Choose timezone
Your profile timezone:
Powered by Indico
v3.3.1
This year’s joint meeting of SWAAG and AGX will be held in the LBJ Student Center (LBJSC) at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. San Marcos, conveniently situated between San Antonio, TX and Austin, TX, offers easy access to both the San Antonio International Airport (45 miles away) and the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (32 miles away).
Some Important Reminders:
Abstract:
Domestic violence (DV) includes various forms of abuse—physical, emotional, and psychological—and can often push victims into homelessness as they try to escape unsafe conditions (source-https://www.thehotline.org). In Austin, TX, these challenges are compounded by limited shelter availability, financial dependence, and transportation barriers, leaving many victims without the critical support they need. This study examines the spatial, social, and temporal relationships between DV and homelessness in Austin from 2012 to 2023, with a focus on the distribution and accessibility of shelters.
To explore these patterns, Kernel Density Analysis was used to identify hotspots where DV incidents were most concentrated across the city. Buffer Analysis was then applied to assess the distance between DV hotspots and existing shelters. The analysis revealed that many DV incidents occurred beyond a 12-mile radius of shelters, particularly in western and southwestern Austin, making access difficult for victims who rely on public transportation. Socio-economic factors were also evaluated using HUD data and 2020 Census demographics, showing a strong correlation between higher poverty rates and increased DV incidents.
The findings underscore the need for more shelters in underserved areas, as well as improved transportation options for victims. The spatial misalignment between shelters and high-DV areas highlights a critical gap in service provision. Addressing these issues will be crucial in ensuring that victims of DV have timely and equitable access to support, especially in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Implementing these recommendations will significantly improve shelter access and reduce the long-term impact of DV on Austin's vulnerable populations.
(In 248 words)
Cited References:
1. Huecker, M. R., King, K. C., Jordan, G. A., & Smock, W. (2024). Domestic
violence. StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499891/
2. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2016). Domestic violence and homelessness: Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofvps/fact-sheet/domestic-violence-and-homelessness-statistics-2016 City of Austin. (2020). Homeless strategy division: Ending homelessness in Austin.
3. Retrieved from https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=340650
4. SAFE Alliance. (2022). The link between trauma and homelessness. Retrieved from https://www.safeaustin.org/the-link-between-trauma-and-homelessness/
5. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). (2023). The Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress: Part 1 – Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness. Retrieved from https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/6071/2019-ahar-part-1-pit-estimates-of-homelessness/City of Austin Data Portal. (2024). Homelessness Data. Retrieved from https://data.austintexas.gov/
Sanitation studies focused on disabilities in Global South cities reveal structural environment and social stigma as significant challenges in access to urban sanitation for Persons Living with Disabilities (PLDS). This study examines sanitation experiences of Students Living with Disabilities (SLD) in their access to safe and accessible toilets at one public university in Kampala to shed light on marginalization from spatial differentiation of sanitation infrastructure. Participants shared their experiences with two of their most used toilets through semi-structured interviews and a Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The paper carefully engages insights from Environmental Justice and Urban Political Ecology (UPE) and is informed by infrastructure studies within these framings in the Global South where practices that make disrupted infrastructure work are utilized. Additionally, the paper enriches UPE infrastructure studies through a visual network analysis of the sanitation zones. The analysis raised three fluid sanitation zones that can quickly evolve from one zone to another in space and time. This then requires SLD to constantly adjust their mobilities and sanitation practices to match existing conditions, a factor we consider as manifestation of marginalization. Assistance from friends is crucial in such circumstances but it is not always free or affordable for all who need it and at times it must be foregone as a tradeoff for privacy and dignity. We conclude that urban planners and managers must consider target social groups, resources, policies, power structures, and social networks which significantly influence how and for whom sanitation spaces can be made inclusive, to curb marginalization.
Despite the perceived consensus on the intensity of the impacts of climate change on the livelihoods and food security of African rural farmers. Yet, there has been limited in-depth study on its impacts on existing agricultural systems and African rural farmers' socioeconomic vulnerability to climate change. Consequently, the introduction of climate resilience solutions such as the Green Revolution technology (GRT), Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), and Climate Resilient Technology advocated by the Global North and the World Bank have received mixed reactions from locals who often perceive these methods as mutually exclusive and on the other hand, by national governments in this region who need to support this initiative either tacitly as part of conditions to secure foreign aids/ grants or loans from these international donor agencies. The rationale for these initiatives is premised on climate resilience. Yet, the lack of an in-depth assessment and understanding of African rural farmers' peculiarities vis-a-vis their socioeconomic status might impact their viability and sustainability in the region. Thus, this study adopts a mixed-method approach to analyze climate change impacts on existing agricultural systems and its socioeconomic impacts on rural farmers. A mixed research design approach was adopted, including survey instruments, in-depth interviews, Focused Group discussions, and Satellite imagery. Quantitative data was sought from 200 farmers/households, while qualitative data was from 8 focused group discussions and 12 key informant interviews. Also, Landsat imageries (TRM and OLS/TIRS) imageries for the years 2015 and 2024 were obtained from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth's Explorer website and were used for classification and analysis of land use/land cover (LULC) in the studied area. Our findings show that crop rotation (47%) and mixed crop (37.5%) systems remain the dominant agriculture systems rural farmers adopt despite climate change's impacts and relatively newer climate-resilient methods. More so, a majority of respondents (99.5%) are male, which reveals the prevalent gender inequalities that also characterize land use rights in many rural African landscapes. Similarly, the study revealed that climate change has significantly impacted farmers' livelihoods and economic returns, as many have recently declared income losses and reduced farm labor. Furthermore, respondents averred that climate change impacted rainfall patterns, planting time, and seed germination. Focused group discussions revealed farmers prefer options that positively impact their outputs and manage the climate's unpredictability. LULC cover analysis shows a 9.7% loss in farmlands (vegetation) within the nine years considered. Based on these findings, the study recommends a more robust rural policy addressing climate change impacts among rural farmers in the global south.
Keywords: Agricultural systems; Climate change; Vulnerability assessment; Food security; Sub-Saharan Africa
Acknowledgement
My advisor has received this extended abstract and approves its submission for the student competition (Prof. Myles Colleen; cch64@txstate.edu)
This study investigates the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in reconstructing historical landscapes, with a focus on the estate and influence of Nicholas Jarrot, an influential French American entrepreneur in early 19th-century Cahokia, Illinois. By utilizing geospatial approaches, the research reconstructs the spatial dimensions of Jarrot's extensive landholdings and examines their role within the broader sociopolitical context of the Mississippi River region during the early American Republic. GIS analysis enables the visualization of land use patterns, property boundaries, and the strategic positioning of Jarrot's estate, shedding light on how his activities shaped the development of Cahokia as a critical economic and cultural center. The study also explores the intersections of geography, economy, and power, revealing how spatial relationships influenced the historical trajectory of the region. Through this interdisciplinary approach, the research underscores the significance of GIS as a valuable tool for historical inquiry, offering new perspectives on the spatial dynamics of historical figures and their environments. This work contributes to a growing body of scholarship that integrates geospatial technologies into historical studies, enhancing our understanding of the complex interplay between geography and history in early America.
Chinese settlement in central and eastern Arkansas extends back to the middle of the 19th Century and spans both rural landscapes of post-Civil War agriculture and urban landscapes of small business ownership. Despite the multi-generational presence of Chinese-Americans in the Arkansas Delta, the community is often subsumed by the dominant historical narratives of the region or overshadowed by more recent immigrant communities. Filmmaker Baldwin Chiu’s 2020 documentary “Far East, Deep South” chronicled his own journey of discovery of unknown family roots in the Mississippi portion of the Delta region and captured the hidden histories present even to this day. The Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project (ACHP) intends to showcase this often invisible place-based historical narrative. Spearheaded by faculty in the UCA Department of History and the Center for Chinese Language and Culture with support from the Chinese Association of Arkansas and faculty from UCA Geography, the ACHP combines oral histories, local records and archival documents, and geospatial recreations of historical landscapes. The goal of this project is to shed light on these hidden stories by highlighting the compelling individual and family histories and emphasizing the connections to local landscapes.
Gentrification is a process in which higher socioeconomic status groups displace lower socioeconomic status groups and is often associated with changes in the built environment. With the growth of street level imagery datasets like Google Street View, we now have access to a temporally deep repository of visual data at a property level spatial resolution. There is potential to leverage deep learning and computer vision techniques to identify and map visual changes often associated with gentrification at a finer spatial and temporal resolution than is possible with traditional census-based techniques. In this paper I review recent studies of gentrification that implemented deep learning and computer vision techniques. Through this I explore strengths and weaknesses of the method as developed so far, the appropriateness of its application to the study of gentrification, and potential directions for this research method moving forward.
The paradox between securitization and border integration has guided the formulation of territorial policies in a global scenario. Just as the rise of regional integration blocs led to borders acquiring an articulating function, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to the expansion of border control and security policies, culminating in the partial or total closure of land, air and sea borders.
This paper examines cross-border integration in the Brazil-Argentina Tri-Border area, focusing on the twin cities of Dionísio Cerqueira (BR), Barracão (BR), and Bernardo de Irigoyen (AR). These cities, located on the dry border, form a single urban area, divided only by a street. What makes this triad unique is that it spans two national territories and two Brazilian states—Santa Catarina and Paraná.
The region has a history of cooperation and integration, with intense commercial activity driven by local population and external capital. Consequently, an economic space has emerged, shaped by transborder processes at both local and supranational scales, creating distinct flows and interactions.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, border closures temporarily disrupted social, labor, and commercial relations, affecting the daily life of this cross-border micro-region. This paper explores how border territories are constructed and experienced, analyzing the strategies employed by local actors in these twin cities to foster integrated development despite the challenges posed by border securitization during crises like the pandemic.
This ethnographic research, conducted in collaboration with Uwottüja communities on the Venezuelan-Colombian Amazon border, investigates the geographies of dispossession in the context of illegal mining. Drawing on feminist political ecology and environmental justice scholarship, the study takes an approach to justice as a practice of healing, emphasizing its relational and restorative dimensions. It examines how Indigenous histories of dispossession, beginning with the settler occupation during the early-twentieth-century rubber boom, inform current responses to illegal mining and the presence of transborder non-state armed actors controlling mining economies within Indigenous territories. These histories embody processes of displacement, evangelization, transformation of traditional governance structures, co-optation of Indigenous struggles, and neglect of Indigenous rights. Community responses to mining range from resistance to acquiescence and even active participation, revealing complex dynamics of power, identity, and survival amid ongoing territorial encroachment. Settler actors (such as local government officials or NGOs) have reinforced racialized narratives towards Indigenous peoples by criminalizing their participation in mining and thus undermining their legitimacy and capacity to define territorial meanings and assert Indigenous rights. The analysis focuses on gendered processes of social reproduction, showing how these dynamics have eroded social and emotional networks that sustain families and communities, which women are seen as primarily responsible for maintaining. The study supports a conceptualization of justice as a practice of healing, advocating for the importance of restoring relationships with the land and the community to recover from the historical and ongoing impacts of extractivism.
Since 2014, the number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving to the U.S. from Central America has drastically increased. While most are reunited with family members, those with limited options are placed in long-term foster care (LTFC) awaiting the adjudication of their cases. This group is largely invisible in research on unaccompanied minors because of the restrictive nature of long-term foster care. Applying a geopolitical feminist framework, this paper analyzes their particular struggles as they navigate between the immigration and foster care systems. We employ Menjivar and Abrego’s (2012) term of “legal violence” that encapsulates the normalized, but detrimental effects of immigration law and policy on everyday life. Through children’s legal case files, interviews with service providers, and courtroom ethnographies under the Trump and Biden Administrations, we trace the journey of Central American children. We argue that the conflicting mandates between the US immigration system and the child welfare system increase and intensify the “legal violence” children face while applying for asylum. This paper contributes to the very limited literature on the experiences of unaccompanied migrant children in foster care and offers preliminary insights into policy and advocacy reforms required to better support this vulnerable population.
This presentation explores how U.S. migration policies and international cooperation affect the routes and methods Central American migrants use to reach the U.S.-Mexico border. It looks at the strategies the U.S. employs to deter unauthorized migration, such as stricter border enforcement and collaborations with Central American countries. Although these policies aim to reduce migration, they make the journey more dangerous and expensive for migrants. Many are forced to take riskier paths, like the Darién Gap, and rely more heavily on smugglers, leading to increased humanitarian crises.
Furthermore, this presentation details how Central American countries respond to U.S. pressure to control migration. For instance, Mexico has imposed stricter visa requirements, pushing migrants to find alternative routes through countries with more lenient policies, such as Brazil and Ecuador. Panama manages the hazardous Darién Gap, where migrants face severe risks from rough terrain and criminal activity. Costa Rica and Nicaragua have also developed their own strategies to handle migrant flows, balancing national interests with humanitarian needs.
Using the Aspirations Capabilities Framework (de Haas 2021), the study analyzes the motivations and challenges faced by migrants. Despite facing dangerous journeys and strict policies, migrants continue to seek safety and better economic opportunities. The paper argues that U.S. policies, while intended to prevent unauthorized migration, often result in more perilous and costly journeys. It calls for a shift in strategy towards addressing the root causes of migration, such as poverty and violence, and providing more legal pathways. This would create safer migration options and contribute to regional stability and prosperity.
Keywords: U.S. migration policies, Central American migrants, Border enforcement, Humanitarian crises
In the northwest corner of Austin, Texas, a cluster of tech companies sits on limestone cliffs stretching above the Colorado river. This area is nicknamed “Silicon Hills”, the imagined successor of Silicon Valley and the new locus of technological development. While this toponym references the silicon microchip’s central role in modern electronics, silicon is present in many other forms throughout the riparian area, notably in the form of the silicate flint with which lithic tools were crafted by Indigenous inhabitants of the land. Comparing the copresent silicate tool and silicon chip, I consider how the material properties of an environment shape socio-technical configurations, as well as the ways these materials are enrolled as substrates for the inscription and reproduction of them. Thinking with silicon is a method of attuning to the land in which technological imaginaries materialize. As silicon has been knapped, inscribed, heated, moulded, and etched with human intention into heterogeneous technologies, it helps us to consider how technical imaginations are forged by and through the elements. The changing relationship between humans and silicon through time evidences the ongoing alchemical intra-action of sociomaterial configurations- the dynamic and irresolute character of the world’s technicity as constantly produced by exchanges between humans and Earthly materials.
Globalization has significantly transformed the world in recent decades. In this post-modern era, cultures have been impacted by the “modern” ways of life. In the global south, people are increasing adapting to these ways that transcend all facets of life. Not only are cultures being transformed, but physical structures too. The fantasy of modern construction of buildings has engulf every country in the world including the poorest in the global south where most of the world’s poorest people live. In sub-Saharan Africa, major cities are witnessing the construction of complex buildings that portray the “fantasy” of the West. This is not only limited to corporate or administrative structures but also religious ones. Today, many churches, mosques, and other religious buildings in major cities are built with some high levels of magnificence and are a delight to watch. Following the examples of countries like Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana’s current government decided to build a National Cathedral in Accra. This decision infuriated many people who argued that there are many pressing issues government should be addressing. But the government went ahead and started the construction. However, the proposed date to open the cathedral has passed and what we have at the site is only a big hole, which has been described by critics as the most expensive hole in the world. The project has however been abandoned for several months. This study assesses the rationale behind the construction, the resistance, and the fate of the cathedral.
Key words: Globalization, Postmodern, Global South, Sub-Saharan Africa, Cathedral, Resistance.
The U. S. Census Bureau’s new Parcel Address Matching (PAM) operation uses national parcel and building footprint datasets to validate and update the Master Address File (MAF), with a focus on correcting the spatial accuracy of addresses’ locations. The datasets can be combined with addresses from the U.S. Postal Service and with automated change detection results from current aerial imagery to ensure a more accurate and complete MAF. This in turn allows the Census Bureau to conduct censuses and surveys with greater accuracy and less reliance on field work, resulting in significant cost savings. This presentation will provide an overview of 1) the acquisition of the datasets, 2) the software process used for matching them to the MAF, 3) the interactive review of addresses whose location should be changed, and 4) the process to update the MAF, and 5) how PAM fits into the timeline for the 2030 Census.
The Census Bureau, as a part of its decennial census must maintain and update all the addresses present within the United States. For the 2020 Census, in-office staff manually canvassed address coverage in every block. While this process was effective, it also brought about challenges associated with cost and time. To help aide the census bureau in labelling and classifying coverage at the block level, we propose a machine learning approach via semi-supervised learning. We present a robust machine learning solution to improve both data labeling and classification of block data to enable new data-driven insight while reducing costs and effort for data assessment. Towards this goal, we have employed an active-learning scheme to make accurate and precise classifications using <50,000 labelled bocks out of the 8,000,000+ within the country. We utilized multiple machine learning and deep learning models to make predictions on unlabeled data by training the model on the smaller set of labelled data. Predictions from all the models are then compared to pinpoint the blocks where there is a mismatch between the different models. Upon validation, the predicted data is then added to the training data before making predictions on the next subset of the data. Additionally, we present the use of explainable AI (XAI) as an added resource to identify potential biases within the data and the predictions. Finally, we discuss the different challenges associated with working on real-world data at this scale such as class-imbalance, data completeness, and data integrity.
In this presentation, I discuss research at the Census Bureau focused on developing a continuum of settlement categories for use in analysis and data presentation. Practitioners generally agree that a dichotomous approach to defining urban and rural no longer adequately supports the needs of analysts, researchers, and policy makers. Instead, classification of communities along an urban-rural continuum facilitates analysis of characteristics and conditions in communities that differ in terms of settlement pattern, settlement intensity, and proximity to/distance from other population centers. After a brief review of the Census Bureau’s and other agencies’ urban and rural classifications, I will present options currently under consideration, including potential alignment with the Global Human Settlement Layer/Degree of Urbanization, which was adopted by the United Nations to facilitate cross-country comparisons.
This study evaluates the implementation and effectiveness of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) in advancing sustainability within the U.S.-based airline industry. Utilizing thematic analysis of sustainability reports from eight major U.S. airlines, we explore recurring themes related to carbon reduction commitments, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), operational improvements, and alignment with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The findings reveal a strong industry commitment to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, though progress is hindered by significant financial and technological barriers, particularly in scaling SAF production. While most airlines emphasize reduction over offsetting, transparency and accountability in offset purchases remain inconsistent. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicates long-term emissions tracking, and gaps in available data hinder full assessment of CORSIA's impact. This study highlights the need for more aggressive investments in SAF, clearer reporting practices, and broader participation in global sustainability frameworks. Future studies can build upon this exploratory project’s findings, focusing on analyses of sustainability goals, cross-industry comparisons of sustainability metrics, and the global effectiveness of CORSIA across different regions’ airline industries.
Introduction
Traditional methods of transportation planning focused on automobility have created mobility infrastructures that marginalize and decrease the mobility capabilities of vulnerable groups (Martens 2016, Vigar 2002). Mobility justice calls for a democratic approach to mobility decision-making that suggests changes to current practice that address the twin crises of climate change and injustice (Sheller 2018). Microtransit has made a major resurgence in the past decade, and although understudied, could play a key role in attaining mobility justice. Its resurgence has brought new types of microtransit systems, most notably the low-speed electric vehicle (LSEV). While limited in range, these LSEVs are cheaper to purchase than traditional gas-power automobiles, produce no emissions, and can play a role in increasing accessibility. These aspects allow LSEVs to reduce congestion, promote social equity, increase affordability for users, and work towards a more environmentally just future, potentially paving the way for a just transition away from the twin crises (Engelking 2020, Sheller 2018).
Problem Statement
The goal for this research is to identify whether LSEV microtransit pilot programs in Bastrop and San Marcos, TX meet the goals of a just transition, and how this is evaluated by stakeholders in the pilot program. To answer this, I answer the following questions: RQ1) How is the success of these pilots defined in the context of mobility justice? RQ2) How do stakeholders interpret success for the pilots? and RQ3) How have these visions of success interacted in the outcome of the pilot programs?
Research Methods
Success for mobility justice will be assessed using the Microtransit Propensity Index (MPI) (Erdogan et al. 2023), an accessibility analysis, and a survey analysis. The MPI will identify areas with high potential for microtransit ridership, with a focus on communities with limited mobility. This will be verified with a hotspot analysis based on the pickup and drop-off locations for trips taken during the pilot programs. The accessibility analysis will identify connectivity to resources within and outside the service zone. The survey analysis will review community feedback for each pilot to identify user satisfaction, with a review of the questions to evaluate whether they serve as an effective tool for community feedback on the pilots. Stakeholder success will be identified by reviewing performance measures and city council minutes. The performance measures identify efficiency metrics for the pilot programs such as cost efficiency and ridership. The city council minutes will be reviewed to identify the purpose of each pilot program, with each being evaluated based on how successful they were at serving their intended purposes. The evaluated success of obtaining a just transition and success for stakeholders will then be used to understand the rationale of each city deciding to either renew or cancel microtransit service.
Conclusion
The relationship of these visions of success to each other can be used to better understand the process of establishing LSEV microtransit programs and provide valuable insight in attaining a just transition away from automobility.
Works Cited
Engelking, S. 2020. Tiny transit: cut carbon emissions in your city before it’s too late. New York, New York: Morgan James Publishing.
Erdogan, S., A. Nohekhan, A. Shokputov, and K. F. Sadabadi. 2023. Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Framework for Determining Public Microtransit Service Zones. TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH RECORD. https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=DOISource&SrcApp=UA&KeyAID=10.1177%2F03611981231198464&DestApp=DOI&SrcAppSID=USW2EC0A3B8QALV3Y9vWCVCJfgIqg&SrcJTitle=TRANSPORTATION+RESEARCH+RECORD&DestDOIRegistrantName=SAGE+Publications (last accessed 25 February 2024).
Martens, Karel. 2016. Transport Justice: Designing Fair Transportation Systems. Routledge.
Sheller, Mimi. 2018. Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes. Verso Books.
Vigar, Geoff. 2002. The Politics of Mobility: Transport, the Environment and Public Policy. New York: Spon Press.
Energy is essential for effective services, production, and consumption, such as healthcare, sanitation, transportation, clean water, cooking, and heating. However, access to clean, affordable, and reliable energy is a major developmental challenge in Africa, particularly Nigeria. Compounding this problem, on the 29th of May 2023, the President of Nigeria announced the removal of the petroleum subsidy, increasing the cost of energy and electricity by 300%. This has resulted in protests and chaos nationwide and has heavily impacted all sectors, especially enterprises.
Therefore, this study investigates the awareness and likelihood of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) transitioning to Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) using survey data from 1460 MSMEs across Nigeria. Our results show that 86% of MSMEs were very aware of solar energy, followed by hydropower (31%), wind energy (19%), hydrogen (9%), biomass (7%), and geothermal energy (6%). Regarding the likelihood of transition, the results indicate that 77.2% of MSMEs are likely to transition, while 11.7% are unlikely to transition to RETs. MSMEs’ decision to transition is influenced by state of residence, age, number of employees, enterprise category, role of the respondents, energy type and sources, and awareness of different RETs.
The study's findings highlight the potential for widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies among MSMEs in Nigeria, and the high percentage of likely transitions suggests a significant opportunity for sustainable energy development in the country's small and medium-sized business sectors. Furthermore, the identification of specific factors influencing the transition decision provides valuable insights for targeted interventions and policymaking.
Since the onset of the Holocene, the American Southwest has undergone a climatic and ecological reorganization. After cool and wet glacial conditions were replaced by a warmer and monsoonal climate, pluvial lakes shrank, replaced by spring-fed wetlands, and biotic communities shifted up-slope. Geoarchaeological studies of areas associated with early human groups from Paleoindian and Archaic times have found evidence of variable hydroclimatic conditions during the middle Holocene (~5-7 ka) and the late Holocene (~3 ka). These phases of wetter conditions occur during key time periods culturally, when there is an increase in semi-permanent settlements and evidence of long-term land management techniques such as plant cultivation and water storage.
This research synthesizes previous geoarchaeological studies undertaken regarding Holocene paleoenvironments and paleoclimates in New Mexico while introducing preliminary work from two alluvial sections that have archaeological associations. One site from Tularosa Creek (TRC-1) contains multiple intervals of high-energy fluvial conditions and low-energy wetland conditions. These wetland phases are manifested as organic-rich “black mat” deposits, with radiocarbon ages suggesting stable pluvial conditions at ~4.5, ~3.8, and ~1.7 thousand years BP. Geochemical weathering indices from TRC-1 and the d18O record from a nearby speleothem (Pink Panther Cave of Asmerom et al. 2007) support these variable hydroclimatic regimes. Additionally, two new alluvial sections from the Gallinas Mountains (GSS-1, GSS-2) show further evidence of variable hydroclimate. Work is ongoing to acquire radiocarbon dates and XRF geochemistry for the Gallinas Mountains sections, in addition to stable carbon isotopes, grain size, and phytolith extraction for both sites.
Climate change misinformation refers to inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading climate change-related information created and spread in the public domain. Despite substantial consensus among the scientific community on the reality of anthropogenic climate change, public opinion still remains divided. Combating the climate crisis requires immediate and meaningful actions; however, various actors generate and propagate climate change misinformation, with vested interests in sowing doubts in the public sphere about the reality and urgency of climate impacts. The United States of America, where public opinion holds a strong sway in many social and political spheres, acts as a pertinent case in point, where the prevalence of climate denial fueled by persistent climate change misinformation contributes to this divided public perspective. For this reason, it is imperative to enhance the understanding of the subtle ways climate change misinformation exists and functions. This article employs actor–network theory and the concept of black-boxing to explore a case of climate change misinformation in the United States, with the aim of comprehending the workings of climate change misinformation within its network.
Abstract
Illegal artisanal gold mining (galamsey) accounts for about 40% of Ghana’s gold production and is an important contributor to the economy. However, it has significant negative impacts on the environment that are not well-documented. Using remote sensing analysis of land cover changes this paper examines the impacts of galamsey activities in two regions – Ashanti and Eastern – to evaluate the extent of environmental degradation and remediation efforts. Findings revealed significant vegetation loss and widespread water pollution with little effort towards reclamation. Urgent action is necessary to curtail these losses.
Keywords: environmental impacts, water pollution, artisanal gold mining, galamsey, Ghana
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected human daily lives and mobility behavior. Based on the detailed analysis of human mobility behavior across different locations (retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy, parks, transit stations, workplace and residential) and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic across five East Asian countries and regions (Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan), this study investigates distinct patterns and their economic implications. The findings reveal that (1) Responsive Index identifies positive adaptations in residential and transit behaviors but negative shifts in grocery and pharmacy visits. Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan show adaptive mobility trends, contrasting with Mongolia’s less impacted patterns; (2) Changepoint analysis reveals varying adaptation speeds across different mobility categories, with residential behavior adjusting quickest and recreational activities showing the slowest adaptation; (3) Using Gradient Boosting Machine method, the results demonstrate recent mobility trends strongly influence economic conditions, with retail and recreational activities consistently playing pivotal roles across all countries and regions in East Asia. This study underscores the critical link between mobility dynamics and economic performance, and these insights are crucial for informing future public health policies and understanding the broader implications of mobility changes in response to global health crises.
To reduce reliance on cars, the use of alternative transit options, including micromobility services, has been rising in US cities. Micromobility refers to any form of transportation using small vehicles, such as bicycles or scooters, typically for shorter distances. In 2019, 136 million trips were made in the United States on shared micromobility systems like dockless electric scooters (e-scooters) or rentable bikes, a 60% increase from the previous year (NACTO 2020). Dockless e-scooter companies have invested heavily in Louisville, where local ordinances require providers to make trip data accessible as a condition of operation. This data, which includes start and end points, trip duration, total distance, and the date and time of each trip, offers a reliable and long-term dataset for assessing micromobility in the city. Using data from August 2018 through June 2020, this study of e-scooters in Louisville explores three key issues: (1) the temporal patterns of e-scooter usage over daily, weekly, and monthly intervals; (2) the spatial patterns of e-scooter usage, particularly areas with a significantly higher density of trips; and (3) the primary purposes of e-scooter trips.
On-demand transit (ODT) is a popular alternative to the traditional fixed-route bus transit. It is also viewed as a more efficient complement to the existing public transit system. Past research displayed the benefits of the ODT, but there is a lack of research on the community's perceptions of ODT in small cities, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of our research is to On-demand transit in a small city in the south. Interviews, surveys, and statistical analysis were conducted. Results suggest that although not all residents used this service, riders who used the service were mostly satisfied and it filled their transportation needs. Moreover, demographic and socioeconomic status and other factors impact people’s perceptions and participation in ODT. Further improvements are also suggested, including more vehicles, longer operational hours, app upgrades, extended service areas, and more convenient pickup locations.
Traditional locational analysis in urban retail/business geography begins with the assumption that customers will visit retail locations that are most convenient, and that businesses that locate close to their customers’ residences or workplaces would be preferred to locations farther from those places. This assumption is problematic when applied to economic activities for which social stigma exists. In this article, we examine the influence of social stigma on the locational choices made by customers of illicit massage businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas metropolitan area. We introduce the concept of shame buffers – zones around the places to which each customer is most deeply socially embedded, their home, workplace, and other community spaces, where the customer would not engage in stigmatized behaviors for fear of being observed and facing social shaming. We then examine the validity of the shame-buffer concept by analyzing customers' mobility patterns for both legal and illicit massage businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area (DFW metro).
Globally, 64 countries criminalize against homosexuality, which contributes to the forced displacement and exclusion of queer persons who must seek refuge in spaces of survival and sanctuary. Trans migrants often encounter triple marginalization, a result of discrimination based on race, sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI), and immigration status. These individuals continue to navigate a precarious lifeworld in the U.S. due to systemic and institutional barriers rooted in xenophobic and heteronormative discourses influencing U.S. immigration policy, which perpetuates a harmful rhetoric on the deservingness of LGBTQIA+ migrants. This study examines how community-based organizing for queer migrants in San Francisco, California has been a means to resist these systems of dehumanization and how utilizing collective action to build support and networking in communities sustains inclusive, equitable, and social justice driven queer enclaves. It uses an ethnographic analysis to examine the living experiences of six LGBTQIA+ identifying migrants who faced persecution due to their SOGI in their countries of origin. Using critical geographic thought, this study explores how the constructed sense of physical place intersects with the complex, fluid identities of queer migrants. It highlights how these individuals’ experiences of persecution from their countries of origin affect their sense of place and shape and define their epistemologies across borders.
