Geography Commons^™

Fire Emissions In The Tropical Indonesia: Improved Estimation And Driving Forces Investigation, Xiaoman Lu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Indonesia has experienced frequent fires since the 1970s due to large-scale peatland conversion and extensive drainage for agricultural development. Fire emissions released from these fires have led to Indonesia being the world’s 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases in certain years. Given that fire emissions severely affect climate, weather, and the human environment, numerous approaches have been developed to estimate fire emissions. However, existing emission estimates differ largely by a factor of four in this tropical country because of frequent cloud interferences and low-temperature smoldering fires. Therefore, this dissertation aims to improve the quantification of Indonesian fire emissions through enhanced …

Hanford Nuclear Site Cultural Resource Gis Analysis: A Case Study Investigating Pre-Contact Travel Networks And Site And Artifact Locations, Luciana R. Chester

All Master's Theses

This thesis uses Global Information Systems (GIS) to investigate travel networks and site locations on the Hanford Nuclear Site. I construct a spatially referenced base map of historical travel routes, compare amounts of areas with and without archaeological survey, and analyze the location of archaeological sites. Government Land Office maps (GLO’s) mapped trails between1860’s and 1890’s. GIS analysis helps calculate relative frequencies and the densities of site and artifact types within 2 km buffers along the Columbia River corridor and trails. Collaboration between agencies and tribes facilitates consultation on all matters related to Hanford, and shared management of data covering …

A Stillness In The Desert? Engaging The Public Through An Immersive Exploration Of Southwest Soundscapes, Julian Kilker, Thomas Bjelic

Creative Collaborations

The pandemic highlighted the anthropocentric nature of soundscapes, while the recent popularity of electric cars, quadcopters, and “noise cancellation” earbuds demonstrated how consumer products can rapidly change our awareness of sound. While light pollution is already extensively addressed in scholarly research, popular works such as The End of Night, and public engagement such as The International Dark Sky Association, the complex interplay of sound, natural resources, and public engagement is still emerging, particularly in creative fields.

Two UNLV scholars and artists are collaborating on this project: Julian Kilker, who specializes in visual and emerging technology research, and Tom Bjelic, who …

The Pet’S ‘Perfect Bowl’: Environmental And Welfare Discourse In Alternative Pet Food Movements, Carly Baker

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Marketing ‘sustainable and humane’ super-premium dog kibble has emerged alongside alternative food movements (AFM). Unfortunately, super-premium pet-food comprised of ‘high-quality’ protein is at odds with sustainability and affect for particular animals. This study analyzed social and geographical (mis)representations of nonhumans in the pet-food commodity chain by tracing how knowledge and value is produced, and mapping the geography of Open Farm dog food. I assess these geographies and discourses and I identify the following: (1) sustainability claims focus on transportation and packaging, ignoring the significant environmental and social impacts of animal agriculture. (2) Images of farmed animals on packaging often do …

A Framework For And Design Of A Smart Academic Building Using Sensors, Citizen Participation, And Volunteered Geographic Information, Neelam Raigangar

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Population growth and migration patterns have shown an influx of residents from rural to urban environments. To deal with the problems caused by unprecedented urban influx, cities should plan to use technology in a smart and distinctive way. Tackling at the city scale is hard. But a set of smart buildings that are interconnected by technology will lead to smarter communities which are then interconnected to create a smart city. Smart lobby, building, community, or city is distinguished by its application of integrated software, hardware, and network technologies, along with access to real-time data enabling decision-making, facilitating tracing, tracking and …

Gis-Automated Delineation Of Hospital Service Areas In Florida: From Dartmouth Method To Network Community Detection Methods, Changzhen Wang, Fahui Wang

Faculty Publications

Since the Dartmouth Hospital Service Areas (HSAs) were proposed three decades ago, there has been a large body of work using the unit in examining the geographic variation in health care in the U.S. for evaluating health care system performance and informing health policy. However, many studies question the replicability and reliability of the Dartmouth HSAs in meeting the challenges of an ever-changing and a diverse set of health care services. This research develops a reproducible, automated, and efficient GIS tool to implement Dartmouth method for defining HSAs. Moreover, the research adapts two popular network community detection methods to account …

Forging Ahead And Adapting To Change: A Review Of The Initiatives Of The Isprs Student Consortium, Sheryl Rose C. Reyes, Charmaine A. Cruz

