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open access

Are Streams Protected? Outcomes of Environmental Regulation

Description: Urban areas experience the loss of natural stream channels through conversion to artificial conveyances. This process tends to target headwater and other low order streams. The purpose of this study is to determine the patterns of stream loss in Denton, Texas, and explore the regulatory structure that manages these streams. Historic and current maps and stream data are used to map Denton's streams and categorize them according to their vertical connectivity as: 1) "intact", streams that are … more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Rowen, Zachary
open access

Assessing Rainfall Interception by Urban Tree Canopies in Denton, Texas

Description: Rainfall interception is one mechanism by which tree canopies can reduce surface runoff in urban areas. The objectives of this research were to: 1) quantify rainfall interception by urban tree canopies, and 2) determine the influence of vegetation and microenvironmental factors on rainfall interception rates. In the city of Denton, Texas, 30 mature post oak (Quercus stellata) and blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica) trees were selected for study. Trees were assigned to one of three categories… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Edington, Patrick
open access

Emergency Fire Response in Ghana: The Case of Fire Stations in Kumasi

Description: Comprehensive emergency management and response is crucial for disaster prevention and health emergencies. However, in African countries with an abundance of natural disasters and a rising surge in cardiovascular and obstetric emergencies, little research exists on emergency response. This study examines the fire emergency response in Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Ghana's second largest city. We use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools including location -allocation modeling to eval… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Boakye, Kwadwo Adu
open access

The Geography of Maternal Health Indicators in Ghana

Description: Ghana is identified among the developing countries with high maternal mortality ratio in Africa. This study unpacked the Demographic and Health Survey data by examining the maternal health indicators at the district level using GIS methods. Understanding the geographic patterns of antenatal care, place of delivery, and skilled birth attendants at the small scale will help to formulate and plan for location-specific health interventions that can improve maternal health care behavior among Ghanai… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Iyanda, Ayodeji Emmanuel
open access

Reconstructing Identity with Urban Community Agriculture: How Refugees Confront Displacement, Food Insecurity, and Othering through Community Farming

Description: Ethnic and religious conflict, and the deepening of capitalism have led to global diaspora at unprecedented levels. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that as of 2015, 1 in every 122 persons worldwide were either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. The U.S. currently admits the largest number of refugees worldwide. However, policies fail to reflect the multitude of elements that constitute successful resettlement. Moreover, many refugees come from farming… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Griffin, Marinda
open access

Urban Hydraulic Rhizome: Water, Space, and the City in 20th Century North Texas

Description: During the modern era, the urbanization of water has been facilitated by various privileged discourses, which valorize major engineering interventions for the sake of continued urban growth. This research examines discourse surrounding the 2-th Century proposal and construction of a reservoir near the then-tiny farming community of Grapevine, Texas, for the benefit of urban interests. I argue that urban interests produced Grapevine space as nothing more than a container for city water, by ren… more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Simon, James-Eric H.
open access

Analyzing Tuberculosis Vulnerability and Variables in Tarrant County

Description: Over 9 million new cases of tuberculosis (TB) were reported worldwide in 2013. While the TB rate is much lower in the US, its uneven distribution and associated explanatory variables require interrogation in order to determine effective strategies for intervention and control. However, paucity of case data at fine geographic scales precludes such research. This research, using zip code level data from 837 confirmed TB cases in Tarrant County obtained from Texas Department of State Health Servic… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: McGlone, John Francis
open access

Memory and Continuity Amidst Irreversible Decline in the Texas Big Empty

Description: This thesis interrogates sense of place and place attachment in the Big Empty on the north central Texas plains. The region stretches from the Red River on the north to the Colorado River basin on the south and from the Cross Timbers on the east to the Caprock escarpment on the west. Since 1930, the Big Empty has seen sustained and severe population decline such that some counties there now register less than a quarter the population they did at their peaks during the interwar years. Through in… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Underwood, Robert Reed
open access

Parcel-Based Change Detection Using Multi-Temporal LiDAR Data in the City of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

