Geography Commons^™

A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step: Towards A Confucian Geopolitics, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This commentary welcomes the opportunity of a dialogue on the development of a Confucian geopolitics that offers an alternative to the prevailing dominant geopolitical theories. Three areas are discussed to further development of such an alternative. The first is the challenges (and not only the opportunities) of recovering Confucian values to inform foreign policy and international relations. The second is the appropriation of Confucian philosophy to legitimize state action, and how this is actually playing out in present-day China. The third is the slippage between narrative and practice – that is, how a narrative of Confucian geopolitics is translated in …

The Role Of Elevation As A Control On Salt Marsh-Upland Ecotones Along The Mississippi Gulf Coast, Carlton P. Anderson

Dissertations

Salt marshes are critical ecological gems that serve as habitat for many specialized species of flora and fauna, while providing a natural buffer to human populations from tropical cyclone impacts. However, rises growth of coastal populations has led to greater strain on the natural services these ecosystems provide. To better understand and project the future of coastal evolution, the physical, mechanical, and biological feedbacks between the natural and human coupled systems need to be more defined and thoroughly understood. Human encroachment towards naturally retreating shorelines will lead to coastal communities being more susceptible to nuisance tidal flooding and minor tropical …

Strong Women Breaking Ground: Roles Of Women In Agriculture In Michigan, April L. Shirey

Masters Theses

Agriculture in Michigan is changing. While the number of farms and farmers continue to decrease, women are increasingly taking on the role of farmer instead of the “farmer’s wife”. The number of female producers increased from 8,275 to 26,059 where the number of producers in Michigan decreased from 56,014 to 47,641 from 2007 to 2017 (USDA, 2007, 2017). Women are becoming the face of farming in Michigan, yet little research examines the impacts of these shifts. In this research, I conduct semi-structured interviews with female farmers throughout lower Michigan beginning in the summer of 2020 to learn more about these …

Monitoring White-Tailed Deer Abundance And Habitat Selection In The Albany Pine Bush Preserve Using Unmanned Aerial Systems, Christopher Plummer

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have seen recent advancements in technology that gave rise to their increasing use in recreational and commercial application, including wildlife conservation. Adaptive management is a must for wildlife conservation, with the goal of learning from management decisions to improve future management strategies, especially in the face of growing human related stressors such as climate change and habitat loss. Monitoring is a critical step for adaptive management, as it allows the manger to learn about the ecology of the natural system and quantify the impacts of management strategies. Species and habitats are frequently monitored for wildlife conservation …

Depictions Of Greece's Mgration Crisis, Erin Connie Templeton

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACTOver the past decade, Greece’s position as a center for migration and immigration has been prominent in the spotlight of the international news media. The mainland of Greece and its islands have played an important role in human migration throughout much of human history, with ancient Greece being one of the world’s most well-known early human civilizations. Though in humanity’s ancient past, Greece served as an economic and cultural center, there is an obvious shift in Greece’s place on the international stage. There is a modern perception of Greece as an entry point, a pass-through, and as a sort of …

Tapestry And Tomb, Choreography And Clot : Metaphors For Mobilities And Moorings In Geographical Literature, Zachary Robert Cudney

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Metaphors, alongside maps, are important tools in geography. More than just a form of figurative language which helps represent space, metaphors play a fundamental role in shaping geographical theory and practice. They have been shown to influence conceptual systems at both an individual and a disciplinary level. Many geographical terms, like “foothill” and “congestion,” contain metaphors in disguise. However commonplace, metaphors are nonetheless steeped in the circumstances of their formation. To better examine the implications and opportunities of their usage, I focus specifically on metaphors used in geographical literature on mobilities and moorings—those points at which mobilities come to a …

What And Whose Confucianism? Sinophone Communities And Dialogical Geopolitics, Quan Gao, Justin K. H. Tse, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This commentary responds to An et al.’s (2020) article, ‘Towards a Confucian geopolitics’ by re-examining ‘the political’ of Confucianism and its contribution to fostering a cosmopolitan form of Confucian geopolitics. By taking note of the differences within and between Sinophone communities, we discuss the variegated forms of Confucianism, and their various geopolitical implications. In doing so, we call for re-theorising Confucian geopolitics as dialogical geopolitics that challenges the cultural and ideological basis of statist and Sino-centric geopolitics.

