Geographic Study Of Exotic Pet Mammals In The Usa, Gabrielle C. Tegeder

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Exotic animals are not well-represented in geographic studies, even in the emerging sub-field of animal geography. With the dearth of exotic animal studies, and the relevance of exotic pets in the public consciousness and in the news, a basic, introductory study such as this is necessary to begin examining the myriad ways in which exotic pets intersect with, and have influence in, both the site and situation of modern human-oriented environments.

Exotic pet attack incidents and both state and federal laws regarding the private ownership of exotic mammals as pets were examined in detail within the scope of this research. …

Remaking Nature In Montana: Topophilic Considerations Of Wolves And Wolf Trapping, Andrew Myers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 2011, after nearly forty years of federal protection, the gray wolf was removed from the Endangered Species List in Montana and its management entrusted to the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. The implementation of public trapping seasons in 2012 as a method to control wolf populations has further inflamed an already embroiled debate. The purpose of this research was to investigate how the presence of wolves and wolf trapping impacts human attachments to landscapes of “nature” in Montana by focusing on the following questions: What are the public’s social constructions of wolves? What are the public’s social constructions of …