Geography Commons^™

A Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Sorghum In The United States, Chris Laingen

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Sorghum is a type of grain, forage, and sugar crop that has been grown in warm, arid climates around the world for 10,000 years. It is a drought-tolerant crop, and is among the most efficient crops in the conversion of solar energy and use of water. In the United States, South America, and Australia, sorghum grain is used primarily for livestock feed and ethanol production and is becoming popular in the human food sector because of its use in gluten-free food products. The U.S. sorghum belt stretches from South Dakota to southern Texas. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, sorghum …

Let's Explore: History Using Maps - Student Guide, Center For Spatial Analysis And Research. Portland State University, Teresa L. Bulman, Morgan Josef, Gwyneth Genevieve Mckee Manser

Instructional Materials

Student activity book. Inside, you will find interactive activities that will help you explore Oregon’s history using maps!

The teacher guide can be found here: https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/27715

Pedestrian Mobility In Denver: A Mixed Methods Approach, Meghan Elizabeth Mooney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is rooted in the bigger issues of climate change, urban sustainability, and the drive to make Denver more pedestrian centered despite sprawled conditions. More specifically, this research is driven by (1) the need for a holistic, multi-dimensional, and mixed geographic perspective of pedestrian mobility, (2) the lack of qualitative data regarding pedestrian mobility and (3) a need for a better understanding of the feedback between physical and perceived space and how this influences walking behavior. Given these motivations, I deploy a multidimensional framework for assessing pedestrian mobility in Denver’s Transit Oriented Development (TOD) sites, whereby there are two …

When Wells Run Dry: Water And Tourism Along The Western Coast Of Nicaragua, Gary Thomas Lavanchy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation uses a political ecology approach to examine the relationship between tourism development and groundwater in southwest Nicaragua. Tourism in Nicaragua is a booming industry bolstered by ‘unspoiled’ natural beauty, low crime rates, and government incentives. This growth has led to increased infrastructure, revenue, and employment opportunities for many local communities along the Pacific coast. Not surprisingly, it has also brought concomitant issues of deeper poverty, widening gaps between rich and poor, and competition over natural resources. Adequate provisions of freshwater are necessary to sustain the production and reproduction of tourism; however, it remains uncertain if groundwater supplies can …

Triennial Report: 2012-2014, Geospatial Sciences Center Of Excellence

GSCE Triennial Reports

Triennial Report Purpose [Page] 3

Geographical Information Science Center of Excellence [Page] 5

SDSU Faculty [Page] 6

EROS Faculty [Page] 13

Research Professors [Page] 19

Postdoctoral Fellows [Page] 24

GSE Ph.D Program [Page] 36

Ph.D. Fellowships [Page] 37

Ph.D. Students [Page] 38

Recent Ph.D. Graduates [Page] 46

Masters Students [Page] 56

Previous Ph.D. Students [Page] 58

Center Scholars Program [Page] 59

Research Staff [Page] 60

Administrative and Information Technology Staff [Page] 62

Computer Resources [Page] 66

Research Funding [Page] 67

Glancing Back, Looking Forward [Page] 68

Appendix I Alumni Faculty and Staff

Appendix II Cool Faculty Research and Locations

Appendix …

A One Year Landsat 8 Conterminous United States Study Of Cirrus And Non-Cirrus Clouds, Valeriy Kovalskyy, David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

The first year of available Landsat 8 data over the conterminous United States (CONUS), composed of 11,296 acquisitions sensed over more than 11 thousand million 30 m pixel locations, was analyzed comparing the spatial and temporal incidence of 30 m cloud and cirrus states available in the standard Landsat 8 Level 1 product suite. This comprehensive data analysis revealed that on average over a year of CONUS observations (i) 35.9% were detected with high confidence cloud, with spatio-temporal patterns similar to those observed by previous Landsat 5 and 7 cloud analyses; (ii) 28.2% were high confidence cirrus; (iii) 20.1% were …

The State Of Poverty And Food Insecurity In Maseru, Lesotho, Resetselemang Leduka, Jonathan Crush, Bruce Frayne, Cameron Mccordic, Thope Matobo, Ts’Episo Makoa, Matseliso Mphale, Mmantai Phaila, Moipone Letsie