SOSE Affiliate: Manila Observatory

The International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Student Consortium (ISPRS SC) is an international organization that represents a constituency of the students and the young professionals with common interests and goals within ISPRS in the areas of photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information science. The ISPRS SC Board of Directors strengthened the organization’s foundations and increased its engagement in the Society from 2016 to 2022. Given the current global health crisis, selected members of the Board of Directors continued to serve in the ISPRS SC for a two-year extension and developed creative strategies in navigating the new normal. Building …

Examining The Spatial Relationship Between Maternal Morbidity, Access To Health Care, And Community Characteristics In West Virginia, Sarah E. Woolard

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Maternal-related morbidity rates in the United States have risen almost three fold since the early 1990’s. Issues related to rurality, socioeconomic disparities, and pre-existing health conditions increase the risk of poor pregnancy outcomes and introduce barriers to accessing advanced maternal health care. West Virginia (WV) has higher maternal morbidity rates than many other states in the United States (US), and is considered to be driven by all 55 counties being classified as Appalachian, possessing the highest prenatal smoking rate in the US, and having disparities in access to health care. Despite this, no previous studies have evaluated maternal morbidity in …

‘Big’ And ‘Little’ Quo Vadis? In The United States, 1913–1916: Using Gis To Map Rival Modes Of Feature Cinema During The Transitional Era, Jeffrey Klenotic

Faculty Publications

This article emanates from a geospatial database of over 600 premieres of the Cines company’s Quo Vadis? (1913), an eight-reel film distributed by George Kleine, and nearly 250 premieres of the Quo Vadis Film Company’s Quo Vadis? (1913), a three-reel film of ambiguous origins distributed by Paul De Outo. By mapping local premieres of both films across the United States from 1913 through 1916, the data show with spatiotemporal precision the spread of Quo Vadis? as one of cinema’s early blockbuster titles. Yet within this national phenomenon, the two films’ footprints reveal differing cultural geographies served by competing efforts to …

"Ethnic" Some Days, White The Rest: Whittier, Ca As A Case Study In Mexican-American Racialization And Assimilation In Los Angeles County, Maria Gutierrez-Vera

CMC Senior Theses

Per the U.S. Census Bureau, the Latino population in the United States stands at 60.5 million. This thesis tells the story of a few hundred-thousand Mexican-Americans in Southeast Los Angeles County’s suburbs, who live in a region nicknamed the “Mexican Beverly Hills.” This is a unique site of middle-class ethnic affluence, but also a place where questions of “Hispanic” racial identity, assimilation, and belonging are played out. The Mexican Beverly Hills promises residents the fulfillment of their own (Mexican-) American Dream, but also plays into tropes of model minorities, demands assimilation and ethnic betrayal from its residents, and is the …

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, January 2022, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Volume 3, Issue 1

Page 1 Dean's Message
Page 2 Awards & Recognition
Page 3 Outreach in Harrisburg, SD
Page 4 Geography Alumni Named Among 'Highly Cited Researchers', 53rd Annual Geography Convention
Page 5 Geography Convention Speakers, Brookings/SDSU Day
Page 6 Media Coverage of Natural Sciences
Page 7 Open PRAIRIE Data
Page 8 Fall 2021 Dean's List
Page 9 Fall 2021 Dean's List, cont.

A Micro-Typology Of Contact Effects In Four Tibeto-Burman Languages, Kristine Hildebrandt, Oliver Bond, Dubi Nanda Dhakal

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

When minority languages with similar typological profiles are in long-term contact with a genealogically unrelated socioeconomically dominant language, the perfect context is provided for investigating which observed contact effects are demonstrably allied to sociolinguistic dynamics rather than purely structural ones. This paper investigates the factors determining the different extent of contact effects in four Tibeto-Burman languages (Gurung, Gyalsumdo, Nar-Phu, and Manange) spoken in a geo-politically defined and multilingual region of Nepal. Using corpus data and sociolinguistic interviews collected in the field, we demonstrate that a range of social, economic and geo-spatial factors contribute to asymmetries where contact effects are observed …

Building Roseburg Public Library’S Community Demographics Dashboard, Spencer Keller

Masters in GIS Practicum Reports

In a globally connected society becoming increasingly reliant on data, community GIS practitioners help bring spatial data to community organizations and other community partners in the form of data acquisition, collection, analytics, visualization, and presentation. Many Community GIS practitioners help their community partners better serve their community by harnessing the power of GIS, including community partners who advocate for and provide services to their community. Public libraries are one such service-providing entity that has been struggling in modern times, especially in rural areas. The Center for Geography Education in Oregon received grant funding in 2020 from the Institute of Museum …

