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Description
Remote sensing has demonstrated to be an instrumental tool in monitoring land changes as a result of anthropogenic change or natural disasters. Most disaster studies have focused on large-scale events with few analyzing small-scale disasters such as tornadoes. These studies have only provided a damage assessment perspective with the continued need to assess reconstruction. This study attempts to fill that void by examining recovery from the 1999 Moore, Oklahoma Tornado utilizing Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery. Recovery was assessed for 2000, 2001 and 2002 using spectral enhancements (vegetative and urban indices and a combination of the two), a recovery index and different statistical thresholds. Classification accuracy assessments were performed to determine the precision of recovery and select the best results. This analysis proved that medium resolution imagery could be used in conjunction with geospatial techniques to capture recovery. The new indices, Shortwave Infrared Index (SWIRI) and Coupled Vegetation and Urban Index (CVUI), developed for disaster management, were the most effective at discerning reconstruction using the 1.5 standard deviation threshold. Recovery rates for F-scale damages revealed that the most incredibly damaged areas associated with an F5 rating were the slowest to recover, while the lesser damaged areas associated with F1-F3 ratings were the quickest to rebuild. These findings were consistent for 2000, 2001 and 2002 also exposing that complete recovery was never attained in any of the F-scale damage zones by 2002. This study illustrates the significance the biophysical impact has on recovery as well as the effectiveness of using medium resolution imagery such as Landsat in future research.
ContributorsWagner, Melissa A (Author) / Cerveny, Randall S. (Thesis advisor) / Myint, Soe W. (Thesis advisor) / Wentz, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Brazel, Anthony J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Surveys have shown that several hundred billion weather forecasts are obtained by the United States public each year, and that weather news is one of the most consumed topics in the media. This indicates that the forecast provides information that is significant to the public, and that the public utilizes details associated with it to inform aspects of their life. Phoenix, Arizona is a dry, desert region that experiences a monsoon season and extreme heat. How then, does the weather forecast influence the way Phoenix residents make decisions? This paper aims to draw connections between the weather forecast, decision making, and people who live in a desert environment. To do this, a ten-minute survey was deployed through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in which 379 respondents were targeted. The survey asks 45 multiple choice and ranking questions categorized into four sections: obtainment of the forecast, forecast variables of interest, informed decision making based on unique weather variables, and demographics. This research illuminates how residents in the Phoenix metropolitan area use the local weather forecast for decision-making on daily activities, and the main meteorological factors that drive those decisions.
ContributorsMarturano, Julia (Author) / Middel, Ariane (Thesis director) / Schneider, Florian (Committee member) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor, Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Meteorology is an uncommon term rarely resonating through elementary classrooms. However, it is a concept found in both fourth and sixth grade Arizona science standards. As issues involving the environment are becoming more pertinent, it is important to study and understand atmospheric processes along with fulfilling the standards for each grade level. This thesis project teaches the practical skills of weather map reading and weather forecasting through the creation and execution of an after school lesson with the aide of seven teen assistants.
ContributorsChoulet, Shayna (Author) / Walters, Debra (Thesis director) / Oliver, Jill (Committee member) / Balling, Robert (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Plants are essential to human life. They release oxygen into the atmosphere for us to breathe. They also provide shelter, medicine, clothing, tools, and food. For many people, the food that is on their tables and in their supermarkets isn't given much thought. Where did it come from? What part of the plant is it? How does it relate to others in the plant kingdom? How do other cultures use this plant? The most many of us know about them is that they are at the supermarket when we need them for dinner (Nabhan, 2009) (Vileisis, 2008).
ContributorsBarron, Kara (Author) / Landrum, Leslie (Thesis director) / Swanson, Tod (Committee member) / Pigg, Kathleen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
DescriptionBased on previous research and findings it is proven that a non-profit class to create awareness will be beneficial in the prevention of eating disorders. This analysis will provide significant research to defend the proposed class.