As rising numbers of refugee-migrants arrive seeking refuge at the US-Mexico border, they encounter shifting policies and the discretion of Border Patrol and ICE officials that result in a host of distinct statuses for different nationality groups. This paper seeks to understand the consequences of the uneven access across different national groups to US immigration policies at the southern border, such as CBP One entry appointments and parole. While new mechanisms implemented during the Biden years have resulted in the admission of large numbers of migrants to the US (especially compared to the Trump years and COVID-19 era of Title 42), migrants often are left with a temporary and liminal legal status. The paper draws on empirical data from surveys and interviews conducted from January 2023 – May 2024 to understand the discretionary and uneven categorization of different groups of refugee-migrants, by nationality, timing, and characteristics of arrival (e.g., in family units, as a single adult or unaccompanied minor) and how their precarious legal statuses present a looming unresolved dilemma for future policymakers and the migrants themselves.
The immigration system has in many ways merged with the criminal justice system, creating what migration scholars have called a “crimmigration” system that has disproportionately punitive consequences for undocumented Latino immigrants in the US. The criminalization of undocumented migrants perpetuates social inequalities and undermines the principles of justice and fairness. This research gives an overview of demographic and legal status data from US cities that have received migrants under Biden’s policies of admitting hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers at the US’ southern border. Under the Biden Administration, approximately 2.3 million recent arrivals have liminal status with no clear path for U.S. residency and with no indication of their future status (MPI 2023). Due to their temporary and uncertain legal status, a large and growing migrant population has been admitted to the US into a state of limbo and unknowing. How do current US laws and differing policies lead to the geographically uneven reception and vulnerability of these recent immigrants? This paper provides insight into how the merging of immigration and criminal law ensnares and makes vulnerable hundreds of thousands of recently arrived in the US, many of whom are seeking asylum.
Significant changes in US immigration/asylum policy, coupled with increasing flows and drivers of forcibly displaced people, has led to a transformation and expansion of the human smuggling economy in the Americas. Since 2016, US asylum policy has shifted from a system based primarily on detention and deportation to one that includes policies of exclusion and expulsion, aiming to prevent migrants and asylum seekers from entering the US. Examples include the Safe Third Country agreements, the Migrant Protection Protocols program, Title 42, and migrant processing centers. These policies have engendered new patterns of hypermobility and immobility for migrants/asylum seekers, which has fueled the growth and evolution of the smuggling/trafficking economy in the Americas. This presentation draws upon nearly 150 in-depth interview to identify and analyze changes in the smuggling/trafficking economy. These include: 1) the inclusion of new actors into smuggling networks, 2) the proliferation and consolidation of smuggling routes, 3) the expansion of extortion and trafficking activities, and 4) increases in individual costs of migration to the US southern border and the total value of the smuggling economy. Collectively, these policies are increasing insecurity for migrant-refugees and are transforming and empowering organized crime across the region.
AI is having a profound impact on many aspects of society, including on GIS workflows, spatial data, and tools. How can AI in GIS, or GeoAI, be effectively used in instruction and research? How can GeoAI be used thoughtfully and ethically to foster critical thinking and problem solving? Join Linda Peters and Joseph Kerski from Esri for a lively, interactive session that will include generating field surveys with in ArcGIS Survey123, creating choropleth and other maps in Business Analyst Web, and using extracting features from imagery in ArcGIS Online, and more, all using exciting and useful AI tools.
During recent decades, many studies have identified enhanced precipitation downwind of large urban areas. Typically, the so-called urban rainfall effect (URE) is most apparent in calm synoptic conditions during the warm season. Research examining the underlying mechanisms driving the URE particularly concerning the role of aerosols is less abundant. While the frequency of near-urban thunderstorms is likely a key contributor to the URE, urban aerosols may also influence the storm morphology. This study aims to quantify the relationships between weakly forced thunderstorm (WFT) morphology and aerosol levels. Specifically, a total of 841 weakly forced thunderstorms throughout the Southeast were considered and paired with aerosol concentration data collected from the CALIPSO satellite platform from 2012 to 2015. The storms were stratified into urban (n=235) and rural (n=606) bins to analyze if the relationships between aerosol levels and storm morphology differed across the varying environments. Bivariate correlations tests were conducted to quantify the relationships between storm size, shape complexity, strength, and duration and the total aerosol backscatter at various pressure levels. Overall, the study will help us better understand the importance of urban aerosol levels in contributing to the overall URE.
This study investigates the spatio-temporal evolution of glacial lakes and Land Surface Temperature (LST) changes in the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area (KCA), Nepal, from 2010 to 2023. Using high-resolution PlanetScope imagery and Landsat data, we analyzed glacial lake dynamics and LST variations within a 200-meter buffer around Randolph Glacier Inventory boundaries. Our findings reveal significant changes over the 13-year period, with the number of glacial lakes increasing from 113 in 2010 to 140 in 2023, a 23.89% rise. The total lake area expanded from 2.89 km² to 3.37 km², reflecting a 16.60% increase, while water storage capacity grew from 69.97 × 10⁶ m³ to 76.55 × 10⁶ m³, a 9.40% increase. Concurrently, LST analysis showed a warming trend, with the mean temperature rising from -8.73°C in 2010 to -7.09°C in 2023, a 1.64°C increase. This temperature rise correlates with the observed expansion in glacial lake area and number, suggesting a complex interplay between climate warming and glacial lake dynamics. The study underscores the rapid changes in high-mountain environments and highlights the need for continued monitoring of glacial lakes and temperature trends. These findings enhance our understanding of climate change impacts in the Himalayas and can inform future research and conservation efforts in similar mountainous regions.
Keywords: Glacial lakes, Land Surface Temperature, Climate change, Remote sensing, Kanchenjunga Conservation Area.
Abstract
As urban areas continue to expand, the phenomenon of daytime surface urban heat island (DSUHI) has become a pressing global issue, contributing to increased energy consumption, elevated emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, and compromised human health and comfort. Addressing this challenge is crucial for sustainable urban development and climate resilience. This study addresses the critical challenge of DSUHI mitigation in Austin, Texas, through a novel integration of high-resolution LiDAR data, multispectral satellite imagery, and advanced machine learning techniques. The research uniquely combines 2D and 3D urban morphological parameters to model and predict the cooling effects of strategic green roof (GR) implementation, filling a significant gap in urban climatology literature. The study area encompasses Austin City Council District 9, covering 32.35 square miles of mostly dense developed urban landscape. We utilized 2021 LiDAR data (12 points/m² density) and 2023 Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2A imagery to derive precise urban metrics. Key parameters included Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), Distance from water bodies (DWB), building heights, Sky View Factor (SVF), and Solar Radiation (SR). The research addressed three primary questions: How do specific building characteristics influence GR cooling effectiveness? What is the quantitative relationship between GR area and city-wide temperature reduction? To what extent can strategic GR implementation mitigate DSUHI intensity? Methodologically, we employed a multilayer feed-forward neural network with 11 training algorithms, 2 hidden layers (95 and 10 neurons), and 8 input parameters. The model achieved R² of 0.783 and RMSE of 0.925°F (0.514°C) in predicting daytime land surface temperature (DLST), validated against NOAA data with a maximum discrepancy of 0.48°F (0.27°C) for high temperatures and 0.95°F (0.53°C) for low temperatures. Key findings include converting 4.2% of total rooftop area to GRs resulted in an average DLST reduction of 2.8°F (1.56°C). Buildings 13-28 meters in height showed optimal cooling effects. Areas with SVF 0.8-1 and SR 1400-2000 W/m² demonstrated maximum temperature reductions. GRs within 0-50 meters of water bodies exhibited enhanced cooling potential. Simulated GR implementation reduced DLST by up to 7°F (3.89°C) in specific locations. Sensitivity analysis revealed NDVI and DWB as the most influential factors, with Mean Squared Error changes of 0.334 and 0.323, respectively, when excluded from the model. The study estimates that optimal GR implementation could reduce stormwater runoff by up to 75% during peak events, addressing critical urban water management issues. This research advances urban heat mitigation by offering precise, data-driven guidelines for GR placement and quantifying their cooling potential based on urban morphology. It provides a transferable methodology for cities worldwide to combat rising temperatures. The findings align with Austin’s urban development initiatives, including the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan and Smart City Strategic Roadmap. By identifying optimal GR locations and characteristics, this study contributes to effective urban heat mitigation, paving the way for cooler, sustainable urban environments. It advances scientific understanding of urban heat dynamics and offers actionable insights for urban planners and policymakers to enhance urban resilience through strategic green infrastructure deployment.
Housing prices in major cities have been rising rapidly in both China and the United States. Hedonic modeling has been typically used in analyzing the determinants of housing prices, considering structural attributes, locational and neighborhood factors. This paper explores how structural forces influencing housing prices differ between China and the United States. We found that in the Chinese context, institutional forces, urban spatial structure, and human capital collectively shape the housing market. Housing policies and residential status are particularly important determinants. Service amenities tend to be more spatially uneven distribution, and education and subway stations play a significant role in housing prices. Suburban areas, in general, are more affordable and inclusive than urban centers. The U.S. housing market is more local and fragmented, and old neighborhoods tend to have lower housing prices. Education and transit stations are less significant than Chinese cities, while natural amenities are more valued. In short, national and local contexts as structural forces matter greatly in the determinants of housing prices.
This study explores the concept of legal deserts in Texas, focusing on regions where access to legal services is severely limited. Legal deserts are areas, often rural, where residents face significant barriers to obtaining legal representation or advice, exacerbating inequalities in justice. Using geographic spatial analysis, this research identifies and maps the spatial distribution of legal services across Texas, highlighting regions with the most acute service shortages.
By integrating spatial data on population density, socioeconomic status, transportation infrastructure, and existing legal services, the study uncovers patterns and correlations that contribute to the formation of legal deserts. The analysis reveals the geographic disparities in legal service provision, showing a stark contrast between urban centers with abundant resources and rural areas with minimal access.
The findings underscore the importance of addressing these disparities to ensure equitable access to justice for all Texans. This study also provides a foundation for policymakers to develop targeted interventions aimed at reducing the impact of legal deserts, thereby promoting a more just and accessible legal system statewide.
Shopping malls have undergone many transformations over the years. In our conspicuous consumption society, there has been a long-standing degree of comfort and solace in taking a trip to the mall, whether for functional, nostalgic or purely hedonistic purposes. Despite the media chorus of the retail apocalypse, many malls have shown remarkable resilience to shocks over the years, from the growth and ubiquity of big box stores, the dawn of the internet and digital retail to a global pandemic. This paper examines the life cycle of shopping malls and questions how different the changes we see today are compared to previous eras. The paper provides case study examples of shopping mall transformations, illustrating the types of changes that have been taking place and those that are planned. Is it the end of the mall as we know it? The paper philosophically frames the changes along the spectrum of adaptive reuse, creative destruction to commercial obsolescence and urban blight. From an applied geographic perspective: Is there a new commercial geography emerging? Where are these changes leading? What role is there for applied geographers amidst these changes?
Appraisals of large commercial and industrial properties are typically 100–150-page books providing extensive detail about the property and its surrounding market area. Details include everything from underlying environmental contamination issues like leaking underground storage tanks, site topography, easements, leases, and other obligations that might adversely encumber the property, the physical condition of the building, the surrounding neighborhood, the quality of the location for the particular type of land use, and the state of the local market for that property type, among many other items. Appraisal reviewers must examine these reports from their desktop, without the benefit of a firsthand on-site inspection, and determine if the appraiser adequately addressed a multitude of issues and created an accurate, credible report that complies with regulatory standards and can be relied upon to set the collateral value for a loan that may involve tens of millions of dollars. This session will provide actual examples of situations in which basic geographic tools like online FEMA flood maps, local government tax parcel viewers, and Google street views helped to uncover serious appraisal flaws and inform the necessary steps for their resolution.
This study analyzes changes in mangrove cover within the Montecristi wetland reserves in northwestern Dominican Republic from 2013 to 2023, focusing on the decline of mangrove forests. Utilizing Landsat 8 satellite imagery and the Mangrove Classification model in ArcGIS Pro, we classified mangrove areas and conducted a spatio-temporal analysis using space-time pattern mining and hot spot analysis. The results indicate a 0.63% loss in mangrove area over the study period. Hot spot analysis identified 1,973 statistically significant locations, representing 64% of the total 3,071 locations analyzed. The analysis reveals that most areas of decreased mangrove cover are characterized as oscillating hot spots and cold spots (84.8% of significant locations), indicating dynamic changes between loss and potential partial recovery. Hot spots are primarily concentrated along inland coastlines, while cold spots are mainly located in the southern regions with denser and taller tree canopies. This study provides valuable insights into the spatio-temporal dynamics of mangrove decline and can inform future conservation strategies for the Dominican Republic's crucial wetland ecosystems.
Land use and land cover are essential for maintaining and managing the natural resources on the earth's surface. A complex set of economic, demographic, social, cultural, technological, and environmental processes usually result in a change in the land use/land cover change (LULC).
Pokhara Metropolitan is influenced mainly by various driving forces: Geographical location, high population growth rate, economic opportunity, globalization, tourism, and political activities. Urbanization and urban growth have been increased haphazardly. The main contributors to urban growth are internal migration and population growth. There has been a high rate of internal migration from the neighboring districts, including higher Himalayan and lower Himalayan Districts, and population growth rate and density are high. This study illustrates the land cover/ land use (LULC) (Agriculture, Forest, Built-up, Barren, Grassland, Water Body) and its changes using geo-spatial technology like Remote Sensing and GIS. The land cover has been detected for 2000, 2010, and 2020 using freely available Landsat Images. The approaches like Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) have been applied in ENVI for supervised classification. Observing the statistics generated from this study, over the time frame of 20 years (2000-2020), forest and built-up area was increased by 17.98% and 15.65%, respectively.
In contrast, water bodies, cultivated land, grassland, and barren land decreased by 0.25%, 35.41%, 5.94%, and 6.15%, respectively. There is a higher rate of urban area growth and degradation of agricultural and open spaces. The concerned body should be aware of this and implement urban planning activities effectively to develop a sustainable city.
Keywords: Land Use, Land Cover, Supervised Classification, Remote Sensing, Satellite
Understanding the relationship between various socioeconomic factors and urban forest structure is essential for directing resources to ensure equitable distribution of green space. Through a case study of a desert city, i.e., Phoenix, AZ, this study provides a novel application of Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) in which we explore the spatially variable relationships between a wide array of socioeconomic indicators and urban forest attributes. Through the computation of various scales of influence for different explanatory variables, MGWR enhances our analysis's precision and stresses the association between socioeconomic status and urban forest structure at local and regional scales. Our results indicate that although there has been a pattern of green inequality where minority and low-income communities have less access to urban forests. However, education levels were mostly insignificant based on the MGWR results. In some instances, higher incomes are negatively correlated with tree canopy coverage. Additionally, the stem density model outperformed the canopy coverage model in terms of prediction accuracy. This research adds a new dimension to urban forestry literature and emphasizes the value of customized urban planning strategies and the environmental justice implications of urban forestry, particularly in arid environments.
While the next mandated federal redistricting cycle is several years off, litigation persists across multiple courts and redistricting continues for city councils, county commissions, and other local governing bodies. Given legislative, political, and social repercussions, understanding electoral redistricting at multiple scales is vital to a healthy community. A brief review of the history of redistricting in the United States offers perspective on how previous generations thought about representation, and how that approach contrasts with other functioning democracies.
As geographers, we encourage members of the community to engage in discussions about redistricting or to ask foundational questions about how the process works in their town or state. How would you draw electoral districts if you were in charge? What are the implications for choosing among principles of contiguity, compactness, and competitiveness? Who is in charge of making decisions in the state? Why do some states have more representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives than others? What constitutes a fairly-drawn legislative district? How do you avoid vote dilution? What are the causes and effects of gerrymandering? Consider ways you can support your community members in being prepared to complete the decennial census, submit a map to your elected official, and participate in civic life.
Using the example of Colorado Springs and El Paso County in Colorado, this presentation explores approaches to engaging with existing community groups such as the League of Women Voters, hosting educational opportunities for the public using campus facilities, and being available to address questions from the press.
In rapidly-growing Montgomery County, Texas, directly north of Harris County (Houston), population increased from 294,000 residents in 2000 to an estimated 711,000 in 2024. As a result, the San Jacinto River Basin (SJRB), which includes all of Montgomery County, has experienced major changes in land use/land cover with development encroaching into floodplains. In addition to development, multiple record-setting precipitation events were recorded within the SJRB over the last decade. This study assesses the dynamic risk from incorporating record-setting events, including Hurricane Harvey, into the statistical record to determine how the floodplain boundary is evolving along the West Fork of the San Jacinto River. Using FEMA flood insurance study (FIS) water surface elevations (WSELs), updated flood frequency analyses and rating curves, and county assessor’s data, this study quantifies the expected increase in property exposure pre-Harvey and post-Harvey. Results demonstrate that expected 100-year flood discharges increased 29-147% at gages post-Hurricane Harvey with corresponding WSELs increasing between 0.7 and 3.6%. As a result, over 22% more residential properties would be included in the updated 100-year floodplain boundary, resulting in $23 million of increased residential property exposure. Despite the increased risk and property exposure, many flood maps have remained unchanged in Montgomery County for a decade. Given that it is unlikely new hydraulic and/or coupled hydrologic/hydraulic models will be developed after each record-setting event across the country, this study demonstrates that an applied geography approach can be used to improve “100-year” flood maps and better communicate changes in flood risk.
Beguilingly associated with the friendly hike and bike trails, nature and beauty, privacy and seclusion of the Juniper-Live Oak Woodlands in the Austin, Texas area is a significant and sinister wildfire threat. Floods, Hail Storms and Wildfires are the three major natural hazards in Central Texas. Austin, Texas is located along the Balcones Escarpment. Millions of years of floods along the Balcones Escarpment sculpted the Texas Hill Country in Central Texas. The Balcones Escarpment and resulting Texas Hill Country energize floods and wildfires. Slope, Vegetation and Wind associated with the Texas Hill Country provide the ingredients for wildfires in the Austin, Texas area. Using slope and vegetation map layers the hot spots or flash zones for wildfires in the Austin, Texas area are identified and mapped. While wildfires rejuvenate many biomes and ecosystems, they constitute a problematic hazard for humans. Recommendations are also considered to save human structures and lives.
The East Coast of the United States could be susceptible to tsunamis or even mega tsunamis. With this in mind it becomes essential to answer the question: Where is vulnerability to a tsunami greatest along the East Coast of the United States? To answer this question the following parameters have been set. First, the study will include county level subdivisions along the USEC that have coasts along the Atlantic Ocean. The possible source regions of a tsunami or mega tsunami are also noted. This analysis includes both social and physical factors with nine and five of them considered respectively. Three separate methods were created with these datasets to see the variance of the analysis based on changes in methods. The results show how impactful cities are in determining vulnerability due to the concentration of different peoples. There is much that can be gleaned by taking a deeper look into these analyses, especially when comparing which methodologies are most effective and for what situations they are useful for. This study highlights the need for additional research into the topic and more importantly increased awareness of policy makers towards preparing for these disasters.
Despite recurring flood hazards in FEMA Region 6, this region has experienced tremendous growth, especially in Texas along the coast. While growth creates diversity in the area, the influx of people leads to entire developments being created in hazardous areas and the loss of ecological services that provide flood and heat mitigation. To address this growing flood risk, many communities in Region 6 have implemented relocations known as buyouts. Of note, Harris County, Texas is home to the largest and longest flood buyout program in the U.S. and boosts some of the highest numbers of repetitive flood loss in the country. These buyout programs result in two landscape patterns: contiguous and scattered. These landscape patterns influence land value, community cohesion, ecological health, and hazard mitigation. Therefore, using GIS analysis this study identifies how these land use patterns influence risk to extreme heat to determine if either continuous or scattered flood buyout patterns can aid in lowering land surface temperatures after acquisition in Harris County. Texas. Results indicate that the scattered landscape pattern was statically significant in reducing heat suggesting land management practices play more significant roles in heat mitigation when compared with parcel size.
Over the past two decades, the United States has experienced a troubling increase in pregnancy-related deaths, with Texas consistently reporting one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. This crisis is particularly acute in rural and underserved communities, where limited access to healthcare exacerbates maternal health disparities. Recognizing the complex factors contributing to this issue, scholars from various disciplines have analyzed and proposed solutions to Texas' maternal health crisis. This article presents a literature review of academic works published between 2020 and 2024, examining research that addresses maternal mortality, healthcare accessibility, and maternal health outcomes in Texas.
The review employs a systematic methodology to gather relevant academic works, using Google Scholar as the primary database. Key search terms such as "maternal mortality," "healthcare accessibility," and "Texas" were used to identify studies across multiple fields, including public health, sociology, economics, and healthcare policy. This interdisciplinary approach allows for a comprehensive examination of the issue, capturing diverse scholarly perspectives on maternal health in Texas. The research spans topics such as the social determinants of health, racial and ethnic disparities in maternal outcomes, the impact of healthcare policies, and the challenges of delivering maternal care in rural areas. By integrating these varied perspectives, the review provides a comprehensive understanding of the scope of the maternal health crisis in Texas.
By synthesizing recent academic work from multiple disciplines, this article offers a comprehensive overview of the current research landscape and suggests potential pathways for improving maternal health outcomes. Addressing Texas' maternal mortality crisis will require multidisciplinary approaches, encompassing healthcare reform, social and economic interventions, and targeted public health strategies aimed at reducing disparities in access and outcomes.
Accurate Aboveground Biomass (AGB) measurement is vital for understanding global carbon dynamics, particularly in forests, where biomass is constantly influenced by natural and human disturbances like extreme weather and logging. Traditional field methods, such as measuring Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) and tree height, are time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to error. This study presents a novel approach using terrestrial remote sensing techniques, combining depth-enabled RGB (RGB-D) cameras with Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms and small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS).
In this research, data were gathered from a 1-hectare pine plantation in East Texas. RGB-D cameras captured under-canopy imagery, while sUAS collected aerial imagery for canopy-level analysis through photogrammetry. The combined data created detailed 3D point clouds representing the forest structure from understory to canopy. The 3D derived metrics, DBH and height, were then comparted to traditional collection techniques such as a range finder and DBH tape measure.
This method improves efficiency by reducing field time and eliminating the need for manual setup at multiple points. Initial results indicate that it provides AGB estimates comparable to traditional methods. This approach has potential applications in large-scale forest monitoring, carbon accounting, and biodiversity assessments, offering a promising alternative to conventional sampling methods.
This cross-sectional study aimed to identify priority areas for improving nutrition support among older adults (60 years or older) in twenty-three counties in Central Texas. With Austin and San Antonio, two of the largest and fastest-growing metro areas in the U.S., experiencing increasing gentrification and disparities, there is an urgent need for policy stakeholders to enhance senior nutrition programs. This study used publicly available data and a statistical method to develop the Older Adult Socioeconomic Disadvantage Index (OASDI) that includes 12 variables related to unmet needs in food, housing, healthcare access, and transportation at the census tract level. An unweighted sum of the quintile ranks created the OASDI, where higher scores indicated greater disadvantage. Persistent poverty historical data were used to further validate and classify the tracts into priority areas. Choropleth maps visualized the OASDI and persistent poverty for all census tracts. Additionally, logistic regression was utilized to examine the correlation between persistent poverty and the individual components of the index. The results indicate that the index is not redundant and captures aspects of socio-economic disadvantage that the persistent poverty indicator might not reveal. Finally, this study compared the two policy regions—Austin and San Antonio—to examine statistical differences in socioeconomic disadvantage related to senior nutrition. The results revealed greater socioeconomic disadvantage in San Antonio compared to Austin, while an area of extreme disadvantage was found in the Austin region. These findings provide initial evidence supporting the OASDI's validity and advocate for strengthening and resourcing local senior nutrition programs.
Ghana's economy is heavily reliant on small-scale gold mining, however, there are growing concerns about how this mining activity impacts the ecosystem. This study provides a thorough examination of the environmental implications of Ghana's small-scale gold mining industry, focusing on the various ways it affects the rates and patterns of land cover change, especially around the river Offin-a hotspot for small scale illegal gold mining. The study area will encompass three (3) districts in the southern part of Ghana, an area where small-scale gold mining is prevalent in recent times. Various researchers investigated the findings and discovered that small-scale gold mining had a negative impact on the health and wellbeing of locals in the chosen study areas. It has been reported that mercury contamination in Ghana's southwestern region soils is high due to illegal small scale gold mining. Incorporating eclectic approaches, the study will to determine the level of land cover change, incorporating image analysis to identify changes in land cover and vegetation patterns associated with small scale gold mining activities around river Offin. In doing so, remote sensing and GIS techniques such as FRAGSTAT and NDVI will be applied we analyzed satellite imagery across two distinct periods (2004-2014, and 2014-2024). The results quantify substantial deforestation, loss of agricultural lands, and expansion of river channels in mining zones. This study contributes to environmental management by offering recommendations for more effective regulation and sustainable land use practices to balance mining activities and environmental conservation.
This research puts forth an index to measure equitable development across Pittsburgh and surrounding communities, integrating key socioeconomic and municipal indicators to provide a detailed view of spatial disparities. The central question addressed is: how do restorative subsidies, specifically Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs), impact the long-term development of underprivileged urban neighborhoods, and to what extent do these programs influence social parity through factors such as displacement, gentrification, and rising living costs? Greater Pittsburgh experienced significant demographic shifts throughout the 2010s, reflecting broader economic trends associated with the region's ongoing post-industrial transformation. A notable decrease in the city's Black population highlights deficiencies in equitable policy and affordable housing, particularly in neighborhoods of prime redevelopment interest. Although CDBGs are designed to bolster local economic resilience with federal funding, it is essential for these projects to undergo intersectional analysis to ensure their effectiveness. By synthesizing a range of municipal data sources (e.g. income and demographic composition, land use, housing market values) into a multivariate composite, a baseline measurement for citywide equity can be established. This index is overlaid on CDBG tract distribution to quantify and tentatively address the proposed spatial discrepancies in restorative development. The correlation between CDBG allocations and negative equity values points to the need for a stronger systemic framework to address socioeconomic disparities, ideally enhanced by GIS-based assessments.
Nestled in a residential neighborhood along railroad tracks in northwest San Marcos, Texas lies Cementerio Guadalupe, a historically Hispanic cemetery established in the early 20th century to serve the burial needs of the local Mexican-American community at a time when segregation prevented interment at the whites-only City Cemetery on Old Ranch Road 12. Though the cemetery is still in use, it remains relatively unknown to the city at large, and has been targeted by acts of vandalism which have left damage that remains unrepaired today. Despite this, the existence of Cementerio Guadalupe presents a combination of unique intersectional benefits for the San Marcos community, each of which can be magnified with the addition of interpretive and physical infrastructure. By ensuring that the cemetery receives much-needed maintenance as well as formal recognition from the City of San Marcos through a potential heritage tourism program, the community stands to gain from the cemetery similar advantages that are produced by an urban park, with the added cultural significance of its role as a symbol of resistance and resilience in the face of systemic oppression. As urban areas grow more dense, and existing access to green spaces grows more strained, it is important to include in the fight for conservation those places which are often overlooked in the environmental movement. Though unconventional, attention and investment in spaces like Cementerio Guadalupe pave the way for a broader and more inventive perspective on the use of space for ecosystem services and intrinsic value in urban areas.
A vast body of research supports the link between negative health outcomes and exposure to outdoor air pollutants such as ozone. Contemporary studies posit that even low concentrations of air pollutants can cause severe health impacts. Texas Gulf Coast has the largest petrochemical industrial complex in the USA. Jefferson County, home to Beaumont and Port Arthur, was identified by the Environmental Defense Fund as among the top 10% of the most polluted counties in the U.S., marked by significant chemical emissions or waste production. Multiple studies examined the various health issues in this region as related to the elevated air pollution. To address these health challenges, understanding the current pollution status is essential. This study uses geospatial methods to model the spatiotemporal patterns of air pollution in Beaumont - Port Arthur region. Using secondary air monitoring data, this study seeks to construct air pollution scenarios for this region. By demonstrating the current state, this study will help initiate future measures to mitigate the adverse impact of air pollution in the study area.
This poster presents the development and implementation of an Open Educational Resource (OER) course titled Qualitative Mapping: Theory, Methods, and Research at Texas Tech University (TTU). Designed to explore qualitative mapping, participatory GIS, and social cartography, the course offers an innovative framework for integrating qualitative research methods into geographic education. By making the syllabus, materials, and blogs freely available online via www.qualitativemappinghub.com, the course extends its reach beyond traditional classroom settings, fostering collaborative learning and resource sharing within diverse geography communities. This presentation highlights the benefits of using OER to democratize access to knowledge, while expanding research opportunities in qualitative mapping and participatory methods. The experience of creating this course illustrates how geography educators can leverage OER to build a shared, adaptable curriculum that addresses contemporary research needs. The poster will detail course design, student engagement strategies, and the potential for OER to serve as a foundation for further exploration of interdisciplinary topics in geography.
This project explores the relationship between land use/cover and instream barriers in the Stillaguamish Watershed, which drains into the Skagit Bay and is part of the larger Puget Sound Watershed in western Washington. The watershed is more heavily urbanized near the coast, with large swaths of agricultural land along the Stillaguamish River, and predominately evergreen forests in the east. Land use/cover data was obtained using the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) and the percentage of urban, agricultural, and natural land use/cover was calculated for each HUC 12 (n = 20). Instream Barrier data was obtained from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Fish Passage Program; this data included barrier location, type, and status regarding passage for specific fish species. The total number, density, and percent of barriers by type were calculated for each watershed. All land use/cover types investigated were correlated with barrier counts and density. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses determined how well the percent of specific land use/cover types predicted the number and density of barriers at the HUC 12 scale. Preliminary analyses indicate that while urban land use/cover is the best predictor of barrier density, agricultural land use is a better predictor of the overall number of barriers. While the association of urbanization with increased stream fragmentation and instream barriers is well documented, often less attention is paid to how agricultural land uses/covers fragments river systems. This relationship has implications for sustainable land use policy and management and warrants further investigation.