Shadow-Based Automatic Building Height Estimation From High Spatial Resolution Satellite Imagery, Lonnie Lee Byrnside Iii

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Three-dimensional city (3D) models are very useful in supporting natural disaster preparation and response. LiDAR surveying is currently the main method by which 3D city models are created; however, LiDAR data on a local scale is hard to obtain for developing countries. This project sought to test whether or not urban feature height data obtained using the photogrammetric sun-angle shadow method is a viable alternative to LiDAR-derived 3D city models. A core element of this work was the development of a toolset to be shared freely to the public to promote crowdsourcing of 3D building data. Prior works were reviewed …

Mapping Log Pd/Cu Ratios In Vulcan And Investigation Into The Origin Of The Magenta Zone In The Northmet Deposit: Hoyt Lakes Minnesota, Usa, Paige M. C. M. Bauer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research is to investigate the origin of the PGE-rich Magenta Zone, a geologic feature within the NorthMet Deposit; a Cu-Ni-PGE deposit within a layered intrusion at the base of the 1.1 Ga Duluth Complex. The hypothesis is that a late-stage silicate magma containing dispersed sulfide droplets had infiltrated a permeable crystal mush resulting in the emplacement of the Magenta Zone. While mineralization is typically found along the base of the Duluth Complex, the Magenta Zone lies ~200 m above typical mineralization. Previous research has shown that the Magenta Zone cross cuts the younger concordant units. To …

Abolition Unabridged: A Closer Look At The History Of British Abolition During The Long 18th Century, Ariana Podesta

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I.Synthesis Essay………………………………..3

II.Primary Documents and Headnotes……….. 21

III.Textbook Critique……………………………...34

IV.New Textbook Entry…………………………..38

V.Bibliography………………………………….....40

Three Method Tsunami Vulnerability Analysis Of The United States East Coast, Joshua Knolla

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

The East Coast of the United States could be susceptible to tsunamis or even mega tsunamis. With this in mind it becomes essential to answer the question: Where is vulnerability to a tsunami greatest along the East Coast of the United States? To answer this question the following parameters have been set. First, the study will include county level subdivisions along the USEC that have coasts along the Atlantic Ocean. The possible source regions of a tsunami or mega tsunami are also noted. This analysis includes both social and physical factors with nine and five of them considered respectively. Three …

Barriers To Accessing Emergency Water Infrastructure: Lessons From Flint, Michigan, Melissa Heil

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

Several high-profile cases of water service interruption have occurred in United States communities over the last decade, halting the usual operations of water infrastructures. In these situations, governments and NGOs have created emergency water infrastructures, such as bottled water distribution sites, to meet residents' water needs. This paper examines the accessibility of such emergency water distribution sites by analysing the case of Flint, Michigan. Drawing on interviews with community leaders in Flint who administered the city's bottled water distribution programmes, this paper identifies barriers to access in the city's emergency water infrastructure that stem from and deepen pre-existing socio-spatial inequality. …

Gender And Remittances: Lived Experiences Of Women In Oaxaca, Mexico, Araby Smyth

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation project analyzes the ways that migration and remittances, the money that migrants send to people in their place of origin, intersect with the political and social dynamics in an Indigenous community in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Drawing on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, which included semi-structured interviews and participant observation alongside historical archival investigation, this dissertation examines the following questions: What international organizations, national government, and private sector policies govern remittances? How does Indigenous collective work and communal governance shape remittance management? How do the responsibilities of family members shift with migration and how …

"It's Not Rainbows And Unicorns": Regulated Commodity And Waste Production In The Alberta Oilsands, Hugh Deaner

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines the regulated oilsands mining industry of Alberta, Canada, widely considered the world’s largest surface mining project. The industrial processes of oilsands mining produce well over one million barrels of petroleum commodities daily, plus even larger quantities of airborne and semisolid waste. The project argues for a critical account of production concretized in the co-constitutional relations of obdurate materiality and labor activity within a framework of regulated petro-capitalism. This pursuit requires multiple methods that combine archives, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews to understand workers’ shift-to-shift relations inside the “black box” of regulated oilsands mining production where materiality co-constitutes …