ContributorsAllen, Brittany (Author) / Chung, Deborah (Author) / Fey, Richard (Thesis director) / Peck, Sidnee (Committee member) / Mazurkiewicz, Milena (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Restraint stress is the most commonly used laboratory stressor. It is difficult to characterize as psychological or physical, because past studies show psychological features, but the nature of confinement adds a physical dimension. This was the first study to investigate how experience with restraint stress affects brain response to the next stress without a physical burden. Pair-housed adult male rats were transported to a novel context and restrained or left undisturbed (6hr). The next day, rats were returned to the same context and were either restrained or left undisturbed in the context (n=8/group). After 90min, rats were euthanized to determine functional activation in limbic structures using Fos immunohistochemistry and to measure HPA axis reactivity through blood serum corticosterone levels. Regardless of day 1 experience, context exposure on day 2 enhanced Fos expression in CA1 and CA3 of the hippocampus, basolateral amygdala, and central amygdala. Conversely, other regions and corticosterone levels demonstrated modulation from the previous day's experience. Specifically, rats that were placed back into the restraint context but not restrained on day 2 showed enhanced Fos expression in the dentate gyrus suprapyramidal blade (DGSup), and infralimbic cortex (IL). Also Fos expression was attenuated in rats that received two restraint exposures in the IL and medial amygdala (MEA), suggesting habituation. Only the DG infrapyramidal blade (DGInf) showed enhanced Fos expression to restraint on day 2 without influence of the previous day. While context predominately directed Fos activation, prior experience with restraint influenced Fos expression in the DGSup, IL, MEA and corticosterone levels to support restraint having psychological components.
ContributorsAnouti, P. Danya (Author) / Conrad, D. Cheryl (Thesis director) / Hammer, Ronald (Committee member) / Hoffman, N. Ann (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
This dissertation research investigates both spatial and temporal aspects of Bronze Age land use and land cover in the Eastern Mediterranean using botanical macrofossils of charcoal and charred seeds as sources of proxy data. Comparisons through time and over space using seed and charcoal densities, seed to charcoal ratios, and seed and charcoal identifications provide a comprehensive view of island vs. mainland vegetative trajectories through the critical 1000 year time period from 2500 BC to 1500 BC of both climatic fluctuation and significant anthropogenic forces. This research focuses particularly on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus during this crucial interface of climatic and human impacts on the landscape. Macrobotanical data often are interpreted locally in reference to a specific site, whereas this research draws spatial comparisons between contemporaneous archaeological sites as well as temporal comparisons between non-contemporaneous sites. This larger perspective is particularly crucial on Cyprus, where field scientists commonly assume that botanical macrofossils are poorly preserved, thus unnecessarily limiting their use as an interpretive proxy. These data reveal very minor anthropogenic landscape changes on the island of Cyprus compared to those associated with contemporaneous mainland sites. These data also reveal that climatic forces influenced land use decisions on the mainland sites, and provides crucial evidence pertaining to the rise of early anthropogenic landscapes and urbanized civilization.
ContributorsKlinge, JoAnna M (Author) / Fall, Patricia L. (Thesis advisor) / Falconer, Steven E. (Committee member) / Brazel, Anthony J. (Committee member) / Pigg, Kathleen B (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The characteristics of the wintertime 500hPa height surface, the level of non-divergence and used for identifying/observing synoptic-scale features (ridges and troughs), and their impact on precipitation are of significance to forecasters, natural resource managers and planners across the southwestern United States. For this study, I evaluated the location of the 500hPa mean Pacific ridge axis over the winter for the period of 1948/49 to 2011/12 and derived the mean ridge axis in terms of location (longitude) and intensity (geopotential meters) from the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis dataset. After deriving a mean ridge axis climatology and analyzing its behavior over time, I correlated mean location and intensity values to observed wintertime precipitation in select U.S. Climate Divisions in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico. This resulted in two findings. First specific to the 500hPa ridge behavior, the ridge has been moving eastward and also has been intensifying through time. Second, results involving correlation tests between mean ridge location and intensity indicate precipitation across the selected Southwest Climate Divisions are strongly related to mean ridge intensity slightly more than ridge location. The relationships between mean ridge axis and observed precipitation also are negative, indicating an increase of one of the ridge parameters (i.e. continued eastward movement or intensification) lead to drier winter seasons across the Southwest. Increased understanding of relationships between upper-level ridging and observed wintertime precipitation aids in natural resource planning for an already arid region that relies heavily on winter precipitation.
