<p>Wetland monitoring and preservation efforts have the potential to be enhanced with advanced remote sensing acquisition and digital image analysis approaches. Progress in the development and utilization of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) as remote sensing platforms has offered significant spatial and temporal advantages over traditional aerial and orbital remote sensing platforms. Photogrammetric approaches to generate high spatial resolution orthophotos of UAV acquired imagery along with the UAV?s low-cost and temporally flexible characteristics are explored. A comparative analysis of different spectral based land cover maps derived from imagery captured using UAV, satellite, and airplane platforms provide an assessment of the Huntington Beach Wetlands. This research presents a UAS remote sensing methodology encompassing data collection, image processing, and analysis in constructing spectral based land cover maps to augment the efforts of the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy by assessing ecological and temporal changes at the Huntington Beach Wetlands.

<p> <i>Home</i>&hellip;that space so personal, so distinct, so intrinsic to the human/place relationship that &ldquo;lies right at the heart of human geography&rdquo; (Cresswell, 2004, p. 93). Studying the connection people feel toward certain places through concepts of emotion, experience, and attachment to meaning stems outward from the phenomenological and humanist branches of geography (Holt-Jensen, 2009). With every person&rsquo;s version of home a space unto itself, is it possible for a place so intimate to be studied and defined? My answer is yes. This phenomenological case study investigates the perceptions and emotions of a newly designated conservation neighborhood, the second of its kind in Reno, Nevada. In an area usually looked at as a site for economic development and perhaps initiatives in historic preservation, there is little research undertaken through a cultural geographic lens aiming to understand how different communities in the area view their own home ground in transition and the implications of place creation. This project navigates the allegory of home through the voices and drawn maps of the Wells Avenue Neighborhood Conservation District (WANCD) and is approached through the impressions and attitudes of community groups, merchants, and a patchwork of residents diverse in both their backgrounds and their stories about the place they live. Through the construction of sense of place inside and around the WANCD and with the usage of Geographic Information Systems as a tool for qualitative data collection and comunication, this study investigates how personal experiences and perceptions, community connections and common goals, and specifically-identified areas of personal meaning play into the way in which these different stakeholders experience, participate in, and envision their neighborhood.</p>

<p> Economic development has become a key issue in the United States. The recruitment and retention of public and private development is a pivotal strategy for increasing the economic prosperity of a region or nation as well as its inhabitants. While all segments of the nation benefit from economic development, the importance of this issue is paramount to the rural areas where income, living conditions, and educational levels may not mirror those of their urban counter part. As a result, rural regions are particularly interested in attracting both public and private investments to improve their economy, increase their tax base, and increase the standard of living for those residents living in a given region. </p><p> This project utilizes GIS siting analysis models to explore potential areas for economic development in the rural area of Fulton County. In this project, ten variables were analyzed to determine suitable sites for economic development based on physical variables, transportation variables, and public utility infrastructure variables. These variables were selected based on a review of relevant literature based on economic development in rural areas. Site suitability maps were developed using a multi-criteria decision making model and weighting each variable with respect to cost incurred to the taxpaying public. The final map displays multiple areas of high suitability for light industrial development based on an analysis of these factors as they relate to Fulton County.</p>

<p> Landslides pose a persistent threat to El Salvador's population, economy and environment. Government officials share responsibility in managing this hazard by alerting populations when and where landslides may occur as well as developing and enforcing proper land use and zoning practices. This thesis addresses gaps in current knowledge between identifying precisely when and where slope failures may initiate and outlining the extent of the potential debris inundation areas. Improvements on hazard maps are achieved by considering a series of environmental variables to determine causal factors through spatial and temporal analysis techniques in Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing. The output is a more dynamic tool that links high resolution geomorphic and hydrological factors to daily precipitation. Directly incorporable into existing decision support systems, this allows for better disaster management and is transferable to other developing countries.</p>

The geodesic law for test particles is one of the fundamental principles of general relativity and is extensively used. It is thought to be a consequence of the field laws but no rigorous proof exists. This thesis is concerned with a precise formulation of the geodesic law for test particles and with the extent of its validity. It will be shown to be true in certain cases but not in others. A rigorous version of the Infeld/Schild theorem is presented. Several explicit examples of both geodesic and non-geodesic motion of singularities are given. In the case of a test particle derived from a test body with a regular internal stress-energy tensor, a proof of the geodesic law for an ideal fluid test particle under plausible, explicitly stated conditions is given. It is also shown that the geodesic law is not generally true, even for weak fields and slow motion, unless the stress-energy tensor satisfies certain conditions. An explicit example using post-Newtonian theory is given showing how the geodesic law can be violated if these conditions are not satisfied. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