Located in Las Animas County, Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS) has an exciting paleontological, anthropological and geomorphological history. However, the geomorphic settings of PCMS have received limited prior research. For this reason, this research aims to assess the cultural material potential of this site through mapping of ecologic, pedologic, and geologic features. The results of this study show that while PCMS has minimal record of bioturbation and colluvial, fluvial, and aeolian Quaternary interruptions, it has a low potential for buried, cultural deposits. Further research is needed to reconstruct past human activity in the landscape.
In June and July of 2023, public health air quality warnings severely limited outside activities for residents across New York State and especially in the metro New York City region. The air quality warnings were due to highly elevated particulate matter levels related to wildfire smoke from Canada. This study compares the extent of atmospheric pollutants directly related to mapped data on uncontrolled wildfire in northern Quebec by comparing Black Smoke and Black Carbon atmospheric concentration using data from NASA's second Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2) Model, gathered from NASA's GIOVANNI web GIS application. The data are collected at 0.5 by 0.625 degrees (MERRA-2) spatial resolution and visualized with ArcGIS Pro. Preliminary results indicate distinct plumes, or temporal periods, of substantial increase in tropospheric column density of black smoke and black carbon across New York State during the two-week period of public health warnings as described in New York media sources.
In June and July of 2023, public health air quality warnings severely limited outside activities for residents across New York State and especially in the metro New York City region. The air quality warnings were due to highly elevated particulate matter levels related to wildfire smoke from Canada. This study compares the extent of atmospheric pollutants directly related to mapped data on uncontrolled wildfire in northern Quebec by comparing Black Smoke and Black Carbon atmospheric concentration using data from NASA's second Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2) Model, gathered from NASA's GIOVANNI web GIS application. The data are collected at 0.5 by 0.625 degrees (MERRA-2) spatial resolution and visualized with ArcGIS Pro. Preliminary results indicate distinct plumes, or temporal periods, of substantial increase in tropospheric column density of black smoke and black carbon across New York State during the two-week period of public health warnings as described in New York media sources.
The term “footprint” is commonly used in Antarctic environmental research. Only recently has research been conducted to help develop a set of definitions of various types of environmental footprints. This recent work attempts to develop a GIS-based methodology for synthesizing environmental monitoring observations to quantify the spatial extent of various environmental footprints around scientific bases on the continent. Long-term environmental monitoring observations made at McMurdo and Palmer Stations, Antarctica, form the basis of this analysis. These stations span the range of sizes of Antarctic research stations; Palmer Station is a mid-size station on the Antarctica peninsula while McMurdo Station has the largest human occupancy on the continent. Extensive field work coupled with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing analysis has enabled the spatial extent of multiple overlapping footprints (geochemical, building, ground disturbance) to be defined for these two stations in a manner that consistently adheres to the newly established Antarctic “footprint” definitions. A GIS methodology employing traditional overlay operations presents straightforward means of producing a hierarchical assessment of impact for each station and its environs. This methodology will be presented as a possible method for comparing the spatial extent of environmental impacts at scientific stations across the continent.
This study introduces a framework that integrates Routine Activity Theory into hybrid physical-virtual spaces. Using a space-time path metaphor, it examines how susceptibility to phishing correlates with daily activities in these environments. The research employs a mixed-method approach, combining surveys and experiments—such as simulated phishing emails—to analyze response patterns across both physical and virtual contexts, while also exploring the influence of travel behavior on cyber victimization. This hybrid model aims to better understand how interactions in physical and virtual spaces contribute to cybercrime vulnerability, supporting the development of effective prevention strategies. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of visual analytics in cybersecurity, transforming complex data into visual formats for more effective threat analysis.
Land-use and land-cover (LULC) change analysis attempts to enhance our understanding of ecological and environmental changes over time. Historical geospatial data, including aerial photography and cadastral maps, provide valuable context for studying long-term changes in the landscape. In this study, we used historical and recent aerial imagery to quantify and assess LULC changes in the Upper Finn Creek Watershed, a mixed-grass prairie in Central Oklahoma. We used Public Land Survey plats from 1871 to serve as a baseline, panchromatic historical aerial photographs from 1937, and recent National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) images from 2023 and classified each using land cover categories. Our approach integrated various types of geospatial data, using both manual digitization of plats and greyscale historical aerial imagery, as well as pixel-based classification techniques for NAIP images. Quantitative analysis was conducted based on the results of the time-series classification from 1871 to 2023 to detect land cover change. The results indicate a significant decrease in forest cover from 1871, with the landscape transitioning to cultivated lands by 1937 and then to grasslands by 2023. This sequence of land cover change provokes questions regarding ecosystem properties and soil conditions, and the potential for carbon storage given the increase in grassland cover. Although processing historical aerial photographs presented challenges, the project outcomes did provide valuable insight into the sequence of change in a landscape the pre-settlement condition of which is considered to be grasslands.
Indoor shopping malls in the United States have been declining for decades. In the 1980s, the U.S. had around 2,500 malls, but that number has dropped sharply and continues to fall with about 700 of these “zombie” malls remaining. This research answers four related questions: Where are ghost malls in southeastern Pennsylvania? Which ghost malls have been redeveloped and what form has redevelopment taken? What do the redevelopment plans for ghost malls have in common? For the purposes of this research a ghost mall is defined as an indoor shopping center with a 40 percent vacancy rate, annual sales of less than $150 per square foot and no operating anchor stores. ArcGIS Pro was used to map the spatial distribution of ghost malls across Pennsylvania. The results of this analysis show that ghost malls are concentrated in southeastern and southwestern Pennsylvania, with the area around Pittsburgh having the highest number of vacancies. Some of these spaces have been redeveloped, most often repurposed as medical centers, mixed-use spaces, housing, or entertainment venues. The analysis of refurbished ghost malls in Pennsylvania reveals no consistent pattern in their transformation. For instance, while Westmoreland Mall in Greensburg was repurposed into a casino, Century III Mall in West Mifflin was entirely demolished, highlighting the varied approaches to redevelopment across the state.
Through both a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Cooperative Agreement Award and voluntary conservation measures commissioned by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) and Zara Environmental LLC were contracted to analyze and reassess distributional patterns of federally listed endangered karst invertebrates in the Austin and San Antonio areas. The Balcones Fault Zone in Central Texas is home to fifteen species of karst invertebrates that are federally listed as endangered by the USFWS. Efforts were made to revise previously identified karst fauna regions (KFRs), as mostly distinct ecological regions which include endangered and non-listed troglobite species, and karst zones, which predict where the endangered karst species are most and least likely to be found in and beyond the KFRs in the Austin and San Antonio areas. The research aimed to explore all known locations of rare and endangered terrestrial invertebrate troglobites in the Austin and San Antonio areas to analyze factors influencing their distribution. Through the development of a GIS model by NCKRI, the ranges of 39 karst invertebrate species in the Austin study area from 479 locations, and 35 species in the San Antonio study area from 212 locations were mapped. The researchers recommend that future revisions consider more detailed genetic data, geologic mapping, biological surveys, and quantitative software to improve the accuracy of distribution evaluations. The resulting maps assist the USFWS in identifying areas of both conservation and research priority, thus shaping the future of conservation efforts in the region.
High temperatures during heat waves can significantly limit opportunities for outdoor recreation, negatively impacting individuals' quality of life and well-being, particularly vulnerable groups like the elderly and children. Researchers emphasized that shading facilities in parks helps mitigate the urban heat island effect and offers residents a comfortable thermal environment providing spaces for recreation. Given that San Marcos, Texas, experiences hot and humid weather, and is currently under Stage 2 drought restrictions, the study seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of shade availability in San Marcos' parks. 21 parks were selected including all the public and neighborhood parks for the study. Park data were collected from the City of San Marcos, and different shade coverage was identified using various Google Imagery from the years 2022 to 2023. Some selected on-site visits were also conducted. Google Earth Pro and ArcGIS Pro were used for analysis. The study found that the total shade of parks in San Marcos city ranges from 5.8 percent to 62.3 percent of the park areas. Juan Veramendi Historical Plaza Park exhibits the highest percentage of total shade, as well as the highest percentage of shade provided by trees. The shade in parks is mostly from trees, not much of a constructed shade observed. The results will help local governments, policymakers, and sustainability managers to make decisions regarding park improvements, human thermal comfort, heat mitigation, and comfortable recreation spaces. Future research will include an assessment of shade patterns in San Marcos parks related to the park age and amenities.
Non-grain production of cultivated land (NGPOCL) poses a significant threat to food security and has garnered increasing attention in China and around the world. Although previous research has explored NGPOCL, few studies have analyzed it at the plot scale across an entire region. This study focuses on the Guanzhong Region in China, conducting a comprehensive analysis of NGPOCL using the framework of "phenomenon-cause-countermeasure." The study begins by delineating the extent of cultivated land using a land-use map. Then, based on 16-day MODIS vegetation index data, the NGPOCL areas were identified by distinguishing grain from non-grain crops based on their seasonal variation patterns in the vegetation index. Various spatial statistical methods were applied to examine the spatiotemporal characteristics of NGPOCL in the region from 2000 to 2018. Results indicate that the NGPOCL issue worsened significantly over the study period, showing marked temporal and spatial heterogeneity. Initially characterized by adjacent expansion, NGPOCL has now proliferated across the entire Guanzhong Region. In terms of driving mechanisms, while those natural factors determined the skeleton of the NGPOCL pattern, social and economic factors played an important role in the evolution process following, and different industrial policies have dominated the NGPOCL expansion at different stages. In the future, it is necessary to pay attention to the impact of industrial policies on NGPOCL and consider the demands of urbanization for non-grain agricultural products properly, so as to develop the characteristic agricultural products industry in a reasonable and compliant manner.
From 2022-2024, we taught five courses centered on concepts of energy sovereignty and environmental justice in energy transitions. The present moment of energy transition serves well as a case study because it shifts the geographic location of energy-related extractive industries and their narratives. Our courses explicitly engaged guest speakers from both community and industry. We have covered thousands of miles in vans with our students to visit mines, solar farms, and community-based organizations. Students have come from two distinct institutions of higher education; Fort Lewis College students have primarily been undergraduate majors in environmental and social fields, while Colorado School of Mines students have primarily been graduate students in mining-related fields. We have learned from people and places as well as each other. At this point, the greatest lesson we have learned is that the relational aspect of this kind of teaching is essential. Relationality in the context of teaching and learning refers to the interpersonal connections that foster meaningful educational experiences. In these courses, relational practices have brought trust and meaning to our work with guest speakers, our relationships as teachers to our students, and our student’s relationships to one another.
Formula 1 racing is the most popular word wide form of automobile racing. With a race season lasting from February to December and Grands Prix races on all the continents except Africa and Antarctica, the sport is exposed to a large variety of climates during their season.
This poster documents the climate of each of the 24 events during the 2024 race season. Particular attention is given to the temperature and precipitations encountered. The poster concludes with a hypothetical "Formula 1 climatology", an exercise in Koppen classification.
This research puts forth an index to measure equitable development across Pittsburgh and surrounding communities, integrating key socioeconomic and municipal indicators to provide a detailed view of spatial disparities. The central question addressed is: how do restorative subsidies, specifically Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs), impact the long-term development of underprivileged urban neighborhoods, and to what extent do these programs influence social parity through factors such as displacement, gentrification, and rising living costs? Greater Pittsburgh experienced significant demographic shifts throughout the 2010s, reflecting broader economic trends associated with the region's ongoing post-industrial transformation. A notable decrease in the city's Black population highlights deficiencies in equitable policy and affordable housing, particularly in neighborhoods of prime redevelopment interest. Although CDBGs are designed to bolster local economic resilience with federal funding, it is essential for these projects to undergo intersectional analysis to ensure their effectiveness. By synthesizing a range of municipal data sources (e.g. income and demographic composition, land use, housing market values) into a multivariate composite, a baseline measurement for citywide equity can be established. This index is overlaid on CDBG tract distribution to quantify and tentatively address the proposed spatial discrepancies in restorative development. The correlation between CDBG allocations and negative equity values points to the need for a stronger systemic framework to address socioeconomic disparities, ideally enhanced by GIS-based assessments.
Abstract: Indoor shopping malls in the United States have been declining for decades. In the 1980s, the U.S. had around 2,500 malls, but that number has dropped sharply and continues to fall with about 700 of these “zombie” malls remaining. This research answers four related questions: Where are ghost malls in southeastern Pennsylvania? Which ghost malls have been redeveloped and what form has redevelopment taken? What do the redevelopment plans for ghost malls have in common? For the purposes of this research a ghost mall is defined as an indoor shopping center with a 40 percent vacancy rate, annual sales of less than $150 per square foot and no operating anchor stores. ArcGIS Pro was used to map the spatial distribution of ghost malls across Pennsylvania. The results of this analysis show that ghost malls are concentrated in southeastern and southwestern Pennsylvania, with the area around Pittsburgh having the highest number of vacancies. Some of these spaces have been redeveloped, most often repurposed as medical centers, mixed-use spaces, housing, or entertainment venues. The analysis of refurbished ghost malls in Pennsylvania reveals no consistent pattern in their transformation. For instance, while Westmoreland Mall in Greensburg was repurposed into a casino, Century III Mall in West Mifflin was entirely demolished, highlighting the varied approaches to redevelopment across the state.
This study aims to predict future land use land cover (LULC) changes in Harris County, Texas using satellite remote sensing data based on Landsat 7 and 8 between 2000 and 2020 with 30 m spatial resolution. Cellular automata (CA) and the Markov Chain (MC) model were integrated to predict future LULC changes. LULC dynamics were derived by supervised classification of Landsat images. The LULC analysis resulted in observed changes within six land cover classes in the study area. Notably, the results indicate that Harris County gained 16.87% of developed land cover and lost a significant percentage of forest and vegetation cover from 2000 to 2020. The transition matrix was produced quantitatively from the classified images using the MC model. An algorithm was developed following the CA rule that used the MC transition matrix. The algorithm initialized an array to store the transition probability of six land cover types for each pixel with neighboring pixels considered to improve prediction. This algorithm simulates the future land cover change in the study area effectively by incorporating the MC transition matrix and the influence of neighboring areas to enhance prediction. Finally, the CA algorithm predicted the LULC map for 2020 and 2030.
In today’s competitive digital landscape, a LinkedIn profile that stands out and authentically represents who you are as a professional geographer or spatial analyst is essential. This workshop is tailored to help participants create a LinkedIn profile that communicates your unique skills, experiences, and expertise while ensuring it aligns with career goals and values.
Participants will learn how to define and showcase their personal brand, stand out with images, headlines and summaries the geographers specialized work. Help highlight key skill and knowledge attributes that the geographer and spatial analysis from other professions. Avoid common pitfalls, such as overused jargon and vague descriptors, to maintain authenticity.
This is panel session.
Moderator: Dr. Joann Doering Zadrozny
Panelist: Dr. Richard G. Boehm, "Implementing Powerful Geography"
Panelist: Dr. Joann Doering Zadrozny, "Teacher Resources in Powerful Geography"
Panelist: Bren Vander Weil, "Powerful Geography in Undergraduate Physical Geography"
Panelist: Dr. Ross Guida, "9th-grade Geography Teacher-University Partnerships"
This paper is aimed at exploring some opportunities, amidst the threats of climate change impacts for Katsina State, Northern Nigeria. Climate change is a long-term shift, alteration or change in type of climate prevailing over specific location or region. It is one of the most topical issues in the world agenda today, and scientific evidences revealed that it is an all-encompassing threat considered as the most serious to the survival and sustainable development of the human race. Its impacts are real and are being felt globally. The world has been experiencing devastating weather hazards and its associated calamities. Scientists around the world have alluded that if nothing is done to address these, the resultant impacts will be catastrophic on all of humanity. Katsina State is highly susceptible to the impending threats of climate change because of its proximity to the fringes of the Sahara desert. The implications are that there may be large-scale population displacement; crop and livestock farming will be threatened; already, almost two-thirds of the state is vulnerable to drought and desertification and a sizable fraction of the population depend upon the land for survival. However, with the current intense international pressure for attitudinal change from all relevant stakeholders, the afforestation policies of the state would go a long way in the very near future in increasing the revenue base of the state. The proceeds could, in turn, be harnessed towards diversifying the economy, besides mitigating the hazards caused.
Teleconnections like the El Nino-Southern Oscillation and the North American Oscillation are known to affect background climate conditions like temperature, pressure, humidity, instability, and even jet stream patterns. Through these complex and cross-scale interactions, teleconnections have been shown to be statistically and physically related to the occurrence of numerous climate and weather phenomena, even severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. The present study builds on a healthy body of literature, often focused on single teleconnections, by exploring statistical relationships between multiple teleconnections, their interactions, and tornado activity. It further works to use results of the statistical analyses to inform case studies that are designed to identify possible physical processes that drive the statistical relationships.
One approach to increasing heat resiliency within urban environments is cool pavement, which is a water-based asphalt treatment that can potentially reduce temperatures by reflecting more sunlight, absorbing less heat, and emitting less longwave radiation. Cool pavement may help keep the surrounding air cooler and combat the urban heat island effect. In 2024, the City of San Antonio began a second phase of a cool pavement pilot in an effort to reach the goals of the city’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. Since the dominant findings among other cool pavement programs have been varied, we evaluated the thermal performance of the San Antonio cool pavement installations for 16 days during the summer of 2024. The data collected included surface temperature, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wet bulb globe temperature and albedo. The field work evaluated the cool pavement sites as well as representative control sites to estimate how different types of cool pavement products influenced the street thermal characteristics relative to a traditional road surface. Initial findings indicated that the performance varied notably between the different cool pavement applications and that changes had occurred over time from the first field data collection efforts conducted during the summer of 2023. Overall, the project provides an example of how city-university collaborations can produce scientific data that is operationalized to help inform policy efforts to decrease urban heat extremes.
Climate change presents a significant threat to vulnerable communities, with rural areas being disproportionately impacted due to their reliance on natural resources, higher poverty rates, and limited adaptive capacity. Despite this, climate resilience research has largely concentrated on urban areas, leaving rural resilience understudied. CONFLUENCE, a multi-institutional NSF-funded EPSCoR project, seeks to address this disparity by engaging rural communities in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Nebraska through participatory research approaches, with a focus on enhancing STEM participation and building capacity for climate resilience. Now in its second year of implementation, CONFLUENCE is advancing toward four primary aims:
1. Co-developing a shared conceptual framework for rural climate resilience research and action, informed by continuous community engagement to integrate local perspectives and priorities.
2. Projecting rural climate impacts and resilience scenarios through improved simulation methods, incorporating gradual processes such as population decline to better reflect long-term community resilience.
3. Expanding social and economic opportunities for rural communities by identifying and supporting locally relevant climate resilience strategies that address their unique vulnerabilities.
4. Broadening STEM workforce participation by creating diverse career pathways, with targeted support for rural and underrepresented populations from K-16 through early-career faculty.
In this presentation, I will present our progress made during the first year of the project and discuss our efforts toward building a replicable process for rural climate resilience research and increasing participation in the STEM workforce.
The US Southwest, characterized by the hottest and driest region in the US, presents a climate change challenge to sustainable development by human and natural systems. How inequality shifts among races/ethnicities with climate change is unclear in this region. The inequalities analyses arise from socioeconomic disparities, intensity of environmental issues, and trend of environmental change (2000–2020) metrics assigned to races/ethnicities within different Köppen-Geiger climate zones. The results demonstrated widespread racial and ethnic disparities concerning social and environmental inequality issues in the US Southwest. With environmental changes, inequalities between races/ethnicities increased between 2000 and 2020. Regarding the climate zones, we find that environmental inequalities in warmer and drier neighborhoods were more severe in heat stress, drought, and water scarcity than in the temperate and cold regions. Land surface temperature inequality among races/ethnicities increased in warmer regions between 2000 and 2020, while disparities decreased in the temperate and cold regions. Water resource disparities increased across different ethnic groups in the drier neighborhoods and among racial groups within the temperate and cold regions. The findings provide a compelling argument for how environmental inequality may be linked to physiography and climate change. The results suggest that urbanization and climate change exacerbate inequalities between races/ethnicities. We recommend that urban planners and managers prioritize increasing green spaces in vulnerable neighborhoods to mitigate the disproportionate impact of climate change, which can increase urban resilience to heat extremes and droughts for the entire community.
Approximately 30% of land in Texas is under absentee ownership. Understanding who absentee landowners are and their land management behaviors is vital for the protection of privately owned landscapes and the ecosystem services that they support, including surface water quality. By focusing on absentee landowners with properties in five watersheds in Texas, we utilized the theory of place attachment to gain insights into absentee landowners’ land management decisions and their involvement in water quality conservation programs, such as watershed protection plans. By conducting a mail-out survey, we obtained 100 responses, which were analyzed using an exploratory factor analysis and a series of nonparametric assessments. The results revealed that contrary to the term “absentee”, the landowners in our study demonstrated strong feelings of place attachment and heightened land stewardship. Based on these findings, we suggest that instead of considering absentee landowners as obstacles to collaborative conservation initiatives, natural resource practitioners should recognize and capitalize on the emotional attachment that these landowners have to their properties, thereby fostering their involvement. By demonstrating the owner–land relationship and its behavioral outcomes among absentee landowners, this paper provides a novel contribution to the existing literature on place attachment in the context of private land management and conservation.
This research is based on deciphering the levels of naturalness from a holistic point of view of the hemerobia, to determine the geoecological degradation of the landscapes, based on the postulation of an algorithm developed in four main functions, I Fx = Morphology-Territorial-Dynamics; II Fy = Rivers in the Basin; III Fz= Land Use (Satellite Image-Landsat and Shape), and IV Fd= The Correlations (Df = (Fx+Fy+Fz)/n3. The processes of the functions were determined according to their action on the landscape determined in four levels: Very intense, dynamic and pronounced; Intense and dynamic; Moderate weak; Incipient, diffuse, unrepeatable; the levels are the result of the application of the algorithm formulas, according to a scale from 1 to 4, where 1 is low, 2 medium, 3 high and 4 very high.
To achieve the geoecological assessment of the landscape, 12 thematic maps were formulated, which are 1. Base map; 2. Altimetry map; 3. Map of slopes; 4. Digital elevation model; 5. Geological map; 6. Soil map; 7. Hydrology map; 8 Climate map; 9. Land use and vegetation map; 10 Map of fluvial processes (Flood Quilt); 11. Dissection density map and 12 Relief energy map, to obtain the resulting map with the geoecological units, where three were obtained, categorizing them with low to medium levels of hemerobic degradation.
With this practical model of territorial analysis, a trend can be visualized towards where things are going, through the integration of a geosystemic diagnosis that is more coherent with reality, and help in making appropriate decisions, implementing environmental public policy, and contributing to applied research to mitigate environmental deterioration.
Lichens are excellent bioindicators of air pollution, particularly nitrogen, as they rely on atmospheric deposition for nutrients and water. Despite this, the interaction between lichens and nitrogen has received limited research focus. This study aims to assess the atmospheric nitrogen and metal ions deposition and their impacts on the physico-chemical responses of lichen. Himalayan lichens (Usnea spp. and Hypotrachyna spp. of Parmeliaceae family) from two different locations in Nepal; Kathmandu (urban forest), and Myagdi (rural forest) were collected using stratified random sampling. The physico-chemical analysis includes chlorophyll content and fluorescence, chlorophyll degradation, cell membrane integrity, phenolic and flavonoid content, and oxidative stress through catalase and radical scavenging activities. Both lichens showed the highest nitrogen, ammonia, and nitrate deposition in rural areas, with lead (Pb) highest in urban sites and nickel (Ni) found only in rural areas. Nitrogen deposition in lichen thalli resulted in decreased chlorophyll, phenolics, flavonoids, and radical scavenging, along with increased electrical conductivity and catalase activity. Principal component and canonical correlation analyses showed an association between environmental and lichen chemical variables affecting physico-chemical responses. Source analysis revealed geogenic and anthropogenic metal ion deposition in lichens. Both species showed similar pollutant accumulation patterns, but Hypotrachyna spp. was identified as a hyperaccumulator of nitrogen compounds and metal ions. Continuing metagenomics and ecoregion-specific bioindication research will offer a clearer understanding of lichen community responses to pollution in the Himalayan region.
Homestead Cemetery (henceforth Homestead) in the borough of Munhall began operating in 1886. As an old cemetery, Homestead not only reflects the borough’s history “from the Civil War, the 1892 Homestead Steel Strike, the Great Depression… to the civil rights movement of the 1960s” (Homestead Cemetery) but also contemporary circumstances, including insolvency, the expansion and decline of the nearby built environment and the site’s changing role. In Spring 2024 the Cemetery Board approached a faculty member in the Urban Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh about geolocating the gravesites at Homestead and building a searchable public database. That spring students enrolled in GIS and Community Data began working at Homestead.
This research discusses two related questions: how gravesites were identified, and the technical problems encountered at Homestead. DA2 Trimbles with under 1 centimeter accuracy and Trimble Mobile Manager were used to collect locational data on grave sites. The first section surveyed was the “Singles Section 2.” Students identified 699 gravesites based on headstone location and ground indentations.
Non-locational data (type of headstone, etc.) about each gravesite was logged using ArcGIS Survey123. Unmarked gravesites were identified either by measuring 3-foot intervals from known gravesites or in ArcGIS Pro. In summer 2024 a smaller team of students began surveying a new section, I. They began with the same equipment and data collection methods. However, after Survey123 failed, they transitioned to ArcGIS Field Maps.
Students learned and reckoned with collection and display of emotionally impactful data.
In recent years, there has been an extraordinary increase in wireless capable devices and network infrastructure, which spawned a corresponding rise in data produced from the interactions of these technologies. Mobile devices constantly roam, leading to a perpetual dialog between a mobile device and wireless access points. This dialogue generates a continuous stream of device-specific data, including but not limited to a device's media access control address, time of access, and received signal strength. Given the knowledge of the access point’s location and received signal strength, it is possible to infer the position of user devices and estimate their mobility and occupancy. This paper presents two methods for accurately measuring floor-level occupancy in a multi-story building at Texas State University using coarse Wi-Fi log data. The first method employs a static filter, while the second incorporates user-role data and user location to create a dynamic filter. Quantitative methods are used to evaluate these filters against field-collected reference data and existing internal people-counting sensors. Our results demonstrate that the dynamic filter, leveraging variable thresholds, provides a more accurate estimation of occupancy compared to the fixed 5-minute static filter which consistently overestimated occupancy. This research sheds light on the potential of dynamic filters derived from user-role data for precise floor-level occupancy estimations, with implications for various applications.
Over the last forty years an indeterminate number of persons, ranging into the thousands, have died along the US-Mexico border during migration, fleeing poverty, armed conflict, situations of violence, and disasters. An accurate accounting of migrant deaths along the southern US border is the first step toward an understanding of the extent and the contributing factors of these deaths. In the first part of this presentation, we describe a key aspect of our collaborative work aimed at developing a more representative account of migrant mortality along the southwestern US border: the determination of criteria for inclusion of specific forensic cases as “migrant” that specifically apply to the US-Mexico border region. The criteria are based on an examination of death reports collected by various agencies in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and at the federal level by the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). They include a) context of human remains discovery; b) identification media/documentation; c) geographic setting; and d) personal effects. Taken together, these criteria will facilitate our determination, case by case, of the likelihood that human remains found along the United States side of the border may be from a person in the context of migration. In the second part of our presentation, we discuss the first results of our research through a series of maps that visualize spatio-temporal trends in migrant deaths along the US-Mexico border at a variety of scales (entire border, state, local) and for selected years.Over the last forty years an indeterminate number of persons, ranging into the thousands, have died along the US-Mexico border during migration, fleeing poverty, armed conflict, situations of violence, and disasters. An accurate accounting of migrant deaths along the southern US border is the first step toward an understanding of the extent and the contributing factors of these deaths. In the first part of this presentation, we describe a key aspect of our collaborative work aimed at developing a more representative account of migrant mortality along the southwestern US border: the determination of criteria for inclusion of specific forensic cases as “migrant” that specifically apply to the US-Mexico border region. The criteria are based on an examination of death reports collected by various agencies in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and at the federal level by the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). They include a) context of human remains discovery; b) identification media/documentation; c) geographic setting; and d) personal effects. Taken together, these criteria will facilitate our determination, case by case, of the likelihood that human remains found along the United States side of the border may be from a person in the context of migration. In the second part of our presentation, we discuss the first results of our research through a series of maps that visualize spatio-temporal trends in migrant deaths along the US-Mexico border at a variety of scales (entire border, state, local) and for selected years.
Glacier meltwater contributes to streamflow and affects agricultural, industrial, and recreational activities significantly in western United States. The Wind River Range (WRR) in west-central Wyoming contains the most glacial mass in the Rocky Mountain of the conterminous U.S. and has experienced continuous recession since the Little Ice Age. This study focuses on the surface elevation changes of major glaciers (area>0.2 km^2) in the WRR over the past 52 years. The study used multiple data sources, including historical topographic maps and digital elevation models, to analyze the thinning of these glaciers between years of 1968, 1991, 2000, and 2019 and examine the potential factors contributing to the changes. The results showed that the WRR glaciers have been thinning in recent decades, with the highest rate of thinning (-0.51 ± 0.08 m/yr) occurred between 2000 and 2019. Correlation test and ordinary least squares regression found that certain local topographic and geometric factors, including glacier area, slope, and shape, contributed significantly to the variation in thinning rate during this period. Additionally, the study analyzed time series data on temperature and precipitation in the WRR and found a significant warming trend since 2000, which may have contributed to the accelerated melting observed in the most recent decades. The results of this study provide detailed information on glacier changes in the WRR at temporal and spatial scales that have not been studied before, which can be used to inform future investigations of the impact of glacier status on water resources in the region.
