Geography Commons^™

Understanding And Managing Karst Water Resources In Belize: Case Studies Of Both Past And Present In A Changing Climate, Jason S. Polk, Leslie North, Ben Miller, Jonathan Oglesby, Kegan Mcclanahan, Lowell Neeper, Aaron Holland, Bernie Strenecky

Earth, Environmental, and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty Publications

Belize is a developing country that faces water resource issues in the forms of both quality and quantity, stemming from a long history of environmental stress and population threats, from the ancient Maya to present. Belize’s karst landscape, which comprises a large part of the country from the coast to the Maya Mountains, is characterized by springs, caves, sinkholes, and aquifers systems formed from the dissolution of carbonate (limestone, dolomite) rock. This research presents several different case studies, spanning from the ancient Maya and issues with drought to modern communities that rely on groundwater resources quickly being depleted. Past drought …

A Further Look At The 1858 Wallace-Darwin Mail Delivery Question, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Recent investigations have led to a conclusion that Alfred Russel Wallace probably mailed his ‘Ternate’ paper on natural selection to Darwin a month later than some have thought, thus freeing Darwin from possible accusations of plagiarism. Further examination of the question suggests this conclusion is premature, as the evidence in favor of the later mailing date appears to be shakier than first thought.

On The System Of Knowledge: A Classification Of Studies Within The Field Of Geography*, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Land Use And Land Cover Change In Three Corn Belt Ecoregions: Similarities And Differences, Roger Auch, Chris Laingen, Mark Drummond, Kristi Sayler, Ryan Reker, Michelle Bouchard, Jeffrey Danielson

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Transit Oriented Development On The Travel Behaviors Of Workers In Denver, Colorado, Gregory J. Kwoka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To combat unsustainable transportation systems characterized by reliance on petroleum, polluting emissions, traffic congestion and suburban sprawl, planners encourage mixed use, densely populated areas that provide individuals with opportunities to live, work, eat and shop without necessarily having to drive private automobiles to accommodate their needs. Despite these attempts, the frequency and duration of automobile trips has consistently increased in the United States throughout past decades. While many studies have focused on how residential proximity to transit influences travel behavior, the effect of workplace location has largely been ignored.

This paper asks, does working near a TOD influence the travel …

Explaining China’S Wildlife Crisis: Cultural Tradition Or Politics Of Development, Peter J. Li

Threatened and Endangered Animal Populations Collection

This chapter is about China’s wildlife crisis. As the following sections attempt to demonstrate, abuse of and assault on wildlife in captivity and in the wild have reached an unprecedented level on the Chinese mainland in the reform era (1978–present). Shocking brutality against wildlife animals has been frequently exposed by Chinese and international media. To readers outside East Asia, they ask if the Chinese are culturally indifferent to animal suffering. Indeed, does the Chinese culture sanction cruelty to animals? Or is it the contemporary politics of economic development that is more directly responsible for the crisis?

Science, Sentience, And Animal Welfare, Robert C. Jones

Ethics and Animal Welfare Collection

I sketch briefly some of the more influential theories concerned with the moral status of nonhuman animals, highlighting their biological/physiological aspects. I then survey the most prominent empirical research on the physiological and cognitive capacities of nonhuman animals, focusing primarily on sentience, but looking also at a few other morally relevant capacities such as self-awareness, memory, and mindreading. Lastly, I discuss two examples of current animal welfare policy, namely, animals used in industrialized food production and in scientific research. I argue that even the most progressive current welfare policies lag behind, are ignorant of, or arbitrarily disregard the science on …

South Asian Diasporas In Canada, Margaret Walton-Roberts

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

In May 2011 over 60 scholars gathered in Canada for a conference on; ‘Assessing the complexities of South Asian Migration’. This special issue of South Asian Diaspora on South Asian diasporas in Canada emerges from this event, and contains papers by scholars from multiple disciplines drawing upon various research methods and theoretical frameworks. As a collection the papers demonstrate the mature and evolving nature of research on Canada’s various South Asian immigrant communities (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives). This geographical diversity comprises what is termed ‘South Asia’, according to this journal’s aims and scopes at …

