Author

Kuster, Charles

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Meteorology)

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Recent natural disasters have highlighted the need to understand how society prepares for and copes with these events. This study used GIS to examine the 22 May 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado and the 20 May 2013 Moore, Oklahoma tornado to determine the potential impacts of place-based social vulnerability on tornado fatalities and recovery. Z-scores were calculated for various demographic variables such as manufactured home density, population density, and median age to determine relative social vulnerability. The composite Z-score provided a good measure of relative social vulnerability for each census tract and was therefore mapped along with the tornado track and tornado fatalities. The map-based analysis revealed a probable connection between social vulnerability and tornado fatalities. In general, the highest concentration of fatalities occurred in census tracts with the highest social vulnerability. This was especially apparent with the Joplin tornado. An analysis of land use land cover showed a higher fatality rate per square kilometer of developed space in Joplin than in Moore. This result may arise from the higher overall social vulnerability in Joplin as compared to Moore. Since a relationship appeared to exist between social vulnerability and tornado fatalities, the analysis was extended to another large city (Memphis, Tennessee) that could be impacted by a tornado in the future in an effort to highlight portions of the city that should 1) be more prepared for natural disaster impacts due to their increased vulnerability, and 2) receive additional aid from first responders in the event of a damaging tornado. Ultimately, maps such as the ones generated in this study could reveal areas of a population center that need to mitigate against tornado impacts (e.g., construct community tornado shelters) and receive immediate attention in the wake of a tornado. Both of these actions could decrease the number of tornado fatalities in the future.

Author

Yuting , Zhou

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology)

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: Grasslands in the Southern Great Plains of the United States are sensitive to drought. Previous studies have utilized a variety of methods and indices to monitor drought and assess the impacts. These drought indices were based on climate data such as precipitation and surface air temperature. However, water-related vegetation indices such as land surface water index (LSWI) have not been widely used as an indicator of drought severity at large scales. In this study, we analyzed land surface temperature (LST) data (MYD11A2) and LSWI data (MOD09A1) from 2006 and 2007 (H10V05, covering parts of Oklahoma and Kansas) to assess drought. First, LST data from an entire year were used to define and map the temperature-defined plant growing season (start and end dates as well as duration of LST > 5 °C). Second, LSWI data from within the LST-based growing season were used to assess vegetation growing condition and delineate the LSWI-based growing season (between the first date and the last date when LSWI > 0). The number of days with LSWI < 0 within the LSWI-based growing season is around zero in a year without summer droughts (e.g. 2007), but increases substantially in a year with severe summer droughts (e.g. 2006), varying between 100 to 150 day. Four levels (severe drought, moderate drought, abnormally dry, and no drought) of drought indicators were used to define the drought severity of grasslands based on the length of the LSWI-based growing season and the total number of LSWI < 0. Preliminary results revealed that the frequency of LSWI < 0 within the LSWI-defined growing season corresponded well with the drought condition in 2006. The LSWI-based approach developed in this study, at a spatial resolution of 500-m and a temporal resolution of 8-day, may provide an additional drought indicator in the Southern Great Plains.

Author

Leal, Eleazar

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Computer Science)

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Global remote sensing and large-scale environmental modeling have generated huge amounts of raster geospatial data. While the inherent data parallelism of large-scale raster geospatial data allows straightforward coarse-grained parallelization at the chunk level on CPUs, it is largely unclear how to effectively exploit such data parallelism on massively parallel General Purpose Graphics Processing Units (GPGPUs) that require fine-grained parallelization. We develop an encoding algorithm and obtained a fine-grained implementation of this algorithm using NVIDIA CUDA GPGPU to code raster geospatial data into a spatial data structure called BQ-Tree. This structure allows efficient spatio-temporal data compression and query processing.

