Geography Commons^™

The King And The Land: A Geography Of Royal Power In The Biblical World, Stephen C. Russell

Publications and Research

The King and the Land offers an innovative history of space and power in the biblical world. Stephen C. Russell shows how the monarchies in ancient Israel and Judah asserted their power over strategically important spaces such as privately-held lands, religious buildings, collectively-governed towns, and urban water systems. Among the case studies examined are Solomon's use of foreign architecture, David's dedication of land to Yahweh, Jehu's decommissioning of Baal's temple, Absalom's navigation of the collective politics of Levantine towns, and Hezekiah's reshaping of the tunnels that supplied Jerusalem with water.

By treating the full range of archaeological and textual evidence …

Climate Change (Mal)Adaptation As Governmentality: The Case Of The Ada Sea Defense System In The Volta River Delta Of Ghana, Kwame Ntiri Owusu-Daaku

Theses and Dissertations

River deltas are complex natural environments that represent a confluence of many physical, biological and human processes vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The likely biophysical impacts of climate change on deltas have received substantial attention. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which the different stakeholders of deltaic environments frame the vulnerability of residents of deltas to climate change. The Volta River Delta (VRD) of Ghana is a compelling site in which to conduct such an examination because of the clear climaterelated changes taking place in the Delta, and the fact that like many …

The Economic Impacts Of Forest Timber Methods In Washington State: A Hedonic Approach, Kaleb Javier

All Master's Theses

Washington State is one of the nation’s leaders in timber production. This paper establishes literature gap regarding the economic impacts of forest timber management methods. In this research, I employ a data set of 170,141 home sales across eleven counties of western Washington to estimate the impact that even-age and uneven-age forest cutting methods have on the local real-estate market. I estimate two sets of hedonic fixed effect regression models to control for omitted variable bias and spatial autocorrelation. The results show statistically significant impacts on property values for both cutting methods, adding important information for forest managers.

การพัฒนาแบบจำลองเพื่อประเมินปริมาณการชะล้างตะกอนบริเวณลุ่มน้ำแม่สรวย (ตอนบน) จังหวัดเชียงราย, กัมปนาท ศิริเรือง

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อสร้างแบบจำลองทางคณิตศาสตร์เพื่อคาดการณ์ปริมาณการชะล้างพังทลายของหน้าดินในลุ่มน้ำแม่สรวยตอนบน จังหวัดเชียงราย ผู้วิจัยสร้างแบบจำลองโดยยึดแนวทางจากแบบจำลอง Daily Base- Morgan-Morgan Finney (DMMF) ในการอธิบายลักษณะของปริมาณน้ำท่า และแบบจำลอง Revised Morgan-Morgan Finney (RMMF) ในการจำลองปริมาณการชะล้างของตะกอน แบบจำลองสร้างขึ้นด้วยโปรแกรม PCRaster ซึ่งสามารถประมวลผลข้อมูลเชิงพลวัติ ในรูปแบบราสเตอร์ ผู้วิจัยใช้ข้อมูลปริมาณน้ำไหลในลำน้ำและปริมาณตะกอนแขวนลอยที่จุดออกของลุ่มน้ำในการปรับเทียบค่าพารามิเตอร์ที่เหมาะสมและประเมินประสิทธิภาพของแบบจำลองในการคาดการณ์ด้วยดัชนี Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) ผลการศึกษาพบว่าแบบจำลองมีความถูกต้องในการคาดการณ์ปริมาณน้ำท่าในเกณฑ์ที่ยอมรับได้ด้วยค่า NSE เท่ากับ 0.37 และ 0.46 ในปี 2558 และ 2559 ตามลำดับ และคาดการณ์ปริมาณตะกอนมีความถูกต้องในระดับต่ำ (ค่า NSE เท่ากับ 0.12 และ 0.26 ในปี 2558 และ 2559 ตามลำดับ) แบบจำลองมีประสิทธิภาพในการคาดการณ์สูงในกรณีที่มีน้ำท่าและตะกอนในลำน้ำในปริมาณที่ไม่มากนัก หากเป็นช่วงที่มีน้ำท่าและปริมาณตะกอนเกิดขึ้นจำนวนมาก แบบจำลองคาดการณ์ปริมาณน้ำท่าและตะกอนต่ำกว่าความเป็นจริงมาก การคาดการณ์ปริมาณตะกอนในลำน้ำมีความผิดพลาดมากกว่าปริมาณน้ำท่า การวิเคราะห์รูปแบบทางพื้นที่และความรุนแรงของการชะล้างตะกอน พบว่าพื้นที่ส่วนใหญ่มีความรุนแรงจากการชะล้างตะกอนในระดับต่ำ (0-2 ตัน/ไร่/ฤดูฝน) เนื่องจากพื้นที่ศึกษาส่วนเป็นพื้นที่ป่าผลัดใบ มีการเกิดน้ำไหลบ่าหน้าดินไม่มากนักจึงทำให้เกิดการชะล้างหน้าดินในปริมาณไม่มากนัก ในขณะที่พื้นที่เพาะปลูกพืชไร่และไร่หมุนเวียน มีความรุนแรงของการชะล้างตะกอนในระดับสูง (มากกว่า 20 ตัน/ไร่/ฤดูฝน) นอกจากนี้ผู้วิจัยยังพบว่าในบริเวณที่มีลักษณะเป็นพื้นที่รับน้ำขนาดใหญ่และมีความลาดชันสูง หรือเป็นพื้นที่ที่มีดัชนีกำลังไหลลำธาร (stream power index) สูง จะทำให้มีการชะล้างของตะกอนหน้าดินจากการกระทำของน้ำไหลบ่าหน้าดินในปริมาณมาก

