Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Scotts Bluff National Monument, Plant Community Resource Brief, Isabel Ashton, Mike Prowatzke

United States National Park Service: Publications

2011 Monitoring Status

Overview

In 2011, the first year of vegetation monitoring by the Northern Great Plains Network Inventory and Monitoring staff at Scotts Bluff National Monument, efforts resulted in the documentation of 79 plant species. This was the lowest number of species among parks sampled in 2011. Graminoid (grass and grass-like plant) species accounted for only 21 (27%) of the total species, but graminoid cover was much higher than that of any other plant type. Forbs were much more diverse, but did not provide as much foliar cover.

The 5 most abundant native non-graminoids were winterfat (Krascheninnikovia lanata …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring Protocol For The Northern Great Plains I&M Network - Standard Operating Procedures, Version 1.01, Amy J. Symstad, Robert A. Gitzen, Cody L. Wienk, Michael R. Bynum, Daniel J. Swanson, Andy D. Thorstenson, Kara J. Paintner-Green

United States National Park Service: Publications

Introduction

The Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN) includes thirteen park units located in five northern Great Plains states across six ecoregions. Plant community composition and structure monitoring comprises the core of the vegetation monitoring effort for the NGPN, covering the “Riparian Lowland Plant Communities” and “Upland Plant Communities” vital signs (Gitzen et al. 2010). The narrative portion of the plant community protocol can be found in Symstad et al. 2012. The narrative includes the rationale for vegetation monitoring, an overview of sample design, field methods, data management, and program requirements. This document contains the standard operating procedures …

Vulnerability To Extreme Heat In Metropolitan Phoenix: Spatial, Temporal, And Demographic Dimensions, Winston T. L. Chow, Wen-Ching Chuang, Patricia Gober

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study assessed the spatial distribution of vulnerability to extreme heat in 1990 and 2000 within metropolitan Phoenix based on an index of seven equally weighted measures of physical exposure and adaptive capacity. These measures were derived from spatially interpolated climate, normalized differential vegetation index, and U.S. Census data. From resulting vulnerability maps, we also analyzed population groups living in areas of high heat vulnerability. Results revealed that landscapes of heat vulnerability changed substantially in response to variations in physical and socioeconomic factors, with significant alterations to spatial distribution of vulnerability especially between eastern and western sectors of Phoenix. These …

Un Análisis Multi-Escalar Del Sistema Forestal Peruano, J. Boettner, G. Sager-Gellerman, E. Strickler, C. Courtenay, R. Gilb, W. Gordon, G. Leonard, J. Marconi, M. Mcgovern, M. Nagle, C. Paiz Tejada, Andrew Pericak, M. Price, D. Vassallo, R. Yowell, David S. Salisbury

Geography and the Environment Poster Presentations

Perú tiene 67 millones de hectáreas de bosque, que viene a ser más del 53% de la superficie total del país (OIMT, 2010). La extracción maderera es la propulsora principal de la economía dentro de la Amazonía Peruana, generando empleos para comunidades rurales y urbanas (Sears y Pinedo-Vásquez, 2011). Sin embargo, a menudo los empresarios madereros explotan a sus trabajadores a través de un sistema de préstamos (De la Rosa Tincopa, 2009). Alrededor de 1354 comunidades indígenas poseen títulos de propiedad en la región (OIMT, 2010), pero muchas comunidades no tienen los títulos para su territorio que muchas veces se …

Alternative Methods To Predict Actual Evapotranspiration Illustrate The Importance Of Accounting For Phenology: The Event Driven Phenology Model Part Ii, V. Kovalskyy, G. M. Henebry

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Evapotranspiration (ET) flux constitutes a major component of both the water and energy balances at the land surface. Among the many factors that control evapotranspiration, phenology poses a major source of uncertainty in attempts to predict ET. Contemporary approaches to ET modeling and monitoring frequently summarize the complexity of the seasonal development of vegetation cover into static phenological trajectories (or climatologies) that lack sensitivity to changing environmental conditions. The Event Driven Phenology Model (EDPM) offers an alternative, interactive approach to representing phenology. This study presents the results of an experiment designed to illustrate the differences in ET arising from various …

A New Concept For Simulation Of Vegetated Land Surface Dynamics: The Event Driven Phenology Model Part I, V. Kovalskyy, G. M. Henebry