Author

Barker, Danielle

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Regional and City Planning)

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While cities understand the importance of mapping out storm shelters, finding the right program that will work for their city can be difficult. This is especially true when trying to find a program that can be utilized immediately after a disaster. The City of Bethany wanted a program that would be used well into the future, while remaining user friendly. After researching the various mapping programs that are currently out there as well as speaking with various cities in the region, Marplot was chosen as the best fit. Marplot is a unique tool that is designed to be used for various firefighting and emergency management purposes, including chemical spills. This program allows not only mapping out the storm shelters, but also mapping out parking complaints as well as updating the zoning map. Through the usage of the program it has proven to be an efficient and viable option.

Author

Nam, Mija

Institution (department)

College of Architecture (Regional and City Planning)

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1.The goal for this project is to figure out tornado preparedness and response in the "Tornado Ally" which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The tornado is the most unique nature disaster in the world but any states do not change their tornado alley zoning code to help protect people. I will initiate to make good zoning code such as frame structural systems, common shelters and basements in the Tornado Alley.During a tornado, people face hazards from extremely high winds and risk being struck by flying and falling objects. After a tornado, the wreckage left behind poses additional injury risks. Although nothing can be done to prevent tornadoes, there are actions you can take for your health and safety. We need more strong preparedness and response in terms of urban planning and design. To reach this goal I analyze 1950- 2010 tornado information from NOAA and 2010 US Census in GIS.

Author

Nam, Mija

Institution (department)

College of Architecture, OU (Regional and City Planning)

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The county of Henderson is called a typical mountain county,because it consists of these elements: mountain ranges,isolated peaks, a rolling plateau and level valley areas. I will identify county’s urban growth to predict future urban development using GIS information.In order to make decision for the more development planners need to know and analyze past urban growth patterns. Especially,since Herderson County is surrounded by mountains,planners should consider appropriate areas to develop.

Author

Hasan, Emad

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Geoinformatics)

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Central Eastern Desert (CED), Egypt has long history of gold exploration and exploitation. In this study, we integrated Spectral Angular Mapper (SAM) technique and aeromagnetic data to map the gold mineralization associated within alteration zones in CED. The spectral reflectance curves of five main alteration minerals (Hematite, Illite, Kaolinite, Chlorite, and Quartz) were utilized as end members in the SAM supervised classification of ETM+ data. Each alteration mineral type was represented as a binary image that overlaid together to obtain single primary alteration map in CED. The possible pathways for the alteration migration was defined based on the subsurface and surface lineation features. For the subsurface lineation, Euler deconvolution filter was applied on the aeromagnetic data to locate the deep-seated faults. The surface lineation and shear zones were extracted from ETM+ data and used together with the subsurface lineation map to obtain a structural map. Layer intersection and fuzzy membership operation were applied for the entire datasets to identify the possible sites of alteration zones. Several GPS readings were taken from the field areas around the gold mine sites, and used as validation points for our primary results.

Author

Zhang, Yao

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology)

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Drought and heat waves greatly influenced vegetation growth and photosynthesis. With an increasing frequency, these extreme climate events could alter the carbon cycle at regional and continental scales. To better understand the impacts of drought and heat wave on vegetation and carbon fluxes in temperate terrestrial ecosystems, we first evaluated three vegetation indices (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), and Land Surface Water Index (LSWI)) during 2000-2013 to determine the sensitivity of these vegetation indices to drought and heat waves in 2003 at 14 CO2 eddy covariance flux tower sites in Europe. We then ran the satellite-based Vegetation Photosynthesis Model (VPM) at these sites and compared gross primary production (GPP) estimates from the VPM model (GPPVPM) with estimates from the eddy covariance measurements (GPPEC). The VPM model is driven by climate data (air temperature and photosynthetically active radiation) and two vegetation indices (EVI and LSWI). The comparison shows that the VPM model has a good capability in predicting vegetation photosynthesis in both normal and drought periods. The results from this research work not only reveals the various sensitivity of NDVI, EVI and LSWI to drought and heat wave in 2003, in Europe, but also shows that the VPM model is a robust tool for modeling GPP in terrestrial ecosystems in Europe.