The State Of Food Insecurity In Maputo, Mozambique, Inês Raimundo, Jonathan Crush, Wade Pendleton

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food insecurity is a fact of life for the vast majority of households across Maputo’s poverty belt. The Maputo urban food security survey done by AFSUN as part of its baseline survey of 11 Southern African cities found that households exist in a constant state of food insecurity manifested in a lack of access to sufficient affordable food, poor dietary quality and undernutrition. Income is meagre and only those households with access to wage income have any chance of holding food insecurity at bay. With a vibrant informal food economy, Maputo’s poor are surrounded by fresh and processed food. Food …

Political Party Affiliation, Regional Variation And The Demographic Correlates Of Euroscepticism On The Isle Of Great Britain, Jared Figgins

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Euroscepticism or opposition to the European Union has become a growing political philosophy among broad segments of Europe’s populace. This philosophy has manifested itself in some form throughout most of the European Union, but opinion polls and voter data indicate Euroscepticism is most acute within the United Kingdom and both among its general citizenry and elected officials. In the 2009 EU Parliament elections for the United Kingdom, the right wing United Kingdom Independence Party gained its most ever seats in the Parliament while the far-right British National Party gained its first ever seats in a national election. With overtly Eurosceptic …

Making Sense Of Human Ecology Mapping: An Overview Of Approaches To Integrating Socio-Spatial Data Into Environmental Planning, Rebecca J. Mclain, Melissa R. Poe, Kelly Biedenweg, Lee Cerveny, Diane Besser, Dale Blahna

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Ecosystem-based planning and management have stimulated the need to gather sociocultural values and human uses of land in formats accessible to diverse planners and researchers. Human Ecology Mapping (HEM) approaches offer promising spatial data gathering and analytical tools, while also addressing important questions about human-landscape connections. This article reviews and compares the characteristics of three HEM approaches that are increasingly used in natural resource management contexts, each focused on a particular aspect of human-environmental interactions. These aspects include tenure and resource use (TRU), local ecological knowledge (LEK), and sense of place (SOP). We discuss their origins, provide examples of their …

Regulating The Farmers’ Market: Paysan Expertise, Quality Production And Local Food, Roza Tchoukaleyska

Geography & Environment Publications

This paper considers the meaning of local, quality food in the context of a farmer’s market in Montpellier, France. The focus is on understanding how farmers conceptualize ‘local’, how they perceive and cater to their clients’ demand for quality food, and what mechanisms are deployed to ensure a joint approach to these conventions. With a market association capable of carrying out site inspections to weed out ‘fake-farmers’ and an expectation that each vendor would participate in staged demonstrations of agrarian competency, the market emerges as an exclusive and tightly regulated commercial space that promotes both local protectionism and alternative consumption …

Divided Diasporas: Southern Africans In Canada, Jonathan Crush, Abel Chikanda, Wade Pendleton, Mary Caesar, Sujata Ramachandran, Cassandra Eberhardt, Ashley Hill

Southern African Migration Programme

The protracted economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe led directly to a major increase in mixed migration flows to South Africa. Migrants were drawn from every sector of society, all education and skill levels, equal numbers of both sexes, and all ages (including unaccompanied child migration). Many migrants claimed asylum in South Africa which gave them the right to work while they waited for a refugee hearing. Many others were arrested and deported back to Zimbabwe. Migrants who were unable to find employment in the formal economy turned to employment and self-employment in the informal economy. These migrant entrepreneurs used …

Climate Change Beliefs, Concerns, And Attitudes Toward Adaptation And Mitigation Among Farmers In The Midwestern United States, J. Gordon Arbuckle, Linda Stalker Prokopy, Tonya Haigh, Jon Hobbs, Tricia Knoot, Cody Knutson, Adam Loy, Amber Saylor Mase, Jean Mcguire, Lois Wright Morton, John Tyndall, Melissa Widhalm