Defining A Region, The Great River Road, Evan Arthur Telle

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The Great River Road (GRR) is a set of scenic byways connecting the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota to its mouth in Louisiana. This route follows both the East and West banks of the river through the heartland of the United States. Since the 1970s, the GRR has been established as a tourism corridor for both domestic and foreign travelers. The GRR’s intended purpose is to enhance local economic development through showcasing the Mississippi-regional culture and its natural environment. Chapter One analyzes data based on industry, occupation, education, and demographics to attempts to identify the economic and social …

Geospatial Analysis Of Registered Sex Offenders: A Case Study From Pulaski County, Arkansas, Maggie Rose Bridges

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this case study was to analyze the spatial distribution patterns of the residences of registered sex offenders in Pulaski County, Arkansas to determine the impact of state enforced residence restrictions. Density and clustering factors were used to identify census tracts of the study area with high and low concentrations of offenders. These zones were then compared to identify which characteristics were similar and dissimilar between high and low concentration zones. The results indicate that there is a non-random distribution of registered sex offenders in the study area. The findings also indicate that the residence restrictions placed on …

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, May 2021, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Volume 2, Issue 5.

Page 1 Dean's Message
Page 2 - 3 Awards & Recognition
Page 4 Research Spotlight: Dr. Xiaoyang Zhang
Page 5 Upcoming Retirements
Page 6 - 7 Geography Alumni Social, Recent Media Coverage
Page 8 Open PRAIRIE Data
Page 9 - 11 Spring 2021 Dean's List and Academic Recognitions

Assessment Of Normalized Water-Leaving Radiance Derived From Goci Using Aeronet-Oc Data, Mingjun He, Shuangyan He, Xiaodong Zhang, Feng Zhou, Peiliang Li

Faculty Publications

The geostationary ocean color imager (GOCI), as the world’s first operational geostationary ocean color sensor, is aiming at monitoring short-term and small-scale changes of waters over the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Before assessing its capability of detecting subdiurnal changes of seawater properties, a fundamental understanding of the uncertainties of normalized water-leaving radiance (nLw) products introduced by atmospheric correction algorithms is necessarily required. This paper presents the uncertainties by accessing GOCI-derived nLw products generated by two commonly used operational atmospheric algorithms, the Korea Ocean Satellite Center (KOSC) standard atmospheric algorithm adopted in GOCI Data Processing System (GDPS) and the NASA standard atmospheric …

Mapping Nevada's Dental Workforce, Kelvin Chen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Access to care is a concern at the forefront of public health. Due to socioeconomic and geopolitical pressures, the distribution of healthcare providers across a population often does not coincide with the demand for healthcare in a specific geographic area. Rural areas typically do not have enough providers and urban areas typically have too many. This stark reality underscores an inherent inefficiency in the allocation of healthcare resources and is a discrepancy that must be addressed by state-sponsored institutions and programs. From a public health perspective, the problem of insufficient or lack of access to care is the greater of …

Kaleidoscope Of Urban Evapotranspiration: Exploring The Science And Modeling Approaches, Rubab Saher

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Urban evapotranspiration is a complex physical process. It depends on various critical drivers, including the land surface temperature (LST), surface albedo, landscape types, and building orientations. All of these factors create difficulties in the estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) by changing the microclimate conditions. The literature has oversimplified microclimate conditions by considering temperature difference as the only variable defining climate. The physical process depends on land-use changes, building proximities, and landscape types. This study devised three objectives to understand the microclimate effects on ET.