ContributorsNolte, Jessica Marie (Author) / Cerveny, Randall S. (Thesis advisor) / Selover, Nancy J. (Committee member) / Brazel, Anthony J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Droughts are a common phenomenon of the arid South-west USA climate. Despite water limitations, the region has been substantially transformed by agriculture and urbanization. The water requirements to support these human activities along with the projected increase in droughts intensity and frequency challenge long term sustainability and water security, thus the need to spatially and temporally characterize land use/land cover response to drought and quantify water consumption is crucial. This dissertation evaluates changes in `undisturbed' desert vegetation in response to water availability to characterize climate-driven variability. A new model coupling phenology and spectral unmixing was applied to Landsat time series (1987-2010) in order to derive fractional cover (FC) maps of annuals, perennials, and evergreen vegetation. Results show that annuals FC is controlled by short term water availability and antecedent soil moisture. Perennials FC follow wet-dry multi-year regime shifts, while evergreen is completely decoupled from short term changes in water availability. Trend analysis suggests that different processes operate at the local scale. Regionally, evergreen cover increased while perennials and annuals cover decreased. Subsequently, urban land cover was compared with its surrounding desert. A distinct signal of rain use efficiency and aridity index was documented from remote sensing and a soil-water-balance model. It was estimated that a total of 295 mm of water input is needed to sustain current greenness. Finally, an energy balance model was developed to spatio-temporally estimate evapotranspiration (ET) as a proxy for water consumption, and evaluate land use/land cover types in response to drought. Agricultural fields show an average ET of 9.3 mm/day with no significant difference between drought and wet conditions, implying similar level of water usage regardless of climatic conditions. Xeric neighborhoods show significant variability between dry and wet conditions, while mesic neighborhoods retain high ET of 400-500 mm during drought due to irrigation. Considering the potentially limited water availability, land use/land cover changes due to population increases, and the threat of a warming and drying climate, maintaining large water-consuming, irrigated landscapes challenges sustainable practices of water conservation and the need to provide amenities of this desert area for enhancing quality of life.
ContributorsKaplan, Shai (Author) / Myint, Soe Win (Thesis advisor) / Brazel, Anthony J. (Committee member) / Georgescu, Matei (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
I present the results of studies from two historically separate fields of research: heat related illness and human thermal comfort adaptation. My research objectives were: (a) to analyze the relationships between climate and heat related morbidity in Phoenix, Arizona and Chicago, Illinois; (b) explore possible linkages of human thermal comfort adaptation to heat-related illness; and (c) show possible benefits of collaboration between the two fields of research. Previous climate and mortality studies discovered regional patterns in summertime mortality in North America: lower in hot, southern cities compared to more temperate cities. I examined heat related emergency (911) dispatches from these two geographically and climatically different cities. I analyzed with local weather conditions with 911 dispatches identified by responders as "heat" related from 2001 to 2006 in Phoenix and 2003 through 2006 in Chicago. Both cities experienced a rapid rise in heat-related dispatches with increasing temperature and heat index, but at higher thresholds in Phoenix. Overall, Phoenix had almost two and half times more heat-related dispatches than Chicago. However, Phoenix did not experience the large spikes of heat-related dispatches that occurred in Chicago. These findings suggest a resilience to heat-related illness that may be linked to acclimatization in Phoenix. I also present results from a survey based outdoor human thermal comfort field study in Phoenix to assess levels of local acclimatization. Previous research in outdoor human thermal comfort in hot humid and temperate climates used similar survey-based methodologies and found higher levels of thermal comfort (adaptation to heat) that in warmer climates than in cooler climates. The study presented in this dissertation found outdoor thermal comfort thresholds and heat tolerance levels in Phoenix were higher than previous studies from temperate climates more similar to Chicago. These differences were then compared to the differences in weather conditions associated with heat-related dispatches. The higher comfort thresholds in Phoenix were similar in scale to the climate differences associated with the upsurge in heat-related dispatches in Phoenix and Chicago. This suggests a link between heat related illness and acclimatization, and illustrates potential for collaboration in research between the two fields.
ContributorsHartz, Donna (Author) / Brazel, Anthony J. (Thesis advisor) / Heisler, Gordon (Committee member) / Cerveny, Randal (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012