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

A February 2012 survey of almost 5,000 farmers across a region of the U.S. that produces more than half of the nation’s corn and soybean revealed that 66% of farmers believed climate change is occurring (8% mostly anthropogenic, 33% equally human and natural, 25% mostly natural), while 31% were uncertain and 3.5% did not believe that climate change is occurring. Results of initial analyses indicate that farmers’ beliefs about climate change and its causes vary considerably, and the relationships between those beliefs, concern about the potential impacts of climate change, and attitudes toward adaptive and mitigative action differ in systematic …

Rights In Transit: Public Transportation And The "Right To The City" In California's East Bay, Kafui Ablode Attoh

Geography and the Environment - Dissertations

In recent years, a number of researchers in geography and in urban studies have taken to the idea of the "right to the city." These scholars have drawn on the idea to frame debates on topics as wide ranging as urban social movements, the regulation of urban public space, to the relationship between cities and citizenship. Implicit in this literature is a conception of the city and of urban space in which political conflict and class struggle are dominating features. This dissertation seeks to add to that discussion by focusing on debates over transit policy in California's East Bay. In …

Geographies Of Poverty And Retail: The Impact Of Supermarket Expansion On Food Insecurity In Cape Town, Stephen D. Peyton

Geography Honors Projects

The rapid rise in supermarkets in developing countries over the last few decades has resulted in the radical transformation of food retail systems. In the city of Cape Town, the introduction of supermarkets has coincided with rapid urbanization and increasing levels of food insecurity. In the context of a neoliberal approach toward economic development and redistribution, regulatory policies have largely ignored urban problems of food insecurity; therefore, retail modernization has become a largely unregulated market-based solution to improving food access for the poor. However, the introduction of formal food retail formats is often seen as conflicting with the informal food …

Mydigitalfootprint.Org: Young People And The Proprietary Ecology Of Everyday Data, Gregory Thomas Donovan

All Open Access Legacy Dissertations and Capstone Projects

Young people are the canaries in our contemporary data mine. They are at the forefront of complex negotiations over privacy, property, and security in environments saturated with information systems. The productive and entertaining promises of proprietary media have led to widespread adoption among youth whose daily activities now generate troves of data that are mined for governance and profit. As they text, email, network, and search within these proprietary ecologies, young people's identity configurations link up with modes of capitalist production. The MyDigitalFootprint.ORG Project was thus initiated to unpack and engage young people's material social relations with/in proprietary ecologies through …

Children, Violence, Community And The Physical Environment: Foreword To The Special Issue, Kevin Lalor

Articles

No abstract provided.

Gis-Based Expert Systems Model For Predicting Habitat Suitability Of Blackside Dace, Benjamin L. Blandford, John Ripy, Ted H. Grossardt, Ryan Evans, Sara Hines

Kentucky Transportation Center Presentations

This study presents a GIS-based predictive habitat suitability model for the blackside dace, a federally-listed threatened species of the Upper Cumberland River basin in southeastern Kentucky. The model is a rules-based system which incorporates expert knowledge about habitat preferences for the species. The five habitat factors identified by experts and included in this model are stream gradient, canopy coverage, riparian vegetation type, riparian zone width, and stream order. Using GIS, the five habitat parameters were parameterized and combined across the entire stream network. Combinations were evaluated by blackside dace experts in terms of habitat suitability. The resulting model was tested …

Augmented Realities And Uneven Geographies: Exploring The Geolinguistic Contours Of The Web, Mark Graham, Matthew Zook

Geography Faculty Publications

This paper analyzes the digital dimensions of places as represented by online, geocoded references to the economic, social, and political experiences of the city. These digital layers are invisible to the naked eye, but form a central component of the augmentations and mediations of place enabled by hundreds of millions of mobile computing devices and other digital technologies. The analysis highlights how these augmentations of place differ across space and language and highlights both the differences and some of the causal factors behind them. This is performed through a global study of all online content indexed within Google Maps, and …