Author

Contina, Andrea

Institution (department)

Oklahoma Biological Survey - OU (Department of Biology)

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Painted Buntings (i/Passerina ciris/i) tracked with geolocators perform a loop migration that appears to follow seasonal shifts in primary productivity. We used agent-based models to search for optimal migration routes and then compared the best virtual migration tracks to real tracks. We concluded that primary productivity appears to be a major determinant of migration strategies in western migratory birds. In the future we will apply this agent-based modeling framework to plot migration maps and to predict avian responses to biofuel crop conversion within the South Central United States.

Author

Nguyen, Nhan

Institution (department)

College of Public Health, OUHSC (Biostatistics and Epidemiology)

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The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues. It is designed to assist blind, aged, and disabled people meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter on a daily basis. This study aims to explore the prevalence of SSI recipients across the counties in Oklahoma and to assess the difference of SSI recipients’ prevalence among counties. Data for the SSI recipients of all ages and an estimate of the total population by counties in Oklahoma from 2011-2013 were acquired from the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Census. Using Chi-square statistics significant difference of prevalence of SSI recipients among 77 counties was appraised. There is a significant difference in prevalence of SSI recipients among counties in Oklahoma. Canadian, Cleveland, Marshall, and Sequoyah are counties that have a significant higher prevalence of SSI recipients as compared to other counties. This result might entail further exploratory investigation of the possible associated demographic and economic factors such as poverty and unemployment in these counties to better understand the relationship between these factors and the prevalence of SSI recipients.

Author

Holland, Kaitie

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Geography )

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This paper analyzes the use of GIS in emergency response programs and more specifically, the use of GIS in response to the May 2013 tornado that took place in Moore, Oklahoma. As residents of Oklahoma, this event was particularly important to us, and we wanted to assess the way that GIS could be utilized to prepare for and respond to tornadoes. First, we conducted research on how GIS is ideally used for emergency response and we found a number of papers illustrating how GIS is valuable at each step of emergency management. These steps are 1) planning, 2) risk mitigation, 3) preparedness, 4) response, and 5) recovery (both short-term and long-term). Then, we conducted more research on the use of GIS in the case of the May 2013 tornado and found our most valuable resources to be a Service Assessment of the National Weather Service and a long-term recovery plan from the City of Moore. By comparing the way that GIS was used in the Moore tornado with the way that GIS should ideally be used, we are able to assess the utilization of GIS in the May tornado and recognize where it was appropriately used, and where there is room for improvement.

Author

Allison, Brenda

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Biology)

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The toxigenic, invasive alga Prymnesium parvum is a harmful bloom-forming algal species that has been implicated in large fish kills across the United States since its first appearance in the 1980’s. Several environmental parameters, specifically salinity, have been shown to be predictive indicators of blooms and some evidence suggests that this species may have widespread distribution in low cell densities with blooms only occurring when optimal conditions arise. It has been suggested that oil and gas drilling equipment may serve as a vector to spread P. parvum while wastewater injection may contribute to changes in environmental conditions, such as increased salinity levels, which promote blooms. We created a novel map of P. parvum blooms at the county level and, using ArcGIS, compared the proportion of verified bloom counties falling within U.S. oil and gas basins to those outside of the basins. We found that 53 of the 72 counties with P. parvum blooms fell within the basins and produced a statistically significant correlation. While this relationship has been found between blooms and natural resource extraction locales, the exact mechanism behind the relationship, such as direct spread or environmental change, cannot be determined. Many other factors, such as topography and rainfall, may play major roles in P. parvum bloom occurrences and the addition of these analyses could lead to a more complete understanding of the ecology of this invasive species.

Author

Hatzis, Josh

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability)

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The main requirements for tornado formation, Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) and vertical wind shear appear to have links to climate change. In a warmer world CAPE will likely increase while vertical wind shear will likely decrease. The interplay between these two factors makes it difficult to assess if tornado frequency or intensity will change over time, but given the destructive potential of tornadoes it is an area that needs more research. This study attempted to analyze the US tornado climatology record for changes in annual trends and then link these changes to changes in precipitation and temperature. The preliminary results show that there is a decrease in the number of days with both total tornadoes and major tornadoes, but that the days with a large number of tornadoes remain fairly consistent. Preliminary results also showed a change in the pattern of tornado frequency across the US with the eastern half of the country seeing more tornadoes while the western part of the country was seeing fewer tornadoes. This does seem to indicate that climate change is influencing tornado patterns.