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report on food insecurity in urban Lesotho is the latest in a series on Southern African cities issued by AFSUN. Like the previous reports, it focuses on one city (Maseru) and on poor neighbourhoods and households in that city. More than 60% of poor households surveyed in Maseru were severely food insecure. While food price increases worsen food insecurity for poor households, it is poverty that weakens the resilience of society to absorb these increases. This report argues that Maseru residents face specific and interrelated challenges with respect to food and nutrition insecurity. These are poverty; limited local livelihood …

Utilizing Geographic Information Systems To Examine The Demographic And Socioeconomic Characteristics In Food Oasis And Food Desert In Wayne County, Mi, Arwa Hassan Almadan

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In the last few decades, the concept of a food desert has captured the attention of the public and academia. Research has referred to food desert as an area with lack of access to adequate healthy food, especially for those without a vehicle or who live more than ¼ mile walking distance from grocery stores. Although the food desert metaphor has been used in research in different disciplines such as regional planning and public health, this term has been used loosely without a precise definition and without identifying the factors that might impact it.

This research explores and examines the …

Ua94/6/17 Student / Alumni Personal Papers Wku Annie Reis, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Annie Reis during her years as a student at Western Kentucky State Normal School.

The Effects Of Surf-Driven Development On The Local Population Of Playa Gigante, Nicaragua, Nicholas Harrison William Earhart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In many of the world's developing countries, tourism is starting to play a more important role in the improvements of the local and national economies. One of these countries that have started to view tourism as a way to alleviate poverty throughout the country is Nicaragua. With miles of beaches, large swaths of pristine rainforests and beautiful volcanoes, Nicaragua has plenty to offer to travelers from all over the world. One of the sectors of tourism that has rapidly expanded in recent years is that which caters specifically to North American and European surfing tourists, who travel to Nicaragua for …

Having It Both Ways?: Land Use Change In A U.S. Midwestern Agricultural Ecoregion, Roger Auch, Chris Laingen

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Urbanization has been directly linked to decreases in area of agricultural lands and, as such, has been considered a threat to food security. Although the area of land used to produce food has diminished, often overlooked have been changes in agricultural output. The Eastern Corn Belt Plains (ECBP) is an important agricultural region in the U.S. Midwest. It has both gained a significant amount of urban land, primarily from the conversion of agricultural land between 1973 and 2000, and at the same time continued to produce ever-increasing quantities of agricultural products. By 2002, more corn, soybeans, and hogs were produced …

A Cautionary Tale.Pdf, Chris Laingen

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Remotely sensed imagery has been used for decades to quantify the area, rates, and types of land use and land cover change (LULCC) from local to global scales. Common platforms used to capture data include satellite- and aerial-based sensors and cameras. Inseparable from those data are errors—misclassified pixels in sensor-based data or incorrect observations in aerial photographs—created by spectral confusion on the part of the sensor or by misclassifying the raw data during interpretation. Such errors, if not sufficiently explained or taken into consideration when reporting LULCC results, could lead to dubious conclusions. For this article, four commonly used and …

Co-Location Analysis Engine, Barry J. Kronenfeld

Maps and Data

Software to support analysis of spatial interaction. Calculates the neighbor contingency table and co-location quotient (CLQ), and runs Monte Carlo simulation to test for significance under different null models including restricted random labeling (RRL).

Restricted Random Labeling: Testing For Between-Group Interaction After Controlling For Joint Population And Within-Group Spatial Structure, Barry J. Kronenfeld, Timothy F. Leslie

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Statistical measures of spatial interaction between multiple types of entities are commonly assessed against a null model of either toroidal shift (TS), which controls for spatial structure of individual subpopulations, or random labeling (RL), which controls for spatial structure of the joint population. Neither null model controls for both types of spatial structure simultaneously, although this may sometimes be desirable when more than two subpopulations are present. To address this, we propose a flexible framework for specifying null models that we refer to as restricted random labeling (rRL). Under rRL, a specified subset of individuals is restricted and other individuals …