Ideas And Perspectives: How Coupled Is The Vegetation To The Boundary Layer?, Martin G. De Kauwe, Belinda E. Medlyn, Jürgen Knauer, Christopher A. Williams

Geography

Understanding the sensitivity of transpiration to stomatal conductance is critical to simulating the water cycle. This sensitivity is a function of the degree of coupling between the vegetation and the atmosphere and is commonly expressed by the decoupling factor. The degree of coupling assumed by models varies considerably and has previously been shown to be a major cause of model disagreement when simulating changes in transpiration in response to elevated CO2. The degree of coupling also offers us insight into how different vegetation types control transpiration fluxes, which is fundamental to our understanding of land-atmosphere interactions. To explore this issue, …

Ecological Homogenization Of Residential Macrosystems, Peter M. Groffman, Meghan Avolio, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Neil D. Bettez, J. Morgan Grove, Sharon J. Hall, Sarah E. Hobbie, Kelli L. Larson, Susannah B. Lerman, Dexter H. Locke, James B. Heffernan, Jennifer L. Morse, Christopher Neill, Kristen C. Nelson, Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne, Diane E. Pataki, Colin Polsky, Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Tara L.E. Trammell

Geography

Similarities in planning, development and culture within urban areas may lead to the convergence of ecological processes on continental scales. Transdisciplinary, multi-scale research is now needed to understand and predict the impact of human-dominated landscapes on ecosystem structure and function.

The available download on this page is the author manuscript accepted for publication. This version has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process.

Monitoring Pollen Counts And Pollen Allergy Index Using Satellite Observations In East Coast Of The United States, Murat Cagatay Kececi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Allergic diseases have become increasingly common over the world during the last four decades, and they are affecting millions of people. Pollination is an important process in the life cycle of plants. However, pollen exposure is associated with allergic diseases such as asthma and seasonal allergic rhinitis (hay fever). As a result, the total annual expenditure for asthma-associated morbidity is about $56 billion in the United States, and the overall cost of allergic diseases is over $18 billion annually. For allergic rhinitis, the annual medical cost is approximately $3.4 billion. The intensity and frequency of the pollen exposures can be …

