This dissertation focuses on the lived, material realities of rural women, men, girls, and boys struggling to make a living in the context of changing national development priorities and changing environmental conditions in Southern Province, Zambia. Over the last 20 years, Gwembe Tonga migrants living in the frontier farming area of Kulaale have witnessed significant declines in non-cultivated “bush” resources due to the conversion of forest and grassland to agricultural uses. This dissertation seeks to understand how women, men, boys, and girls differently experience these declines according to local gender- and age-based divisions of subsistence labor. Drawing on a variety of theoretical lenses—including Feminist Geography, Feminist Political Ecology, African Feminisms, the Anthropology of Childhood, and the Anthropology of the State—and utilizing a unique blend of qualitative/ethnographic and quantitative/geospatial research methods, this study finds that the “extractive workloads” (the average annual distance traveled for the collection of key bush resources) associated with women, men, girls, and boys are both unequal and contrary to recent speculations about the distinctive vulnerability of adult women to environmental change. The unequal labor burdens associated with the extraction of bush resources in this changing frontier landscape are but one of several missing “links” that this dissertation identifies within current theorizing about the gendered dimensions of environmental change. Other “links” include the social organization and religious life of Gwembe Tonga migrants, the demographic structure of Kulaale homesteads (their organization on the landscape and their demographic composition), the interplay between agency and vulnerability in children’s daily lives, and the role of the state in shaping Kulaale residents’ perceptions of and interactions with the surrounding environment. This story of Gwembe Tonga migrants’ gendered and aged experiences of environmental change unfolds in the context of competing national economic strategies—frontier development wildlife conservation. This dissertation concludes that women, men, girls, and boys are all physically and economically vulnerable to the changes associated with frontier development, conservation policy, and environmental change, with social, political, and economic factors prompting them to experience vulnerability in aged and gendered ways.

Movement of growth faults, a type of normal fault which is formed during sedimentation and is characterized by having greater vertical thickness on the downthrown fault side, on barrier islands contributes to wetland losses. The opening objective of this study was to quantify land cover change within a Matagorda, Texas wetland that results from sea level rise and elevation change over time due to coastal faulting. The closing objective of this study was to simulate land cover conversion as a function of relative sea level rise (RSLR) within the wetland and to compare and contrast the impact of specific rates of both fault-induced elevation change and predicted International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sea level rise projections. To accomplish these objectives a time series of aerial images was classified using automated unsupervised classification and hand digitization. After classification, total wetland losses on both the upthrown and downthrown sides of the fault were evaluated as a function of spatial distance from the fault plane. This classified product was draped over a digital elevation model (DEM) layer to evaluate elevations of land cover classes and model potential future outcomes based on RSLR. Classification results show that while wetland loss occurred on both sides of the fault, losses were far more extensive on the downthrown side. It was concluded that this vertical fault movement impacts wetland losses, especially on the downthrown side. Modeling results show that rapid water level rise can force wetland land cover class conversion regardless of whether this relative rise is caused by vertical fault displacement or eustatic sea level rise, resulting in the destruction of vital wetland areas. Current recorded conditions of sea level rise along the Texas Gulf Coast leave a grim outlook for regions similar to this study area.