Author

Bajgain, Rajen

Institution (department)

OU (Plant Biology)

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Drought affects vegetation condition and growth. The assessment of agricultural drought often uses greenness-related vegetation indices (VIs) such as normalized difference vegetation Index (NDVI), and enhanced vegetation Index (EVI). There is a need to evaluate the sensitivity of water-related vegetation index such as land surface water index (LSWI) to assess drought. In this pilot and site level study, time series NDVI, EVI and LSWI data during 2000-2013 at 500-m spatial resolution and 8-day temporal resolution from Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) were compared and analyzed for their sensitivity to drought. Two tallgrass prairie sites in the Oklahoma Mesonet network (Marena and El Reno) were selected; and each of these sites has continuous soil moisture measurements at three different depths and precipitation data during 2000-2013 at 5-minute interval. The averaged values of vegetation indices were consistently lower under drought conditions than pluvial conditions. The EVI declined more than did NDVI during the drought events of 2006 and 2012. LSWI had the largest magnitudes of decrease between the pluvial years (2007, 2013) and the drought years (2006, 2011, 2012), followed by EVI and NDVI, respectively. Green vegetation has positive LSWI values (> 0) and dry vegetation has negative LSWI values (< 0). The duration of LSWI < 0 in summer was much longer in drought years than in pluvial years, dependent on the precipitation and soil moisture in the summer. A LSWI -based drought severity scheme (> 0.1; 0.1 ~ 0; 0 ~ -0.1; < -0.1) corresponded well with the drought severity categories (0; D0; D1: D2; D3 and D4) defined by the United States Drought Monitoring (USDM). In conclusion, the number of days with LSWI < 0 during the summer and LSWI-based drought severity scheme can be simple, effective and complementary indicators for assessing agricultural drought in tallgrass prairie grasslands at 500-m spatial resolution.

Author

Phooko, Matankiso

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Department of Geography & Environmental Sustainability)

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Criminal activity is neither uniformly nor randomly distributed in space and time. Geographers can use crime mapping for prediction and modeling of crime patterns. This not only helps law enforcement evaluate their efforts in crime control and prevention but it also gives the public a better and more visual understanding of criminal statistics. Our study focuses on spatiotemporal patterns of criminal activities on the campus of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. Although crime maps are available for the Norman area, the crime on campus remains unmapped because it is within the jurisdiction of the campus police and not Norman Police Department. Using GIS technology, this project illustrates: (1) which parts of the campus have a higher incidence of criminal activity, (2) the temporal patterns of crime across the campus, and (3) the nexus between space, time and specific types of criminal activity. We created a dataset for GIS analysis using the case logs of the University of Oklahoma Police Department (OUPD). The data only includes incidents from July 2014 to September 2014 because OUPD is, in accordance with the Clery Act, required to maintain only a limited amount of case logs for the public. We geocoded the addresses to create a table of spatially referenced data points. The points were plotted on a base map of the research area and analyzed with the Kernel Density Estimation tool in ArcMap. We produced a layer that shows the “hotspots” of criminal activity at the university and feature maps related to each specific crime types. We also performed a temporal analysis and produced diagrams that show trends on a weekly, daily and hourly basis. The study shows that the most intensive crime hotspots occurred in areas with high level of convergence and social interaction. These are located in the northern part of the campus along Boyd Street as well as in the freshman dormitory areas. The temporal analysis shows the highest peak in criminal activity during the first week of the Fall 2014 semester. Overall, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday had most crime incidents. The largest number of crimes occurs at night between midnight and 3:00 AM. The three most frequent types of crime were property, vehicle and alcohol violations. There are also temporal variations in crimes within hotspot areas creating “hot times”. Both hotspot and “hot time” occurrences might depend on the spatial and temporal distribution of OUPD units. Keywords: Crime Mapping, Crime Analysis, Spatiotemporal Analysis, Geographic Information Science, Hotspot Mapping

Author

Barrett, Clay

Institution (department)

Oklahoma State Univeristy (Geography)

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Remote sensing of turbidity and chlorophyll have been well testing using Landsat data. These techniques are investigated for use on Oklahoma lakes in order to supply frequent, synoptic, and low-cost data on Oklahoma water quality.

