Comparing remote sensing and ground-based methods of quantifying cover type and carbon storage in an urban forest

Understanding the canopy cover of an urban environment leads to better estimates of carbon storage and more informed management decisions by urban foresters. The most commonly used method for assessing urban forest cover type extent is ground surveys, which can be both timeconsuming and expensive. The analysis of aerial photos is an alternative method that is faster, cheaper, and can cover a larger number of sites, but may be less accurate. The objectives of this paper were (1) to compare three methods of cover type assessment for Los Angeles, CA: handdelineation of aerial photos in ArcMap, supervised classification of aerial photos in ERDAS Imagine, and ground-collected data using the Urban Forest Effects (UFORE) model protocol; (2) to determine how well remote sensing methods estimate carbon storage as predicted by the UFORE model; and (3) to explore the influence of tree diameter and tree density on carbon storage estimates. Four major cover types (bare ground, fine vegetation, coarse vegetation, and impervious surfaces) were determined from 348 plots (0.039 ha each) randomly stratified according to land-use. Hand-delineation was better than supervised classification at predicting ground-based measurements of cover type and UFORE model-predicted carbon storage. Most error in supervised classification resulted from shadow, which was interpreted as unknown cover type. Neither tree diameter or tree density per plot significantly affected the relationship between carbon storage and canopy cover. The efficiency of remote sensing rather than in situ data collection allows urban forest managers the ability to quickly assess a city and plan accordingly while also preserving their often-limited budget.

ENHANCING COMMUNICATION THROUGH SUCCESSFUL REPAIR: EXAMINING FLUENCY AND MECHANISMS FOR SYNTACTIC PROGRESS IN APHASIC AND NON-APHASIC SPEECH

The fields of Rhetoric and Communication usually assume a competent speaker who is able to speak well with conscious intent; however, what happens when intent and comprehension are intact but communicative facilities are impaired (e.g., by stroke or traumatic brain injury)? What might a focus on communicative success be able to tell us in those instances? This project considers this question in examining communication disorders through identifying and analyzing patterns of (dis) fluent speech between 10 aphasic and 10 non-aphasic adults. The analysis in this report is centered on a collection of data provided by the Aphasia Bank database. The database’s collection protocol guides aphasic and non-aphasic participants through a series of language assessments, and for my re-analysis of the database’s transcripts I consider communicative success is and how it is demonstrated during a re-telling of the Cinderella narrative. I conducted a thorough examination of a set of participant transcripts to understand the contexts in which speech errors occur, and how (dis) fluencies may follow from aphasic and non-aphasic participant’s speech patterns. An inductive mixed-methods approach, informed by grounded theory, qualitative, and linguistic analyses of the transcripts functioned as a means to balance the classification of data, providing a foundation for all sampling decisions. A close examination of the transcripts and the codes of the Aphasia Bank database suggest that while the coding is abundant and detailed, that further levels of coding and analysis may be needed to reveal underlying similarities and differences in aphasic vs. non-aphasic linguistic behavior. Through four successive levels of increasingly detailed analysis, I found that patterns of repair by aphasics and non-aphasics differed primarily in degree rather than kind. This finding may have therapeutic impact, in reassuring aphasics that they are on the right track to achieving communicative fluency.