Description: Change detection is amongst the most effective critical examination methods used in remote sensing technology. In this research, new methods are proposed for building and vegetation change detection using only LiDAR data without using any other remotely sensed data. Two LiDAR datasets from 2009 and 2013 will be used in this research. These datasets are provided by the City of Surrey. A Parcel map which shows parcels in the study area will be also used in this research because the objective of t… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Yigit, Aykut
open access

Western Spruce Budworm Effects on Throughfall C, N, and P Fluxes in a Central Washington Forest

Description: Western spruce budworm (Choristoneura occidentalis) outbreaks periodically disturb Western US conifer forests by defoliating canopies, which could alter the quantity and chemistry of throughfall delivered to the forest floor. Our objectives were to: i) quantify throughfall water, carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) fluxes under budworm-impacted canopies, and ii) examine the influence of herbivore intensity on flux magnitudes. In June 2015, we installed throughfall collectors in two … more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Bailey, Jennifer Meghan
open access

What's in Your Garden? Assessing the "Eco-friendliness" of Plant Choices of Denton, Texas Gardeners

Description: Urbanization is seen as a threat to biodiversity within urban ecosystems, which are largely reliant on humans for their composition. Two types of extremes exist in the spectrum of urban domestic gardens; on one end, the typical urban garden which is planted by landscapers at the time the house is built and is generally left unchanged, and, at the other, a "wild" landscape planted entirely with native plants which provides habitat for native fauna and pollinators. This study assesses the plant… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Cloutier, Andrea Nicole
open access

The Impact of Chinese Privet (Ligustrum Sinense) on the Survival and Re-Establishment of Native Plants at the Dallas Floodway Extension

Description: Invasive woody shrubs are a problem when they displace native species and threaten habitats, especially those that harbor rare or endangered species. They not only compete with native plants, but also alter habitat and food that many organisms depend upon. Invasive plants undergo a release from their specialist predators in the nonnative range, providing them advantages over native species. Because modes and pathways of how invasive species spread are not fully understood, predicting spread and… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Barnett, Jennifer M
open access

Looking Outward from the Village: The Contingencies of Soil Moisture on the Prehistoric Farmed Landscape near Goodman Point Pueblo

Description: Ancestral Pueblo communities of the central Mesa Verde region (CMVR) became increasingly reliant on agriculture for their subsistence needs during Basketmaker III (BMIII) through Terminal Pueblo III (TPIII) (AD 600–1300) periods. Researchers have been studying the Ancestral Pueblo people for over a century using a variety of methods to understand the relationships between climate, agriculture, population, and settlement patterns. While these methods and research have produced a well-developed c… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Brown, Andrew D
open access

Hurricane Storm Surge Sedimentation on the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge, Texas: Implications for Coastal Marsh Aggradation

Description: This study uses the storm surge sediment beds deposited by Hurricanes Audrey (1957), Carla (1961), Rita (2005) and Ike (2008) to investigate spatial and temporal changes in sedimentation rates on the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge in Southeast Texas. Fourteen sediment cores were collected along a transect extending from 90 to 1230 meters inland from the Gulf Coast. Storm-surge-deposited sediment beds were identified by texture, organic content, carbonate content, the presence of marine micro… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Hodge, Joshua B.
open access

The Landscape Legacies of Gas Drilling in North Texas

Description: In North Texas, the Barnett Shale underlies large areas of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (DFW), which magnifies debates about the externalities of shale gas development (SGD). Continued demand for natural gas and expansive urbanization in DFW will cause more people to come in contact with drilling rigs, gas transport, and other urban shale gas landscapes. Thousands of gas wells within the DFW region occupy a large, yet scattered land surface area. DFW city planners, elected officials, and oth… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Sakinejad, Michael Cyrus
open access

The Study of Temporal and Spatial Variability of Degree Day Factor of Snowmelt in Colorado