abstract: Rapid urbanization and population growth occurring in the cities of South Western United States have led to significant modifications in its environment at local and regional scales. Both local and regional climate changes are expected to have massive impacts on the hydrology of Colorado River Basin (CRB), thereby accentuating the need of study of hydro-climatic impacts on water resource management in this region. This thesis is devoted to understanding the impact of land use and land cover (LULC) changes on the local and regional hydroclimate, with the goal to address urban planning issues and provide guidance for sustainable development. In this study, three densely populated urban areas, viz. Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver in the CRB are selected to capture the various dimensions of the impacts of land use changes on the regional hydroclimate in the entire CRB. Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model, incorporating the latest urban modeling system, is adopted for regional climate modeling. Two major types of urban LULC changes are studied in this Thesis: (1) incorporation of urban trees with their radiative cooling effect, tested in Phoenix metropolitan, and (2) projected urban expansion in 2100 obtained from Integrated Climate and Land Use Scenarios (ICLUS) developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency for all three cities. The results demonstrated prominent nocturnal cooling effect of due to radiative shading effect of the urban trees for Phoenix reducing urban surface and air temperature by about 2~9 °C and 1~5 °C respectively and increasing relative humidity by 10~20% during an mean diurnal cycle. The simulations of urban growth in CRB demonstratedii nocturnal warming of about 0.36 °C, 1.07 °C, and 0.94 °C 2m-air temperature and comparatively insignificant change in daytime temperature, with the thermal environment of Denver being the most sensitive the urban growth. The urban hydroclimatic study carried out in the thesis assists in identifying both context specific and generalizable relationships, patterns among the cities, and is expected to facilitate urban planning and management in local (cities) and regional scales. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 2017

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第20816号 / 農博第2256号 / 新制||農||1055(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H30||N5098(農学部図書室) / 京都大学大学院農学研究科森林科学専攻 / (主査)教授 神﨑 護, 教授 北島 薫, 教授 德地 直子 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

This study compares suspended sediment and land use/land cover in the watershed of Weeks Bay, Alabama. Using Landsat thematic mapper imagery, potential high and low erosion sites were determined based on the increase in urban development form 2002 to 2005. In situ sediment sampling was used to test the hypothesis that the high erosion potential sites have larger amounts of suspended sediments. Additionally, sampling was performed along the Fish and Magnolia rivers to establish a background total suspended sediment level. The background study established an average total suspended sediment concentration of 18.71 mg/L for the Fish River and 17.47 mg/L for the Magnolia River, which are higher than previous studies. The results of the comparison between suspended sediments and land use/land cover proved to be more complex than expected due to variation in precipitation, to the 30 m satellite resolution, and to the criteria for classifying urban land use.

No description available.

Malaria is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity globally. Land use/land cover (LULC) change have been found to affect the transmission and distribution of malaria in other regions, but no study has attempted to examine such relationships in Nepal. Therefore, this study was conducted in Nepal to assess LULC change between 2000 and 2010, to study the spatial and temporal trend of malaria incidence rate (MIR) between 1999 and 2015, and to understand the relationship between LULC and malaria. The land cover types used for this study are forest, water bodies, agriculture, grassland, shrubland, barren areas, built-up areas and paddy areas. Change detection techniques were used to study LULC change. The temporal trend of MIR in 58 districts, and the relationship between MIR and LULC were evaluated using Poisson and negative binomial regression. Forest, water bodies, snow cover, and built-up area increased in Nepal by 28.5%, 2.96%, 55.12% and 21.19% respectively while the rest of the LULC variables decreased. MIR decreased significantly in 21 districts; however, four districts namely Pyuthan, Kaski, Rupandehi and Siraha had a significantly increasing trend of MIR. During 2001, 2002, and 2003, MIR was positively related to water bodies and paddy areas. Similarly, MIR of 2010 was negatively related to grassland. However, there was no relationship between LULC and MIR in 2000, 2011, 2012 and 2013. It may be because MIR is decreasing significantly in the country and thus the influence of LULC change is also decreasing. / MS

Master of Science / Department of Geography / Douglas G. Goodin / Volyn Oblast in Western Ukraine has experienced substantial land use/land cover change over the last 25 years as a result of a change in political systems. Remote sensing provides a framework to quantify this change without extensive field work or historical land cover records. In this study, land change is quantified utilizing a post-classification change detection technique comparing Landsat imagery from 1986-2011(Post-Soviet era began 1991). A variety of remote sensing classification methods are explored to take advantage of spectral and spatial variation within this complex study area, and a hybrid scheme is ultimately utilized. Land cover from the CORINE classification scheme is then converted to the EUNIS habitat classification scheme to analyze how land cover change has affected habitat fragmentation. I found large scale agricultural abandonment, increases in forested areas, shifts towards smaller scale farming practices, shifts towards mixed forest structures, and increases in fragmentation of both forest and agricultural habitat types. These changes could have several positive and negative on biodiversity, ecosystems, and human well-being.