Land cover and land use change (LCLUC) have profound impacts on the climate system. Yet, current modeling studies rarely capture the real-world LCLUC evolving. This study integrated high-resolution, more accurate, dynamic remotely-sensed land cover and land use (LCLU) data from 1982 to 2013 into the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to assess its performance in simulating precipitation extremes in China. Two CESM experiments, EXP-LUH2 with default Land-Use Harmonization (LUH2) data and EXP-RS with remotely-sensed LCLU data, were compared. The results demonstrate that EXP-RS outperforms EX-LUH2, with lower bias and root mean square error for all extreme precipitation variables. This improvement may be attributed to the reduced bias in leaf area index and soil moisture, enhancement of vegetation transpiration and ground evaporation, and better simulations of total precipitable water. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating realistic LCLU data to better represent LCLUC-climate interactions, thereby improving climate projections and land management.
The South Texas Sand Sheets (STSS) are located near the Gulf of Mexico and were formed during the Holocene, approximately 10k B.P. In Kenedy county, Texas, sand dune dynamics are a concern due to their potential impacts on land use, habitats, and ecosystem services. Existing studies lack comprehensive long-term evaluations, which integrate remote sensing data and climate variables to assess drivers of sand dune movement in the area. In this study, the STSS is analyzed using historic Landsat and aerial imagery from 1974-2024 to assess change in dune movement and morphology over a fifty-year period. Imagery was obtained from both the USGS and Planet. Historic weather data was acquired from the Visual Crossing API. In order to obtain higher resolution imagery of dune morphology, aerial drone samples are currently being obtained of two selected dunes with the study area on the Kenedy Ranch during various seasons. Detailed, 3D models will then be created from the sampled dunes. Next, historic imagery is currently being compared and analyzed to track dune movement and change utilizing both ArcGIS Pro and Google Earth Engine. Preliminary results from the study indicate that dune movement is fairly consistent during times of wet periods versus drought, with greatest movement during dry periods and during heavy wind events, such as tropical storms and hurricanes. Findings from this study will aid local ranchers in determining how herd migrations are impacted by dune morphology.
Global wine production is on the verge of calamitous impacts caused by global warming-induced climate change, resulting in resource scarcity and growing international conflict. A growing body of research suggests that future climate change will increase conflict with devastating impacts on grape production and growers’ needs for predictable weather and water availability (Ponti et al. 2018, Schultz H. 2016, van Leeuwen et al. 2024). This research seeks to investigate the impacts of conflict and climate change on regional economic resilience of viticulturalists within the wine region of Dukagjina (Metohija) in Kosovo. This research seeks to develop an understanding of viticulture as an economic indicator for regional agricultural stability in the face of climate change, using conflict as a parallel disruption. The impact of conflict on Kosovo's viticultural sector, particularly the disruption caused by the collapse of Yugoslavia, provides vital insights into the systemic or cultural artifacts that pose a threat to the region's agricultural capacity. This region provides a compelling case to examine the interactions and impacts of conflicts and climate change to illuminate paths toward more resilient viticulture. The study aims to identify key vulnerabilities and propose strategies for building resilience in the agricultural sector. Additionally, it seeks to highlight the socio-economic impacts of these disruptions on local communities. Grapes for viticulture have a specialized and well-researched dynamic that requires a highly predictable climate, are susceptible to heat damage at the upper ends of expected changes, and have low water quantity requirements but high-quality needs. This places them as a commodity whose pricing and production changes can indicate regional climate impacts that broadly affect the agricultural sector. This presentation seeks to illustrate applied regional economic resilience as a function for climate adaptation for viticultural sector in the hostage state of the Republic of Kosovo.
Background: In the United States, childhood asthma prevalence is higher among low-income communities and Hispanic minorities. Studies found asthma education could improve health and quality of life among individuals with asthma. This study evaluates the impact of the evidence-based asthma education program on health outcomes among children with asthma and their families in South Texas using the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) planning and evaluation framework.
Methods: This study included 451 children with asthma and their families living in South Texas’s disadvantaged communities. The 12-month asthma education program led by community health workers included a 2-hour in-person workshop, a 2-hour household visit to identify asthma triggers, and quarterly follow-up sessions. The education was provided to children with asthma and their families in either English or Spanish from September 2015 to August 2020. In a pre-and post-test design, the differences in knowledge, behaviors, and health outcomes were assessed using validated surveys.
Results: The asthma education program significantly decreased the frequency of asthma-related respiratory symptoms, including shortness of breath, chest tightness, coughing, and sleep difficulty, among children with asthma and enhanced asthma knowledge in their families. This study also showed that the program improved children’s attendance and participation in physical activities and family social events and decreased families’ worry about asthma management.
Conclusions: The results suggest that the asthma education program could improve health conditions and reduce health disparity in education among minority children with asthma in low-income communities. The RE-AIM model was a valuable framework for evaluating this program.
The Beaumont-Port Arthur region, home to extensive industrial activities, has long faced significant air pollution challenges. To address this, our study leverages citizen science and low-cost sensing technologies to develop a community-based air monitoring campaign. Our campaign aims to capture high-resolution air quality data in ~60 monitoring locations across two cities, potentially covering 60 census tracts. We are deploying two types of air monitors: TSI BlueSky sensors, which will measure criteria pollutants (PM, NO2, O3, CO, SO2) continuously until April 2025, and VOC summa canisters, which will capture 24-hour samples and be deployed at least five times over the study period. To ensure the success of this initiative, we have engaged local communities by recruiting two monitoring coordinators, 30 community researchers, and 60 participating households. On-site and online information sessions have fostered community engagement, and monitoring demonstration sets are scheduled for mid-September to train participants. Our strategic selection of monitoring sites aims to provide a representative baseline dataset of air quality conditions in the region, laying the foundation for improved public health interventions. This study highlights the power of community-driven monitoring to address environmental justice concerns in vulnerable regions.
Based on an in-depth review of 40+ peer-reviewed journal articles that study environmental pollution (especially air pollution), health risks, and community engagement with a study area within or relevant to the region along Texas gulf coast, this presentation will summarize the status of theoretical and empirical knowledges about the triangle of environment – health – community. The emphasis will be on two aspects: the knowledge on the status of and relationship between environmental – health, and the community movement seeking to improve public health awareness and management, including both top-down and bottom-up approaches. The goal is to identify the key factors that may facilitate or inhibit community-driven approaches to address public health.
The planted alien mangrove species (i.e., Sonneratia apetala, SOA) was deliberately introduced to control invasive species (i.e., Spartina alterniflora, SA) and restore mangrove ecosystems in Qi’ao Island, the largest artificially planted mangrove reserve of China. However, the effects of the alien species triggered a debate over whether they invaded or restored the mangrove vegetation. There is a gap in observing the impact of planted alien species on invasive alien species and native species over long periods. This study employed high-resolution images with less than 1 m acquired in 2002, 2008, 2010, 2013, and 2016 to examine spatial dynamics and interactions between alien, invasive, and native species. Results showed that mangrove areas increased due to the artificial planting of SOA, while the presence of the invasive species SA dwindled to 4.19 ha in 2016, down from 110.18 ha in 2002. Most of the SA habitat was occupied by SOA from 2002 to 2016, suggesting that artificial SOA can effectively control the growth and extension of invasive SA. There was no notable transfer from native to alien species, indicating alien species did not significantly impact native species. However, we found that the alien species demonstrates adaptability, limiting the expansion of native species. Therefore, we should not underestimate the invasive power of alien species in mangrove ecosystems. Its ecological and biological effects still need to be carefully assessed over an extended period. The findings provided insight into the impact of planted alien mangroves from the perspective of spatiotemporal changes in species compositions.
Dark Sky International promotes the use of outdoor lighting that mitigates the impact of light pollution through their International Dark Sky Place program which designates places for committing to dark sky friendly lighting practices. Two previous studies examined if designation results in reduced light emissions by comparing the upward radiance of designated communities to non-designated communities using Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite Day-Night Band (VIIRS DNB) upward radiance satellite data. This study compares sky brightness trends between designated communities and non-designated communities in Central Texas and inside the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve. VIIRS DNB was used as input for the National Park Service All Sky Light Pollution Ratio (ALR) sky brightness model to determine mean sky brightness from 2012-2022. Ground measurements were taken from 2023-2024. Of the designated communities in the study, 69% showed no difference in trends or a greater upward trend compared to non-designated communities while 31% showed either no overall change or a smaller upward trend in sky brightness compared to non-designated communities. There was an upward trend in sky brightness for 93% of the places in the study. Ground measurements showed 90% of dark sky places were darker than non-designated communities. Understanding sky brightness trends through GIS analysis revealed the geographic influences of sky brightness on designated places. An overview of night sky quality monitoring at Texas State University's Freeman Center will be given.
The escalating frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme heat events have posed a significant threat to human society in recent decades. Understanding the dynamic patterns of human mobility under extreme heat will contribute to accurately assessing the risk of extreme heat exposure. Despite that heat-related deaths and illnesses can be greatly decreased through adaptation measures by reducing extreme heat exposure, the extent to which people employ these behavioral adaptation strategies remain largely unquantified. This study leverages an emerging geospatial data source, anonymous cell phone location data, to investigate how people in different communities adapt travel behaviors responding to extreme heat events. Taking the Greater Houston Metropolitan Area as an example, we develop two indices, the Mobility Disruption Index (MDI) and the Activity Time Shift Index (ATSI), to quantify diurnal mobility changes and activity time shift patterns at the city and intra-urban scales. The results reveal that human mobility decreases significantly in the daytime of extreme heat events in Houston whereas the proportion of activity after 8 p.m. is increased, accompanied with a delay in travel time in the evening. Moreover, these mobilitydecreasing and activity-delaying effects exhibited substantial spatial heterogeneity across census block groups. Causality analysis using the Geographical Convergent Cross Mapping model combined with correlation analyses indicates that people in areas with a high proportion of minorities and poverty are less able to adopt heat adaptation strategies to avoid the risk of heat exposure. These findings highlight the fact that besides the physical aspect of environmental justice on heat exposure, the inequity lies in the population's capacity and knowledge to adapt to extreme heat. This research is the first of the kind that quantifies multi-level mobility for extreme heat responses, and sheds light on a new facade to plan and implement heat mitigations and adaptation strategies beyond the traditional approaches.
Paving a pathway to sustainability in Texas wine: A community-based research project in an iconic fermented landscape
By: Colleen Myles, Claryce Bosson, Mik Lopez, Nicole Anguiano, and Matt Roberts
*presenting authors
The study of fermented landscapes allows for the exploration of ways that literal and figurative processes of fermentation drive cultural and environmental landscape change. One such exploration is an ongoing community-based, action research project with Texas wine producers to explore sustainability issues in the industry and region. Within the “Roadmap to Sustainability in Texas Wine” project, sustainability is conceptualized as tripart, encompassing environmental as well as economic and equity components. For over a year now, the Fermented Landscapes Lab has been working alongside Texas winegrowers and winemakers to conceptualize and, crucially, operationalize sustainability in their practices and process. With this small group of Texas wine producers, we have been working to identify shared goals for sustainability; fostering effective collaboration across the group; and helping to conduct a baseline assessment of sustainability practices within those organizations. Moreover, we have been pursuing an opportunity for Texas wine growers and wine makers to earn a formal sustainability certification, as desired. The ad hoc group of participants in the project selected a well-regarded certification regime from California to use as a starting point for their efforts—and the work has evolved from there. Since a rigorous and effective sustainability paradigm must be based in place, part of our collective efforts are targeted toward preparing a proposal of necessary adjustments to the certification program selected to ensure the eligibility of Texas participants. This paper shares the story of the work already done and speculates on the next steps of the process.
Abstract
The “Roadmap to Sustainability in Texas Wine” project aims to achieve sustainability through interconnected environmental, economic, and equity dimensions. Under the guidance of Dr. Colleen Myles, and with key contributions from Matt Roberts, Claryce Bosson, Mik Lopez, and Nicole Anguiano, the Fermented Landscapes Lab collaborates closely with Texas viticulturists and enologists. Together, we work to develop and implement sustainable practices in both viticulture and enology.
The project partners with several Texas wineries, including Becker Vineyards, Llano Estacado Winery, and William Chris Vineyards. They focus on setting collective sustainability goals, sharing resources, and increasing collaboration among producers. The researchers use sustainability in practice (SIP) guidelines adapted from California’s successful model to evaluate and improve current practices in Texas.
By prioritizing sustainability, this project provides a clear pathway for the Texas wine industry to adopt more eco-friendly methods. This approach will help better care for the land, support the local economy, and enhance the well-being of the community. Ultimately, it aims to make Texas wine production more resilient and sustainable for future generations.
The approach of geotechnologies in Mexico has contributed to the integrated study of the environment, socio-ecological systems and societies, through the application of remote sensing and the use of satellite images such as GOES, MODIS, VIIRS, Sentinel and Landsat, among others, in addition to the application of geoecological degradation methods, generation of algorithms for modeling in various risk studies, landscape and anthropo-natural disturbing phenomena that have been applied in the territory of the State of Mexico and the country in general.
In this sense, this paper presents the applied research carried out within the framework of the scientific work of the National Laboratories in Mexico recognized and endorsed by the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (CONAHCYT) called: 1. National Laboratory of Earth Observation (LANOT-Faculty of Geography Unit); and 2. Conahcyt National Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technologies for Resilient Socio-Ecological Systems (LaNCTIGeSSR), both seen as a holistic binomial within remote sensing, geotechnologies, environment, and the interaction and/or impacts of societies on the environment, where studies have been developed under the pentahelix approach integrating society, government, business sector, environment and academia, highlighting studies on droughts, fires, floods, agro-productive development in the country.
On January 19, 2021, in the Federal Register, the Office of Management and Budget (0MB) requested public comment on the recommendations it had received from the Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area Standards Review Committee for changes to OMB's metropolitan and micropolitan statistical area standards. The "Overview of Recommendations From the Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area Standards Review Committee" included: "(3) Research should be undertaken on an additional, territorially exhaustive classification that covers all of the United States and Puerto Rico." This paper presents an approach to single-layer coverage that adds value to the historic State and County alphabetically assigned FIPS codes with a geocode method that would be used for the substate district geography chosen by each State. The county, county equivalent or municipality Census geographies are the building blocks; thus, historical data will aggregate into the substate district framework. The geocoding method will enable the aggregating of analytical regions smaller or larger than any basic substate district within a State or any contiguous multi-State area. The geocode also solves the problem of matching Connecticut data between the present and the period when Counties had some functions. The Virginia Independent City situation is also solved. Metropolitan Statistical Area detail by decade could be made visible. This proposal is based on 35 years of practitioner experience working during the implementation of the Virginia Area Development Act (VADA) of 1968, which led to the delineation of 22 sub-State Planning Districts. It was unique in that a 1972 Executive Order required State Agencies that used sub-State districts for their management to realign them to an individual Planning District or multiples. The VADA was renamed the Regional Cooperation Act in 1995 to provide for broader use. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Roundtables, which began in 2005, were the first application of this approach. It is designed to scale worldwide and supplement alphabetic codes with geocodes. The framework is set out in: “Prototype Global Coding of Political Geographies for Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example” in Papers in Applied Geography, 2013.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-01-19/pdf/2021-00988.pdf
Conventional spatial analysis has largely ignored the temporal dimension that is embedded in geographic data. Using geographic data to describe the occurrences, patterns, and trends of changes in geographic phenomena allows us to detect spatial clusters, such as hotspots/coldspots. These have been applied widely in fields of criminology, epidemiology, or any disaster studies, habitats analysis, and others in which geographic events could diffuse across space.
It should be noted, however, a location that is said to be a hotspot may be temporally, persistent, new, or no longer a hotspot. These all depends on its temporal trends.
This presentation highlights the need to incorporate newly developed techniques to reveal temporal trends in spatial patterns and changes in geographic phenomena. A discussion of the pros and cons of the techniques will also be included.
Monitoring and mapping inland water quality is critical for sustainable water supplies for human consumption, agriculture, industry, and other economic activities. Satellite remote sensing provides spatially continuous and temporally consistent data for retrieving water quality information in a cost-effective manner. In previous studies, empirical models have been widely used to map water quality parameters for inland waters using remotely sensed imagery. Due to the complex optical properties of inland waters, empirical models often have limited performances, and they cannot be extended or reused across space and time. To improve the prediction accuracy for optically complex inland waters, spectral-space partition-based ensemble model by synergistically combining multiple component models were proposed by Min Xu et al. This paper presents algorithmic components and corresponding software routines to implement this ensemble model in ArcGIS. Our software development experiences show that the strategy of implementing spectral-space partition-based ensemble model as a toolbox extension module in the ArcGIS environment has two major advantages. First, many core GIS functions offered by the ArcPy can be directly utilized to facilitate the development of the software routines. Secondly, embedding the spectral-space partition-based ensemble model into the ArcGIS allows the user to take advantage of a wide spectrum of data management, visualization and spatial analysis capabilities during the quality control process. Besides ArcGIS, these reusable algorithm components would be useful in the open-source GIS domain like QGIS as a plug-in component.
Public engagement is a critical component in shaping effective policies, fostering community involvement, and driving meaningful change. Successful engagement is achieved with overcoming significant challenges that can render a project impotent. Participants will explore key challenges including varying levels of public trust, reaching underrepresented groups, overcoming misinformation, competing interests and navigating the complexities of digital and in-person interactions. The session will provide a platform for sharing insights, experiences, and best practices through sharing. Roundtable topics will focus on innovative approaches to enhance public engagement, such as leveraging technology for broader outreach, building trust, and tailoring strategies to meet specific community needs.
This research examines the relationship between industrialization, deindustrialization and retailing in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia’s “Steel City”. Early retailing and consumption in Newcastle were inextricably linked to its industrial economy. Manufacturing decline in the city during the 1980s negatively impacted retail trade, even as the city’s shopping landscape was reconfigured through national retail and retail property firm investment. Throughout its history, retailing in Newcastle was also conditioned by its relationship with the state’s economic centre, Sydney. Synthesizing demographic data, retail census data and archival sources, this study demonstrates how retail reflects shifting phases of capitalism as it responds to demographic, cultural, labour market, industry and macro-economic forces. We hope to spark further conversations about how small cities experience such changing contexts, the localised effects of industrialization and deindustrialization on practices of consumption, and the utility of retail for exploring processes of urban change.
Since the spring of 2021, Dr. Murray Rice has team taught Foundations of Geographic Thought with other faculty members at the University of North Texas. The course is designed to invite incoming geography majors into a conversation about how to succeed as a major. In this presentation, we describe how we have built the class, increasingly what we have done to help our majors gain traction in our undergraduate programs, and how Dr. Murray Rice has contributed to these efforts. The course is part of a curriculum system that feeds into multiple directions in the upper division. Dr. Rice's broad appreciation for and understanding of geographic concepts and approaches has fueled the success of this course.
As AI and digital technologies continue to transform location intelligence, the reintroduction of fundamental geographic principles has never been more essential. Engaging deeply with the complexity of places brings a richness of subtle knowledge and values into observation and analysis that AI often lacks. The reductive nature of data-driven analysis has gradually displaced the understanding of space as a lived experience, promoting the false notion that data is inherently unbiased.
AI’s significant limitations highlight the need for location intelligence to incorporate human values, cross-cultural ethics, emotions, subjectivity, creativity, and intuition in order to better model the multifaceted nature of geographic spaces. Foundational concepts, such as the "sense of place," emphasize that places are lived environments shaped by the human condition. These often-unseen elements enrich our understanding of place, enhancing decision-making and fostering deeper connections to the environments in which we operate.
By returning to basic geographic principles, we can more effectively navigate rapidly evolving landscapes, ensuring that our work remains grounded in the real, lived experiences of the places we seek to influence—whether in policy, business, or community engagement.
Location intelligence stands at a crossroads where the exponential growth of big data—especially mobility data from mobile devices, GPS technologies, and IoT sensors—is reshaping the research landscape. The integration of advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence will enable the extraction of deeper insights from massive geospatial datasets. This evolution promises to revolutionize sectors such as urban planning, transportation, logistics, environmental monitoring, and public health by uncovering nuanced spatial patterns driven by a deeper understanding of human mobility behaviors as well as the environment within which these occur.
Conversely, foundational location models like the p-median problem and partitioning approaches, developed decades ago, continue to present significant computational challenges. These models are crucial for optimal facility placement, resource allocation, and network design but are often NP-hard, making them computationally intensive even with modern advancements. Despite increased computing power, solving large-scale instances of these problems remains a hurdle due to their complex nature and the high dimensionality of current datasets.
This juxtaposition highlights a critical need to bridge the gap between cutting-edge big data analytics and classical computational models. Addressing this requires innovative computational strategies that can handle the scale and complexity of modern data while leveraging the robustness of traditional models. Research should focus on developing scalable algorithms, utilizing approximation methods, and adopting high-performance and parallel computing techniques to mitigate computational constraints.
Gentrification and food access have emerged as significant topics in urban social sciences research over the last two decades. While they are frequently addressed independently, there is a growing understanding of their intricate relationship. Gentrification, a process of urban transformation characterized by an inflow of higher-income residents into previously underinvested areas, results in rising property values and changes in local amenities. Concurrently, food access, which includes the physical and economic ability to access nutritious, culturally relevant food, is directly linked to these neighborhood changes.
East Austin, Texas, has experienced significant gentrification over the past two decades, potentially impacting residents' access to food options. This study examines the complex relationship between gentrification and food access in East Austin from 1983 to 2022, focusing on changes in the local food environment and their effects on residents' ability to obtain healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food. Using spatial analysis techniques, we mapped the temporal and geographic shifts in food retail establishments across Austin, with a particular focus on East Austin. Our findings reveal distinct patterns in the evolution of Austin's foodscape, including a significant increase in the overall number of food establishments, particularly in recent years. We observed a notable rise in gentrification-indicative food stores, such as boutique grocers and upscale restaurants, especially in the last decade. These establishments, catering to the preferences of new, higher-income residents, serve as markers of the changing socioeconomic landscape.
The analysis shows changing distributions of food stores across the city, with East Austin experiencing fluctuations in its share of the city's food establishments. These shifts suggest potential impacts on food access for long-term residents, particularly in rapidly changing neighborhoods.
This research serves as a foundation for a larger, comprehensive study on the impacts of gentrification on food access in urban areas. Our preliminary findings provide valuable background information and context for the next phase of the research, which will involve in-depth surveys and interviews with current and former residents.
The insights from this pilot study and the subsequent phases of research will contribute to our understanding of urban food systems in rapidly changing environments, offering valuable information for policymakers, urban planners, and community organizations working to ensure equitable food access in gentrifying urban areas.
The Southeast Texas region, particularly the Beaumont-Port Arthur area, is grappling with significant environmental challenges due to industrial pollution and climate change, which adversely affect both physical and mental health. This study aims to investigate the impact of climate change and air quality on mental health in Southeast Texas, employing the social determinants of health (SDOH) framework to understand how socioeconomic factors mediate these environmental effects.
The research objectives are to examine the correlation between poor air quality and mental health outcomes such as anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders; assess the compounded effects of climate-related extreme weather events on psychological resilience; and explore the role of SDOH—including economic status, race, healthcare access, and housing conditions—in shaping mental health vulnerabilities.
A survey-based approach will be utilized, targeting 3,000 valid participants from Southeast Texas to ensure a diverse and representative sample. The questionnaire, designed and administered via Qualtrics, will collect data on mental health status, perceived environmental stress, and relevant social factors. Environmental data on air quality metrics and climate-related events will be integrated with survey responses to identify correlations and causative relationships.
This research underscores the critical need to address mental health within the broader context of environmental and socioeconomic challenges, providing a comprehensive understanding necessary for fostering health equity and resilience in vulnerable communities.
Uncovering the multi-dimensional interplay between geospatial data and community health outcomes has significant theoretical and practical implications for public health, urban science, and justice studies. A community-driven geospatial approach integrates location-based social data while addressing health equity, social justice, and access to resources. This approach incorporates diverse, high-dimensional, and often unstructured information from urban environments, prioritizing the challenges faced by marginalized and vulnerable communities. A methodological framework is built on four interdependent layers: human-centered, participatory, action-oriented, and convergence-driven. The human-centered layer emphasizes understanding the lived experiences of communities, especially those disproportionately affected by public health disparities. The participatory layer ensures that community members—particularly from underserved populations—actively collaborate in data collection, interpretation, and decision-making, empowering them to shape public health interventions. The action-oriented layer uses geospatial data to inform policy changes and targeted interventions, addressing structural inequities in healthcare, environmental exposure, and other social determinants of health. Finally, the convergence-driven layer brings together insights from various disciplines to understand how spatial inequalities intersect with social and economic factors, influencing health outcomes. By leveraging local knowledge and geospatial technologies, this framework systematically addresses public health challenges through a justice-oriented lens. It enables public health professionals, urban planners, and social justice advocates to visualize complex health disparities, identify vulnerable areas, and co-create interventions that foster inclusive, sustainable, and equitable health outcomes for all communities.
Urban areas globally face increasing vulnerability to natural hazards, particularly flooding, due to climate change, rapid urbanization, and environmental degradation. There is a need for real-time flood analysis, flood forecasting under extreme rainfall events, and effective communications with stakeholders to design and implement efficient management strategies. Advances in 1D-2D hydrodynamic modeling and digital twins make high-resolution flood modeling and visualization at the street and basement levels possible. Focusing on the City of Galveston, a coastal urban area in Texas, U.S., this study created a Geospatial Digital Twin (DT) to strengthen its flood resilience. The objectives include: (1) developing a Geospatial DT incorporating real-world topography, hydrography, and urban infrastructure; (2) modeling hyperlocal urban flood conditions under 2yr, 10yr, 25yr, 50yr, 100yr return period rainfall scenarios; and (3) identifying at-risk zones and estimating flood impacts under these rainfall scenarios. This study employs the Personal Computer Storm Water Management Model (PCSWMM), a 1D-2D coupled hydrological model, to create dynamic virtual replicas of urban landscapes for accurate flood modeling. By integrating high-resolution LiDAR data, land use and cover characteristics, and storm sewer geometries, the model can simulate and analyze flood depth, extent, and velocity in a 4D environment during rainfall events. Results show that buildings inundated by more than one foot increased from 0.5% in a 2-year flood to 6.2% in a 100-year flood over 24 hours. The proposed model framework serves as a critical tool for proactive disaster management and urban planning, enhancing targeted flood preparedness and guiding infrastructure development.
Scientific advancement has led to the use and development of chemicals that have helped humans efficiently extract resources. However, given the rapid development of these chemicals, there have been unforeseen consequences of their use on humans and the environment. In this study, zebrafish (Danio rerio) were used as subjects to test the toxic effects of glyphosate, copper, and lead. Zebrafish were used given their genetic similarity to humans and the vast amount of information available concerning their care and morphology. Toxicity of the chemicals was examined by exposing zebrafish to environmentally relevant concentrations and quantifying morphological and behavioral endpoints throughout their development. Analysis of the data found significant differences in exposed fish in at least one of the tested chemicals for each morphological endpoint. Lead had significant values at all dosing concentrations for mean body length and spinal angle. Reductions in body length, spinal angle, and ocular distance were observed in the lead protocol. Increases in swim bladder area were observed in all tested chemicals. Copper showed significant p values of 0.02, 0.002 and 0.03 for concentration groups B, C and F respectively in the swim bladder endpoint. Negative correlations were observed in the behavioral assays of all three chemicals with lead (r =-0.82677) having the strongest negative correlation. The findings conclude that further research is needed to evaluate differences in observed morphological endpoint changes seen between the three tested contaminants and verify behavioral assay results.
This study focuses on the rainfall-runoff ratio as an indicator of Anthropogenic Land Cover Change in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX metro area. Rapid urbanization has increased impervious surface cover, promoting fast surface runoff over slow subsurface flows. Five urbanized and five rural sub-watersheds were selected for the study. Annual rainfall and runoff data were used to calculate rainfall-runoff ratios. Three kinds of trend analysis were applied to the rainfall-runoff ratio data: least squared regression, Mann-Kendall and Sen’s Slope. The same trend analyses were applied to rainfall records alone to rule out changes in rainfall causing changes in rainfall-runoff ratios. The five urbanized sub-watersheds had positive trend lines indicating that rainfall-runoff ratios are increasing over time. In contrast, the five unurbanized sub-watersheds had no significant trend lines in the rainfall-runoff ratio data. The five urbanized sub-watersheds experienced more than doubling of rainfall-runoff ratios over the study period. This likely had substantial effects on other aspects of the local environment, including changes in soil moisture, groundwater, channel base flows, evapotranspiration, stormflow and flood risk.
Anthropogenic land cover changes are significantly impacting hydrological processes in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area. Farther research is justified, including hydrologic, atmospheric and geomorphic impacts of urbanization.
Following the end of the Angolan civil war in 2002, human and livestock populations have increased exponentially within Iona National Park. An ongoing drought since 2017 has brought these people and livestock into increasing competition with local wildlife for resources – highlighting a conservation challenge that will become more entrenched as the effects of anthropogenic climate change increase. In 2019, African Parks began co-managing Iona National Park in Angola with the Angolan government, hoping to enact scientifically grounded management strategies to meet this challenge. To accomplish this, African Parks needed contemporary and historic information on the spatial distribution of landcover types within Iona and adjacent areas. We constructed and applied a random forest classifier in Google Earth Engine to spectral data gathered from Landsat 5, 7, 8 and Sentinel-1 and 2 to meet this need. Using the classifier, we generated a time-series of land cover maps between 1990–2023, from which several landscape metrics were calculated to show how certain habitats and formations had changed over time. Notably, we observed a decrease in the park’s diversity as per the Shannon Diversity Index – the index considers the richness of classes, as well the evenness of their distribution. The poorer resolution of earlier sensors and a lack of arid specific land cover indices limited the accuracy and resolution of our landcover maps. However, this project still demonstrates that Earth observations can be used to form the basis of conservation policy in arid environments, where ground-truth data may be difficult to obtain or non-existent.
My advisor has received this extended abstract and approves its submission for the student competition.
