Geography Commons^™

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, September 2020, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Issue 1. Volume 8

Contents:

Dean’s Update P.1
Awards & Recognition P.2
Interest in Science | Competitions P.3
Open PRAIRIE | ODFS Recap P.4
ODFS Recap | Research Spotlight P.5
Spring 2020 Dean’s List P.6-7

Application Of The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale To Assess Sand Dune Response To Tropical Storms, Jean Taylor Ellis, Michelle E. Harris, Mayra A. Román-Rivera, J. Brianna Ferguson, Peter A. Tereszkiewicz, Sean P. Mcgill

Faculty Publications

Over one-third of the Earth’s population resides or works within 200 km of the coast. The increasing threat of coastal hazards with predicted climate change will impact many global citizens. Coastal dune systems serve as a natural first line of defense against rising sea levels and coastal storms. This study investigated the volumetric changes of two dune systems on Isle of Palms, South Carolina, USA prior to and following Hurricanes Irma (2017) and Florence (2018), which impacted the island as tropical storms with different characteristics. Irma had relatively high significant wave heights and precipitation, resulting in an average 39% volumetric …

The Emergence Of Ecosystems-Based Fisheries Management From The Groundfish Crisis In New England: An Actor-Network Theory Analysis, Catherine King

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research investigates the emergence of ecosystems-based fisheries management (EBFM) for New England's marine fisheries in the context of the "crisis" that is escalating in its groundfish fishery. Close observations of the practices of fisheries scientists in coordination with managers at the New England Fisheries Management Council, with focus on how knowledge is being produced and employed, allows for understanding EBFM as an emergent construction produced by networks of associations between actants, human and non-human, material and semiotic, and not strictly as a policy prescription informed by experts on biology, ecology, and socio-economics. This analysis identifies and elucidates the multiplicity …

Data And Information As Our New Transport Infrastructure: An Exploration Into How The Modern Transport System Is Being Shaped By Information Communication Technology, Adam Davidson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is focuses on the role that data and information has in creating and altering behavior related to transportation. To do so, it lays out a theoretical model of technological transition and then follows it up with three case studies. The theoretical model provides a structure to consider how different actors in our transportation ecosystem – users, firms, policy actors – mix with technological evolution to uphold or incrementally recreate our transportation landscape. The case studies stand on their own to highlight important findings about how data and information are impacting transportation scenarios, but collectively reinforce the theoretical models. …

Oceanic Groundings: Maritime Geographies And Black Internationalism In The Early Twentieth Century, Maegan A. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the shipboard writings, transnational solidarities and vernacular cultures, and spaces of social reproduction among Black and other subaltern seafarers and maritime travelers in the first decades of the twentieth century. I draw upon oral histories, literature, poetry, memoirs, and the archives of leftist political organizations and British colonial officials. Through a practice of close reading across textual genres and transnational spaces, my dissertation develops oceanic groundings as: (1) a constellation of iterative and intentional acts of political learning through the movements of ordinary people, (2) a pedagogical project of listening to and learning from the shifting grounds …

Legitimizing Violence At The European Border: Gendered Misrepresentations At Sea And The Vulnerable Other, Michela Demelas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis highlights a temporal and spatial gap in the feminist literature about migrants' journeys throughout the Mediterranean, and investigates the gendered dynamics acting upon the encounter between the European border and racialized bodies at sea. The Mediterranean sea’s material features allow Europe to approach migration as a humanitarian crisis coming from outside, which discharges its responsibility for the deaths. Yet, essentialistic views represent the feminized Other as vulnerable and needing to be saved from the male Other and the sea. Such views shape the Western narratives around concrete rescue procedures and border authorities behaviors. The encounter between the border …

A Defense And Expansion Of The Theory Of Capitalist Ground Rent: Speculation, Securitization, And Struggles Over Land And Housing, Francesca Manning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Why are the rents so high? Who is responsible for homelessness, for urban and rural displacement? How can these problems be combatted?

Recent literature addressing these questions has pointed to gentrification and the financialization of land and housing, faulted financialized landlords, hedge funds, and the irredeemable logic of finance, and pointed to the importance of land and housing regulation to prevent displacement.

However, theories of displacement—in both land and housing, on both urban and rural terrain—suffer from a lack of an underlying theory of the logic, tendencies, and limits of ground rent extraction in capitalism.

This dissertation develops a theory …

Geographies Of Creativity: Inherited Concepts, Revised Vistas, Anjeline De Dios, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Given growing criticism in recent years against what might variously be referred to as the ideology of creativity, the hegemony of creativity, and enforced creativity, it might seem unwise to produce a book, let alone a handbook, about creativity. As far as conceptual fads go, the creative turn has itself taken such a diverse trajectory of ‘turns’, oftentimes in divergent ways that do not interact, that the term may justly be discredited in some quarters. Nevertheless, strategies and policies anchored on the notion of creativity remain enthusiastically adopted and adapted in many policy circles, perhaps particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, …

Gamifying Place, Reimagining Publicness: The Heterotopic Inscriptions Of Pokémon Go, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores the transformative effects of augmented reality mobile games on society and space. By layering playfulness onto public space through a digital interface, augmented reality mobile games create a pervasive sense of play that can be accessed by players potentially anywhere, and at any time. Games like these can therefore be understood as heterotopic inscriptions on otherwise mundane environments. Since being released in 2016, Pokémon Go has become one of the most popular augmented reality games in the world. It gamifies place by embedding digital objects within public spaces; in doing so, it can bring about a reimagination …

Towards More Inclusive Smart Cities: Reconciling The Divergent Logics Of Data And Discourse At The Margins, Jane Yeonjae Lee, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this article, we survey a growing body of literature within geography and other intersecting fields that trains attention on what inclusive smart cities are, or what they could be. In doing so, we build on debates around smart citizens, smart public participation, and grassroots and bottom-up smart cities that are concerned with making smart cities more inclusive. The growing critical scholarship on such dis- courses, however, alerts us to the knowledge politics that are involved in, and the urban inequalities that are deeply rooted within, the urban. Technological interventions con- tribute to these politics and inequalities in various ways. …

Odu Researchers Lead Team That Secured Department Of Defense Offshore Wind Grant, News @ Odu

News Items

No abstract provided.

