Geography Commons^™

Rain Garden Inventory Responsive And Mobile Site, Larry Theller, Richard Andreas

Purdue GIS Day

This project is to create a responsive website to allow the public to input their various rainscaping practices into a database and viewed on a map. In addition, their data will be calculated and capacity will be shown.

This inventory website is responsive and will change between desktop and mobile view automatically based on the parameters of the browser.

Gis Project Design: Brainstorming & Ideation Workshop, Frank Garofalo

Purdue GIS Day

• Who should attend:
  • Do you have a new project or existing project, and looking to generate some new ideas?
  • Come with a project in mind or just come to learn some new collaboration and brainstorming techniques.
• What participants will learn… techniques for:
  • Working with others to create a common direction and vision, then generating alignment
  • Evaluating current state situations, strengths, complications and implications
  • Identifying and forming consensus on key target audiences
  • Generating ideas to prioritizing capabilities for new solutions and the related benefits
  • Specifying key objectives to measure and gauge for success

Habitat Selection Of Wolverines: A Geospatial Analysis Of Wolverine Movements In Southwest Montana, Bryn Karabensh

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Wolverine research in the contiguous United States is not abundant and understanding of the ecology of this species is not fully understood in this ecosystem. Specifically lacking in research is data regarding wolverine movements. This paucity of data and analysis inhibits the ability to effectively develop and implement conservation and management strategies. This paper seeks to identify patterns and habitat preferences of wolverines with respect to their movements. Specifically, do they avoid roads and clear-cuts zones from timber harvest and do they display a preference to topography features during movements? Using GPS locations of wolverines a regression analysis was applied. …

Applying Voronoi Tessellations As A Non-Orthogonal Grid Methodology To Inform Public-Private Mix Efforts In Nigeria: An Examination Of The Distribution Of Private Healthcare Providers In Six States And The Covariates Underlying Their Utilization, Trinadh Dontamsetti

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

TB care and prevention is led by the public sector, but many TB symptomatics first seek care in the private sector, highlighting the importance of engaging these facilities. This report examines basic TB epidemiology (such as the gap in case finding that could be addressed in part via private sector activities), health-seeking behaviors (HSB) and diagnostic delays, the size of the private sector, activities of professional societies, and financing. It examines the potential utility of integrating Voronoi tessellations as a GIS-based method for informing and improving Public-Private Mix (PPM) efforts throughout six states in Nigeria. Further, it explores a potential …

Selection Of A Reanalysis Meteorological Product For Use In Solar Resource Assessment, Anthony Lopez

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and collaborators are updating the National Solar Radiation Database with the next-generation satellite-based solar resource assessment known as the Physical Solar Model (PSM). This is part of an effort to achieve NREL and DOE’s goal to make solar energy technologies cost competitive with other forms of energy in the United States. Required in this effort is the selection of an appropriate meteorological reanalysis product- that provides critical inputs for solar energy estimation. This analysis quantitatively and qualitatively assessed the spatial and temporal accuracy of three meteorological reanalysis products using ground measurements. …

Modis-Derived Spatiotemporal Changes Of Major Lake Surface Areas In Arid Xinjiang, China, 2000–2014, Qingting Li, Linlin Lu, Cuizhen Wang, Yingkui Li, Yue Sui, Huadong Guo

Faculty Publications

Inland water bodies, which are critical freshwater resources for arid and semi-arid areas, are very sensitive to climate change and human disturbance. In this paper, we derived a time series of major lake surface areas across Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), China, based on an eight-day MODIS time series in 500 m resolution from 2000 to 2014. A classification approach based on water index and dynamic threshold selection was first developed to accommodate varied spectral features of water pixels at different temporal steps. The overall classification accuracy for a MODIS-derived water body is 97% compared to a water body derived …

An Approach To Optimal Hyperspectral And Multispectral Signature And Image Fusion For Detecting Hidden Targets On Shorelines, Charles R. Bostater

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Hyperspectral and multispectral imagery of shorelines collected from airborne and shipborne platforms are used following pushbroom imagery corrections using inertial motion motions units and augmented global positioning data and Kalman filtering. Corrected radiance or reflectance images are then used to optimize synthetic high spatial resolution spectral signatures resulting from an optimized data fusion process. The process demonstrated utilizes littoral zone features from imagery acquired in the Gulf of Mexico region. Shoreline imagery along the Banana River, Florida, is presented that utilizes a technique that makes use of numerically embedded targets in both higher spatial resolution multispectral images and lower spatial …