Megan Rich (NASA Develop, megan.m.rich@ama-inc.com)- program lead
Zhan, F Benjamin (Texas State University, zhan@txstate.edu) -academic advisor
New Urbanism (NU) is a town planning and urban design approach that aims to resist urban sprawl, restore suburbs, and redevelop city centers. It focuses on creating diverse neighborhoods, encouraging multi-use and multi-transit communities, and creating accessible urban spaces. The movement emphasizes humanistic cities and towns, prioritizing the public realm and promoting walkability, diversity, and coherent architectural styles. However, there are discrepancies between NU principles and practice. NU practice involves local government, the private sector, and communities to implement the principles. Declining the role of stakeholders to clients has been a challenge since it intensifies the prescription role of architecture, planning, and design professions in the hands of the private sector. Thus, NU movement embraces localities in principles, but it sustains market-driven policies in practice. The new urbanist planning and design produce neighborhoods that directly and indirectly displace the working class in favor of the creative class. In other words, it triggers gentrification through (re)development, which targets the working class. Communicative planning and design have the skills to play a crucial role in mitigating the negative social impacts of the new urbanist planning, such as gentrification. As one of the NU redevelopments, the Mueller community stands for a change in urban sprawl, diverse living spaces, mixed-use town center, attracting visitors across Austin, sustainable design, and green buildings adopting a traditional neighborhood development. This paper analyzes the role of communicative planning and design in NU principles and practice within the Mueller community. It examines how the design has addressed equity and social problems.
Urban expansion, including infill within open spaces in previously developed areas and sprawl outside previously developed areas in cities, is associated with improved infrastructure and the development of cities as centers of modernization and innovation. Urban expansion also has a variety of negative social and environmental consequences. However, previous studies in Africa mostly focused on individual primary cities and overlooked the more numerous and faster-growing secondary cities. We conducted 63 interviews with urban stakeholders consisting of urban residents, landowners, real estate developers, and planners across two primary and four secondary cities to understand the causes of infill and sprawl. Interviews suggest that despite shorter travel time to services, infill development is limited by higher land and rent costs, less diverse land allocation, more noise, crimes, and less greenery and land available for speculation. Conversely, spawl is favored by lower land and rent costs, more diverse land allocation, less noise, fewer crimes, more greenery, and more land available for speculation at the urban periphery. The conditions for sprawl were more favorable in the secondary cities, leading to greater expansion and higher sprawl-to-infill ratio than in primary cities. Additionally, there are uneven power relations among urban stakeholders, and although demand for new developments is increasing, there is unequal access to housing and land, especially in the primary cities. Infill and sprawl developments generally reflect the aims of the most powerful stakeholders, meaning sustainable planning and zoning policies must effectively reconcile differences in rationalities within and across the many diverse but rapidly expanding cities.
The massive bronze Land Run Monument created by artist Paul Moore ranks as one of the most familiar of the major projects supported by Oklahoma’s Centennial Commission. That commission planned and orchestrated the commemoration of Oklahoma’s 100th “birthday” in 2007. Ironically, the Land Run Monument was only partially finished at the time of the centennial. It would take until 2019 for the artwork to be finalized. Meanwhile, construction of the First Americans Museum was stalled for nearly seven years, with work eventually resuming in 2019. It, too, was a project of the Centennial Commission. This paper tracks the development of these projects because of the insights they provide on the dramatic transformation of the cultural landscape of Oklahoma City as well as the image of the city. Key interpretive lenses that inform the presentation and evaluation include heritage dissonance and placemaking.
Border landscapes are the product of physical, cultural, economic, and political processes in border regions. Using the cities of São Borja in Brazil and Santo Tomé in Argentina as a case study, I argue in this paper that attending to the interactions inscribed at the border landscape allows us to explain social processes related to border formation. Paying close attention to the visible aspects of the landscape, such as the Uruguay River, a bridge that connects both cities and countries, border checkpoints, monuments, signs, and plaques that represent the historical and political background of the region inform the border interactions that emerge through a shared colonial legacy, cultural exchanges, and cross-border trade. Additionally, these interactions, such as Jesuit colonization, border enforcement and securitization, and state cooperation, produce the border landscape. Therefore, analyzing such landscapes furthers our understanding of how borders are imposed and maintained within these two South American cities and help our understanding of social processes related to the emergence of borders, especially in formerly colonized spaces where coloniality remains.
Estimating crop yield using remote sensing techniques has garnered significant interest in research, as crop yield is a crucial parameter for agricultural processes such as irrigation planning, optimization, and overall agricultural productivity. By combining data from both active and passive remote sensors, important features can be extracted to approximate crop yield. In this study, we utilized Sentinel-1 C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data and multispectral data from Sentinel-2 (Multi Spectral Instrument) MSI satellites to evaluate the performance of a model in predicting crop yield, aligning with ground-truth data collected from an agricultural field in the southeastern United States. Eleven SAR features and thirteen multispectral features were analyzed. The SAR features include Sentinel-1 C-band backscattering coefficients in VH and VV polarizations, expressed in dB units, along with their ratio, product, sum, difference, and exponents, as well as the Normalized Difference Polarization Index (NDPI). The multispectral features include several indices alongside the visible, NIR, and SWIR bands. The final model was optimized using seven features, integrating both SAR and multispectral data. This combination proved to be the most effective for accurate crop yield estimation. We applied multiple linear regression to the dataset and observed promising results, with a relatively high R-squared value. These findings provide valuable insights into the potential of integrating multispectral and radar data, such as features from Sentinel-2 and SAR, in improving crop yield prediction.
Earthquakes are among the most destructive natural disasters, causing significant loss of life and severe damage to infrastructure and the environment. Assessing the extent of building damage after an earthquake is necessary for guiding rescue and response efforts. Traditional methods for building damage assessment, such as ground surveys or aerial image analysis, have limitations. Ground surveys can be time-consuming, labor-intensive, and potentially dangerous in the aftermath of an earthquake, while aerial images can be affected by issues like shadows, perspective distortions, and spectral variations, leading to less accurate results. This study proposes a methodology for post-earthquake building damage assessment using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data. The approach focuses on assessing the damage caused to buildings in Kumamoto City and Mashiki Town, Japan, after the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes. The methodology involves several steps, including converting LiDAR point clouds to raster images, calculating the Normalized Digital Surface Model (nDSM), applying Progressive Morphological Filtering (PMF), binary thresholding, vectorization, shape analysis, and raster-based damage assessment. The LiDAR point clouds were converted to Digital Surface Models (DSMs) and Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) using spatial interpolation techniques. The nDSM, representing the height of features above the ground surface, was obtained by subtracting the DTM from the DSM. PMF was applied to extract features from the nDSM, and binary thresholding was used for further refinement. The resulting raster was vectorized, and shape analysis was performed to identify building polygons based on their rectangularity. Finally, the elevation difference between pre- and post-event data for the building footprints was calculated to assess earthquake damage to individual buildings. The methodology successfully extracted building footprints, with 98.3% of polygons classified as rectangular buildings. Accuracy assessment against OpenStreetMap data showed an overall accuracy of 81.25%. The methodology was further validated on a New Zealand dataset, achieving an overall accuracy of 84.72%. The raster-based damage assessment identified areas where significant elevation changes occurred within the building footprints, indicating potential damage. The results were visualized using color-coded maps, enabling the identification of buildings that suffered varying degrees of damage. The proposed methodology offers a raster-based approach for post-earthquake building damage assessment using LiDAR data. By analyzing the changes in elevation surfaces and building footprints between pre- and post-event data, the methodology can potentially provide accurate and efficient damage assessment. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in extracting building footprints and identifying areas of potential damage. While the methodology achieved promising results, there were certain limitations, such as the inclusion of non-building classes due to lower point cloud density and the need for manual editing. Utilizing LiDAR data with higher point cloud density could lead to improved accuracy. Additionally, using different sources for validation, other than OpenStreetMap data may yield more accurate results. Overall, the raster-based methodology presented in this study offers a valuable tool for rapid assessment of building damage in the aftermath of earthquakes, contributing to more effective and targeted rescue and recovery efforts.
Urban forests play a crucial role in urban ecosystems and public health, making urban tree inventories essential for sustainable development. Tree inventories with the information on tree metrics such as tree height, diameter at breast height (DBH), crown area, tree volume, characteristics of tree that defines tree health and growth status, spatial distribution, biomass and helps to do research on urban ecosystems and their functions. Remote sensing, particularly light detection and ranging (LiDAR), offers an efficient and accurate approach to determine tree characteristics in urban areas. The classified LiDAR point cloud data of different time of Texas state are made publicly available by Texas Geographic Information Office at the website (tnris.org). Access to region-wide data allows for the study of the university's forest inventory within urban areas. This offers significant opportunities that benefits to the university by providing precise measurement of tree metrics from available data to monitor the trees within the university premises and implement urban greening initiatives which can be scaled up to metropolitan cities. This study aimed to use publicly available airborne LiDAR data acquired by Texas Natural Resources Information System (TNRIS) during 2020 to determine individual tree structure parameters including tree height, crown area, and crown volume within the University of North Texas (UNT) main campus. A Canopy Height Model (CHM) derived from the LiDAR data, and a Python package (PyCrown) based on the Individual Tree Crown (ITC) delineation algorithm were used to detect individual treetops and delineate crowns on the CHM. In total, 1792 treetops and their corresponding crowns were identified for trees taller than 5 meters. The individual tree crowns were then used to segment the LiDAR point cloud into individual tree crowns, and a convex hull approach was applied to estimate the crown volume for each segmented tree. The LiDAR-derived tree heights were validated against field measurements from the UNT tree inventory, revealing a moderate linear relationship (R² = 0.57) for sample trees and a strong relationship (R² = 0.765) for isolated single trees from the same sample. The findings demonstrated the potential of utilizing publicly accessible LiDAR data for urban forest mapping, providing accurate tree metrics including tree height, crown area, and crown volume essential for monitoring urban ecosystems, assessing carbon stocks, and supporting sustainable urban greening initiatives. Therefore, this study marks a significant step toward the use of aerial LiDAR data in urban forest mapping and research.
More than half of the Native American population lives in the western US, where contaminants from more than 160,000 abandoned hard rock mines has created a legacy of chronic exposures to mine. Potential environmental exposure to Abandoned Uranium Mines (AUM) has caused communities concerns about adverse health impact on human health and livestock in indigenous communities in the US South West. Drawing from a sustained partnership centered on community priorities and questions, we present a case study that brought together a transdisciplinary team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars to address questions regarding the potential impact of hard rock mining legacies on livestock animals. Working together with communities, this study collected spatial-temporal and accelerometer data on livestock animals using GPS collars and developed a novel geospatial modeling approach to examine the potential exposure to AUMs. Moreover, this case study unfolds within the framework of U.S. federal government settlements regarding abandoned uranium mine (AUM) cleanup, while also integrating Western knowledge with Indigenous Knowledges to address community concerns on livestock health. The intricate interplay between livestock as both a livelihood and a culturally significant element further underscores the complexity of the narrative.
Farmers' markets are frequently proposed as a solution to food access issues in food deserts, but their impact on low-income communities remains unclear. Farmers markets offer essential access to fresh, locally grown produce and contribute to a more sustainable food system. However, it is not clear how significantly farmers' markets impact food access for their communities. Employing 2024 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Retailer Locator and the ESRI Transport Network, this research provides a service area analysis of grocery stores in Dallas. After delimiting food deserts defined as the absence of full-service grocery stores, we incorporate farmers' market locations to evaluate changes in food access. The result provides input on how strategic placement of farmers' markets may address food deserts in low-income urban areas.
Keywords: food deserts, farmers’ market, service area analysis
Agroecosystems in Oklahoma are facing severe challenges from climate change, and we can learn lessons from past extreme events. For example, the unusually extended La Niña phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation in 2021-2023 and associated drought resulted in one of the worst winter wheat harvest seasons in the state. Agricultural statistics show a significant decline in both winter wheat acreage and yield. Hence, the sustainable management of Oklahoma’s available water resources has become more important than ever before. Stress on crop production demands the crucial need for accurate, field-scale estimates of near-daily crop water use. However, obtaining such detailed information remains challenging for several reasons. First, existing evapotranspiration (ET) products lack extensive validation across wheat farms under different management practices in the Central US. Second, current ET products with their limited spatial and temporal coverages are insufficient for real-time monitoring. Third, most available data combine evaporation (water lost by soil) and transpiration (water used for biomass production), limiting their utility in accounting for actual crop water needs and response to climate. To address these challenges, a new remote sensing-based modeling framework is being developed to map actual water use (including evaporation and transpiration) with high spatiotemporal resolution. This new ET product is being compared against existing products to evaluate its performance and potential for improving our understanding of winter wheat water use patterns across the state. Through these datasets, Oklahoma producers and managers may be better equipped to face future drought challenges and maintain sustainable winter wheat production.
Indigenous Geographies, as explained by Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles (University of Victoria), are ways of thinking about space and place that are based in and center Indigenous worldviews and epistemologies. Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) has been defined as knowledge rooted in ecological experience and culture and maintained through Indigenous language and storytelling, developed over long periods of time in place, and has been the subject of much research in many disciplines. An area of ongoing inquiry in various disciplines and institutions is renewed interest in including IEK in what is called “co-production” of knowledge or “convergence” science, including the U.S. government mandating of IEK’s use in federal program research, policy, and decision-making. Critiques of co-production and convergence initiatives in the context of IEK have called it a possible new form of Settler appropriation. Some argue for the “Indigenizing” of the broader geographical research agenda.
In this session, we will hear from SWAAG and AGX scholars on research and engagement with, for, and by Indigenous peoples, including some discussion of the use of IEK. I will briefly introduce the concepts outlined in the Call for Papers, and then will briefly introduce our speakers and their topics. I situate myself within this discussion as a white settler descendant ally who has done work with and for Indigenous farmers and ranchers in Oklahoma.
Modern mezcal is heavily mediated. Numerous overlapping sociocultural spheres shape and define what mezcal is, what mezcal is not, and even what mezcal can be. Even as the mezcal sector thrives, tequila offers a cautionary tale. Tequila’s trajectory has some distinctive differences; however, the specter of being “a victim of your own success” looms large for those in the mezcal industry. As the industry booms, certain challenges are becoming hyper visible, including a gaping disconnect between profits and producers, rapid environmental degradation, and looming fears of cultural commodification. And yet, the significance of mezcal—given its indigenous past and present—paired with its necessarily small-scale production, are exactly what makes the drink so appealing to consumers. Indeed, for mezcal, it is not too much to say every batch, every bottle, is unique. Every swish of the mule’s tail, every bacterium blown through the open-air palenque on the breeze, every thoughtful act of the mezcalero along the way, necessarily equals distinctives and one-of-a-kind charm. Each sip is steeped with environmental context and cultural meaning, all of which contributes to the sense that mezcal truly does feel magical. The production and consumption landscapes of mezcal are rustic and teeming with life; the land, plants, people and place, animals and microbes, plus all the connections between them, produce a fermented landscape that is vibrant, lively, and crowded with agency. The sustainability of that landscape—inclusive of environment, economic, and social concerns—is now on the minds of all involved, as we explore here.
Contemporary solar development can be characterized as immense, profit-driven, inaccessible, and coveting of “underdeveloped” land. We assert that so-called “transformative” technologies, like photovoltaic cells in solar panels, can only be such if their implementation is also transformative. An alternative to the status quo is “agrivoltaics”- an expanding area of study seeking synergistically embedded combinations of energy and agricultural production. For Indigenous communities like Pawnee Nation in Oklahoma, agrivoltaics could further ongoing efforts towards food, energy, and tribal sovereignty.
This paper reports on a project to co-design a demonstrative agrivoltaics system with Pawnee Seed Preservation Society and Pawnee Nation College. Starting last autumn, the authors have been part of a convergent team of researchers holding workshops and regular meetings to site, design, and construct a locally adapted system that addresses unique goals of provisioning culturally important plants, contributing to the energy independence of Pawnee Nation, and retrieving administrative powers from the BIA. While experimental results remain to be seen, much has been learned about considerations, opportunities, and limitations for renewable energy on Tribal land in Oklahoma. Furthermore, it’s clear that Pawnee Nation is exercising its sovereignty to become a regional leader in the energy transition. Finally, this project certainly does not have the final word on debates around extraction of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge. However, given NSF funding and employment of the language of “co-production”, it provides a relevant case study about engaging in responsible partnerships while being simultaneously under the jurisdiction of institutions like NSF, multiple universities, and Tribal government.
Introduction:
The Southern Great Plains (SGP) region is a vital agricultural hub in the United States, encompassing vast croplands and rangelands highly sensitive to frequent droughts and shifting hydroclimatic variability. Increasingly frequent wet-dry dipole events, severe water shortages, and late false springs pose significant threats to vegetation health, crop yields, and water availability (Heidari, Arabi, and Warziniack 2021; McPherson et al. 2023; Christian, Christian, and Basara 2015; Steiner et al. 2019). Understanding how these climatic variations affect vegetation on a seasonal basis is critical for developing effective adaptation strategies. Traditional drought indices such as the PDSI and the SPI solely focus on meteorological conditions and often overlook the spatial variability of drought impacts on plant health. To bridge this gap, this study leverages the Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI), which uniquely captures vegetation stress with finer-scale spatial analysis by integrating both climate indices-PDSI and SPI, along with satellite-derived NDVI data and environmental variables (Brown et al. 2008; Tadesse et al. 2015).
Research Objective:
This study intends to conduct a seasonal analysis using the VegDRI to evaluate how drought impacts vegetation across the SGP. By analyzing seasonal variations, the study identifies critical SGP areas and timelines for drought and vegetation recovery.
Methods:
This study employs a spatio-temporal analysis using the VegDRI index seasonally (Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall) from 2009 to 2024 to monitor plant health. Through spatial and temporal trend analysis, we assessed seasonal shifts in vegetation moisture levels and drought stress across the SGP, focusing on extreme drought and recovery patterns in different regions over time. With its 1-km resolution, VegDRI provides valuable insights into vegetation dynamics in near real-time and the impacts of climate variability in this critical agricultural region.
Results:
During the fall of 2011, severe drought (low VegDRI values) affected the western and southern SGP, with significant recovery in the central-northern regions by 2020. Spring seasons displayed variability, with some regions recovering quickly while the southern SGP faced persistent drought. The summer of 2011 saw extreme drought across much of the SGP, with recovery starting in 2016. Winters generally exhibited high moisture levels, especially in the central and northern SGP, with 2015 and 2024 showing particularly high VegDRI values.
The temporal analysis shows that winter consistently exhibited minimal vegetation stress. In contrast, summers and springs displayed significant fluctuations, with drought stress in 2011, 2018, and 2022. Fall 2020 peaked in moisture, followed by drier conditions.
Discussion and Conclusion:
The analysis reveals distinct seasonal and spatial patterns of vegetation stress across the SGP. Notably, extreme drought peaked in 2011, followed by a gradual recovery, particularly in the central and northern regions of the SGP by 2020, underscoring the region's spatial climatic variability. Elevated VegDRI values during the winter months indicate some alleviation of drought stress, while the spring and summer seasons exhibit more pronounced fluctuations in moisture levels, which will require targeted and focused management. This spatio-temporal analysis provides a data-driven foundation for developing region-specific drought adaptation strategies, enhancing climate resilience within the SGP.
References:
Brown, J. F., B. D. Wardlow, T. Tadesse, M. J. Hayes, and B. C. Reed. 2008. The Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI): A new integrated approach for monitoring drought stress in vegetation. GIScience and Remote Sensing 45 (1):16–46.
Christian, J., K. Christian, and J. B. Basara. 2015. Drought and Pluvial Dipole Events within the Great Plains of the United States. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 54 (9):1886–1898. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/54/9/jamc-d-15-0002.1.xml
Heidari, H., M. Arabi, and T. Warziniack. 2021. Vulnerability to Water Shortage Under Current and Future Water Supply-Demand Conditions Across U.S. River Basins. Earth’s Future 9 (10): e2021EF002278. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2021EF002278
McPherson, R. A., P. A. Fay, S. G. Alvarez, D. Bertrand, T. L. Broadbent, T. Bruno, A. Fares, B. McCullough, G. W. Moore, B. Moorhead, L. Patiño, A. Petersen, N. G. Smith, J. L. Steiner, A. Taylor, and T. Warziniack. Southern Great Plains. 2023. In Fifth National Climate Assessment, eds. A. R. Crimmins, C. W. Avery, D. R. Easterling, K. E. Kunkel, B. C. Stewart, and T. K. Maycock. Washington, DC, USA: U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Steiner, Starks, Neel, Northup, Turner, Gowda, Coleman, and Brown. 2019. Managing Tallgrass Prairies for Productivity and Ecological Function: A Long-Term Grazing Experiment in the Southern Great Plains, USA. Agronomy 9 (11):699. https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/9/11/699
Tadesse, T., B. D. Wardlow, J. F. Brown, M. D. Svoboda, M. J. Hayes, B. Fuchs, and D. Gutzmer. 2015. Assessing the vegetation condition impacts of the 2011 drought across the U.S. southern great plains using the vegetation drought response index (VegDRI). Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 54 (1):153–169.
Spatial inequality in healthcare has traditionally been assessed by measuring the spatial accessibility to nearby medical facilities. Previous studies have simply calculated the difference between supply and demand within the study area or have rarely considered spatiotemporal factors and actual floating populations affecting accessibility. However, healthcare accessibility can vary significantly due to physical constraints and spatiotemporal contexts, such as weekdays versus weekends, or day versus night. This study analyzes disparities in healthcare accessibility during nighttime on weekdays and weekends, with Seoul and North Gyeongsang Province as the study regions. We first identified medical institutions that provide healthcare during nighttime hours and measured healthcare accessibility using an enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method, which considers both the distance decay effect and the potential users. Additionally, we incorporated road networks and average nighttime speeds to set more realistic service areas. This process enables a more accurate assessment of accessibility. The results show that healthcare accessibility in Seoul is higher than in North Gyeongsang Province, with greater variability within North Gyeongsang. In some areas of North Gyeongsang Province, there is a complete lack of accessibility to medical services during nighttime. This is due to either a shortage of medical facilities or a small number of available medical personnel. To address this issue, it is important to not only increase the number of medical facilities but also improve emergency coverage, introduce flexible nighttime services, and enhance mobility by providing solutions such as home-visit services.
Keywords: accessibility, spatiotemporal analysis, public health, E2SFCA, nighttime
Drought is a significant threat to ecosystems, agriculture, and water resources, particularly in Central Texas. This study presents an integrated approach to drought risk assessment that combines a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) framework, Geographic Information System (GIS), and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Five key factors were analyzed: NDVI, Slope, Aspect, Precipitation, and Temperature. Weights were assigned by Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems (Perplexity AI and ChatGPT) and human experts using pairwise comparison matrices. GIS techniques were used to process and normalize high-resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data and climate variables, resulting in spatially continuous datasets. Drought severity maps were created and validated from 2000 to 2021 using Sen's Slope analysis and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) data. The results showed that AI-derived maps had a higher correlation with SPI trends (up to 0.406) than human expert-derived maps, indicating that AI is better at integrating diverse data for drought assessments. Southeastern Central Texas has consistently been identified as highly vulnerable, highlighting the complex interplay of meteorological and ecological factors in this region. Human experts demonstrated variability in factor prioritization, whereas AI provided more consistent weighting. This study demonstrates the potential of combining AHP-GIS and AI to provide a comprehensive and nuanced assessment of drought risk. Despite limitations such as reliance on historical data and expert subjectivity, this method offers a more reliable tool for drought management decision-making. Future research should incorporate dynamic climate models and apply the methodology to other regions to improve drought prediction and risk assessment.
Ecosystems have been extensively altered across the globe due to a combination of anthropogenic land practices, changes to historic disturbance regimes, and rapidly shifting climates. Pinyon juniper woodlands are one of the most extensive and productive ecosystems within western North America and provide critical wildlife habitat and natural resources and services for humans. However, these ecosystems have experienced massive alterations due to decades of land management practices, which have transformed the structure and age distribution of remaining stands. Documenting woodland conditions with high precision field measurements is time consuming and limited to the immediate sampling area. However, fine spatial resolution data products such as LiDAR provide opportunities to research structural patterns at the landscape scale. To explore the potential of LiDAR in this context, we collected standard forestry stand data from individual trees and woodland stands for three distinct community types across Central New Mexico, USA. Following this survey effort, we derived several geospatial structural variables from a 1-m spatial resolution LiDAR dataset using combinations of established silvicultural equations. Finally, we conducted a discrete function analysis to determine if structural features were a better woodland classifier than existing biotic descriptions. We found that canopy height, diameter at root collar, and canopy extent were suitably derived using our methods. We also found that structural components predicted more than three woodland types for our study area. This effort provides greater insight into the structural complexities of this system and proposes revisions to existing woodlands classifications.
Achieving food security remains a critical challenge in India, home to 18% of the global population. The agricultural sector, engaging over half of its rural workforce, predominantly cultivates rice and wheat across approximately 211 million cropped acres. Traditional crop yield prediction methods, including statistical models, biophysical processes, and remote sensing, often fall short in detailed regional analysis due to limitations in spatial and temporal scales. Recognizing these challenges, this study employs high-resolution Gross Primary Production (GPP) data from the Vegetation Photosynthesis Model (VPM) and the Vegetation Transpiration Model (VTM) to develop a novel gridded crop yield data across India from 2002 to 2014. The GPP data utilized is a novel dataset with moderate spatial (500m) and temporal (8-day) resolutions across the globe. This study extracted crop-specific GPP data in Google Earth Engine (GEE), with the dataset specifically enhanced to include detailed vegetation and climate interactions, providing a more accurate, refined approach with parameters such as root-to-shoot ratios and moisture content specific to each crop. These processes involved monthly aggregation of GPP data, followed by seasonal integration focusing on the Kharif (JJAS) and Rabi (DJFM) seasons. By integrating detailed GPP data, which includes parameters like harvest index, root-to-shoot ratios and moisture content, the study provides a refined approach to crop yield simulation for rice and wheat in India. This method allows for the assessment of crop yields under various climatic conditions, contributing significantly to efforts in improving food production systems and sustainable agricultural practices in India.
The Colorado River Basin (CRB) is vital for the Southwestern US, supplying water to 40 million people and supporting wildlife habitats. Recognizing the impacts of climate change and historical drought, as highlighted by the US Department of Agriculture, is crucial for addressing water resources and environmental sustainability challenges in the region. We investigated spatiotemporal changes in forest and percent tree cover (PTC). Furthermore, we generated 30m resolution datasets for actual evapotranspiration (ETa), the enhanced vegetation index (EVI), and land surface temperature (LST) using all available Landsat images from 2001 to 2021. The Mann-Kendall test was employed to identify the CRB environmental changes over two decades. Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis quantified relationships among environmental parameters. The results revealed a forest degradation of 5,340km2 (3.82%), while only 739km2 (0.56%) underwent reforestation. The CRB experienced an average temperature increase of approximately 2.04°C over two decades, with 28.9% of the area exhibiting a significant upward trend, indicating an intensification of heat stress. Within significant change areas, the LST, ETa, EVI, and PTC changed annually by 0.187°C, -0.003mm, 0.004, and 0.02%, respectively. An annual increase of 0.186mm in ETa can be expected for each 1°C decrease in LST. Additionally, an annual increase of 0.062°C in LST can be anticipated for every 1% decrease in PTC. Conversely, a 0.0215mm increase in ETa can be expected for each 1% increase in PTC. Based on this perspective, we recommend that urban planners and decision-makers create policies to address environmental stress in the CRB under climate warming.
Riverkeepers are environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that focus on preserving a local water body. Riverkeepers engage in various ecological efforts, such as clean ups and water testing; significantly, these Riverkeeper groups are also active in the United States court system. Riverkeeper groups are utilizing the citizen suit section of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S. 1365, to hold alleged polluters accountable. Riverkeepers do this by suing alleged polluters who have not complied with national regulations nor have been stopped by the current enforcement practices by the federal government. Polluters often only comply with environmental policy when there is strong federal enforcement and subsequent consequences, but many federal enforcement practices are lacking, allowing pollution to continue unchecked. Therefore, as companies pollute with relative lack of fear of governmental intervention, Riverkeeper groups have stepped in to act as the enforcement agent. To research my question, whether Riverkeepers can effectively act as enforcement agents, I use qualitative content analysis on a corpus of Riverkeeper-filed court cases to analyze their legal activity. Specifically, I utilize my manually-created Excel database collection of Riverkeeper court cases to identify lawsuit motivations, success rates, and patterns such as recurring violators, violations, or legal actions by the Riverkeepers. Conclusions from this analysis will uncover the Riverkeepers’ legal strategies and impacts they may have on national environmental policy enforcement and compliance, and how they might serve as a model for other environmental groups to be involved in environmental enforcement and compliance.
This research project aims to enable the Texas winegrowers and winemakers to become more sustainable and to improve quality by leveraging leading-edge technology and spatial analysis methods. The Texas wine industry has undergone significant transformation since its resurgence in the 1970s. Initially, vineyards relied on grape varieties common in California and Europe, yet these struggled to thrive in the challenging Texas climate. Over the past few decades, however, Texan vintners have shifted towards cultivating lesser-known varietals, achieving remarkable success. Today, these once-obscure varieties have become the most cultivated in the state, supplanting their Californian and European counterparts in terms of acreage. For this project, I will identify the vineyard conditions and locations which enable these varieties to thrive. Leveraging geographic information systems and suitability modeling, I will identify optimal land plots in existing and proposed American Viticultural Areas (AVA) of Texas that will allow vintners to grow resource efficient, high quality wine grapes.
This study employs a combination of GIS, OpenStreetMap, open-source geospatial data, and available GeoAI models to perform a comprehensive spatial analysis of boil water notices (BWNs). The study aims to explore the spatial distribution of BWNs as an indicator of urban disparity from the perspective of service facilities. The study was conducted in Jackson, MS, USA, with a focus on unveiling the intersections between water quality issues and urban socioeconomic disparities. The research maps the distribution of BWNs through automated feature extraction using text data. This multi-criteria approach combines spatial analysis and demographic information to highlight areas of lower income and high minority aggregation. Initial findings reveal that these underserved communities not only suffer from more frequent BWNs but also exhibit greater vulnerability due to socioeconomic factors such as lower income levels and high minority populations. The spatial patterns analysis incorporating GeoAI tools enhances the accuracy of identifying at-risk areas, enabling proactive measures. This study underscores the utility of combining open-source mapping with GeoAI to address critical public health challenges, advocating for data-driven, equitable interventions in water crisis management that prioritize the needs of the most disadvantaged urban populations. Through this nuanced spatial and analytic approach, the research contributes to the ongoing discourse on urban resilience and social equity, offering actionable insights for policymakers and urban planners for a sustainable city planning.