Urban Warfare: Emerging Geopolitical Conundrum, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Urban warfare is as old as human history. It is becoming increasingly important in international political and military planning due to increasing global urbanization and the presence of megacities (urban areas with populations exceeding 10 million) in many global regions and being in areas of recent and potential military conflict. 2018 World Bank data notes that approximately 56% of the world's population lives in urban areas which is up from 34% in 1960. Many of these megacities, including New York City, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Manila are adjacent to oceanic waters and vulnerable to trade and supply …

Exploring Cold War Religious Persecution Using The Rank-Order Approach, Jeffrey M. Byford, Brian K. Horn, John Grant, Cort Casey, Sherrie Hopper

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

This lesson explores religious persecution in East Germany. Students must decide plausible actions to take against the Protestant Church to diminish power. Acting as a member of The East German Secret Police, students, evaluate, rank, and justify decisions to minimalize Christianity in an atheist society.

Facilitating Experiential Learning Experiences Through A Class Pioneer Day, Ronald Vaughan Morris

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Students experience a reenactment of life on the frontier created by the interaction of their teachers and community volunteers. Students in elementary social studies learn content, skills, values, and dispositions through engaging in experiential learning. The classroom environment is described through a case study of one classroom of fourth grade students with an experienced teacher with deep roots in the community. Teachers develop skills in negotiation with volunteers to accomplish tasks that support student learning. Descriptions of student and teacher preparations in addition to budgetary constraints describe how to replicate the experience. Examples and assessments are provided as well as …

Developing Social Justice Skills Through Community Service-Learning In High School Social Studies, Sharehann T. Lucman

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Social studies teachers are presented with the challenging yet rewarding task of cultivating in their students' principles and competencies essential for democratic and social-justice-oriented citizenship. Inspired and guided by literature on social justice education and community service-learning, this study suggests that social studies teachers ought to consider integrating teaching methods that are experiential, participatory, and critical in nature. An example of such a method is community service-learning. As illustrated in this study, community service-learning activities afford students the unique opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills on social justice in authentic social situations.

Using a descriptive and textual analysis approach, …

Long Term Air Quality Analysis In Reference To Thermal Power Plants Using Satellite Data In Singrauli Region, India, H. K. Romana, Ramesh P. Singh, D. P. Shukla

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The exponentially growing population and related anthropogenic activities have led to modifications in local environment. The change in local environment, evolving pattern of land use, concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols alter the energy balance of our climate system. This alteration in climate is leading to pre-mature deaths worldwide. This study analyses the air quality of Singrauli region, Madhya Pradesh, India for the past 15 years. Otherwise known as Urjanchal “the energy capital” of India has been declared as critically polluted by CPCB. The study provides an updated list of thermal power plants in the study area and their emission …

Race-Ethnic Neighborhood Segregation In The Southwest Megapolitan Triangle, Yanneli Llamas, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This Fact Sheet analyzes race-ethnic neighborhood segregation in the Southwest Megapolitan Triangle, which consists of the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA; and Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). Drawing from an original report by Brookings senior fellow, William Frey, this fact sheet illustrates the degree of residential segregation over time in the three MSAs.

Antarctica And The Southern Ocean, Jessica Blunden, Derek S. Arndt, E. Povl Abrahamsen, Sandra Barreira, Cecilia M. Bitz, Amy Butler, Kyle R. Clem, Steve Colwell, Lawrence Coy, Jos De Laat, Marcel D. Du Plessis, Ryan L. Fogt, Helen Amanda Fricker, John Fyfe, Alex S. Gardner, Sarah T. Gille, Tessa Gorte, L. Gregor, Will Hobbs, Bryan Johnson, Eric Keenan, Linda M. Keller, Natalya A. Kramarova, Matthew A. Lazzara, Jan T.M. Lenaerts, Jan L. Lieser, Hongxing Liu, Craig S. Long, Michelle Maclennan, Robert A. Massom, François Massonnet, Matthew R. Mazloff

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Big Data Computing For Geospatial Applications, Zhenlong Li, Wenwu Tang, Qunying Huang, Eric Shook, Qingfeng Guan

Faculty Publications

The convergence of big data and geospatial computing has brought challenges and opportunities to GIScience with regards to geospatial data management, processing, analysis, modeling, and visualization. This special issue highlights recent advancements in integrating new computing approaches, spatial methods, and data management strategies to tackle geospatial big data challenges and meanwhile demonstrates the opportunities for using big data for geospatial applications. Crucial to the advancements highlighted here is the integration of computational thinking and spatial thinking and the transformation of abstract ideas and models to concrete data structures and algorithms. This editorial first introduces the background and motivation of this …

Snow-Albedo Feedback In Northern Alaska: How Vegetation Influences Snowmelt, Lucas C. Reckhaus

Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates how the snow-albedo feedback mechanism of the arctic is changing in response to rising climate temperatures. Specifically, the interplay of vegetation and snowmelt, and how these two variables can be correlated. This has the potential to refine climate modelling of the spring transition season. Research was conducted at the ecoregion scale in northern Alaska from 2000 to 2020. Each ecoregion is defined by distinct topographic and ecological conditions, allowing for meaningful contrast between the patterns of spring albedo transition across surface conditions and vegetation types. The five most northerly ecoregions of Alaska are chosen as they encompass …