Hydrologic modeling and uncertainty analysis of an ungauged watershed using mapwindow-swat

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Gas emissions on rice culture and its importance on air quality

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente Perfil Gestão de Sistemas Ambientais

Urban deforestation and urban development

This paper has developed a model of a single forest owner operating with perfect foresight in a dynamic open-city environment that allows for switching between alternative competing land uses (forest and urban use) at some point in the future. The model also incorporates external values of an even-aged standing forest in addition to the value of timber when it is harvested. Timber is exploited based on a multiple rotation model a la Faustmann with clear-cut harvesting. In contrast to previous models, our alternative land use to forest land is endogenous. Within this framework, we study the problem of the private owner as well as that of the social planner, when choosing the time to harvest, the time to convert land and the intensity of development. We also examine the extent to which the two-way linkage between urban development and forest management practices (timber production and provision of forest amenities) contributes to economic efficiency and improvements in non-market forest benefits. Finally, we consider policy options available to a regulator seeking to achieve improvements in efficiency including anti-sprawl policies (impact fees and density controls) and forest policies such a yield tax. Numerical simulations illustrate our analytical results.

Urban containment: An effective tool for environmental protection?

This paper examines the effectiveness of urban containment policies to protect forestland from residential conversion and to increase the provision of forest public goods in the presence of irreversible investments and policy uncertainty. We develop a model of a single landowner that allows for switching between competing land uses (forestry and residential use) at some point in the future. Our results show that urban containment policies can protect (even if temporarily) forestland from being developed but must be supplemented with policies that influence the length and number of harvesting cycles if the goal is to increase nontimber benefits. The threat of a development prohibition creates incentives for preemptive timber harvesting and land conversion. In particular, threatened regulation creates an incentive to shorten rotation cycles to avoid costly land-use restrictions. However, it has an ambiguous effect on forestland conversion as the number of rotation cycles can also be adjusted to maximize the expected returns to land. Finally, in the presence of irreversibility, forestland conversion decisions should be done using real option theory rather than net present value analysis

The uneasy case for lower parking standards

Minimum parking requirements are the norm for urban and suburban development in the United States (Davidson and Dolnick (2002)). The justification for parking space requirements is that overflow parking will occupy nearby street or off-street parking. Shoup (1999) and Willson (1995) provides cases where there is reason to believe that parking space requirements have forced parcel developers to place more parking than they would in the absence of parking requirements. If the effect of parking minimums is to significantly increase the land area devoted to parking, then the increase in impervious surfaces would likely cause water quality degradation, increased flooding, and decreased groundwater recharge. However, to our knowledge the existing literature does not test the effect of parking minimums on the amount of lot space devoted to parking beyond a few case studies. This paper tests the hypothesis that parking space requirements cause an oversupply of parking by examining the implicit marginal value of land allocated to parking spaces. This is an indirect test of the effects of parking requirements that is similar to Glaeser and Gyourko (2003). A simple theoretical model shows that the marginal value of additional parking to the sale price should be equal to the cost of land plus the cost of parking construction. We estimate the marginal values of parking and lot area with spatial methods using a large data set from the Los Angeles area non-residential property sales and find that for most of the property types the marginal value of parking is significantly below that of the parcel area. This evidence supports the contention that minimum parking requirements significantly increase the amount of parcel area devoted to parking.

Ensemble classifiers in remote sensing: a comparative analysis

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Determination of the most suitable oil pipeline route using GIS least cost path analysis

The Keystone XL has a big role for transforming Canadian oil to the USA. The function of the pipeline is decreasing the dependency of the American oil industry on other countries and it will help to limit external debt. The proposed pipeline seeks the most suitable route which cannot damage agricultural and natural water recourses such as the Ogallala Aquifer. Using the Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques, the suggested path in this study got extremely high correct results that will help in the future to use the least cost analysis for similar studies. The route analysis contains different weighted overlay surfaces, each, was influenced by various criteria (slope, geology, population and land use). The resulted least cost path routes for each weighted overlay surface were compared with the original proposed pipeline and each displayed surface was more effective than the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Identifying the urban communities of New York City using bikeshare data from NYC citibike

This study identifies a measure of the cultural importance of an area within a city. It does so by making use of origindestination trip data and the bike stations of the bike share system in New York City as a proxy to study the city. Rarely is movement in the city studied at such a small scale. The change in strength of the similarity of movement between each station is studied. It is the first study to provide this measure of importance for every point in the system. This measure is then related to the characteristics which make for vibrant city communities, namely highly mixed land use types. It reveals that the spatial pattern of important areas remains constant over differing time periods. Communities are then characterised by the land uses surrounding these stations with high measures of importance. Finally it identifies the areas of global cultural importance alongside the areas of local importance to the city.

Uso da Detecção Remota na Caracterização da Paisagem do Município de Humpata, Angola

O desenvolvimento da tecnologia em Sistemas de Informação Geográfica (SIG) bem como da Detecção Remota como ciências técnicas apresentam grande valor aplicacional no Ordenamento do Território e, de forma particular, o uso de certas ferramentas analíticas permitem analisar as alterações ou mudanças que ocorrem na paisagem. A presente dissertação tem como objectivo principal caracterizar e avaliar a Paisagem no município de Humpata, Angola. A análise da paisagem desenvolveu-se a partir de uma abordagem metodológica, centrada em duas componentes fundamentais: a estrutura e as funções da paisagem. Para a referida análise, recorreu-se a quantificação de alguns índices referente a métricas de área, forma, agregação e diversidade ao nível da «mancha», «classe» e da «paisagem» em quatro quadrantes (Noroeste, Nordeste, Sudeste e Sudoeste) referentes à área de estudo. Da análise dos resultados, e tendo em conta os objectivos propostos, podemos compreender como as manchas variam nas distintas classes discriminadas na carta de ocupação do solo entre os quadrantes acima referenciados, ao nível da «mancha», «classe» e da «paisagem». A abordagem aplicacional suportou a análise comparada do padrão espacial paisagem considerando as diferenças existentes entre a área da paisagem, forma da paisagem, número de manchas, distâncias entre manchas, de entre outras. Os resultados permitiram avaliar a diversidade e heterogeneidade da paisagem tendo em conta a dominância de classes de ocupação do solo no município de Humpata (2013)