Airports are key drivers of urban growth, yet the specific effects of terminal expansions on surrounding land use remain understudied. This research explores how new airport terminals influence local land use patterns by comparing airports with recent terminal expansions to those without. Using land use data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), the study employs a Multi-time Period Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach, combined with spatial analysis, to detect changes around airports with new terminals built in 2011 and 2016. The findings indicate that regions with new terminals experience accelerated urbanization, with denser development expanding into previously natural areas. Additionally, unexpected agricultural growth was observed in some treatment groups within catchment areas. Although de-urbanization trends like environmental restoration were noted, they were generally overshadowed by urban development. The study underscores the importance of region-specific planning strategies to balance growth with natural resource preservation and offers valuable insights for policymakers on how airport infrastructure shapes land use and urbanization.
Urban intensification and erection of high-rise buildings can affect the visibility of urban landmarks and pedestrians’ viewshed toward important monuments. Current 2D and 3D Isovist techniques use static rather than dynamic and cumulative view sheds to analyze visibility. The purpose of this research is to develop a method called ULVIA to assess the average visibility degree of urban landmarks in urban design process. Several factors such as observer and environmental characteristics as well as the concept of cumulative viewshed (using Nurbs data and ray casting in Grasshopper) have been considered to develop this method. Ark-e-Alishah Mosque in Tabriz was selected as a case study and three alternative 3D urban models were reproduced based on data and aerial photos of the monument and its urban context in 2003, 2020 and a proposed model. The ULVIA is executed in sequential steps. The findings reveal that the 2003 urban fabric creates visibility with normal intensity and distribution in all paths, the 2020 option does not have this balance, and the difference between riding and pedestrian mode is higher. The final proposed alternative has a higher visibility intensity and better distribution in both pedestrian and rider modes than other alternatives and therefore UlVIA has the potential to be integrated into urban design process to assess various development alternatives to achieve the best results in terms of historical landmarks’ visibility from surrounding environments.
Woody plant encroachment—the replacement of grasses by woody plants in drylands— is a globally observed phenomenon with diverse and often negative consequences for social-ecological systems. One encroaching woody plant species, honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa), is of particular concern in the arid and semiarid Southwestern U.S.A. and Mexico. Its remarkable ability to thrive in these regions has raised concerns about reduced perennial grass production and associated decreases in livestock carrying capacity as well as changes in biodiversity, soils, biogeochemical cycles, biogeophysical feedbacks, and other environmental characteristics. Sensible management of areas affected by honey mesquite encroachment requires data about its current distribution and anticipated expansion. However, this information is not adequately available. In this study, we address this issue by modeling a) the current and b) the potential future distribution of honey mesquite. To meet these objectives, we integrate occurrence points of honey mesquite obtained from the GBIF database with climate and topographic data obtained from the CHELSA dataset in Maxent, which we implemented in R. We thinned the occurrence points to minimize bias spatial autocorrelation, removed redundant variables using Pearson’s correlation coefficients and variance inflation factors, and then carefully calibrated and evaluated the model. Our findings indicate that honey mesquite currently occupies extensive areas In the Southwestern U.S.A. and Mexico, with a predicted expansion into northern areas and higher elevations. In the presentation, we will visualize this more specifically using maps and also present and discuss the relative importance of environmental factors in shaping current and potential future distributions.
Keywords: honey mesquite, woody plant encroachment, species distribution modeling, CHELSA, GBIF
Two genetically distinct but related viruses, vesicular stomatitis New Jersey virus (hereafter VSNJV) and vesicular stomatitis Indiana virus (VSIV) are the agents of vesicular stomatitis (VS), an important disease of hoofed livestock that circulates endemically in southern Mexico and Central America and causes periodic outbreaks in the United States. The ecology of both viruses is poorly understood, hindering efforts to predict and mitigate viral spread. In Costa Rica, Atwill et al. (1993) screened cattle across the country for antibodies to VSNJV and VSIV and found different sets of risk factors associated with being seropositive for each virus, prompting the hypothesis that the two viruses circulate in different transmission cycles involving distinct insect vectors or reservoir hosts. To further investigate this hypothesis, we leveraged a dataset from Costa Rica in which state veterinarians collected lesion material from VS cases occurring between 2008 and August 2024 and screened them for presence of VSNJV and VSIV using real-time PCR. Specifically, using spatial and statistical analyses, we 1) mapped the spatial distribution of VSNJV and VSIV overall, across years, by season, and by elevation and 2) visualized cases by year, season, and elevation. We found that: VSNJV cases were far more common (n = 240) than VSIV cases (n = 26) overall; spatial and temporal clusters were similar though with slight differences; cases were most common during the dry and wet seasons; and cases were mostly clustered around 500 and 1,000 m asl.
Since the 1960s, active adult communities have rapidly gained popularity in the United States, driven by effective marketing, rising retirement incomes, and evolving views on retirement. Initially concentrated in sun belt states, these communities offered a variety of recreational amenities. However, anecdotal evidence suggests a shift from the 1990s onwards, with more communities being built in frost belt and rust belt regions. While most research has focused on resident characteristics, relocation decisions, and the exclusion of non-white, non-heteronormative groups, there has been little exploration of the changing geography of these communities.
This research addresses this gap by analyzing data on active adult communities built by the top ten developers, using ArcGIS Pro 3.3 and ArcGIS Online to answer two questions: How has the location of these communities changed since the 1960s? Has their location shifted concerning urban classifications (urban, suburban, ex-urban, or rural)? Time series analysis shows a significant shift since 1960, with more communities now located in the frost belt and along the East Coast. Geographic distribution analysis from 1960 to 2020 indicates a shift in the mean center eastward and a less compact distribution. On a smaller scale, retirement communities are increasingly being developed in urban, suburban, ex-urban locations. Most of these communities are in highly accessible areas, specifically close to interstates and public transportation. A drive-time analysis reveals that by 2000 and 2020, these communities were primarily within 30 minutes of major cities, a change from earlier decades.
The City of Pittsburgh has 90 unique, diverse neighborhoods. Due to the varied geography, diverse histories and patterns of investment in these neighborhoods, mobility varies across neighborhoods. The goal of this research is to map spatial variations in traditional and micromobility across Pittsburgh neighborhoods. For this research, mobility is defined in two ways: micromobility and traditional. Micromobility is movement by foot, scooter, bicycle (bike share and owned) and access to greenways. Traditional mobility is movement by bus and car.
ArcGIS software was used to create an overlay and composite index of the mobility variables including concentration of bike lanes, bus routes, bus performance, walkability, bike share station locations and scooter stations. Each type of mobility is measured using a composite index, ranging from 1 to -1. Values of 1 indicate high levels of traditional or micromobility. Values of -1 indicate low levels of traditional or micromobility. The results of the analysis show that some neighborhoods, such as Oakland (home to two universities) and Shadyside have high traditional and micromobility. High levels of micromobility are a result of the concentration of bike lanes and bike share stations and the concentration of populations that use both. Downtown, Squirrel Hill and The Strip have lower micromobility but higher levels of traditional mobility. The large number of bus routes and on-time performance of those buses account of high levels of traditional mobility in Downtown, Squirrel Hill and The Strip.
In recent decades ERC has become a significant ecological concern across the United States. Increased human activity in the state has caused ERC populations to increase at an exponential rate. Historically ERC populations were controlled with naturally recurring wildfires but due to human interventions in wildfire development. Due to a lack of natural checks, ERC has now become invasive in many areas leading to ecological and environmental consequences. ERC has spread rapidly in the state of Kansas and has taken over prairie land that lots of wildlife depend on. This study will map the spread of ERC across Kansas, using remote sensing as well as GIS-based Spatial analysis, the research will go and track the expansion of ERC over time and determine its effects on the local wildlife ecosystems. This will be accomplished by using the NAIP imagery as well Landsat imagery provided by the USGS to help assess land cover changes of ERC over time. A vital part of this study will be the multitemporal analysis of Landsat coverage by combining images from the summer and winter to determine where the ERC in located as ERC is the only native evergreen tree in the state of Kansas and will stay green all year, separating itself from other trees. The study will further utilize classification techniques, such as the random forest algorithm and maximum likelihood classifier. Ultimately this study will map the current extent of ERC encroachment while also developing predictive models for future management and conservation practices.
This paper will explore how the originally French concept of terroir profoundly influences the production, promotion and reception of food and wine around the world. It will also examine how the concept has changed as it has been mobilized in several national contexts, and how it has attracted criticism in various quarters. The presentation will focus particularly on the forms of evidence and modes of argumentation used in the promotion of wine, and relate this to broader arguments on the logic and rhetoric of terroir which the author has developed. Finally, the paper will reflect on the contested democratic nature of terroir, in the context of the very unequal valuation of wines from different regions within and across countries.
Individuals familiar with immigration courts and the U.S. defensive asylum system agree that the U.S. immigration court system is complex, consisting of overlapping and competing influences from national, state, and local levels. Unlike other federal courts, immigration courts are overly influenced by their locality. This paper focuses on geographic disparity in immigration court asylum outcomes across the United States by highlighting the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. We utilize national immigration court outcome data to highlight factors contributing to successful asylum grants. We compare immigration case outcomes across the United States utilizing U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals jurisdictions, which influence case outcomes through case precedent. Asylum cases within the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals are granted at half the rate of the U.S. average. Using institutional ethnography, textual analysis of the limited case precedents set within this jurisdiction, and case outcome data, we highlight why immigration courts within the 5th Circuit have the lowest grant rates as compared to their counterparts throughout the U.S. This provides further evidence supporting the case for national-level agency changes necessary for the even adjudication of asylum regardless of the petitioner’s geographic location.
My research aims to provide insight into the environmental history and justice of the Albuquerque area by focusing on the relationship between humans and concrete and how it impacts other human-environment relationships. My research provides a new approach to the critical study of racial and social justice and the environment in New Mexico because it focuses on the urban and built environment and urban everyday life. I will apply the concept of socionatures in a new urban site and to an often-overlooked human-environment relationship. I will also address Walker’s (2007) call to put politics in practice through critical and reflective political ecological research. In addition, conducting research in Albuquerque contributes to postcolonial urban scholarship which seeks out difference, and investigations of cities that do not fit into the paradigms of New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London, etc. Moreover, Albuquerque is a unique site to apply the concept of planetary urbanization because it has more clearly defined conceptual boundaries than many urban areas yet, the surrounding periurban areas have constitutive effects on the city. In addition, my research methods are designed to consider the critiques of urban research of postcolonial scholars by including voices of everyday people and narratives of everyday resistance. Finally, my dissertation will mainly contribute to the emerging field of critical physical geography, which has developed from critiques of a lack of physical geographical research within political ecology, because of my use of mixed methods, my study of “crappy landscapes” and my attention to the politics of knowledge and reflective research.
Cartography provides a powerful and creative means to visualize and comprehend the world around us. Children offer a unique perspective to cartographers given their innate creativity and unique conceptualization of space. When asked to draw a map reflecting on their experience, what do children draw? We offer possible answers through the eyes of children aged 6-14 who visited the grounds of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment on the campus of Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas; the 332 maps children were asked to draw after their visit are the focus. Through the use of descriptive statistics and visual content analysis, this study explores what children materially create when asked to draw a map and qualitatively understand what is being illustrated from a cartographic standpoint. In efforts to contribute to the ultimate questioning of what makes a map a map, a strong empirical case is provided for the what and how of children’s map making processes concentrating on traditional cartographic conventions and elements.
Among the important sectors of the freight transportation industry, agriculture is one that is not sufficiently studied when compared to shipping manufactured goods in containers or liquid bulk cargoes like oil and petrochemicals. Likewise, infrastructure such as roads, rail networks and maritime port morphologies are well represented in the freight transport literature. Agricultural transportation, the focus of this study, exhibits widespread, complex and necessarily flexible arrangements given the perishability and seasonality of most agricultural goods. This paper presents two case studies of agricultural transportation in Texas. One discusses United Agriculture, a sizable cooperative in the Texas Coastal Bend Region with four grain elevators, two cotton gins, and storage warehousing for cotton and cotton seeds for its members. The second examines Williamson County Grain, Inc., a large grain handling facility some 30 miles northeast of Austin. Both cases highlight the spatial connections of each locality, the transportation modes involved, and pertinent elements of these supply chains. United Agriculture’s activities are largely geared toward the movement of corn, cotton and sorghum, while the Williamson County facility handles primarily corn and wheat for shipment to end users in Central Texas, and to the Port of Houston. The paper’s conclusion offers topics for further research. The qualitative research methods illustrate the value of open-ended interviews of stakeholders in agricultural transportation, and the merits of utilizing agriculture and freight trade publications in studies of transportation geography.
An area of research that has received scant attention is the connection between agricultural cycles and the ability of transportation systems to adjust quickly to climatic phenomena. Recent droughts in the Upper Midwest over the past several years have impacted the agricultural landscape, specifically the yields of field crops such as corn, soybeans and sorghum. With the long-term implications of the drought, one of the challenges of low river levels is the decreased ability to move bulk agricultural commodities, resulting in shifting agricultural traffic to other transportation modes via a decreased hinterland transportation network. This paper focuses on the transportation of grains in the Upper Mississippi River Drainage Basin using data from the USDA Agricultural Census and Annual Survey, NOAA’s US Drought Monitor, USDA Agricultural Transportation Data, and AADT data at the county level, to better understand the trends at a granular level. Through economic modeling and spatial analysis tools, this paper seeks to understand whether there have been any requisite shifts in transportation infrastructure in relation to changes in the agricultural landscape. Ultimately, this paper examines where these changes occurred geographically, and the degree to which they correlate to additional, external factors.
Adoption of electric vehicles (EV) has been increasing in recent years in the US. Many studies have identified factors affecting EV adoption rates. Common factors include income, race, home ownership, housing structure, and age of residents. The trend of increasing adoption is partly facilitated by government policies across the country. However, EV adoption rates are not only influenced by certain factors locally, but effects of these factors operate differently by location. That is how different factors affecting EV adoption may vary geographically. In the case of the state of Virginia, besides some of the common factors, EV adoption rates in 2023 at the county level seem to be correlated with proximity to highway. In addition, the influence of political inclinations at the county level should also be considered. Using standard regression model, spatial-lag regression, and geographically weighted regression, this study assesses the effects of highway density, percent of urban population, percent of 1-unit housing structures, commuting time, percent of population 65 and older, median household income, and percent voting for Republican in 2020 on EV adoption rates at the county level. Analysis results show that highway density and urban environment do not significantly influence EV adoption rates. In contrast, income, population age, housing structure, political inclination, and commuting time are not just significant predictors, but also affect EV adoption rates differently across counties in Virginia. Results imply that local policies facilitating EV adoption will have different levels of effectiveness across counties in Virginia, a conclusion likely applicable to other states.
By many accounts, Laredo, Texas is the one of the largest inland ports in the Western Hemisphere. In 2022, 5.5 million cross-border truck cargos passed back-and-forth through its four crossings over the Rio Grande from Mexico. Along with the rising volume of trucks and freight, the expansion of the warehousing industry in and around Laredo has similarly boomed in recent years. The development and potential for future growth has attracted substantial external investment in this sector of the transportation economy as well. This study focuses on two changes that have occurred in the Laredo warehousing industry over time: 1) the expanding land-use footprint and scale of warehousing, and 2) the shifting nature of investment and ownership underlying this growth. Using ground-truthed property tax records, the massive expansion in the scope, scale, and subsequent land use-related impacts from warehousing is evident. Additionally, the character of ownership and control over this sector has gone from small, locally-owned firms to larger transnational, national, and regional ownership. The concerning implications of this preliminary study are increasing negative externalities such as loss of vegetated land cover, greater water consumption, and further degraded land cover. Lastly, as ownership and control over the economically lucrative warehousing sector has become increasingly less local, the economic picture around the industry appears more extractive than enriching for the Laredo and the South Texas border region.
Minor league baseball team names and logos transcend mere sports branding, evolving into potent icons that shape cultural and geographic identities. Renowned for their creativity and geographical expressiveness, these symbols communicate complex stories deeply embedded in regional geography. Logos reflect psychological and sociological meanings within the cultural landscape, acting as manifestations of the collective subconscious, pivotal in marketing strategies. These logos represent who we are, and express our ideals, aspirations, and cultural connections. The origin stories of team names and logos provide valuable insights into the geographic and cultural narratives of the American mosaic. This paper explores the innovative use of minor league baseball logos, focusing on alternative identities like regional food logos and the Copa de la Diversión series. These branding strategies enhance fan engagement and offer applied geographers valuable insights by illustrating the intersections of culture, commerce, and place. Additionally, the paper highlights the educational potential of these logos as tools for teaching geography. It presents specific case studies of teams that have effectively harnessed their innovative branding strategies, fostering discussion and debate. There is a unique teaching opportunity in exploring the stories behind minor league baseball logos. Scannable links to classroom resources are included, providing educators direct access to assignments and further readings tailored for sports geography lessons.
Keywords: sports geography, educational geography, marketing geography.
Over the past decade, Texas has witnessed a drastic decline in elementary social studies instruction. Geography education, in particular, is affected, resulting in a low demand for training. Elementary educators often profess limited geographic knowledge due to little coursework and professional development. However, some seek ways to integrate social studies into other curricula, such as technology. GeoInquiries may offer an inroad for geography education and the development of disciplinary knowledge. This paper discusses results from a case study that integrated GIS into elementary history instruction using GeoInquiries. Findings indicate that teachers’ disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical practices were transformed through the experience.
In the realm of secondary education in the United States, geography continually finds itself in the shadows, eclipsed by subjects deemed more vital in the modern curriculum, even when current events suggest that more knowledge about the world, the environment, and one’s community is beneficial to decisions being made by policy makers and individuals. This oversight is particularly evident in the challenges surrounding teacher preparation in geography education. Formal experience with pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) related to geographical thinking is often absent, in part due to the lack of familiarity about these topics on the part of instructors in colleges and departments of education where many teachers receive the foundation of their pedagogical training. The interplay of physical landscapes, human societies, and the intricacy of these relationships are fundamental components of geography, a subject that cultivates spatial analysis, global awareness, and critical problem-solving skills. The title of the geography standards volume – Geography for Life – suggests that educators need to ready their students to be geographically informed persons, “someone who sees relations between people, places, and environments, who uses geographic skills and who applies spatial and ecological perspectives to life situations” (Gallagher and Downs 2012, p. 7). However, several significant obstacles hinder the effective preparation of teachers in this field, impeding the quality of geography education in schools. This commentary suggests multiple approaches to addressing the gaps in knowledge related to geography teacher preparation. The challenges in teacher preparation for geography education are multi-faceted and interlinked. The lack of emphasis on geography in social studies and Earth science in science teacher education, minimal geographic technology integration, inadequate field experience opportunities, and limited access to continuous professional development collectively contribute to a suboptimal state of geography teacher education in schools. This paper aims to address these challenges.
Heavy metal in tap water has been reemerging as a significant public health threat in both developing and developed counties. A knowledge gap of how much effects of service line materials on the Pb and Cu contaminants in drinking water is not scientifically analyzed. This study, using the Flint Water Crisis (2014 -2016) in the USA as empirical research, is the first to demonstrate the contribution of the common lead pipes, copper pipes, and galvanized pipesto the Pb and Cu contaminants in tap water. Copper pipes and lead pipes showed similar significant contributions to Pb contaminants in water, but galvanized pipe did not show any significant effects on Pb contaminants. Lead pipes resulted in severer high Pb levels than galvanized or copper pipes. Only copper pipes showed significant effects on Cu contaminant in tap water, galvanized pipe could be significant factor at p value 0.1 to reduce Cu contaminants, but lead pipe was not a significant factor influencing Cu contaminant. There were not any significant relationships between pipe material types and the severity of Cu contaminants in tap water. High Cu contaminants may result in significantly high Pb levels. Pb contaminants may be significant contributor to Cu contaminants, but its contribution was not worth considering. Therefore, replacing lead pipes is important, but aging copper pipes should be replaced to maintain clean and safe tap water.
Leptospirosis is a zoonosis with global public health impact, particularly in poor socioeconomic settings in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Transmitted through urine-contaminated water or soil from rodents, dogs, and livestock, leptospirosis causes over a million clinical cases annually. Risk factors include outdoor activities, livestock production, and substandard housing that foster high densities of animal reservoirs. This One Health study in southern Chile examined Leptospira serological evidence of exposure in people from urban slums, semi-rural settings, and farm settings, using the Extreme Gradient Boosting algorithm to identify key influencing factors. In urban slums, age, shrub terrain, distance to Leptospira-positive households, and neighborhood housing density were contributing factors. Human exposure in semi-rural communities was linked to environmental factors (trees,
shrubs, and lower vegetation terrain) and animal variables (Leptospira-positive dogs and rodents and proximity to Leptospira-positive households). On farms, dog counts, animal Leptospira prevalence, and
proximity to Leptospira-contaminated water samples were significant drivers. The study underscores that disease dynamics vary across landscapes, with distinct drivers in each community setting. This
case study demonstrates how the integration of machine learning with comprehensive cross-sectional epidemiological and geospatial data provides valuable insights into leptospirosis eco-epidemiology.
These insights are crucial for informing targeted public health strategies and generating hypotheses for future research.
In recent decades, the low birth weight (LBW) rate in New Mexico has consistently exceeded the Unites States average. Maternal exposure to air pollution during pregnancy may be a significant contributor to LBW in offspring. This study investigated the links between maternal residential exposure to air pollution from industrial sources and the risk of LBW in offspring. The analysis included 22,375 LBW cases and 233,340 controls. It focused on 14 common chemicals listed in the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) and monitoring datasets, which have abundant monitoring samples. The Emission Weighted Proximity Model (EWPM) was used to calculate maternal air pollution exposure intensity. Adjusted odds ratios (adjORs) were calculated using binary logistic regressions to examine the association between maternal residential air pollution exposure and LBW, while controlling for potential confounders, such as the maternal age, race/ethnicity, gestational age, prenatal care, education level, consumption of alcohol during pregnancy, public health regions, child’s sex, and the year of birth. Results showed maternal residential exposure to 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene, benzene, chlorine, ethylbenzene, and styrene had significant positive associations with LBW in offspring, with adjusted odds ratios ranging from 1.10 to 1.13. These five chemicals remained as significant risk factors after dividing the estimated exposure intensities into four categories. In addition, significant linear trends were found between LBW and maternal exposure to each of the five identified chemicals. Furthermore, 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene was identified as a risk factor to LBW for the first time. The findings of this study should be confirmed through additional epidemiological, biological, and toxicological studies.
New Mexico is a diverse and predominantly rural state, which may present challenges in accessibility to cancer treatment for female breast cancer patients. The aim of this study is to identify regions where female breast cancer patients experience significantly high or low survival rates, with the goal of informing future targeted intervention strategies. Adjusted survival clusters are identified through cluster analysis, which is conducted in SaTScan utilizing the exponential model. Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas exhibit abnormally high levels of survival while Southwest New Mexico, including Las Cruces, Alamogordo, Roswell, and Carlsbad exhibit abnormally low levels of survival. This suggests female breast cancer patients residing in urban areas experience greater accessibility to breast cancer treatment than their rural counterparts.
While a range of rapidly proliferating crises shaped by anthropogenic climate change are profound and generating a raft of spatially-centered energy research, energy geographies does not occupy a central position within emergent climate scholarship, nor within broader disciplinary confines of human geography. The centrality of energy is undeniable, and even in light of the considerable history of scholarship combined with the fundamentally spatial nature of energy systems and transitions, energy geographies endure an occluded existence. This paper offers a critique of the subdiscipline’s ongoing marginality while articulating its salience before offering strategies to help advance the repositioning of energy geographies from the periphery towards a central position.
Across Central Texas, an increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as fire weather and resulting damage to energy infrastructure, are impacting adaptive capacity to climate change impacts. Adaptive capacity is defined by the IPCC as “the ability of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to respond to consequences”. As climate change increasingly shapes local environmental conditions, gaps in understanding of adaptive capacity for environmental risk grows, particularly across individual, household, and community spatial scales. Blending theoretical and geographical analysis, this study seeks to expose agency and relationships shaping adaptative pathways by engaging creative participatory research in empirical settings across the high-fire and extreme weather risk area of Austin, Texas and its Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). The research question asks: How does engaging Assemblage Theory with participatory research further our understanding of adaptive capacity to wildfire risk in Austin, TX and the surrounding Wildland Urban Interface? Assemblage Theory serves as conceptual framework for understanding contextual experiences of place by exposing microgeographies as complex networks and exploring adaptive capacity through descriptive analysis. Qualitative data is collected through participatory exercises facilitating artistic expression and self-reflection with guided prompts to assess in-situ relationships coupling humans and environmental conditions, while cultivating climate science cognizance. Art is a powerful medium for facilitating adaptive capacity by developing creative links, or through place making, which can reveal networked relationships in dynamic assemblages.
Climate change is receiving significant attention across many platforms including public education, mainstream and social media. As such, it is important to explore how it is addressed in social studies classrooms to better understand complexities and policy implications. This study examines three research questions in relation to climate change, K-12 education, and the public: 1) How frequently does climate change appear within the educational standards of social studies in the U.S.?, 2) How is the frequency of climate change education standards spatially distributed within the five primary geographic regions of the U.S.?, 3) What is the relationship between public support for climate change education and a state’s frequency of climate education standards inclusions? To examine the frequency and distribution of climate standards in social studies education, content analysis was undertaken to code state social studies standards for climate change language. Results demonstrated while the majority of states do not have standards specifically addressing climate change, they do have standards that are climate related, and the regional frequency of standards were not significantly different from each other.
To examine the relationship between climate education standards and public opinion, results of the content analysis were used in conjunction with modeled survey data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Results concluded there is a positive relationship between states with higher inclusions of climate standards and greater public support for climate change education.
The proportion of renewable energy in South Korea's electricity generation has skyrocketed since 2018, with significant deployment of solar PV to ensure stability in supply. This increase is closely linked to economic support provided by the Moon Jae-in administration, including subsidies for installations, and unique circumstances of insufficiency shaped by the push for nuclear phase-out. However, contrary to discourse that renewable energy is "non-consumptive" with little or no negative impact on the local environments, rural areas in South Korea are experiencing various forms of conflict over the installation of solar energy facilities. This study works to reveal various actors involved in resulting conflict and unearth relationships during the diffusion of renewable energy technologies in rural South Korea. The various conflicts surrounding energy transition processes are correlated with divergent interests of the various actors/actants involved. Using Actor Network theory, this study traces the network formation process of rural solar energy diffusion in South Korea. In doing so, it sheds light on various relationships coupling groups and actors who appropriate "green discourse," a characteristic of energy governance at multiple scales, to pursue individual interests.
ABSTRACT
Utilizing geospatial technology (GST) in the classroom is a significant teaching tool for enhancing middle school social studies and geography education. However, many teachers struggle to integrate GST due to a lack of knowledge and professional development (PD). In Mississippi, middle school teachers receive minimal training on GST, despite its potential to enrich their Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK). One promising GST tool is the virtual field trip (VFT), an interactive 3-D platform for teaching spatial and geographic concepts. For this dissertation study, I implemented a five-day PD tailored specifically for middle school social studies and geography teachers in Oxford, Mississippi. Employing a mixed-method approach, including a pre- and post- disposition survey, participant-created VFT lesson plans, and semi-structured interviews, the study assessed how the PD impacted teachers' TPACK and their dispositions towards using VFT technology as an instructional tool. The research findings indicated that participants’ dispositions significantly improved following the PD, as shown by the pre- and post-survey results. The results also showed an improvement in participants’ TPACK, as their VFT-based lessons met or exceeded the criteria assessing their understanding of the curriculum standards and objectives and ability to select appropriate instructional strategies, ask higher-order thinking questions, and integrate geography content and pedagogy into the lesson effectively. Finally, the semi-structured interview responses revealed that participants recognized VFT's immense potential to enhance existing lessons, create new ones, and offer engaging activities on various topics, effectively addressing the needs of diverse learners.
GIS is a powerful tool for understanding, communicating, and advocating for systemic change to increase sustainability and resilience in communities around the world. However, the barriers to using GIS for community-driven change initiatives are substantial. These barriers include (but are not limited to) a lack of: awareness/understanding of GIS strategy among decision-makers; accessible GIS training; affordable GIS software; and detailed, high-quality, and accessible geospatial data, especially outside of the US and European Union. In an effort to overcome these barriers, the UN CIFAL Honolulu, with funding from the NSF ALL-SPICE Alliance, has developed two introductory, online, 6-week short courses in GIS for a global audience of underserved populations. These short courses employ features such as student-led project-based learning; open-source software, learning materials, and datasets; systems-thinking approaches; and grant-funded fee waivers to ensure a quality learning experience for previously underserved participants who are committed to using GIS to support the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals within their own communities. Results from early cohorts indicate that participants find the courses valuable and accessible, plan to continue to use the GIS and sustainability/resilience skills and knowledge they have learned, and know how to acquire new skills and knowledge.
The growth of the geospatial industry demands that more workers are trained not only with technology, but also with specialized geographic knowledge to interpret data and solve problems. An important part of learning occurs in out-of-school contexts such as youth organizations that aim to develop career skills. The purpose of this study is to explore ways that educators within this type of non-formal educational environment may foster middle-school aged girls’ motivation for exploring geography and/or geospatial studies (GST) and related careers. The researcher developed an interventional program based on motivational factors such as intrinsic value (inherent enjoyment of an activity) and utility value (relevance to one’s goals/future) to answer the research questions: in what ways do the designed activities affect these factors and how can educators develop effective programs that promote girls’ interest in geography/GST. The study utilized a mixed-methods design including a pre-/post-survey, observations, and a semi-structured group interview. Four half-day workshops were held at the Girl Scouts STEM Center of Excellence in Dallas with a total of twenty-one participants. The results showed that the motivation to study geography/GST or to pursue a related career depended on their understanding of geography and how relevant it could be to their lives. In addition, the participants’ own actions and words formed three themes, which will help non-formal educators develop more effective programs in the future. These include activities that reflect the non-formal environment (more outdoors, hands-on), promote creative control, and start the exploration of geography with places in their community.