Tracking Of Karst Contamination Using Alternative Monitoring Technologies: Hidden River Cave Kentucky, Caren Raedts, Christopher Smart

Sinkhole Conference 2015

Karst groundwater contamination presents great challenges for efficient monitoring because of rapid, discrete transport and the diversity of contaminants. Here a low cost approach is described and applied to Hidden River Cave, Kentucky, where a long history of contamination has been experienced. Local knowledge was acquired through informal interviews and coupled with observations of contaminant residues, faunal distributions and fluorescence spectra in the cave. The resulting patterns were interpreted using Google Earth and Street View to identify specific contaminant sources in the affected sub-catchment of the cave. Despite success in matching contaminant sources with the contamination history and pattern, the …

‘Capitalism A Nuh’ Wi Frien’. The Formatting Of Farming Into An Asset, From Financial Speculation To International Aid, Luigi Russi, Tomaso Ferrando

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

This paper deciphers the formatting of farming into an asset by tracking the modalities by which financial calculation is enabled across different sites of agency.

The first focus of our analysis are commodity futures markets, which have witnessed a double spike in prices in 2008 and in 2012. In the paper, we look at these hikes as the outcome of endogenous dynamics, caused by the changing makeup of market participants after 2000, which turned futures markets into resources for hedging commodity index-linked derivative products.

We subsequently analyse the increasing reliance on financial actors placed by public development agencies that channel …

Evaluating Faciltated Migration As A Climate Change Adaptation Approach In Southern Ontario's Sugar Maple Ecosystems, Kaitlyn Mcglade

Geography and Environmental Studies Major Research Papers

This research seeks to provide an explanation and evaluation of facilitated migration as an adaptation approach for improving the long-term resilience and sustainability of Acer saccharum (sugar maple) ecosystems and sugarbush production. The research concludes that faciliated migration is supported by producers and other industry stakeholders as a feasable adaptation approach for improving resilience and sustainability.

Using Future Benefits To Set Conservation Priorities For Wetlands, Samuel B. Merrill

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

In an era of rising sea levels, costal land managers including land trust representatives, municipal planners, and others contributing to decisions about whether to develop or protect coastal parcels do not have viable means of evaluating future values on wetlands that will be created when sea levels rise. This project develops and tests a software modeling approach to help address this issue, in combination with a novel, expert-opinion driven benefit-cost framework. The beta test used three parcels in Scarborough, Maine: Hampton Circle, Maine Audubon, and Pine Point. It used a group of experts to 1) allocate initial values to these …

Classification, Visualization, And Analysis Of The Islamic State’S Narrative, Steven D. Bixler

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

The Islamic State (IS) declared the establishment of a Caliphate on June 29, 2014 in Mosul, Iraq. Since that declaration, IS has communicated a four-part narrative to the global community through Dabiq magazine, its e-publication. Each of the ten editions of Dabiq has provided insight into IS’s aspirations and reinforced its message of rejecting post-colonial structures. Critical to realizing its objective is establishing a foothold for the Caliphate through jihad (holy war), establishing legitimacy through jamaah (governance), achieving tawhid (unity), and expanding through hijrah (immigration). Each publication contains these narrative elements to document IS’s progress. Classifying, visualizing, and mapping will …

At A Crossroads: Midtown, Inc. 2005-2015, Amanda Rees, Caleb Ashburn, Cheltzie Brown, Eric Derhammer, Jessica Dixon, Kelsie Hughes, Rachel Knapp, Morgan Robinson, Anastasia Romain

Columbus Community Geography Center

Established in 2005, MidTown, Inc., a self-identified community development organization, celebrated its 10^th anniversary in 2016. After a decade’s work, the organization is presently reviewing its activities as it takes a moment to consider its future trajectory. To facilitate this process MidTown, Inc. partnered with Columbus State University’s Columbus Community Geography Center to support MidTown, Inc.’s efforts. In fall 2015, nine students in CSU’s urban geography course, taught by Dr. Amanda Rees, researched and completed this report including: Celeb Ashburn, Cheltzie Brown, Eric Derhammer, Jessica Dixon, Kelsie Hughes, Rachel Knapp, Morgan Robinson, Anastasia Romain, and C.E. Sturgeon. An online …

Promoting Predators And Compassionate Conservation, Arian D. Wallach, Marc Bekoff, Michael Paul Nelson, David Ramp

Conservation Collection

No abstract provided.