<p>Crisis response is a time-sensitive problem with multiple concurrent and interacting subprocesses, applied around the world in a wide range of contexts and with access to varying levels of resources. The movement of individuals with their shifting patterns of need and, frequently, disrupted normal support systems pose challenges to responders trying to understand what is needed, where, and when. Unfortunately, crises frequently occur in parts of the world that lack the infrastructure to respond to them and the information to inform responders where to target their efforts. In light of these challenges, researchers can make use of new data sources and technologies, combining the information products with simulation techniques to gain knowledge of the situation and to explore the various ways in which a crisis may develop. These new data sources&mdash;including social media such as Twitter and volunteered geographic information (VGI) from groups such as OpenStreetMap&mdash;can be combined with authoritative data sources in order to create rich, synthetic datasets, which may in turn be subjected to processes such as sentiment analysis and social network analysis. Further, these datasets can be transformed into information which supports powerful agent- based models (ABM). Such models can capture the behavior of heterogeneous individuals and their decision-making process, allowing researchers to explore the emergent dynamics of crisis situations. To that end, this research explores the gathering, cleaning, and synthesis of diverse data sources as well as the information which can be extracted from such synthetic data sources. Further, the work presents a rich, behaviorally complex agent-based model of an evacuation effort. The case study deals with the 2012 Colorado Wildfires, which threatened the city of Colorado Springs and prompted the evacuation of over 28,000 persons over the course of four days. The model itself explores how a synthetic population with automatically generated synthetic social networks communicates about and responds to the developing crisis, utilizing real evacuation order information as well as a model of wildfire development to which the individual agents respond. This research contributes to the study of data synthesis, agent-based modeling, and crisis development. </p>

<p> Pompeii suffered a famous volcanic disaster in 79 AD. This led to a tremendous loss of life. This thesis examines that loss of life and the geography of death left behind by the eruption. Where did the citizens of Pompeii die, and how could they have avoided their fate? These are issues that are examined through geographic methodologies and the use of GIS. The results indicate a people that could have been spared with proper hazards management, and one that shows through mapping the large loss of life that accompanied one of history's most famous volcanic eruptions.</p>

The goal of this thesis is to improve our understanding of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) and how it responds to climate change. This was achieved using ice core records to infer elevation changes of the GrIS during the Holocene (11.7 ka BP to Present). The inferred elevation changes show the response of the ice sheet interior to the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM; 9-5 ka BP) when temperatures across Greenland were warmer than present. These ice-core derived thinning curves act as a new set of key constraints on the deglacial history of the GrIS. Furthermore, a calibration was conducted on a three-dimensional thermomechanical ice sheet, glacial isostatic adjustment, and relative sea-level model of GrIS evolution during the most recent deglaciation (21 ka BP to present). The model was data-constrained to a variety of proxy records from paleoclimate archives and present-day observations of ice thickness and extent.

Part I of this thesis investigates current deformation in western British Columbia from northern Vancouver Island in the south to Haida Gwaii in the north. The area is characterized by transition from the Cascadia subduction zone to the Queen Charlotte transform fault. The tectonic setting involves interactions between the Pacific, North America, Juan de Fuca, and Explorer plates, and the Winona block, involving a number of plate boundaries: the mainly strike-slip Queen Charlotte, Revere-Dellwood-Wilson and Nootka faults, the Explorer ridge, and the Cascadia subduction zone. Using GPS campaign data from 1993 to 2008 I derive a new crustal velocity field for Northern Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland, and integrate it with previous velocity fields developed for Haida Gwaii, southern Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland. The northern limit of the subduction zone is confirmed to be at Brooks Peninsula, where the direction of the crustal motion changes abruptly from ENE to NNE. I use viscoelastic models to explore what percentage of the observed deformation is transient, related to the earthquake cycle, and how much is permanent ongoing deformation, distributed off the continental margin. Previous authors have developed two competing end-member models that can each explain how the Pacific/North America plate convergence is accommodated off Haida Gwaii. These models assume either internal crustal shortening or underthrusting of the Pacific plate. These new GPS data allow me to conclude that underthrusting does occur, and that a small component (<15%) of the observed data reflects long-term deformation. South of Haida Gwaii the distinction between transient and long-term deformation is not as clear; however, I conclude that transient deformation alone cannot fully explain the observed velocities, and so long-term deformation likely must also occur. Part II of the thesis investigates the updip and downdip limits of the seismogenic zone of the Sumatra megathrust fault. Temperature and downdip changes in formation composition are controls proposed for these limits. To examine the thermal control I developed 2-D finite element models of the Sumatra subduction zone with smoothly varying subduction dip, variable thermal properties of the rock units, frictional heating along the rupture plane, and an appropriate thermal state for the incoming plate. The common updip thermal limit for seismic behaviour of 100-150°C occurs close to or at the trench in agreement with the rupture limit of the 2004 earthquake. Off central Sumatra the common downdip thermal limit range of 350-450°C occurs at 30-60 km depth. The 350°C isotherm location is in agreement with the earthquake limits but 450°C is deeper. North of Sumatra, 350°C occurs ~14 km deeper than the earthquake rupture limit. The proposed composition control for the downdip limit, the intersection of the subduction thrust with the forearc mantle, is at a depth of ~30 km, 140-200 km from the trench, in good agreement with the earthquake limits. These results support the conclusion that the Sumatra updip seismogenic limit is thermally controlled, but the downdip limit is governed by the intersection of the downgoing plate with the forearc Moho. / Graduate

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