This research explores geographic variability of factors on air pollutant (PM2.5) related to mental health in the United States using county-level data in 2016. First, we account for complex design factors in Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data such as clustering, stratification, and sample weight using Complex Samples General Linear Model (CSGLM). Then, air pollutant (PM2.5) is used in the model as an indicator of physical environmental disparity. A geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis is applied to examine the spatial variations in the associations of mentally unhealthy days (MUDs) with the indicator of air pollution (PM2.5) in the United States. The findings will suggest that environmental and health policies should be adjusted to address the different effects of indicator of physical environmental disparity on mental health across different environmental characteristics of communities to more effectively manage mental health problems.
Current definitions of "maternal care deserts" primarily focus on the number of maternal healthcare facilities within counties, but ignore the level of care (basic, comprehensive, subspecialty, or specialty) provided at these facilities which greatly impacts maternal health outcomes. Using hospital facility location data from the Texas Department of State Health Services, demographic data from American Community Survey, and hospital closure data from the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals, this study examines how the geographic distribution and levels of care available create unequal journeys and outcomes for pregnant and postpartum women in Texas from 2010 to 2020 for different racial/ethnic groups. Proximity analysis in Arc-GIS Pro shows that access has deteriorated for racial minorities and vulnerable populations. An urgent need exists for measures to improve maternal healthcare outcomes for these vulnerable women in Texas.
Keywords: Maternal care deserts, hospital closure.
The incidence of early-onset colorectal cancer (EoCRC) in individuals under 50 has risen at a concerning rate globally over the past 30 years. Identifying the risk factors associated with EoCRC and its geographic variation holds immense potential for geographically targeted screening and other public health initiatives. We obtained 855 young adult participants (age < 50), including 161 cases and 694 controls, from the UK Biobank. We used a case-control study and geographically weighted logistic regression (GWLR) to explore spatial variations in risk levels of significant factors at a fine geographic resolution. The analysis results reveal that a high polygenic risk score (PRS) is a significant risk factor for young adults, with more than three times the risk of developing CRC compared to those with a low PRS. The areas with the highest risk (odds ratios [OR] > 4.0) include urban regions between Glasgow and Edinburgh in the north, through urban areas in central parts of the UK, and areas northwest of Greater London in the south. Areas with the second highest risk (3.0 < OR < 4.0) are located between Cardiff, Bristol, and the western parts of Greater London. Tailoring intervention strategies based on local disparities in CRC risk can help reduce the incidence and mortality rates of CRC. Furthermore, the approach used in this study shows promise for developing more effective, targeted cancer screening.
This research investigates spatial patterns of good or poor health outcomes and how health factors influence these outcomes. Health factors are usually classified into four categories: access to care, health behaviors, socioeconomic status, and the environment. Relying heavily on data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) as well as the U.S. Census and the National Center for Health Statistics, this study uses county-level data to understand the both the influences on favorable health outcomes as well as the spatial variations that exist in the U.S.
Findings indicate that access to care is much more influential in rural areas, whereas in urban areas the physical environment and health behaviors are more prominent predictors of health outcomes. More broadly, socioeconomic status plays a bigger role in the southern part of the U.S. while the physical environment increases in importance as one moves north. These results indicate that a one-size-fits-all (or top-down) approach to improving health outcomes is neither effective nor advisable, and that understanding the local context is key to crafting more effective solutions to on-going health issues in the U.S.
Natural blue and green spaces provide a range of ecosystem services, mitigate climate extremes, enhance livability, and promote overall health and wellbeing. However, in rapidly growing cities, urban development and expansion to accommodate population demands often encroach upon these valuable natural spaces. Denton County is among the fastest growing counties of Texas with substantial nature spaces. This study investigated the dynamic changes in land use patterns and their implications for Urban Blue and Green Spaces preservation in Denton County, Texas. We employed the Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (PLUS) Model to predict the land use patterns of the year 2041, considering multiple driving factors including environmental, socioeconomic, and spatial constraints. The land expansion analysis from 2011 to 2021 revealed a significant expansion of built-up areas at the expense of green spaces, but a small increase in blue spaces. The projections for 2041 indicate a continuation of the current trend, with green spaces expected to decline. We assessed the development potential for each land use type and the influence of various driving factors and found that proximity to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan area was a crucial factor driving the expansion of developed and medium-intensity land cover. The findings highlight the importance of informed future urban planning to avoid the loss of urban natural spaces and the need for proactive conservation efforts. The PLUS Model is recommended as a valuable tool for simulating urban land use changes on account of its resolution flexibility, ease of use, and overall accuracy.
Abstract :
Representing an environmental issue, mixed industrial wastewaters are the heterogeneous
effluents in nature combining several forms of pollutants including organic contaminants,
heavy metals, acids/alkalis and microplastics. These contaminants are difficult to break down
since conventional treatment techniques cannot totally eliminate them, thereby producing
poor refineries with high energy cost and consequent emissions. The present work aimed to
evaluate the possible sustainabile adsorption capability of biosorbents (Moringa oleifera seed
powder, bentonite clay, tangerine peel powder and peanut husk) in removing various
contaminants from MIWW. Results obtained from experimental works on both synthetic
solutions as well as natural river waters show that Moringa oleifera seed powder is capable of
reducing turbidity, color, conductivity and Chemical Oxygen Demand in the raw water at a
dosage level of 0.02g with good treatment performance compared to other biosorbents, which
was represented. Particularly with regard to the kind of biosorbent and dosage, followed by
contact duration, these elements were most important for consideration as those clearly
influencing EDS efficiency. Capable of adsorbing rather high concentrations of Cu(II), being
cost-effective, and ecologically acceptable, results revealed that Moringa oleifera seed powder
is the most promising biosorbent for actual MIWW treatment. Following research on the use
of hybrid systems with various biosorbents as well as investigating pertinent aspects within
the field of industrial effluent towards development in possible bio-sorptive materials,
recommendations have also been made for future investigations in this regard to refine
operational conditions and design of regeneration procedures.
With a rapidly growing population, the ever-present threat of drought, and the growing risk of climate change, Texas is constantly struggling with water availability and its scarcity. Water budgets are useful tools for understanding where water is coming from and where it’s going to better manage water supplies. Several water budgets for the state and the hydroclimatological regions of the state have been developed in the past, the most recent in 2011, but none include budgets that align with the state’s regional water planning areas. Furthermore, new research in groundwater recharge and discharge volumes is substantially different than those included in previous budgets. Therefore, this study’s purpose is to develop an updated state-wide water budget that includes more accurate groundwater numbers and can be used to define water budgets for the state’s 16 regional water planning areas. Our water budgets are based on experimental and numerical investigations and evidence based on temporally and spatially variable factors, including precipitation, evapotranspiration, evaporation from rivers and lakes, runoff, groundwater recharge, groundwater discharge, water use and return flows, interstate flows, and flows to the Gulf of Mexico. These water budgets will help water planners, managers, and others better understand how local water resources fit into the overall water budget for their planning area and state. These water budgets will also provide water planners, managers, and others with more accurate information on the role of groundwater in the context of precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and water use.
Every time a natural disaster occurs, it presents an invaluable opportunity to better understand the nature of risk. However, it is often difficult to obtain a complete and detailed picture of the magnitude, intensity, and effects of the disaster. Amid the chaos, traditional recording systems may struggle to function effectively as well as geotechnologies in drone flight and the use of satellite imagery that response may be hours after the disaster has occurred. Typically, information from eyewitness accounts, newspaper articles, and technical reports is used to reconstruct the situation. A common challenge is obtaining an objective measure of damage, size, extent, and duration, as these factors are often influenced by the subjectivity of the observer.
An area of opportunity in the face of this problem is the generation of local and almost real-time data on the phenomena, particularly in Mexico, where we had been involved in the development of Risk Management Atlas and Risk Management Plans at the municipal level. Data is often not available and existing records are mostly paper-based and poorly organized. In addition, there is a lack of technical experience among the staff, obsolete or non-existent technological resources, and inadequate resources for fieldwork, which is why it is necessary to work on registration records in greater detail to understand the impact as close to reality in an area damaged.
We are committed to developing a comprehensive risk data recording system that takes into account the unique characteristics of eyewitnesses. Our starting point is to examine the profile of the people responsible for responding to emergency calls due to risk in the Latin American context, including their practices, protocols, available resources, equipment, and means to fulfill their functions.
Planning for a disaster is often the job of an Emergency Manger (EM) or someone who is in a similar role. EMs face a reality where they are trying to allocate resources and plan for any number of disaster events that may or may not be weather related. However, weather related disasters are always a concern due to the number of occurrences and the relative predictability of these disasters (e.g. tornado, drought, hurricane seasons). One weather related event that has become a concern is wildfire outbreaks. In early 2024, the Smokehouse Creek Fire became a record-breaking wildfire that affected the Northeastern Texas panhandle and portions of western Oklahoma. For this event, National Weather Service Forecast Offices in Amarillo, TX, and Norman, OK, issued Fire Warnings at the request of EMs and fire officials. Fire Warnings are a relatively new product for the NWS and because of that there is still uncertainty about how the warnings will be issued or even if the product provides enough information to be helpful in conveying information to the public. Interviews with EMs and other public officials will give insight into the wildfire and fire warnings to help determine the effectiveness of the product or other insights into their disaster planning and preparedness activities.
Ghana has seen encouraging improvements in reducing infant and maternal mortality rates over the past decades but it remains a challenging issue. Transportation and socioeconomic factors in a region can influence spatial accessibility to maternal healthcare facilities, and eventually affect the healthcare outcomes. A clear understanding of the spatial accessibility patterns to healthcare services can help policymakers identify potential problems and make wise decisions to improve maternal healthcare in an area.
In this study, we assess the varying spatial accessibility of maternal healthcare services across the Cape Coast metropolitan area in Ghana. Incorporating transportation conditions and socioeconomic factors in our analysis, we implement an augmented two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method to investigate the spatial accessibility to maternal healthcare facilities in Cape Coast. The method uses different catchment area sizes to reflect the resource capacity of healthcare facilities and applies varying network-based distances to capture the reality that people may have different transportation modes available to them when visiting facilities due to their socioeconomic status. This study aims to provide a better understanding on how real-world conditions affect maternal healthcare access in Cape Coast.
The result of the study is expected to reveal disparities in healthcare access based on various transportation modes (Personal vehicle, Taxis, Walking). The findings of the study may contribute to the existing knowledge of healthcare accessibility by highlighting the importance of incorporating real-world travel behaviors and infrastructure challenges into spatial analysis.
Among the most essential elements for human survival are food, energy, and water, which are crucial global resources tied to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 6, and 7. The shortage of surface water and groundwater to meet agricultural, domestic, and energy demands is becoming increasingly challenging in many of the world’s dry regions. The Southern Great Plains (SGP)—including Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas—are frequently ranked among the top states producing oil, gas, and alternative energy sources, such as biofuels, in the United States. The energy industry in this region relies on groundwater from the Ogallala Aquifer for hydraulic fracking to generate oil and gas. Drought has exacerbated conflicts over water for livestock and food crop farming, biofuel production, and hydraulic fracking, further pressuring the aquifer and contributing significantly to its decline.
Hydraulic fracking impacts the availability of water for food crops and livestock production in the SGP, highlighting the intricate connection between the food-energy-water nexus in the region. This study analyzes water use data from oil and gas wells in the SGP to quantify fracking water demand and its effects on agricultural water availability. The goals of this study are to (1) assess the current impact of hydraulic fracking on water availability in the region and (2) identify potential areas of tradeoffs and synergies in the nexus. The findings will contribute to developing sustainable water use strategies in arid regions, supporting efforts to achieve food and energy security while preserving vital water resources. This research has broader implications for understanding and managing the food-energy-water nexus in water-stressed areas globally.
For the last 50 years, ancient foodways of the American Southeast have been extensively researched and documented. While great attention has been paid to topics like feasting traditions and food security, less attention has been given to identifying land management methods, including agricultural methods, of the southeastern region outside of the grand Mississippian era settlement of Cahokia; the state of Louisiana being one space lacking in this research area. The goal of this study is to discern the possible agricultural footprint of ancient Indigenous communities living in the central western portion of Louisiana during the Woodland Period (1000 BCE-950 CE). Questions for this study: 1) How were Indigenous communities modifying the landscape during this period? 2) Which types of vegetation took root in this modified landscape? 3) To what extent did these modifications extend in proximity to the study site? Utilizing lake cores collected by colleagues from Kisatchie National Forest (KNF) and the University at Albany, this project will produce a paleoenvironmental reconstruction that represents local anthropogenic influences and any possible evidence of agricultural management on the land. The study site for this project is located within KNF, specifically near the Iatt Bluff archaeological site, chosen for its evidence of occupation by Woodland Period cultural groups such as the Caddo and other Indigenous communities from the Late Archaic period. Lakes cores were recovered from nearby Lake Iatt using a Livingstone Piston Corer in summer 2024. I will be using three standard analytical methods: microcharcoal analysis to detect the presence of anthropogenic fire on the landscape, isotopic ratio analysis of soil organic matter which can ascertain vegetation types (cool tolerant vs. heat tolerant species) according to plant intake of C3 and C4, and XRF combined with magnetic susceptibility testing to investigate weathering patterns and landscape stability. The results of this project are not meant to provide a comprehensive explanation of ancient anthropogenic land management techniques in the Southeast: the results are only meant to cast a spotlight on a specific location contained within a region of vast cultural diversity. Localized studies such as this one can provide a framework by which we understand past land management decisions at a variety of scales.
In late July 2022 flash flooding resulted in 39 deaths and over 600 helicopter rescues across the Upper Kentucky River Basin. As part of the wider Appalachian region, these watersheds are characterized by rugged topography with steep inclines and significant relief. Strip mining across the region has also severely impacted surface drainage and runoff. To quantify the scale and impact of this event, we analyzed corresponding hydrometeorological activity using Quantitative Precipitation Estimate and stream gauge data for three unregulated watersheds within the headwater forks of the Kentucky River Basin. Peak hydrograph, storm lag time and precipitation/baseflow/quickflow volumes were calculated for each watershed for comparison. Our analysis found that this flash flood event corresponded to the 2-hour 500-year precipitation frequency event resulting in record flooding approaching the 1000-year flood return interval for the Whitesburg branch of the Kentucky headwaters. Flood responses were significantly reduced across the adjacent watersheds. These results indicate the extremely localized nature of this particular storm event and the potential influence of surface strip mining in further exacerbating the impacts of flash flooding. Warning of these hydrometeorological events at a highly localized scale and a better understanding of local surface runoff responses will be imperative to prevent fatalities in the future.
The Texas Panhandle has become increasingly susceptible to extreme wind-driven wildfires, posing significant risks to local communities and ecosystems. The recent fires of February and March of 2024 have emphasized the urgent need to understand the evolving dimensions of social vulnerability in this region. This poster will present the initial stages of my thesis, “Heat of the Moment: Assessing Social Vulnerability to Wildfires in the Texas Panhandle: A Multi-method Approach.” The thesis was inspired by my involvement in the project “Social-Wildfire Vulnerability Affecting Spanish-Speaking Populations in the Texas Wildland Urban Interface,” conducted in collaboration with the Texas A&M Forest Service, funded by the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Science Foundation. While that project addressed the unique challenges faced by Spanish-speaking and bilingual populations, the thesis extends the research to focus on the landowners in the Texas Panhandle.
The poster will include a background of my thesis work, highlight some of the research conducted with the Forest Service, and detail the methods currently being developed for my thesis. Specifically, it will focus on the creation of a survey to assess the social vulnerability of landowners in the Texas Panhandle. By presenting this information, this poster aims to provide an overview of how this research will contribute to enhancing wildfire management strategies and improving community resilience in the region.
The human-environmental challenges facing the Mississippi River Basin (MRB) exist on range of spatial and temporal scales, ranging from deltaic hypoxia due to agricultural runoff, to urban sprawl onto floodplains, to changes in migratory bird behavior over headwaters. These challenges may be unique or interlinked among individual states, sub-basins, or points of time in prior MRB research, an interdisciplinary awareness of which is essential in order to determine research priorities that build upon existing human-environmental knowledge. To that end, we present in this research a topic modeling approach that synthesizes existing research about the MRB published from 1990 to 2023 and consequently identify common topics across publications and government reports on a range of spatial (state, sub-basin, basin-wide) and temporal (annual, decadal) timescales. The specific approach is one of Latent Dirichlet Allocation, a machine learning algorithm that probabilistically quantifies the likelihood of words and phrases occurring together across documents. Preliminary findings suggest that research priorities across the MRB have evolved over time, progressing from site-specific to basin-wide considerations and an increased valuation of climate change and stakeholder/partner engagement. Topics such as invasive fish species cataloging and nutrient overloading of rivers have remained common since 1990 and across the majority of states comprising the MRB's spatial domain. Findings from this topic modeling approach will be useful for identifying priority directions for future MRB research, as well as guide decisions for funding future research into the MRB's growing need for climate adaptation management.
Understanding environmental responses to changing climates is a growing field of study. When climates shift, whether due to natural or anthropogenic forces, different local landscapes respond in unique ways. Local responses might include changes in flood regimes, intensification of droughts, changes in vegetative types, and shifts in soil development. Throughout the Quaternary period, Texas has experienced natural and, more recently, anthropogenically driven climate fluctuations, leading to various environmental responses at different temporal and spatial scales. Such changes are captured in sediment records, especially within floodplains, and these records can serve as proxies by which we understand climate perturbations. This study uses alluvial sediments as proxies to illustrate how changing climates affected local river development and sediment deposition. My research focuses on exposed alluvial sediments located in a cut bank of the San Marcos River at Palmetto State Park in Gonzalez Texas. Here, I present preliminary results from field reconnaissance and sediment sampling in the fall of 2024 and discuss methodology and ongoing laboratory efforts. Broadly, these kinds of studies can provide a deeper understanding of how anthropogenic and natural pressures may continue to shape Texas landscapes in the future.
Project Watershed Aquatic Invasive Vegetation Suppression (WAIVS) is an initiative created to maintain and further restoration efforts in Spring Lake and the San Marcos River under the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan (EAHCP). WAIVS focuses on the removal of floating non-native aquatic vegetation found in Spring Lake and the upper reaches of the San Marcos River to mitigate the threat the vegetation poses to the threatened and endangered species that inhabit the areas. To analyze our progress, we compared non-native vegetation removal for the project's duration to identify problem areas and potential geographic elements contributing to the overgrowth of non-native vegetation. We reported total vegetation removed and created heat map visualizations of the removal intensity. The field data was recorded in ArcGIS using a specialized template featuring aerial imagery of the river which is divided into river segments, referred to as reaches, giving the ability to track attributes including the amount of each species removed in a given area. Based on the results we can conclude that restoration efforts are disproportionately distributed across reaches, leading to relative success in the lake and upper reaches and slow progress in the most downstream location of this study. Riverine geography and drought play a significant role in the outcome of this project but highlight its importance to the resiliency of the river’s ecosystem and success of objectives under the EAHCP.
Scotland’s system of protected areas has evolved into a multiscale matrix of public and private spaces with varying degrees of protection. Approximately 23% of the country’s terrestrial area has some level of protection in 2024. Included in some of these protected areas are valuable peatlands; however, there is a spatial mismatch in some regions. This project maps and analyzes the spatial relationships between priority peatlands and protected areas across Scotland.
Rain-on-snow (ROS) events exacerbate flooding, resulting in substantial infrastructure damage, property loss, and potential loss of life. Despite notable trends in regional ROS-induced flooding, these events have been relatively understudied in the northeastern United States. ROS implications are further complicated under the context of climate change, where rising temperatures more frequently shift precipitation patterns from snow to rain. This study adopts the following definition of a ROS event: a reduction in Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in the 24-hours following a rainfall event. Using this definition, we investigate the hydrological response of watersheds to ROS events in New York State. Streamflow records from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the University of Arizona 4km gridded snow water equivalent and snow depth data, and the 4km gridded PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) precipitation product are used to assess the impact of ROS events on regional hydrology. Two case studies are highlighted in southern New York: Delaware County (March 28 – 29, 2005) and Ulster County (December 24 – 25, 2020), both of which experienced significant ROS-induced snowmelt and flooding. Our results show the spatial and temporal variation of ROS-induced snowmelt and streamflow in both watersheds. Future work will build on these findings by exploring the frequency of ROS events, their climatological drivers, and their broader implications for snowmelt and streamflow in the northeastern United States.
Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Geographical Information System (GIS) were used to characterize coastal hydrochemistry and pollution health risks in Satkhira, Bangladesh, by examining heavy metal distribution in 67 groundwater samples. This study optimized the synthesis ratio of heavy metals (As, Fe, and Zn) by making their correlation with various variables via RSM-CCD (Central Composite Designs). The optimal value was ascertained using A.N.O.V.A analysis, demonstrating the maximal influence of the numerical equation. Pearson correlation and principal component analysis were used to evaluate the sources of contamination and the characteristics of groundwater. Piper and Drove diagrams reveal that the majority of samples have a Na–Cl facies type, indicating a significant danger of intrusion of saltwater. The heavy metal indices, including H.M.E.I, H.M.P.I, N.P.I, and Cd, were used to assess pollution levels. Of the samples analyzed, 28%, 66%, 8%, and 18% exhibited high pollution, whereas 40%, 34%, 38%, and 57% showed low pollution throughout the whole sample set. The Hazard Index (HI) by geographical distribution indicates that oral exposure poses a 44% risk for adults, whereas cutaneous exposure presents a 62% risk. Dermal and oral exposure provide 42% and 30% hazards to youngsters, respectively. The chronic risk distribution in adults is 27% (oral) and 43% (dermal); conversely, the risk for children is 28% (oral) and 39% (dermal), respectively. Heavy metals and saltwater intrusion substantially impact groundwater quality and public health. The government must enhance supervision, enforce rules, and adopt technological solutions such as subsurface barriers.
The increasing frequency of extreme weather events due to climate change has led to a notable rise in heat-related health issues. Machine learning algorithms have shown promise in modeling and predicting such outcomes. However, previous studies often neglect spatial components, missing the crucial spatial heterogeneity needed to assess regional differences in environmental impacts. This study addresses these gaps by employing an AutoML model that incorporates spatial interaction features, along with meteorological, environmental, demographic, and socioeconomic variables, to model heat-related emergency department visits (EDVs) across metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas in Texas. Our approach utilizes GeoShapley, an extension of SHAP, which integrates spatial components and their interactions with non-spatial features. This geospatial explainable AI (XAI) technique provides deeper insights into how different factors driving heat-related emergencies interact with geographic locations. The integration not only improves prediction accuracy but also enhances the spatial interpretability of the model. Key findings from applying AutoML and GeoShapley revealed significant spatial variability and distinct feature importance across metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. Socioeconomic and demographic factors, such as population density, public transportation usage, and age, emerged as the most significant predictors of vulnerability to heat-related health incidents, surpassing the influence of environmental variables.
Field work conducted at McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge, Texas coincided with the landfall of Tropical Storm Cindy in June 2017. It is known that powerful hurricanes can serve as geologic agents on coastal marshes along the Gulf Coast in Southeast Texas; however, there is a paucity of information on how small tropical storms impact the coastal marshes of this region. The arrival of Tropical Storm Cindy presented a serendipitous opportunity to document how a small tropical storm impacts a study site on McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge. Photography and on-the-ground field exploration were used to document these effects. Results indicate that the storm surge was too small to deposit any sediment onto the marsh. This result is valuable and adds to the body of knowledge regarding how the dynamics of tropical cyclone strength and storm surge height influence storm surge sedimentation.
Urbanization has profound impacts on human and environmental being, threatening sustainability in the areas in which it occurs. This is particularly true in the U.S. Southwest, where population growth and climate change increase pressure on already limited yet essential resources such as water. While cities like Phoenix have been extensively studied, other parts of the Southwest, including New Mexico, have received far less attention. Moreover, studies comparing rates of urbanization with concomitant environmental changes, such as shifts in land surface temperature, are often outdated or scarce. As a result, the differential urbanization trajectories of many cities in the Southwest remain poorly understood. This study addresses this knowledge gap by quantifying changes in urban area, land surface temperature, vegetation, and impervious surfaces over 5-year intervals between 1995 and 2020 in seven cities within the Northern Rio Grande Corridor (NRGC): Taos, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Socorro, Truth or Consequences, Las Cruces, and El Paso. Using maps, graphs, and statistical analysis, we document the expansion of urban areas and the associated environmental changes. Our results indicate that most of these cities more than doubled in size during the observation period, with transition intensities to urban and built-up land generally increasing over time. Urban expansion was typically accompanied by increases in impervious surfaces and declines in vegetation. However, changes in land surface temperature were less straightforward, varying spatially along the corridor. In this presentation, we will explore in more detail the spatio-temporal dynamics of these landscape changes and discuss their potential environmental implications.
Wildfires can have devastating consequences on communities and the environment, including water bodies. This project examined water quality data collected in July 2022 in Larimer County, Colorado. The motivation behind this project was to understand how burn scars and elevation affect water quality up to two years after the wildfire. Abiotic stream characteristics from two locations (one reference site and one disturbance site) on the South Fork of the Cache la Poudre River were compared. The reference site was in Pingree Valley at 9,010 ft and the disturbance site was at 9,500 ft near an area burned in the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire in Roosevelt National Forest.
At both sampling locations, I used an FP111 flow probe and a YSI meter to measure and compare multiple variables: water depth, dissolved oxygen, velocity, temperature, discharge, and total dissolved solids. The most notable results were differences in discharge, temperature, dissolved oxygen, stream morphology, and total dissolved solids. The disturbance site had a lower temperature, lower discharge, and higher dissolved oxygen content than the reference site. The velocity was similar in both locations despite the streams having noticeable visual differences in size and shape. Changes between the reference site and the disturbance site may relate to damage from the Cameron Peak Fire. Further research on the effects of wildfires on river environments is crucial for environmental recovery efforts and preparedness for future disasters.
Launching your career as a geographer can be both exciting and overwhelming, given the diverse skill set and knowledge base the field offers and the rapidly changing career landscape. This workshop provides a two-part exploration of career opportunities for emerging professional geographers. The session begins with a panel discussion that explores the key opportunities and challenges in career fields for geographers. Following the panel, participants will select one of two targeted workshops based on their short- and mid-term career interests.
For those aiming for careers with a strong emphasis on GIS and technology, Dr. Joseph Kerski will lead a workshop focused on practical steps to enter the tech-driven side of geography. For students interested in alternative career paths that extend beyond GIS, Dawna Cerney and Denise Blanchard-Bohem will facilitate a coaching session designed to explore roles aligned with qualitative geographic work and value-based careers.
The panel and both workshops are designed to help participants transition from student to professional, actively engaging them in tailored discussions to explore emerging career opportunities and shape their individual paths in geography.
Geospatial information on barriers that affect aquatic organism passage (AOP) are often limited to datasets that only contain features of federal or state regulatory significance and do not contain comprehensive inventories of all aquatic barriers. Restoration efforts targeted to improve AOP require locational data on all barriers to make informed decisions on prioritizing barriers for removal or remediation. We developed a digital inventory of instream barriers (dams, road crossings, and waterfalls) and field-surveyed a subset of road crossings (e.g., bridges, low-water crossings, culverts) to evaluate their impact on AOP on the upper Guadalupe River, Texas. The inventory was created using GIS-based modeling, manual imagery identification, and field surveys. Modeled methods identified 860 dams while the addition of manual digitization resulted in over 2,000 dams, combined methods for road-related barriers yielded over 2,500 road stream crossings with the vast majority on ephemeral streams. Sixty road crossings on perennial and intermittently flowing headwater tributaries of the North Fork Guadalupe River, South Fork Guadalupe River, Johnson Creek, Honey Creek, Bear Creek, and the upper mainstem reach of the Guadalupe River were field surveyed, and of these, 10 pose no barrier, 7 are insignificant, 14 are minor, 13 are moderate, 7 are significant, 9 are severe. We analyzed the barrier data using the Southeast Aquatic Barrier Prioritization Tool to identify a ranked list of dams and road crossings to assess for potential removal or remediation to improve the aquatic connectivity and associated physical, chemical, and biological functions necessary for supporting resilient stream ecosystems.
Saltcedar (Tamarix spp.) is an invasive phreatophyte native to Eurasia. Introduced to the United States as an ornamental planting and erosion control in the 19th century, it has since become invasive, particularly in the southwest. Within the upper Brazos River (UBR) basin, this invasive species has altered instream sedimentation dynamics along with channel and floodplain morphologies. The armoring of stream banks by saltcedar has reduced stream width, deepened channels, and increased velocities. Saltcedar is suspected of using greater quantities of groundwater than native vegetation, furthering the need for management. The UBR is also the critical habitat of two endangered fish species: the sharpnose shiner (Notropis oxyrhynchus) and smalleye shiner (Notropis buccula). These fish require wide,shallow and sandy instream conditions that saltcedar is threatening. Since 2016, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) has treated saltcedar along the UBR with herbicide via helicopter application. Although there have been overall decreases in saltcedar, it remains an ongoing issue. This presentation will explore the differences in grain sizes and channel geometries from transects studied in 2017 and 2022 to understand the geomorphic responses to management.
Invasive suckermouth armored catfishes (Hypostomus spp.) present significant ecological challenges in the San Marcos River (SMR), Texas. Effective management requires accurate population estimates to guide management efforts, but such data has been historically lacking. To address this challenge, we used a unique combination of underwater videos and statistical modeling to estimate the abundance of Hypostomus in the SMR. Our study leveraged high underwater visibility, and a raft equipped with dual 4K full-spectrum cameras, LED lights, and GPS to capture detailed georeferenced fish counts along a 1-km river transect. Three seasonal surveys—spring 2022, fall 2022, and spring 2023— included both daytime and nighttime observations. The raft’s GPS recorded its path, allowing a team to count and delineate fish data into ArcGIS Pro and overlay that with geospatial layers representing depth, velocity, vegetation coverage, and proximity to artificial structures. This integration allowed us to analyze habitat preferences and distribution patterns of Hypostomus. Using N-mixture models, we estimated the population size while accounting for environmental covariates and detection probability. Our analysis revealed that Hypostomus abundance was highest near artificial structures and in shallow, high-velocity areas, with detection rates decreasing as vegetation density increased. In Spring 2023, the estimated population size for the surveyed river segment was 285 and was projected as 4,509 for the full inhabited area. This project introduced a novel raft-based approach for concurrent fish count and spatial data collection, demonstrating its potential for application in other clear-water aquatic habitats. This study underscores the efficacy of geospatial analysis in ecological research and its usefulness in making informed management decisions.