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Phenologies of the vegetated land surface are being used increasingly for diagnosis and prognosis of climate change consequences. Current prospective and retrospective phenological models stand far apart in their approaches to the subject. We report on an exploratory attempt to implement a phenological model based on a new event driven concept which has both diagnostic and prognostic capabilities in the same modeling framework. This Event Driven Phenological Model (EDPM) is shown to simulate land surface phenologies and phenophase transition dates in agricultural landscapes based on assimilation of weather data and land surface observations from spaceborne sensors. The model enables growing …

Making Lives, Changing A Landscape: An Environmental History Of The Tualatin Valley, Washington County, Oregon, Camille A. Cope

Geography Masters Research Papers

Sheltered by mountains on all sides, the 724-square mile Tualatin Valley has been home to successive groups of people who have shaped the landscape based on their needs, tools, and ideas about the human relationship to nature. Thousands of years of indigenous burning practices and cultivation of native plants, followed by two centuries of European-American fur trapping, agriculture, logging, and urbanization have created the Tualatin Valley landscape of today. Understanding how a history of changing land use has affected the region is integral to building an environmentally sustainable future.

Snowmelt Runoff Modeling: Limitations And Potential For Mitigating Water Disputes, Jonathan Kult, Woonsup Choi, Anke Petra Maria Keuser

Geography Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

A Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Groundwater Level Changes In Relation To Urban Growth And Groundwater Recharge Potential For Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Woonsup Choi, Ulrike Galasinski, Sung-Jin Cho, Chul-Sue Hwang

Geography Faculty Articles

The main objective of this study was to spatially and temporally analyze groundwater level changes using geographic information systems and spatial analysis with respect to urban development, groundwater water withdrawal, and groundwater recharge potential. The study focused on Waukesha County in southeastern Wisconsin, where urban development has been accelerating while groundwater has been declining during the last several decades. We analyzed data about groundwater withdrawal, groundwater level, land use/land cover, and precipitation utilizing correlation analysis, Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), land-use change analysis, and map overlay. As a result, we found that (1) Urban areas increased faster in areas with high …

Book Review: Edward L. Glaeser, Triumph Of The City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, And Happier (The Penguin Press 2011), David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

It is always a bit unnerving to read someone else’s love letters, but even more so, when you have the same object of desire. Edward Glaeser’s TRIUMPH OF THE CITY is a love letter to cities and to New York City in particular. Glaeser provides a theoertical framework of the city, arguing that “Cities are the absence of physical space between people and companies. They are proximity, density, closeness.”

Glaeser prescribes three simple rules to protect the vitality of the urban environment: First, cities should replace the current lengthy and uncertain permitting process with a simple system of fees. Second, …

Land Abandonment And Wild Ungulates: Maintaining Open Spaces In Catalan Pre-Pyrenees, Joan M. Welch, Josep Vila Subiros, Diego Varga Linde

Geography & Planning Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Detection Of Forest Structures In The Monongahela National Forest Using Lidar, Dominique Norman

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The mapping of structural elements of a forest is important for forestry management to provide a baseline for old and new-growth trees while providing height strata for a stand. These activities are important for the overall monitoring process which aids in the understanding of anthropogenic and natural disturbances. Height information recorded for each discrete point is key for the creation of canopy height, canopy surface, and canopy cover models. The aim of this study is to assess if LiDAR can be used to determine forest structures. Small footprint, leaf-off LiDAR data were obtained for the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia. …

Análisis De Los Impactos Socio-Ambientales De Las Carreteras En La Amazonía: Carretera De Puerto Esperanza A Iñapari En Perú, George Appling, David S. Salisbury

Geography and the Environment Poster Presentations

La Cuenca del Purús está situada en las regiones de Ucayali y Madre de Dios en el sudeste del Perú. Además del Rio Alto Purús, la cuenca abarca un parque nacional, una reserva comunal, reservas territoriales para pueblos indígenas aislados, territorios indígenas y un pueblo pequeño (Figura 1). En el año 2004, el Gobierno Peruano creó el Parque Nacional Alto Purús, el más grande en el Perú, para preservar una de las secciones mejor conservadas del bosque tropical en el bioma Amazónico. Como se demuestra en la Figura 1, la Reserva Comunal Purús colindante, sirve como zona de amortiguamiento entre …