Author

Allen, Jeremy

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Geography Dept.)

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Railroad development has long been connected to the spread of population centers throughout the United States. The construction of railroads allowed towns and states to stay connected while providing a means of transportation for export and imports. Presently, railroad development has been lagging as population centers continue to move westward. In our GIS analysis, we want to explore the current relationship between population centers and railroads in the United States today and see whether the existence of railroads today coincides with major population centers. Our analysis is not intended to look at the growth of railroads or their changing locations, but instead if railroads are still an important determinant of high-population counties. Using ArcGIS, we created a map of railroads that overlapped United States counties, and analyzed these counties based on population density to determine whether population centers and railroad development overlap now. We shall do the same with the peak of the railroad development era in 1890 and again for the 1950s to see if population centers and railroad development overlapped then. From our preliminary results, we found that most railroads overall were concentrated in the Eastern half of the country and focused on the North. As each 60 year period passed, the population density became more evenly distributed with the West and the East.

Author

Amalathithada, Perry

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Geography and Environmental Sustainability)

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Oklahoma experiences a high amount of severe weather and tornados. It has also experienced rapid population growth in and around the states urban areas. We have had many scientific advancements in technology and the field of meteorology that have focused on getting watches and warnings to people that may be in the paths of these dangerous storms. Our study is a look at the injuries and fatalities caused by these storms and if the advanced warning system is working. We have gathered data from the database at the Storm Prediction Center and focused our search on Oklahoma. We have used ArcGIS to overlay the positions of tornado touchdowns with injuries and fatalities by county over a ten year period from 2000 to 2013. Initially we hoped to find a decline in injuries and fatalities. Unfortunately this is not the case for all counties. The May tornados from 2013 were not only very powerful, but the El Reno tornado is the largest ever recorded. These tornados have higher than normal casualties and deaths, but we do feel that this will not affect to the overall trend. Years where we have more powerful tornados spike the trend.

Author

Stills, Andrew

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Geography and Environmental Sustainability)

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Ebola outbreaks in African countries have increased significantly over the past year, as well as the mortality rate. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone combined have experienced over 13,000 confirmed cases with nearly 5,000 confirmed deaths. In this study we used data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control to investigate the connection between Ebola outbreaks and the economy in African countries. Our methods of research involved using hypothesis testing to explain the relationship between GDP and the concentration of Ebola outbreaks in the African countries. Results show that countries with lower GDP levels and underdeveloped economies such as the Guinea and Sierra Leone, have a higher concentration of Ebola outbreaks. Based on our findings of GDP having a strong relationship with Ebola outbreaks, medical facilities in Uganda, Sudan, Liberia, and the Congo should ponder the idea of enhancing their supplies and quarantine protocol for containing viral outbreaks. Enhancing the amount of supplies and creating a new protocol for the Ebola virus could help lower the overall amount of infections and contain the virus more efficiently.  

Author

Petrucci, Taylor

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Geography and Environmental Sustainability)

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According to census data, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (USA) and Las Vegas, Nevada (USA) are among the states that have had high population growth rates in the United States. In particular, between 1990 and 2000, among all US cities, Las Vegas had the highest growth rate (85.2%). Oklahoma City had a population growth rate of 13.8% during the same period. As a result, their urban development is also on the rise. In this study, we aim to investigate the linkage between population growth and land cover change by comparing and contrasting land cover changes for 100x100 km areas around Las Vegas and Oklahoma City in four years: 1992, 2001, 2006, and 2011 by using the National Land Cover Datasets. The results showed that both urban and forested areas increased in Las Vegas (by 120% for urban and 21% for forest) and in Oklahoma City (by 142% for urban and 8% for forest) between 1992 and 2011. Despite the higher population growth rate in Las Vegas than in Oklahoma City, Las Vegas had a lower percentage increase in urban land cover than Oklahoma City. The findings imply that Las Vegas has been growing up while Oklahoma City has been growing out.