Changes in land use and land cover are associated with many environmental issues observed on the earth’s surface. In the last decades, these changes were unprece-dented, mainly in tropical forest areas. The Brazilian Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest, lost around 200.000 km² of primary forest in the last ten years (INPE, 2005). Considering this, and the consequences caused by this deforestation, it is important to know and define correctly the responsible agents, aiming at better pub-lic policies that can help preserve the forest. Searching for indicators that could help to identify the deforestation agents, some studies, such as Mertens and Lambin (1997), suggest that every deforestation process shapes the forest land in a specific way, producing a spatial pattern that can be interpreted as indicative of the agents with specific economic activities. Based on this hypothesis, the objective of this study was to contribute to a better understanding of land change processes in the Amazon forest, investigating the linkages between spatial patterns of deforestation, as visualized in satellite images, and different agents and their specific economic activities. To reach this objective, our methodological approach was based on socio-economic data acquired at a household level combined with data from satellite im-ages. First, different spatial patterns of deforestation were identified on the satellite images, based on the typologies proposed by Husson et al. (1995). Then, some of the identified spatial patterns were isolated and analyzed for specific aspects, such as, the deforestation rate calculated through satellite images. socio-economic character-istics based on household survey data and evolution of land use and land cover based on thematic maps derived from satellite images. In addition, cluster analysis was applied using the socio-economic data (household survey) and land use and land cover data (satellite images) in a search for homogeneous groups related to the spa-tial pattern. In the end, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was applied to confirm the differences between spatial patterns. The results suggested that the different spatial patterns of deforestation found in the study area can be related to specific economic activities. Nevertheless, the re-sults have indicated that the spatial configuration is not a consequence of its main economic activity. They suggest that the spatial configuration is linked to the settle-ment project, and the main economic activity in the spatial patterns is a consequence of a set of factors such as: size of property, location and disposition of the property, presence or absence of infrastructure (road, market, transportation, economic and technical).

abstract: This dissertation research studies long-term spatio-temporal patterns of surface urban heat island (SUHI) intensity, urban evapotranspiration (ET), and urban outdoor water use (OWU) using Phoenix metropolitan area (PMA), Arizona as the case study. This dissertation is composed of three chapters. The first chapter evaluates the SUHI intensity for PMA using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature (LST) product and a time-series trend analysis to discover areas that experienced significant changes of SUHI intensity between 2000 and 2017. The heating and cooling effects of different urban land use land cover (LULC) types was also examined using classified Landsat satellite images. The second chapter is focused on urban ET and the impacts of urban LULC change on ET. An empirical model of urban ET for PMA was built using flux tower data and MODIS land products using multivariate regression analysis. A time-series trend analysis was then performed to discover areas in PMA that experienced significant changes of ET between 2001 and 2015. The impact of urban LULC change on ET was examined using classified LULC maps. The third chapter models urban OWU in PMA using a surface energy balance model named METRIC (Mapping Evapotranspiration at high spatial Resolution with Internalized Calibration) and time-series Landsat Thematic Mapper 5 imagery for 2010. The relationship between urban LULC types and OWU was examined with the use of very high-resolution land cover classification data generated from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) imagery and regression analysis. Socio-demographic variables were selected from census data at the census track level and analyzed against OWU to study their relationship using correlation analysis. This dissertation makes significant contributions and expands the knowledge of long-term urban climate dynamics for PMA and the influence of urban expansion and LULC change on regional climate. Research findings and results can be used to provide constructive suggestions to urban planners, decision-makers, and city managers to formulate new policies and regulations when planning new constructions for the purpose of sustainable development for a desert city. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geography 2018