As urban sprawl swallows the areas around cities, planners are looking for alternative methods of development that help to protect and preserve the environment, enhance the lives of residents, and help reduce the skyrocketing costs of maintaining sprawling infrastructure. Green Infrastructure (GI) planning principles have gained in popularity due to their holistic nature and ability to balance preservation and development. A GI plan seeks to identify the critical “green” infrastructure in an area (the environmental resources that we rely on for clean air and water) and proposes complementary development strategies. One plan component of particular interest is the analysis of the hydrologic network, since it is water quality that drives many ecological and environmental planning issues. Over the last 30 years, riparian buffering has emerged as an accepted best practice for the protection and restoration of sensitive hydrologic features.When creating a GI plan, the power of geographic information systems (GIS) is leveraged to help organize, analyze, and display the large datasets needed to synthesize the plan components. The plan components can be quite complex, and the need for solid, well-defined methodologies is great. In response, this thesis proposes a data model that defines the database structure and attributes needed for hydrologic network conservation analysis, based on research conducted during the creation of the Beaver Creek Watershed Green Infrastructure Plan in Knox County, Tennessee. The analysis methodology and some common hydrologic feature buffer practices are described. The specific methods chosen for this project are detailed and a geoprocessing model that generates the datasets necessary to visualize the hydrologic network buffers is presented.

Originally presented as author's Thesis (Ph. D.--University of Nebraska, 1933). / Includes bibliographical references (p. 345-355) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1927. / Bibliography: p. 53-54.

<p> Video games represent more than just a simple pastime for young people. With advances in technology, developers have been able to effectively mimic the human experience presenting realistic three-dimensional spaces filled with even the minutest details of everyday life, and this offers a legitimate space for scholarly analysis. Open-world games, which allow for unparalleled exploration of virtual worlds, offer gamers a look at society and culture through various lenses, offering social commentary on issues like racism, class struggle, and conspicuous consumption. "Grand Theft Auto IV" is one of the most popular games of all time, and a deeper look at the narratives within the game world of Liberty City proves that video games offer gamers more than just a mindless pastime.</p>

<p> This study examines the interaction between Georgia State University (GSU) and downtown Atlanta. As the university has grown since 2000, the dynamic between GSU and its host city has brought to light many changes. This study investigates how the university and city have changed through economic impact, crime patterns, and sense of community over the past decade of campus expansion. Three distinct, but related projects explore the topics of economic impact, crime patterns, and sense of community. The economic results show that the university's campus expansion has not significantly increased property values surrounding GSU. The crime analysis reveals that the increasing student population and campus footprint have not significantly changed crime patterns on and near campus. The sense of community study shows that students have a greater sense of school pride, and sections of downtown are painted in GSU blue as more students are wearing university-affiliated T-shirts than ever before. </p>

Climate research holds great promise for helping societies around the world adapt to what are likely to be dramatic changes in social-ecological systems in the 21st century. The climate research community has made enormous strides forward over the last 30 years in understanding how the climate system operates, the primary drivers of change, the complex interactions between humans and their landscapes, and the ways that people make decisions and utilize new information. The pace of that progress, though, has not been matched by use of all this new knowledge in climate-relevant decision processes. The work presented in this dissertation addresses this mismatch and starts with the assumption that one of the fundamental barriers between the research that we carry out and the research that gets utilized in society is the prevalence of a disconnect between scientists and those who could use scientific information. The central question that links the three articles that make up the substantive contribution of this dissertation is: how can scientists and other experts in society more successfully collaborate to develop the kinds of transgressive knowledge necessary to address complex, climate-related problems? The articles address this question by exploring and adding to theoretical insights about this disconnect (Appendix 1), describing findings from the practice of research meant to address a pressing climate-related problem (Appendix 2), and reviewing lessons we have learned from work to evaluate use-inspired, engaged climate research (Appendix 3). Each article offers specific insights and results, but collectively this work demonstrates the value and importance of transdisciplinary research that fosters integration of different kinds of knowledge to address highly complex problems.