Grts And Graphs: Monitoring Natural Resources In Urban Landscapes, Todd R. Lookingbill, John Paul Schmit, Shawn L. Carter

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

Environmental monitoring programs are an important tool for providing land managers with a scientific basis for management decisions. However, many ecological processes operate on spatial scales that transcend management boundaries (Schonewald-Cox 1988). For example, adjacent lands may influence protected-area resources via edge effects, source-sink dynamics, or invasion processes (Jones et al. 2009). Hydrologic alterations outside management units also may have profound effects on the integrity of resources being managed (Pringle 2000). The impacts of climate change are presenting challenges to resource management at local-to-global scales (Karl et al. 2009). This potential disparity between ecological and political boundaries presents an interesting …

Impacts Of Urbanisation On The Native Avifauna Of Perth, Western Australia, Robert Davis, C Gole, Jd Roberts

Research outputs 2012

Urban development either eliminates, or severely fragments, native vegetation, and therefore alters the distribution and abundance of species that depend on it for habitat. We assessed the impact of urban development on bird communities at 121 sites in and around Perth, Western Australia. Based on data from community surveys, at least 83 % of 65 landbirds were found to be dependent, in some way, on the presence of native vegetation. For three groups of species defined by specific patterns of habitat use (bushland birds), there were sufficient data to show that species occurrences declined as the landscape changed from variegated …

Systematics, Biogeography And Leaf Anatomy And Architecture Of Bursera Subgen. Bursera (Burseraceae) In The Greater Antilles And The Bahamas, María Cristina Martínez-Habibe

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study on the origin and evolutionary relationships of the species of Bursera in Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and the Bahamas. The goals of the first chapter were to test monophyly of the group, revisit a recent transfer of two species of Bursera to Commiphora, and place recently discovered mainland species using the reconstructed phylogenies. Additionally, divergence estimations using fossils were used as independent tests of several hypotheses regarding the arrival of the modern biota to the Greater Antilles and Bahamas (GAB). I conclude that all endemic taxonomic entities of the genus in this region belong …

Streamflow Analysis And A Comparison Of Hydrologic Metrics In Urban Streams, Matthew Lawton Wood

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates the hydrologic effects of urbanization in two Portland, Oregon streams through a comparison of three hydrologic metrics. Hydrologic metrics used in this study are the mean annual runoff ratio (Qa), mean seasonal runoff ratio (Qw and Qd), and the fraction of time that streamflow exceeds the mean streamflow during the year (TQmean). Additionally, the relative change in streamflow in response to storm events was examined for two watersheds. For this investigation urban development is represented by two urbanization metrics: percent impervious and road density. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to evaluate the relationship between the hydrologic …

Impacts Of Urbanisation On The Native Avifauna Of Perth, Western Australia, Robert A. Davis, Cheryl Gole, J Dale Roberts

Research outputs 2013

Urban development either eliminates, or severely fragments, native vegetation, and therefore alters the distribution and abundance of species that depend on it for habitat. We assessed the impact of urban development on bird communities at 121 sites in and around Perth, Western Australia. Based on data from community surveys, at least 83 % of 65 landbirds were found to be dependent, in some way, on the presence of native vegetation. For three groups of species defined by specific patterns of habitat use (bushland birds), there were sufficient data to show that species occurrences declined as the landscape changed from variegated …

The Environmental And Cultural Effects On The Conquest Of Mexico, Tristan Siegel

Senior Projects Spring 2012

In this work I examine the environment and cultural attitudes of Mesoamericans, specifically the Mexica (Atzec), and how these factors played a role in the Conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortes. I begin by examining Mesoamerican agriculture, lithic technology, and metallurgy. I conclude by examining how these factors played out in the Conquest.

Potential Wolverine Habitat Vs. Winter Recreation. Conflict In Colorado!, Paul Quigley

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

The Global list of endangered species of flora and fauna is growing, with the most highly specialized species often at ‘critically endangered’ status. Managing these populations effectively involves numerous and varied organizations, conflicting motivations, arbitrary anthropogenic boundaries and often most importantly, data compilation and management. We are seeing many more reintroductions of locally extirpated species back into habitats of historical prevalence – and as extreme a method of conservation as this is, there is still a need for more extreme methods. High profile and highly specialized endangered species are often managed in a ‘crisis’ mode, where complex behaviors and interactions …