Author

Castleberry, Becca

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability)

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Although Oklahoma is not typically associated with winemaking, the state stands in the top twenty for number of wineries in the United States. We wanted to research which regions of Oklahoma contain the most suitable climate and geography for wine production. This project compares the conditions of various parts of the state where winemaking is prevalent to one another as well as to the ideal conditions for wine production. Using ArcGIS, we created a map of Oklahoma by overlaying land cover, elevation, temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture data, and then mapped point data representing Oklahoma wineries through a geocoding process. A region-to-region comparison illustrates to what extent these climatological and geographical variables have an influence on winery productivity. We found that Oklahoma has favorable geographical and climatological conditions for wine production.

Author

McLaughlin, Michael

Institution (department)

The University of Oklahoma (Geography and Environmental Sustainability)

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The purpose of this research is to obtain a spatial and temporal understanding of arrests in Oklahoma on a regional and county level. To achieve this purpose we collected and processed arrest data from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation from 2002 to 2013. The results of our analysis showed that the North and Northeast regions had an overall decline in arrests whereas the Central region showed an increase in total arrests over the same time period. The benefit of this research is to assist law enforcement in the appropriate allocation of resources.

Author

Xue, Xianwu

Institution (department)

ARRC (CEES)

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The objective of this study is to produce an observationally based monthly evapotranspiration (ET) product using the simple water balance equation across the conterminous United States (CONUS). We adopted the best quality ground- and satellite based observations of the water budget components, i.e., precipitation, runoff, and water storage change, while ET is computed as the residual. Precipitation data is provided by the bias-corrected PRISM observation-based precipitation dataset, while runoff comes from observed monthly streamflow values at 678 USGS stream gauging stations that have been screened by strict quality controls. We developed a hydrological model-based downscaling approach to disaggregate the monthly GRACE equivalent water thickness data to daily, 0.125º values. The derived ET computed as the residual from the water balance equation is evaluated against three data sets of existing ET products. The similar spatial patterns and small differences between the retrieved ET in this study and the other three ET products show the reliability of the observationally based approach. The new ET product and the disaggregated GRACE data provide a unique, important hydro meteorological data set that can be used to evaluate the other ET products as a benchmark dataset, assess recent hydrological and climatological changes, and terrestrial water and energy cycle dynamics across the CONUS. These products will be also valuable for studies and applications in drought assessment, water resources management, and climate change evaluation.

Author

Abuzied, Sara

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Center for Spatial Analysis)

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The exploration of new locations for possible groundwater discharge is required to support the needs of urban and agricultural activities in arid regions such as Nuweiba area. This purpose of the study is to locate new groundwater wells that can help overcome the water shortage in support for the local inhabitants. In order to define favorable zones for groundwater discharge, we identified several essential factors contribuing to groundwater occurrances. These factors include textural classification of alluvial deposits, surface and subsurface structures, topographic parameters, geomorphological features, land use/land cover and lithological units. We developed a groundwater assessment model using data representing these factors. These data include SPOT5, SRTM, Radarsat-1, ALOS PalSAR, GPR, and geologic and topographic maps. SPOT5 was used to extract surface cover distribution, lineaments, and lithological maps. SRTM was used to extract physiographic characteristics, drainage network properties, slope, and elevation maps. A fused image of SPOT5/ Radarsat-1 was used to classify textural charcteristics of alluvial deposits. GPR and ALOS PalSAR data was used to define subsurface structure including buried faults. For final groundwater potential map, all these factors were converted to raster data to integrate spatially as important thematic layers based on weightage analysis. The produced groundwater potential map was classified to five classes including very poor to very good potentiality. The classes of groundwater potential map were checked against the distribution of the groundwater wells, Bedouin communities and agriculture areas, which reflects the overview of groundwater potential.