Infectious organisms, such as dengue and West Nile viruses, are understood to be part of complex ecologies. The same is true for their common vectors, Aedes and Culex mosquitoes. Standing water, whether from human or naturally fed sources, provides the necessary breeding habitat for immature stages. Climatic variables such as temperature and rainfall can both directly impact the amount of water available for breeding. Temperature can alter this amount via evaporation, while precipitation can maintain or refill breeding sites. The effects of temperature also partially govern the lifecycle and development of these vectors and viruses. Human action and management can further mitigate these sites by eliminating them through dumping standing water or adding insecticide, or conversely promoting them. These factors can impact the spatial distribution of these organisms at multiple scales, such as global patterns of disease, as well as patterns of risk within urban areas. This dissertation examines the ecology of two mosquito-borne diseases, dengue fever and West Nile fever, at multiple scales and asks, 1. How do environmental changes shift distributions of mosquito-borne diseases? and 2. How do local actors and residents understand, respond to, and manage these emerging infections? Dengue fever is one of the most important and fastest spreading global vector-borne diseases. At a large spatio-temporal scale, potential and future dengue transmission is assessed under current and future (2045-65) climate change scenarios across the southern US. Understanding the differential impacts of climate on the Ae. aegypti mosquito and dengue virus is essential for projecting the shifting geographies of dengue fever. This includes considering both temperature and precipitation impacts. The results suggest that winter temperatures may be limiting dengue transmission in the southern US currently, but this may change under climate change. This is particularly true for the Gulf Coast region, which becomes more climatically suitable for dengue transmission under future analysis. To understand the variance of disease risk within urban spaces, the same dynamic mosquito model was coupled with remotely sensed imagery and parameterized for Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes to visualize mosquito risks across the city of Tucson. Despite an arid climate, West Nile virus is an ongoing public health concern in Arizona. The maps, visualized at multiple scales, were used to assess individual perceptions of mosquito abundance and control responsibility held by residents and health officials. The results show disparate interpretations of mosquito risk among these groups, with differing calls for responsibility and action. This further shows the ways in which maps of environmental and health hazards are not only reflective of certain landscapes, but also productive. From a public health perspective, this paper is useful for understanding shifting perceptions of disease landscapes and how they match with ecological realities. While maps and modeling techniques are useful for assessing risk over various scales, the spaces of interaction between disease vectors and humans is particularly local. These interactions, and the creation or eradication of breeding habitats, are always a simultaneous relationship between environmental factors and human action. This is particularly true for the dengue fever vector, Ae. aegypti, which lives in close proximity to humans. Grounded by fieldwork conducted in Key West, FL, the site of two years of dengue fever outbreaks in 2009 and 2010, the final component of this dissertation examines how residents in Key West understand mosquito control responsibility, and what complicates the effective control of the vector on the island. While it was found that residents are highly active in monitoring and controlling mosquitoes in and around their yards, important socio-ecological factors are identified that stand to complicate control efforts. The decisions people make about their risks and around their homes as they manage the ecological spaces of the mosquito are crucial for effective public health practice.

This dissertation examines the social construction of geographic scale by different actors in Ambos Nogales during the period 1989-1996. This period coincides with major changes in bilateral relations between Mexico and the United States resulting from negotiations prior to NAFTA, 1989-1994, and the first two years of the new agreement after it was passed in 1994. Transformations of community politics included changes in the conceptualization of space by local political agents (government officials, local NGOs, environmental groups and professional and economic associations). In the face of, or resulting from the institutional and socioeconomic changes produced in the border region, local groups are now pushed to present their specific demands in international forams. Working in new "spatial schemes", they now make efforts to connect their local realities and needs with the general framework of international institutions like NAFTA and the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission (BECC). The transformation of economic, political and social space has important implications for the social production of scale. Scales are divided into scales of regulation, which define landscapes administered by distinct decision-making bodies, and scales of meaning, which are collective or individual beliefs based on daily life experiences. After analyzing changes in the political strategies of local NGOs and government officials, I argue that the production of scale is an intrinsic element in social mobilization, providing the spatial construct that connects the different spaces where social movement find community support, political opportunities and mobilizing resources. This research expands our understanding of social mobilization processes by incorporating space and the conceptualization of space in the analysis. Space and scale are not ontological categories but social constructs with powerful discursive power for both state institutions and social movements.

Italian fertility rates have been declining since the early 1970s and are now among the lowest in the world. Italy itself, however, remains characterized by wide differences across its regions. Speaking only of national-level fertility trends obscures the true picture of Italian fertility over the past several decades and risks oversimplifying a complex phenomenon. This dissertation suggests the Italian region as the better scale of analysis for a true understanding of Italian fertility. The three studies presented in this dissertation evaluate Italian regional fertility patterns and trends from 1952 to 1995. The first study uses shift-share analysis to show that regional changes in the numbers of births during this period can be attributed to different components, depending on the years and regions in question. The second study uses convergence analysis and demonstrates that, although a strong regional pattern is detectable in fertility rates over the past several decades, fertility rates have been converging in Italy since the 1950s. The third study links contemporary and historical regional fertility trends in Italy to show that today's regional patterns of fertility have been in evidence since the early 20th century. The paper also argues that increases in regional fertility diversity that accompanied political unification were unexpected and offers suggestions for this occurrence. Taken together, the three studies comprising this dissertation represent a thorough assessment of regional fertility in Italy.

This dissertation explores the relationship between nationalism and globalization. Today, amidst increasing levels of global displacement and deterritorialization, nationalism not only remains the most important political force in the world, but is in fact experiencing a resurgence. Unfortunately however, the theorizing of nationalism remains largely incapable of explaining why this should be so. I argue that the problem lies in the fact that nationalism is both a historical and a geographical phenomenon, yet only the construction of nationalist temporal narratives has been problematized, whereas comparative analysis of nationalist spatial narratives remains scarce. This dissertation seeks to rectify this failing by focussing on extra-territorial dimensions of nationalism, and in particular the transatlantic development of Irish nationalism, 1848-1882. In this task, it draws on the Irish nationalist press and the personal correspondence of key political actors to illuminate the manner in which numerous narratives of Irish nationalism were forged out of a web of communication between the globally dispersed Irish diaspora. I argue that a number of creative extra-territorial interventions were made in the development of Irish nationalism; interventions since marginalized in the dominant narrative of Irish nationalism. Through an analysis of the transatlantic development of Irish nationalism in the nineteenth century, this dissertation locates a number of these marginal sites to reveal the underlying hybridity of the historical narrative, thus opening up the possibility for more spatially complex models of nationalist identity formation.