Focused on the removal of non-native, floating aquatic vegetation, the Watershed Aquatic Invasive Vegetation Suppression (WAIVS) project is aimed at the enhancement of conservation measures within the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan with a history of various renditions that have evolved since 2021 in collaboration with the San Marcos River Foundation. Efforts are directed at the protection of an endemic species, Texas wild-rice, that is negatively affected by floating, non-native vegetation through various biological dynamics that disrupt the ability for this species to produce seeding stands which promote genetic diversity; thus, inhibiting the resiliency of upstream populations to serve as sources for the entire system (~7km). Since taking ownership of the project in 2023, the Ecological Research Group has documented removal treatments directed at four species of floating, non-native macrophytes. Removal data was then delineated by species and reach throughout each year of our management (2023-2024) to analyze the efficacy of Project WAIVS. Each river segment had tabulated amounts of each species subjected to removal, as well as cumulative crew size and hours spent each month to derive a Removal per Unit-Effort (RPUE) rate that defines project efficiency. Heatmaps documenting intensities of removal within each reach were used in conjunction with RPUE rates, allowing the ability to draw inferences pertaining to differences in fluvial geomorphology with varying degrees of removal for each species and reaches.
Tree canopy cover is known to provide amenity value to properties but also a host of other tangible sustainability benefits for urban neighborhoods, including direct health benefits and a range of ecosystem services such as in water run-off protection, carbon sequestration, and reduction in urban heat island effect. Media reports have also speculated that neglected urban neighborhoods may be unable to reap the benefits of these amenities due to lower access to urban tree canopy cover. Therefore, this project explores the roots of disparities in urban tree canopy cover and ecosystem services in relation to formerly redlined neighborhoods in Rochester, NY. We analyze 14 neighborhoods derived from scanned images of 1930’s era Homeowners Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps using web and desktop GIS tools. We compare the following dimensions amongst neighborhoods categorized on a scale of highly desirable to highly undesirable: 1) current percent urban tree canopy cover per neighborhood, and 2) current estimates of carbon sequestration by neighborhood. i-Tree Canopy derives estimates of carbon storage (given as g/m2/yr) by inputting a random sample of land cover data points visually confirmed by the user into a quantitative model. This project builds off an NEH-funded semester-long interdisciplinary capstone course examining impacts of urban renewal in primarily African American neighborhoods in Rochester, NY.
Can smaller colleges integrate history of place effectively into general education without a geography department? This presentation shares the teaching experiences of faculty engaged in two historical place-based learning courses delivered as part of a revised general education curriculum. The first course, the second-year level “It Happened Here,” is a public relations course focused on engaging students in the exploration of the roots of the Suffragist and Civil Rights Movements in the region of Rochester, NY. Professors of public relations campaigns courses have a unique opportunity to integrate topics of equity, placed-based learning and civic engagement when choosing a client partner for the semester. This course featured two examples of class/client partnerships that brought topics of place, as well as diversity and equity to the forefront through a semester-long campaign project. The second course, a senior-level capstone course, was an interdisciplinary collaboration of faculty with expertise in American studies and GIS. This course integrated archival materials from the City of Rochester Archives with historical GIS analysis to trace the roots of Rochester’s major urban renewal project. In particular, students examined the historical and spatial context of riots and failed housing projects in a demographically changing neighborhood. We conclude with reflections on the strengths of adding place-based learning into non-geography courses as well as the challenges of teaching urban history to students with limited prior geographic knowledge.
Despite increasing wildfire severity and range, rapid development in the fire-prone Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) has continued, and many neighborhoods are at risk of a constrained wildfire evacuation due to a high ratio of houses to community road-network exits. In Texas, Hays County is prone to fire, and rapid population growth has created a substantial WUI. Despite this, there is not sufficient research addressing neighborhood-level evacuation risks. The goal of this research, then, is to search Hays County for neighborhoods that face the highest combined risk of wildfire and potential evacuation difficulty. This research provides a limited use case wherein local decision-makers can quantify the combined risk of wildfire and constrained evacuation at the neighborhood scale by making use of standard spatial analysis techniques and publicly available datasets. The results show an alarming trend of low-egress neighborhoods in fire-prone areas within Hays County which carry the risk of a very difficult evacuation in cases when wildfire warning time is short. By using publicly available datasets and standard techniques, this research provides methods for local decision-makers across the state to identify these at-risk neighborhoods within their own jurisdictions which may aid in emergency planning and mitigation.
Using Butler City, PA area as a case study this research answers these questions: Do low-produce food stores outnumber high-produce food stores in low access areas? Is accessibility to community assets different between low access census tracts in rural areas?
The USDA measures food accessibility using distance measures and number of stores; individual-level resources including vehicle access; and neighborhood-level indicators such as income. Census tracts are classified as either high or low access urban or rural. This research uses this classification and ArcGIS Pro to create a food retailer and community asset access indices. Data on high- and low-produce food stores, convenience and gas station food stores is used to calculate a Food Retailer Index (FRI). Data on police stations, municipal buildings and pools, churches, social lodges and schools is used to calculate the Community Asset Index (CAI). Location data was collected using Google My Maps then surveyed and field verified using Esri Field Maps.
Using ArcGIS Pro the FRI and CAI are calculated for each type of census tract. The CAI for low access rural tracts indicates a lack of community assets. Calculating the FRI in rural tracts presented an interesting problem as we discovered non-typical food outlets such as direct-to-consumer farms and programs like Hunter’s Sharing the Harvest.
One of the foundational truisms of white supremacy in the United States white privilege and the collective power of white people in our society is never really in danger. One of the many areas in our society where it can be observed is in the maintenance of the status quo in elected representation in government. This paper considers the recent example of the struggle to change how residents of Virginia Beach, VA vote for members of the city council. Until recently, residents of Virginia Beach voted at large for all council members, even though those who were elected had to be residents of the geographic area associated with specific district that the council person ran in. At large voting prevents fair representation of various groups, particularly racial groups, in the city. This can be a powerful argument for restricting voters to only voting for the representative of the district which they live in. However, by taking a closer look, I consider how even when voting by district, little space is opened for challenging the current structure of power in a city with a legacy of racist practices.
Soft power has been debated by international relations scholars since it was coined in the 1990s based on the argument that there are other means to achieve strategic goals than military might, in particular leveraging culture and economic influence. Scholars have noted that soft power efforts are often mediated by other actors such as news outlets. Our research asks, what is the role of news media in shaping a populace’s geographical imaginations of another state and in what contexts? This paper examines the case of Slovenia, a NATO member with long held negative attitudes toward the United States for the last two decades. We provide a brief review of the concept and critiques of soft power and link it to the issues of public diplomacy efforts having little control over the image consumed via a state’s media. Next, we examine the methodological challenges of using big data sets for text analysis. The paper then addresses the creation of a corpus from the scraping of news articles from two Slovenian broadcasters from 2012-2022. The final corpus contained 27,684 news articles that mentioned the United States. We found that the United States’ leaders, references to the administration, and conflicts the U.S. was involved in were most frequently mentioned. The countries covered most often were the United States or regional powers (e.g. Russia, China, European Union). Thematically, the coverage of the United States was dominated by armed conflict, diplomatic efforts, and domestic political events, followed by natural disasters and crime.
My research project aims to assess the problem of water accessibility in three regions of the country: Départements of Couffo, Plateau, and Collines. More than forty-five percent of household water in my study areas comes from unsafe water sources. This study covers the poorest and lowest water accessibility in the whole country. To address the issue of water inaccessibility, this research asks the following questions: 1) Which places and populations lack access to water, and what regional and urban/rural differences exist? 2) What geographical, economic, and political factors or regional differences create unequal water access? 3) What are the possible approaches to improve water accessibility? My research will employ qualitative and quantitative methods to respond to those questions. I will first use a non-structured interview questionnaire for key informants (NGOs, community leaders, policymakers) to better understand the water policies and the water resource management approach in place. Second, I will survey households to determine their experiences with water accessibility. Then, I will evaluate some water projects in each region to determine the value of the government initiatives. Finally, I will use GIS tools to connect the data to maps for spatial analysis. To this end, I will list each water structure's geographic coordinates to produce water accessibility maps.
My overall study will consider the relationship between water variables, such as water quality, quantity, accessibility, and sociodemographic data. My research project will contribute to the theoretical and methodological aspects of three bodies of literature: water inequality, water justice, and water governance.
Capitalism, or the prioritization of profit, is often integral in determining which communities have access to resources, where material injustices lie, and how politicians have implemented Neoliberal ideals into American communities under capitalist practices. In response, grassroots organizations and non-governmental organizations that use a bottom-up approach are key components to how communities combat social inequalities in the face of Capitalism. My research focuses on a single non-governmental organization in Austin, Texas, exploring its role in the community and initiatives for solutions to social injustice in the City of Austin. Austin, Texas was selected for this study as it historically implemented laws and regulations that perpetuates racism in the housing structure of the city. This process was amplified with Austin’s 1928 Master Plan, which segregated the city along the I-35 corridor, separating People of Color from the affluent and white neighborhoods of West Austin. Using a multi-method approach consisting of interviews and GIS, my investigation brings awareness regarding the impact of capitalism on urban communities and how inequalities affect different populations based on their geographic location. Although this project focuses on Austin, the experiences of Austin’s disparities can be broadly applied to other communities facing similar issues with social injustice and housing segregation; these topics are important to understanding how different groups of people are disproportionately impacted by Capitalism and therefore Neoliberalism. Acknowledging how the economic system negatively impacts subaltern communities allows them to advocate for themselves to influence the creation and implementation of policies that help diminish social disparities.
Keywords: Austin, Capitalism, Neoliberalism, grassroots organizations, social justice
Nepal is a developing country situated between two gigantic economies; China and India. After 1956, with the establishment of democracy, planned development practices were initiated. Nepal undergoing a major political transition during late 1990s and which was yet to settle peace process till today. Nepalese economy has been witnessing a gradual change along with the change in political system, from fully agrarian economy to a semi-modern system. However, Nepal is still one of the poor countries in the world. Economic theory suggests that industrial development requires after agricultural economy as new dynamic activities (Ocampo et al., 2009) which Nepal, totally lacks so far. More importantly, an economy can be considered performing well if it has sustained productivity growth and a stable or rising employment/population ratio (Ocampo et al., 2009, p41). Nepal lacks many of these requirements and has been slow in the development process and is one of the poorest countries in the world. Nepal began to implement structural adjustment program of IMF and World Bank since the mid-1980s, with a hope of accelerating economic development and growth after facing a continuous balance of payments (BOP) deficit in the first half of the 1980s. Even after more than the two decades of structural adjustment program and economic liberalization process, Nepal is still in the low end of development ladder. These programs have weakened the government capacity, and neither was it able to create institutional mechanism necessary for strong economy. Instead, the country became fragile and volatile to unstable politics, with widespread poverty and rising inequality. Due to factors like unemployment, poverty, isolation and lack of good governance, internal armed conflict erupted in 1996 and lasted for a decade. This causes the rise in inequality and displacement of thousands of people from Nepal to gulf country as migrant worker. With the World Bank and IMF's suggestion, Nepal embraced the neo-liberal policy of privatization of state-owned enterprises, market-determined price system, trade liberalization, financial sector liberalization, fiscal consolidation, and indirect monetary policy instruments as early as the mid-1980s. Although Nepal is now relatively one of the most liberalized countries in the South Asian region, the economic growth has been low and stagnant, unable to increase per capita income for uplifting living standards, with negligible exports and stagnating investment (Khanal and Shrestha, 2008). In this research, using macroeconomic data available since 1970, obtained from diverse sources such as World Bank, Central Bureau of Statistics of Nepal (CBS), Ministry of Finance will analyze the performance neoliberal ideology in the economy of Nepal. Furthermore, the socioeconomic consequences of this transformed economy are also analyzed, encompassing societal and familial issues.
As development moves to the Eastside, there is a narrative of conscious development, yet this period has also led to gentrification and food insecurity in historically diverse neighborhoods, indicating a softening of gentrification discourses. Despite the conscious nature of the discourses surrounding it, these development approaches are part of a neoliberal framework classified by market-driven options and public-private development promotes the city as cosmopolitan, creative, and socially conscious, but the benefits from these redevelopment efforts are unevenly distributed. Specifically, over the past twenty-years or so, development has been heavily concentrated in the central city, excluding the eastern and southern portions of the city, predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhoods, respectively. To better understand the impacts of this current development era, this research first seeks to excavate how racialized spaces were historically produced in Oklahoma City. The production of space on the Eastside has been shaped both by top-down planning efforts imposed by elites and by community-building efforts led by Black residents. Though it is through the interplay of hegemonic and subaltern knowledges that space and subjects are produced, elite-driven planning is well-represented in the archives, yet the resistance and community-building efforts of Black Oklahoma Citians have been less acknowledged in the city’s public discourse. This research will uncover this rich history of self-reliance and community-building and apply these insights to critique the contemporary hegemonic development paradigm.
The second focus of this regards the interplay of food production and access and the production of racialized space, particularly given the Eastside’s struggles with food insecurity. Despite the central role food plays in shaping Oklahoma City’s image as diverse and socially conscious, access to food has remained deeply inequitable, reflecting longstanding structural inequalities, given that the Eastside still struggles with food insecurity. Food, in Oklahoma City and elsewhere, has historically been a tool for community-building, especially through small-scale backyard or community gardens, and by examining the relationship between food access and the production of space, this research will explore how food might be used to challenge dominant development schemes and reimagine more equitable, community-driven models of development.
Participatory GIS (PGIS) Mapping has emerged as a valuable community-engagement tool in disaster-related research. Despite its great potential, there is a scarcity of research adopting PGIS methods to understand how specific communities access health care after disasters, especially tornadoes. We conducted two PGIS workshops with 28 residents of the Mississippi Delta, primarily from Rolling Fork and surrounding towns, who experienced the devastating tornado of March 24, 2023. Our study aims to understand how residents access health care and how the tornado affected their access. Before hosting the PGIS workshops, we established a community partnership with Legacy Village, a local non-profit organization, whose involvement was crucial in developing connections with residents. The PGIS workshops received enthusiastic participation, with residents engaging deeply in the map-making process. Despite the destruction of Rolling Fork’s major hospital and its relocation, several residents reported improved access to healthcare services, such as dental care and mental health counseling. These services, however, are primarily offered through mobile units rather than permanent facilities. Additionally, many residents expressed a desire for more advanced medical services, like endocrinologists, and the opening of larger grocery stores to provide healthier food options in the area. During the workshops, we also observed that prompts related to the tornado sometimes evoked emotional responses, revealing the depth of trauma and grief caused by the disaster. This research is ongoing, and we plan to return to Rolling Fork for a PGIS Reconvene, where we will present and discuss the map results with the community.
This paper describes research drawing on music as a repository of the experiential knowledges of Black, Brown, and working class communities during a period of city-regional transformation in Houston. During the 1920s and ‘30s, Greater Houston experienced dramatic growth in population, immigration, and economic productivity alongside the development of the Houston Ship Channel and associated industries. The city’s first official plan (1929), which envisions a classed and explicitly white supremacist regional sociospatiality, can be viewed as part of ‘top-down’ city-building efforts that also include the maneuverings of business elites, flood control work led by the Army Corps of Engineers, and other activities that are relatively well-documented in public archives. However, the perspectives of working class people and communities of color are less present in public archives. To gain greater insight into experiential perspectives on petrocapitalist Jim Crow development and the work of everyday people building communities ‘from below’ during this period, we turn to the city’s music geographies. Houston is part of a musical hearth that stretches from the city to New Orleans, from which emerged Zydeco and Cajun musics, distinctive forms of blues, jazz, and country, música Tejana, and orquesta. Following geographer Clyde Woods’s conception of blues epistemology, which casts the blues and other ‘folk musics’ as a way of knowing held by people facing systemic oppression, we are developing a methodology for interpreting music as an archive that helps decenter hegemonic narratives and contributes towards a more pluralistic and democratic historical geography of the city-region.
The Wittliff Collections collect, preserve, and present the cultural heritage of Texas and the Southwest through storytellers. This includes writers, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, and other artists. The monthly calendars of the Soap Creek Saloon created by artist Kerry Awn are our newest collection about to be available online. The Soap Creek Saloon was a music venue in Austin, Texas that ran from 1973-1985 and was influential in the creation of Austin’s music culture known today. Other than live music the venue hosted movie nights, benefits, and fundraisers for the local community. Kerry Awn’s artwork reveals a history of the changing Austin demographic from the 1970s to the 1980s. Notably is how the venue moved locations twice to stay open and closed permanently in 1985 in place of condos. This presentation will strive to educate others on the unique history of the Soap Creek Saloon in relation to the greater Austin area. It will also dive into the changing demographics of Austin, and how it affected the Soap Creek community and Austin’s counterculture. Finally, this presentation will give researchers a taste on the material available to them at the Wittliff Collections, and how they could use this material to further their studies.
This paper argues that the first act of Beyoncé’s post-pandemic trilogy, Renaissance, draws on and expands the Afrofuturist tradition to imagine new (spatial) realities. Using theoretical frameworks such as métissage and cyborg theory, Beyoncé’s work is understood as a hybrid of cultural traditions that can contribute to the dismantling of oppressive systems. Beyoncé’s influence and artistic choices represent a significant step in shaping Afrofuturism in popular music, demonstrating how power and influence can elevate and realize the imaginations of communities historically marginalized.
Afrofuturism, which emerges at the intersection of African-American experience and techno-culture, offers futuristic and speculative ideas rooted in cyborg epistemologies. Beyoncé manifests in music and lyrics her personal-biographical, synthetic, and imaginative approach that draws on and expands this lineage. The first two acts (at least) of her trilogy explore identity, sexuality, and aesthetics with musical styles ranging from funk to gospel and country to house. Her albums envision a future of personal and collective empowerment and cultural hybridity. They can be understood in relationship to the work of other musicians like Parliament and Janelle Monáe while devising their own, unique perspective on how to handle historical reality and create alternative futures.
While Beyoncé has not self-described this three-act project as Afrofuturist — and the country-ish styling of Cowboy Carter (Act II) would seem outside the standard lineage of explicitly Afrofuturist aesthetics — the conceptual and musical work across acts is both 1) narratively directed toward creating Afrofuturist realities originating in a pre-future perspective, and 2) productive as an Afrofuturist project.
Blues tourism has been utilized as an economic resource for over six decades in the Mississippi Delta region. The city of Clarksdale, Mississippi has become a focal point for tourists in search of experiencing blues culture. Clarksdale is rich in blues and civil rights history. Much of this history occurred specifically in what was the Black side of town during the Jim Crow era, known as the New World District. Many important Delta musicians stayed in the city of Clarksdale, including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Son House, among others. While blues tourists have been traveling to the Delta to experience blues since the mid 1970s, blues tourism became the focus of the city’s economic activity in the early 2000s with the revitalization of downtown Clarksdale. During this time, buildings were restored, and new businesses were established. Downtown Clarksdale is historically known as the white side of town, where civil rights protests and boycotts of downtown businesses occurred, and where blues music would have never been heard during the Jim Crow era. While blues tourism continues to grow downtown, the New World District remains ignored and excluded from this economic system, contributing to the decline and deterioration of the neighborhood. Black businesses thrived and supported the community in the New World District since its establishment in the early 1900s, when Blues music could be heard on every street corner and from inside the businesses that lined the New World streets. The development of blues tourism in downtown Clarksdale has allowed for blues history to be shared and promoted in an edited form, while ignoring the history of racism and the oppression of Black people. Events that took place in Clarksdale during the Civil Rights Movement including visits from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the establishment of Freedom Houses, and local citizens becoming prominent civil rights leaders, goes mostly untold since this history took place in the New World District. In this paper, I examine how the New World District provided a place where community organization and development allowed Black citizens to mobilize acts of resistance against the oppressive conditions of a racialized city since the early days of Jim Crow and into today. To complete this project, data was collected through oral histories, an examination of historical documents, and through participant observations to understand the current state of tourism in Clarksdale. This project focuses on understanding the history of the New World District and what it means to the Black community members that lived there or experienced it. And finally, this project also examines the uneven development of the blues tourist economy and why there has been no effort made to preserve this historic Black neighborhood, while downtown Clarksdale tourism continues to grow and benefit from the Black culture and traditions that developed in the New World District. My advisor has received this extended abstract and approves its submission for the student competition.
Using a political ecology framework, this study focuses on the impacts of ‘sustainable tourism’ in Belize, a peripheral country, bordering on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula in the north, Guatemala to its west, and Honduras to its south. To that end, the study investigates a multimillion-dollar tourism-related highway project – the Caracol Road Project (CRP) – which traverses the ecologically fragile Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, the Chiquibul Forest Reserve and National Park, and the Caracol Archeological Reserve of the Cayo Region of Western Belize. This area has become less remote, and more economically accessible as the road is being constructed.
This research involves qualitative field work through interviewing key stakeholders involved in the road project, , using visual geographic techniques, including photography and landscape maps, as well as interpreting key development documents such as the Environmental Impact Assessment, Regional Development Plans, and reports from various ministries within the Belizean government, and contract documents.
The study seeks to answer for whom and for what the CRP is being developed. It questions officials claims about the sustainable benefits of the CRP project , and raises concerns about prospects for rural dispossession and militarization of sustainable development.
According to Mauden (2021), sustainability could be classified as an evaluative concept because it can help to assess the implications of an environmental change, or the viability of a place. Therefore, sustainability is an important geographic core concept that can be used to analyze a great variety of topics related to nature, society, economy, and their interconnections and interdependence. Ultimately, the understanding of sustainability is critical in any society that considers the importance of the environmental dimensions.
From the perspective of teaching and learning about sustainability, the objective of this paper is to analyze why and how the main actors (i.e., instructor, students) of the pedagogic context are increasingly influenced by other actors when exercising the instructional discourse. Thus, the characteristics of the instructional discourse seem to be transformed based upon the influence of a more complex combination of actors participating in the process of social transformation.
In any formal pedagogic context, instructors as facilitators and students as learners, are required to create knowledge by engaging in critical reflective dialogue. The pedagogical practices to facilitate sustainable thinking in higher education seem to be expanded toward a more inclusive context. The informal learning process that students experience before and during their formal geographic activities is catalyzed by external actors who have increasingly intervened in the instructional discourses. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that Information Communication Technologies (ICT) has paved the way to enhance both formal and informal processes of teaching and learning sustainability as an evaluative concept.
Rainwater harvesting is often perceived in Texas as unreliable which is why, in part, there is not much if any of it in the state water plans. In the parlance of resilient water planning, a water supply needs to be firm—that is, a supply that is available through the drought of record, an analysis that is typically not done. In this study, we developed a spreadsheet model that uses daily data from the period of record to calculate the firm yield for rainwater harvesting systems. We made these calculations for 19 locations across the state in the regional water planning areas. We found that firm yields for rainwater harvesting can be achieved across the state in every region, including El Paso in Far West Texas. We also found that the drought of record for a rainwater harvesting system depends not only on rainfall but also on catchment area, storage, and daily use and may not be the same drought used to define firm yield for local water-supply reservoirs. Furthermore, the same location with the same rainfall could have several different droughts of record depending on catchment area, storage volume, and use. We also found that high reliability (the number of days with water divided by the total number of days) could result in frequent need of back-up water. For example, an analysis of a system in Austin showed that 98% reliability resulted in required back-up water nearly every year.
Habitat fragmentation occurs when a large area of natural habitat is broken up into smaller patches and isolated from one another, degrading ecosystems and leading to significant biodiversity loss. This problem is expected to worsen for wildlife as climate change progresses and organisms are forced to relocate to more suitable habitats. Agricultural lands, especially within the Great Plains region of the U.S., are a major contributor to fragmentation. Wildlife corridor creation, linkages that reconnect pieces of habitat, is a promising and effective policy tool to mitigate the negative effects of fragmentation. However, for various understudied reasons, formulation and implementation of wildlife corridor policies has been slow or non-existent in most states. The goal of this research is to aid the development of wildlife corridor policy in the U.S. by identifying the primary policy barriers that prevent creation of wildlife corridors in the Great Plains. We surveyed professionals in 12 states with experience working on a wildlife corridor project within this region to identify factors that encumber the various stages of the policy process. Preliminary results from 84 responses suggest that insufficient funding, regulatory barriers such as land use zoning, and coordinating with government agencies are the primary barriers to wildlife corridor implementation. These findings suggest that researchers and decision-makers must identify where and how the design, completion, and monitoring of wildlife corridor projects is most and least productive, and which stages of the policy process require the most resources to meet the goals of the project.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and worsened social inequalities in the United States. This study uses mobile phone location data at the Census Block Group level and explainable machine learning methods to examine the relationships between various factors and human mobility in ten Metropolitan Statistical Areas to uncover how different factors influenced mobility disparities. Our key findings show significant reductions in all mobility indices during the summer of 2020 compared to 2019, mainly due to stay-at-home orders, business closures, and health concerns. Median household income was a consistent positive driver of mobility, while the minority rate negatively impacted movement, exacerbating existing inequalities. Remote work significantly affected full-time and part-time job mobility. These findings highlight the need for fair and resilient mobility policies that consider decentralized commuting, flexible work models, and sustainable transportation. These insights can help policymakers and urban planners address inequalities, support economic recovery, and build inclusive urban environments.
The use of the athlete social media platform Strava has boomed in recent years alongside running and individual sport culture. While the platform is used to record runs much like Garmin Connect (which also has a social element) or RunKeeper, Strava is inherently geared towards creating a public identity as an athlete - in fact, most of the app is not useful without giving over at least some of your data publicly to use all its features. One use of Strava which has gained much attention is Strava art. Other discussion of Strava includes it’s use of heat maps. However, not as much attention has been paid to the potential privacy/security concerns of the app. This paper discusses the benefits and risk of using Strava and the importance of identity in running culture(s).
Navigation through open spaces presents challenges that traditional routing methods often fail to address. Most existing studies either draw lines based on allowed travel paths or represent the open space as a polygon and use its outer edge as the route, both of which inadequately capture how pedestrians actually move through such areas. These methods either restrict movement to predefined lines or over-simplify routes to the boundaries, missing the complexity of pedestrian navigation in open spaces. This research introduces a solution using a Spider-Grid network implemented with PostgreSQL, PostGIS, and pgRouting that utilizes the Dijkstra algorithm for route computation. This approach allows for multiple distinct paths within open spaces, offering a more realistic representation of pedestrian movement compared to traditional methods. We enhance this network by developing detailed cost attributes for each edge, considering elevation changes (derived from lidar data), stairs, and construction barriers. This approach provides a more accurate and practical routing solution, accommodating diverse travel routes and improving accessibility for all users. The presentation will outline the methodology and benefits of this network, demonstrating its effectiveness in creating a more inclusive and realistic navigation system for campus environments.
The study of the dynamic evolution of neighborhoods over time and space has a long and robust history, often relying on rich socioeconomic and demographic datasets from sources such as the Census and the American Community Survey (ACS). However, a notable gap persists in the availability of specialized software tools that facilitate the streamlined analysis and visualization of spatiotemporal neighborhood changes using Census and ACS data. To bridge this gap, we developed Neighborhood Explorer—an advanced CyberGIS-enabled visual analytics system designed to empower users with the ability to explore and understand the complexities of neighborhood transformations over time.
Neighborhood Explorer empowers users to explore the complex patterns of neighborhood transformation over extended periods. Its key capabilities include: (1) delineating neighborhood boundaries using a variety of clustering techniques, (2) visualizing neighborhood changes over decades, such as between 1980 and 2010, (3) quantifying the degree of neighborhood transformation, (4) exploring detailed neighborhood profiles to better understand their socioeconomic and demographic composition, and (5) classifying neighborhood trajectories to identify distinct patterns of evolution, highlighting areas that have undergone significant change or remained stable.
Designed as a decision support system, Neighborhood Explorer is poised to serve urban planners, city officials, business owners, and transit authorities. It provides vital insights, for example, in identifying areas susceptible to gentrification or regions requiring enhanced social services. By enabling the comprehensive analysis and visualization of neighborhood dynamics, this tool equips stakeholders to make informed, data-driven decisions, optimizing strategies for urban development and community support.
Launching your career as a geographer can be both exciting and overwhelming, given the diverse skill set and knowledge base the field offers and the rapidly changing career landscape. This workshop is the second part of a two-part exploration of career opportunities for emerging professional geographers. The workshop session explores the key opportunities and challenges for those seeing geography careers not centered on GIS.
Launching your career as a geographer can be both exciting and overwhelming, given the diverse skill set and knowledge base the field offers and the rapidly changing career landscape. This workshop is the second part of a two-part exploration of career opportunities for emerging professional geographers. The workshop session explores the key opportunities and challenges in GIS career fields for geographers.
SWAAG Annual Business Meeting – 2024
Hosted by the SWAAG Board
Tuesday, October 8, 5:00-6:00 pm
AGENDA
1. Welcome and Chair Comments
2. Treasurer’s Report
a. Finances
b. Student Competitions
3. Secretary’s Report
a. GeoBowl
b. Annual Newsletter
4. Regional Councilor’s Corner
5. The Southwestern Geographer – Update
6. Nominations from the Floor for 2025 Officers and Student Representatives
a. Nominations accepted through October 2024.
b. Late 2024 Election
7. Future Meetings
a. 2025 – Las Cruces, NM – Hosted by New Mexico State University
b. 2026 – Volunteers!
c. 2027 – Volunteers!
8. Other Business
9. Closure of Meeting
SWAAG Board
Randy Peppler (University of Oklahoma) – Chair
Michaela Buenemann (New Mexico State University) – Treasurer
Rosalie Ray (Texas State University) – Secretary
Adam Clark (Texas State University) – Student Officer
Regional Councilor
Eric Sarmiento (Texas State University