Sustainability, Thoroughbred Racing And The Need For Change, Iris M. Bergmann Phd

Horse racing and competitions

Globally, the thoroughbred breeding and racing industry is reporting a declining trend. A report commissioned by the Jockey Club in the US, known as the McKinsey report, explicitly linked the public’s concern with animal welfare and the use of drugs to declining betting and attendance in the US. In various racing nations in Europe, in Australia and the US, thoroughbred racing is experiencing pressures from external sources and from within, with even industry participants calling for change. The industry is concerned with the integrity of racing. Structural changes, regulation and transparency in reporting are all issues identified in need of …

Foreign Investment In Eastern And Southern Europe After 2008. Still A Lever Of Growth?, Béla Galgóczi, Jan Drahokoupil, Magdalena Bernaciak, Petr Pavlinek

Faculty Books and Monographs

Editors:Béla Galgóczi,Jan Drahokoupil, and Magdalena Bernaciak

Chapter, Foreign direct investment and the development of the automotive industry in central and eastern Europe, authored by Petr Pavlinek, UNO faculty member.

This book investigates the role that foreign direct investment (FDI) in central-eastern and southern Europe has played in the post-crisis period, comparing patterns across countries and sectors.

An overarching objective of this publication is to assess the extent to which FDI can still be seen as a key driver of economic development, modernisation and convergence for Europe’s low- and middle-income economies, taking into account also the risks and limiting factors associated …

The Transformation Of Trust In China’S Alternative Food Networks: Disruption, Reconstruction, And Development, Raymond Yu Wang, Zhenzhong Si, Cho Nam Ng, Steffanie Scott

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food safety issues in China have received much scholarly attention, yet few studies systematically examined this matter through the lens of trust. More importantly, little is known about the transformation of different types of trust in the dynamic process of food production, provision, and consumption. We consider trust as an evolving interdependent relationship between different actors. We used the Beijing County Fair, a prominent ecological farmers’ market in China, as an example to examine the transformation of trust in China’s alternative food networks. We argue that although there has been a disruption of institutional trust among the general public since …

The State Of Poverty And Food Insecurity In Maseru, Lesotho, Resetselemang Leduka, Jonathan Crush, Bruce Frayne, Cameron Mccordic, Thope Matobo, Ts’Episo Makoa, Matseliso Mphale, Mmantai Phaila, Moipone Letsie

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report on food insecurity in urban Lesotho is the latest in a series on Southern African cities issued by AFSUN. Like the previous reports, it focuses on one city (Maseru) and on poor neighbourhoods and households in that city. More than 60% of poor households surveyed in Maseru were severely food insecure. While food price increases worsen food insecurity for poor households, it is poverty that weakens the resilience of society to absorb these increases. This report argues that Maseru residents face specific and interrelated challenges with respect to food and nutrition insecurity. These are poverty; limited local livelihood …

Entrepreneurship And Inclusive Growth In South Africa, Zimbabwe And Mozambique, Jonathan Crush, Caroline Skinner, Abel Chikanda

Hungry Cities Partnership

While increasing attention is being paid to the drivers and forms of entrepreneurship in informal economies, much less of this policy and research focus is directed at understanding the links between mobility and informality. This report examines the current state of knowledge about this relationship with particular reference to three countries (Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe) and four cities (Cape Town, Harare, Johannesburg and Maputo), identifying major themes, knowledge gaps, research questions and policy implications. In many African cities, informal enterprises are operated by internal and international migrants. The extent and nature of mobile entrepreneurship and the opportunities and challenges …

Green Gold- A Cannabis Sativa L. Lucis Suitability Analysis For West Virginia, Delbert Christopher Cannoy

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Appalachia needs a way to sustainably develop. Cannabis Sativa L. may be a possible source of sustainable development for West Virginia. The goal of this study is the identification of possible sites for industrial hemp fiber cultivation areas, both the total agricultural potential and with current land use land cover classification limits, and which of these sites have the potential for acid mine drainage phytoremediation.

Using LUCIS classification and binary analysis, three major separate outputs were created answering the three study questions. The agricultural layer revealed that West Virginia can utilize hemp farming for 23.48% of the state. The second …