In the first objective, land-use change effects on LST, surface albedo, and ET were analyzed over a …

Estimation Of Spatial Change In Cropland Area And Evaluation Of Irrigation Performance In Imperial Valley Using Remotely Sensed Data, Usha Poudel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Imperial Valley (IV) in the US is an extensively irrigated agricultural region, which includes multiple crops changing on an annual and semiannual basis. The valley is facing grave concerns about water management due to its semi-arid environment, water intensive crops, and limited water supply. A simple, inexpensive, and repeatable method to detect changes in cropping patterns may assist irrigation managers to understand crop diversification and associated consumptive use. In addition, a spatial assessment of existing water irrigation system performance and productivity is crucial to benchmark and improve current water management strategies. This thesis estimates the spatial pattern of change …

Latinos In Brooklyn: Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations In Sunset Park/Windsor Terrace And Bushwick, 1990-2017, Sejung Sage Yim

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines the key demographic and socioeconomic trends in Brooklyn, New York between 1990 and 2017. The report focuses on the two community districts that have the first- and second- largest Latino populations in the borough: Bushwick (community district 4) and Sunset Park/Windsor Terrace (community district 7).

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, …

Evaluating Urban Parks Accessibility And Equity: A Case Study Of Hartford, Ct And New Haven, Ct, Natalie Roach, Mara Tu

Honors Scholar Theses

Public parks provide cities with environmental benefits, positive health effects, recreational opportunities, community building, educational spaces, and public amenities. However, certain populations have been systematically denied their fair share of these benefits because of unjust practices in the creation and maintenance of urban parks. With a lens of environmental justice, the goal of this research was to assess park quality and accessibility of two Connecticut cities, Hartford and New Haven, by gathering publicly available information as well as using GIS tools.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has an existing ParkScore rating system that evaluates the quality of a city’s …

A Spatial Analysis Of Supply-Demand Of Public Transportation In Jefferson County, Kentucky., Nastaran Abdoli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public transportation is important as it serves individuals, especially the transit-dependent population, by providing a basic mobility service to these people and all others who rely on public transportation. This research utilized estimating public transportation demand and supply to analyze the spatial patterns of public transportation in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The study focuses on the transit-dependent population, and it considers indicators of age, poverty status, vehicle ownership, and foreign-born population with less than five years residency in the United States. This study conducted a public transit supply-demand analysis to identify areas with imbalanced supply and demand in Jefferson County at …

How Does Land Cover Classification In Google Earth Engine Compare With Traditional Methods Of Land Cover Classification? What Are The Tradeoffs?, Carlos Sebastian Reyes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The project focuses on comparing land cover classification of traditional methods such as ArcGIS with newer ones such as Google Earth Engine (GEE) as well as discussing any potential tradeoffs. Two studies were performed in both platforms, the first involved analyzing land cover change in the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) region of southern New Mexico, far west Texas, and northern Chihuahua, Mexico. The MRG study focused on urban and agricultural change in the region using two different classification methods. The second study focused on creating a post-hurricane damage assessment (PDA) with the goal of developing an automated method of estimating …

No More Shade: Deforestation And Rural-Urban Migration In Nigeria, Kambre Sims

Master's Theses

Some of the most well-documented motivating factors of migration in Nigeria include education, employment opportunities, and cultural conflicts. However, as the deforestation crisis has not improved and Nigeria has maintained its spot as the country with the most deforestation on Earth, access to critical forest resources may be in danger. In light of this crisis, this paper attempts to determine if deforestation has become a new motivating factor for migration as those in rural communities seek other avenues of obtaining those vital resources. Subsequently, Nigeria is also experiencing a housing crisis within its rapidly growing urban centers; obtaining and keeping …

Spatiotemporal Distributions Of Sargassum On Grand Cayman, Graeme Timmeney

Masters Theses

This mixed methods research examines individual perceptions of Sargassum on Grand Cayman’s beaches in 2020 using participant mapping, and semi – structured interviews. Results from the participant mapping are compared to satellite detection of sargassum. Sargassum poses health risks to both humans and the natural environment. Decaying Sargassum produces sulfuric gas and prevents young turtle hatchlings from reaching the ocean. Since 2011, Sargassum has diffused beyond the Sargasso Sea into entirely novel locations, spanning from the west African Coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Increased biomass has proven to be overwhelming for many Caribbean Islands, including Grand Cayman where hundreds …