Description: Snowmelt is one of the major sources of surface water supply and ground-water recharge in high elevation areas and can also cause flooding in snow dominated watersheds. Direct estimation of daily snowmelt requires daily snow water equivalent (SWE) measurements that are not always available, especially in places without monitoring stations. There are two alternative approaches to modeling snowmelt without using direct measurements of SWE, temperature-based and energy-based models. Due to its sim… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Pokhrel, Pranav
open access

Decoding the Formation of a Retail Giant: the Evolving Geography of Costco’s Store Network

Description: Although Costco operates over 580 warehouse stores throughout North America, their location strategy remains relatively unexamined in the economic geography literature. A cursory examination of Costco’s network makes it clear that the firm chooses to locate primarily in the suburbs of major cities, where income levels are somewhat higher than the national average. However, what is not clear is the extent to which other demographic and geographic factors adequately account for Costco’s store loc… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Testa, Peter
open access

The Influence of Local Forage Variability on White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) Body Size at Fort Hood, Texas

Description: Nutritional quality and availability is thought to regulate geographic patterns of variability in animal body size due to phenotypic plasticity. The purpose of this study is to determine how vegetation quality, abundance and population density influence white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) body size on a subregional spatial scale at Fort Hood, Texas. Harvest and census records are used to test the hypothesis that white-tailed deer exhibit phenotypic plasticity (e.g. larger body size) in… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Eddins, Amy C.
open access

Influence of the Choice of Disease Mapping Method on Population Characteristics in Areas of High Disease Burdens

Description: Disease maps are powerful tools for depicting spatial variations in disease risk and its underlying drivers.  However, producing effective disease maps requires careful consideration of the statistical and spatial properties of the disease data. In fact, the choice of mapping method influences the resulting spatial pattern of the disease, as well as the understanding of its underlying population characteristics. New developments in mapping methods and software in addition to continuing improvem… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Desai, Khyati Sanket
open access

Small Town Retail Change in East Texas: an Analysis of Retail Growth, Decline, and Spatial Reconfiguration

Description: In recent years, small towns have experienced declining levels of retail activity attributable to a variety of factors. Previously conducted research identifies a number of these factors such as changing population dynamics, continuously evolving retail practices, locational factors, and an assortment of other macroeconomic factors. Although retail decline is common for many small towns, there are some small towns that have been able to maintain their viability in an ever-changing economic clim… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Whitaker, Carl W.
open access

Archaeological Site Vulnerability Modeling for Cultural Resources Management Based on Historic Aerial Photogrammetry and LiDAR

Description: GIS has been utilized in cultural resources management for decades, yet its application has been largely isolated to predicting the occurrence of archaeological sites. Federal and State agencies are required to protect archaeological sites that are discovered on their lands, but their resources and personnel are very limited. A new methodology is evaluated that uses modern light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and historic aerial photogrammetry to create digital terrain models (DTMs) capable of i… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Helton, Erin King
open access

Efficiency of Nitrate and Phosphorus Removal in a Working Rain Garden

Description: Rain gardens are low impact developments designed to mitigate a suite of issues associated with urban stormwater runoff. The site for this study was a Denton City rain garden at the Denton Waste Water Treatment Plant. Nitrogen and phosphorus removal was examined in light of two overflow events comprised of partially treated wastewater from an upslope anaerobic digester pond. Nitrate removal efficiency was examined across differing dry spell intervals of 5, 8, and 12 d, displaying a moderate neg… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Strong, Patrick
open access

Exceedance Frequency Analysis of Urban Stormwater Quality and Its Relation to Land Use Change, Denton, Texas

Description: Urbanization causes various environmental issues including water pollution, air pollution, and solid waste. Urbanization of watersheds has a profound influence on the quality of stormwater runoff. The quality of stormwater runoff is highly associated with land use. This study analyzed the exceedance frequency of stormwater quality in five watersheds of Denton over eleven years and also analyzed the relationship between stormwater quality and land use/cover of each watershed. The results showed … more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Shrestha, Manjul
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