A Comparison Of Land Use And Land Cover In Public Lands Of The Northwestern Great Plains And High Plains Ecoregions And The Implications For Grassland Birds, Dawn L. Siemonsma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Loss and degradation of grassland habitat are driving forces that contribute to widespread declines of grassland birds in the United States. Many studies have evaluated habitat needs for the conservation of grassland birds, but the relative contribution of public lands in representing and maintaining avian biodiversity remains poorly understood. Having a better understanding of the role that publicly managed grasslands play in the conservation of grassland bird habitat is important for assessing the value of the investment the American public makes in these lands. Therefore, I investigated spatial relations among variations in amounts and distributions of publicly owned and managed …

Gender, Everyday Mobility, And Mass Transit In Urban Asia, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Economic Impacts Of Cougars In Western Washington, Todd Stoothoff

All Master's Theses

The combination of increasing cougar populations and the rising human population in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas suggests that the number of human-cougar encounters will rise as well. The increase in human-cougar encounters creates potential issues in regard to public safety, public policy, and management of predators. For the purposes of this research, I employ a housing dataset for eleven counties in western Washington in order to quantify the impacts of a confirmed cougar sighting on the sale value of a home. Specifically, I employ the hedonic real estate price model. Results show statistically significant impacts on housing values in the …

No-Place, New Places: Death And Its Rituals In Urban Asia, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In many Asian cities, particularly those that confront increasing land scarcity, the conversion from burial to cremation has been encouraged by state agencies in the last several decades. From Hong Kong to Seoul to Singapore, planning agencies have sought to reduce the use of space for the dead, in order to release land for the use of the living. More secular guiding principles regarding efficient land use in these cities had originally come up against the symbolic values invested in burial spaces, resulting in conflicts between different value systems. In more recent years, however, the shift to cremation and columbaria …

Critical Agrarian Studies In Theory And Practice, Marc Edelman, Wendy Wolford

Publications and Research

Abstract: In this introductory article we argue for renewed attention to life and labor on and of the land—or what we call the field of Critical Agrarian Studies. Empirically rich and theoretically rigorous studies of humanity’s relationship to “soil” remain essential not just for historical analysis but for understanding urgent contemporary crises, including widespread food insecurity, climate change, the proliferation of environmental refugees, growing corporate power and threats to biodiversity. The article introduces an innovative and varied collection of works in Critical Agrarian Studies and also examines the intellectual and political history of this broader field.

Resumen: En este artículo …

Modeling Algae Powered Neighborhood Through Gis And Bim Integration, Florina Dutt, Steven Jige Quan, Erik Woodworth, Daniel Castro-Lacouture, Ben J. Stuart, Perry Pei-Ju Yang

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper aims to propose a modeling method for algae powered neighborhoods through GIS-BIM integration. In the first part of the paper, the applicability of different types of algae systems in an urban neighborhood are studied. The various systems of algae provide different strengths and weakness that affect their performance and suitability for given urban scenarios. Through extensive literature review, the variables that affect the performance of the micro-algae in the built environment are identified, with a focus on flat-panel photo bio-reactors and tubular photobioreactors. A previous GIS model for data management, performance analysis and design of the algae systems …

Climate Change Adaptation For Southern California Groundwater Managers: A Case Study Of The Six Basins Aquifer, Frank Lyles

Pomona Senior Theses

Groundwater has been very important to the economic development of Southern California, and will continue to be a crucial resource in the 21st century. However, Climate Change threatens to disrupt many of the physical and economic processes that control the flow of water in and out of aquifers. One groundwater manager, the Six Basins Watermaster in eastern Los Angeles and western San Bernardino Counties, has developed a long-term planning document called the Strategic Plan that mostly fails to address the implications of Climate Change, especially for local water supplies. This thesis presents an in-depth analysis of the Six Basin Watermaster’s …

Using Geospatial Analysis For High School Environmental Science Education: A Case Study Of The Jane Goodall Institute's Community-Centered Conservation Approach, Madison G. Vorva