Migration Governance And Migration Rights In The Southern African Development Community (Sadc): Attempts At Harmonization In A Disharmonious Region, Belinda Dodson, Jonathan Crush

Southern African Migration Programme

This paper examines prospects for enhanced regional migration governance and protection of migrants’ rights in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Migration in this region is substantial in scale and diverse in nature, incorporating economic, political and mixed migration flows. In addition to movements between countries within the region, migrants also come from across the African continent and even further afield. At its foundation in 1992, SADC as an institution initially embraced a vision of intra-regional free movement, but this has not become a reality. If anything, there has been a hardening of anti-migrant attitudes, not least in the principal …

Online Mapping Tools For Geolocating Amish Settlements, Andrew M. Wilson, Brian J.B. Lonabocker, Megan E. Zagorski

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

This technical note demonstrates the value of using online mapping tools as a method of geolocating Amish settlements. Primarily using freely available Bing and Google maps and published lists of the addresses of Amish ministers, we geolocated 1,362 Amish households in Ohio and 1,203 in Pennsylvania, representing about 10% of Amish households in those states. From these data we were able to derive a population density map of the Amish across Ohio and Pennsylvania. We caution that our map is merely a model and based on several assumptions, but the product is a finer resolution map of Amish distribution than …

Modeling Vegetation Mosaics In Sub-Alpine Tasmania Under Various Fire Regimes, Gabriel I. Yospin, Samuel W. Wood, Andrés Holz, David M.J.S. Bowman, Robert E. Keane, Cathy Whitlock

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Western Tasmania, Australia contains some of the highest levels of biological endemism of any temperate region in the world, including vegetation types that are conservation priorities: fire-sensitive rainforest dominated by endemic conifer species in the genus Athrotaxis; and fire-tolerant buttongrass moorlands. Current management focuses on fire suppression, but increasingly there are calls for the use of prescribed fire in flammable vegetation types to manage these ecosystems. The long-term effects of climate and alternative management strategies on the vegetated landscape are unknown. To help identify controls over successional trajectories, we parameterized a spatially explicit landscape-scale model of vegetation and fire …

Short-Tailed Temperature Distributions Over North America And Implications For Future Changes In Extremes, Paul C. Loikith, J. David Neelin

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Some regions of North America exhibit nonnormal temperature distributions. Shorter-than-Gaussian warm tails are a special subset of these cases, with potentially meaningful implications for future changes in extreme warm temperatures under anthropogenic global warming. Locations exhibiting shorter-than-Gaussian warm tails would experience a greater increase in extreme warm temperature exceedances than a location with a Gaussian or long warm-side tail under a simple uniform warm shift in the distribution. Here we identify regions exhibiting such behavior over North America and demonstrate the effect of a simple warm shift on changes in extreme warm temperature exceedances. Some locations exceed the 95th percentile …

Spatial Information Divergence: Using Global And Local Indices To Compare Geographical Masks Applied To Crime Data, Ourania Kounadi, Michael Leitner

Faculty Publications

Advances in Geographic Information Science (GISc) and the increasing availability of location data have facilitated the dissemination of crime data and the abundance of crime mapping websites. However, data holders acknowledge that when releasing sensitive crime data there is a risk of compromising the victims' privacy. Hence, protection methodologies are primarily applied to the data to ensure that individual privacy is not violated. This article addresses one group of location protection methodologies, namely geographical masks that are applicable for crime data representations. The purpose is to identify which mask is the most appropriate for crime incident visualizations. A global divergence …

Food Deserts: Usda Report Review, Christopher Rahm

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

The purpose of this Capstone will be to provide city, county, and eventually state, entities with the knowledge to better identify those areas which would fall under the auspice of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, as laid out in a report by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Council on “Food Deserts.” Food deserts are those areas in which access to nutritious foods is limited by distance, by lack of transportation, or both. Food deserts have also been linked to obesity in children and adults, with the attendant health problems. With this knowledge, starting at the local level, …