Author

Fagin, Todd

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Oklahoma Biological Survey)

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We compare recent measurements from networks of human observers (eBird), radar remote sensing (NEXRAD), and remote sensing derived phenology (NDVI) to quantify the phenology of songbird migration. We propose ways that these data might be integrated to leverage the strengths of each network to provide a richer understanding of songbird migration phenology.

Author

Dong, Jinwei

Institution (department)

University of OKlahoma (Earth Observation and Monitoring Facility)

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Due to increasing population and food requirement, agricultural land has been expanding in higher latitude regions under the background of global warming. One hotspot is the paddy rice expansion in the northeast Asia. However, there are no systematic observation data available for documenting spatial and temporal patterns of continuous paddy rice expansion. In this study, we developed an automated, time series Landsat-based paddy rice mapping (Landsat-RICE) platform, and used it to analyze all the available Landsat images from 1986 to 2010 (498 scenes) in one tile (path/row 113/27) in the border of China and Russia, which enabled us to track paddy rice expansion in epochs with five-year increments. The phenology-based algorithm applied is based on the unique spectral characteristic of paddy rice during the flooding/transplanting phase, which is distinguishable from other land cover types. The use of all the available Landsat images maximized effective observations of individual pixels for time series analysis. Several maps of land cover types (built-up; natural vegetation including evergreen, deciduous, and sparse vegetation; water-related types including water, mixed water and vegetation, spring flooded wetlands and summer flooded land) were generated and used as masks. Air temperature data were used to define phenology timing and crop calendar, which helps selection of images used in the phenology-based algorithms for paddy rice. The resultant maps of paddy rice were evaluated with high accuracy using high resolution images, and the producer. Paddy rice area in the study increased from 1986 to 2010, especially after late 1990s. This study demonstrates the potential of the Landsat-RICE platform and time series Landsat images on tracking agricultural land use changes at 30-m resolution.

Author

Wagle, Pradeep

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Center for Spatial Analysis)

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Accurately describing the dynamics and underlying mechanisms of exchange of carbon dioxide and water vapor fluxes between grasslands and the atmosphere is crucial to predict the impact of climate change on biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks of grasslands. This study examines the spatial and temporal dynamics of carbon and water vapor fluxes, satellite-derived vegetation properties, and the underlying mechanisms of biophysical controls at 12 grassland sites (51 site-years) in the United States (U.S.). Precipitation exerted a strong control on large spatial-temporal variations in carbon and water vapor fluxes, and vegetation productivity in grasslands. On an annual scale, most grasslands were carbon sinks under normal conditions. However, large year-to-year variability in carbon fluxes indicates that grasslands in all U.S. climatic zones could shift from carbon sink to carbon source under climatic extremes or disturbances. High levels of canopy green biomass and leaf area, as indicated by maximum enhanced vegetation index (EVI) values, were better correlated with maximum rates of gross primary production (GPP) than of evapotranspiration (ET), resulting in large spatial variations (varying from 0.67 to 2.54 g C mm-1 ET) in ecosystem water use efficiency (EWUE = annual GPP/ET) irrespective of strong coupling between GPP and ET. Greater reduction in GPP than ET at high temperature and vapor pressure deficit caused a reduction in EWUE in dry years, indicating a different response of grasslands than what has been reported for forests (increase in EWUE in dry years). Our results demonstrate the potential use of the EVI for a better understanding and upscaling of GPP and ET to larger grassland areas. However, smaller sensitivity of EVI than both GPP and ET to drought should be considered while upscaling tower fluxes over larger grassland areas, especially drought-prone regions, across complex landscapes using remote sensing.

Author

QIN, Yuanwei

Institution (department)

University of Oklahoma (Earth Observation and Modeling Facility, Center for Spatial Analysis)

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Landsat 8 imagery has a few technological improvements over Landsat TM/ETM+. Here we assessed the potential of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) imagery and the pixel- and phenology-based algorithm for identifying and mapping paddy rice planting area in 2013 in the Sanjiang Plain, Northeastern China.