Pomona Senior Theses

Given my experiences as a young conservation advocate, I saw a need to teach students the importance of interconnectedness, cultural awareness and systems-thinking skills through a spatial lens. I believe these skills are required for holistic, equitable and sustainable conservation decision-making in local and international contexts. This thesis uses geospatial tools to teach conservation ecology vocabulary and concepts from high school environmental science curriculum in two online resources. The purpose of my lesson plan is to show students how conservationists address complex conservation and land-use challenges using the Jane Goodall Institute’s community-centered conservation approach as a case-study. My hope is …

Remote Sensing Of World War Ii Era Unexploded Bombs Using Object-Based Image Analysis And Multi-Temporal Datasets: A Case Study Of The Fort Myers Bombing And Gunnery Range, Bryan Byholm

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

During World War II, United States Army and Navy pilots trained on several hundred bombing ranges encompassing more than 12 million acres of land, leaving behind crater-scarred landscapes across the country. Post-war estimates suggest that 10-15% of aerial bombs used failed to detonate as intended, so these areas today are contaminated by a large number of dangerous unexploded bombs (UXB) which remain under the surface. Until recently, detecting UXB has been a tedious and expensive process done in three stages: (1) identifying and mapping general areas of concentrated bomb craters using historical air photos and records; (2) intensely searching these …

Evaluating The Potential Of A Geospatial/Geostatistical Methodology For Locating Rain-Derived Infiltration And Inflow Into Wastewater Treatment Systems In The Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area, Minnesota, Usa, Vinson Aaron Williams

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

A significant issue facing municipal wastewater treatment infrastructure (WWTI) is how to manage infiltration and inflow (I/I). I/I of rain and ground water permeate into WWTI after precipitation events, periods of groundwater table rise, and percolation from surrounding surface waters. This can create discharges above the infrastructure's flow capacity, increase costs for processing the wastewater and add undesired stress to aging wastewater networks. In an attempt to assess this problem cost and time inefficient approaches have commonly been applied. This study utilizes a new and more radical methodology to try and make WWTI management more efficient. This study applies ArcGIS …

Cocoa And Carbon: Remedying Forest Governance Through Community Participation In A Redd+Pilot In Ghana, Manali Baruah

Theses and Dissertations

Global loss and degradation of forests are well documented, and the potential role of forests in climate change mitigation is widely recognized. While forests are key to human well-being, forest resource management in the developing world is fraught with governance challenges. Despite policy discourses that emphasize the importance of local participation in the management of forest resources, it is rarely practiced. Many national governments and non-governmental organizations have set up efforts around the collaborative management of forest resources with local communities to tackle forest loss. However, the operationalization of participatory principles and the effectiveness of these collaborative initiatives are not …

Contesting The Generic Refugee: Siv Identity, Community, And Agency During Resettlement, Benjamin J. Sylvester

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the complexity of identity and community formation by Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders during resettlement in Columbia, South Carolina. It explores the ways in which identities coalesce around various themes, such as religion, gender, and military service, how these identities serve to create, expand, and claim membership in communities, and how SIVs exercise agency throughout these processes. Through semi-structured interviews with 9 SIVs in Columbia, SC, this qualitative study highlights the unique, highly individualized ways in which a select group of refugees experience resettlement, how they negotiate their placement within socio-economic hierarchies, and exercise agency to obtain …

Spatial Optimization Methods And System For Redistricting Problems, Hai Jin

Theses and Dissertations

Redistricting is the process of dividing space into districts or zones while optimizing a set of spatial criteria under certain constraints. Example applications of redistricting include political redistricting, school redistricting, business service planning, and city management, among many others. Redistricting is a mission-critical component in operating governments and businesses alike. In research fields, redistricting (or region building) are also widely used, such as climate zoning, traffic zone analysis, and complex network analysis. However, as a combinatorial optimization problem, redistricting optimization remains one of the most difficult research challenges. There are currently few automated redistricting methods that have the optimization capability …