Disaster science is a procedural field often construed as producing blanket policies that attempt to cover everyone, but the complexity of human lived experiences must have a space to exist within disaster science if its research and findings are to be effective. This thesis illustrates that disaster policies and publications often leave out the most vulnerable communities—those in greatest need of collective support. Through critically analyzing beautification through green space, discussing photovoice interviews, and by deconstructing public preparedness documents published by Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (HCOHSEM), it is clear that accumulation by dispossession filters down through not only property and money but also access to green spaces and a healthy life. By dispossessing low-income communities of their right to green spaces and life, those communities end up in places that are environmentally dangerous, leaving them at a disadvantage in the disaster preparedness and recovery process. This thesis serves as a case study highlighting how HCOHSEM failed to provide low-income communities with assistance prior to, during, and after Hurricane Harvey. The lessons from these gaps in protective measures show that public policies need to be malleable to ensure residents of any community are covered. Though no …

This study implemented a GIS-based analysis of local climate zones (LCZ) in Denton, TX with data sets from 2009, 2011, 2015, and 2016. The LCZ scheme enables evaluation of distinct regions' thermal characteristics with greater granularity than conventional urban-rural dichotomies. Further, the GIS-based approach to LCZ mapping allows use of high-resolution lidar data, the availability of which for the study area enabled estimation of geometric and surface cover parameters: height of roughness elements, sky-view factor, and building surface fraction. Pervious surface fraction was estimated from National Landcover Database impervious imagery. A regular grid was used to estimate per-cell mean values for each parameter, and with a decision-making algorithm (if/then statements) two maps were produced (2011 and 2015) and six LCZ identified in each: LCZ 6 (open low-rise), LCZ 8 (large low-rise), LCZ 9 (sparsely built), LCZ A (dense trees), LCZ B (scattered trees), and LCZ C (bush/scrub). Post-processing was carried out to ensure identified zones met the spatial minimum for qualification as LCZ. Landsat Collection 2 Level 2 surface temperature products from various seasons of 2011 and 2015 were acquired to examine LCZ thermal differentiability, and preliminary surface urban heat island intensity values were estimated. Particular attention was afforded to …

All street hawkers are not the same in many Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) of the global south as often portrayed by the media and documented in extant literature. This perception has created a gap in knowledge as researchers explore street hawking activities in NICs. In this study, I investigated a new informality trend of street hawking is coming into being within the capital city of Accra, Ghana. As governance is increasingly becoming entrepreneurial, informal activities are gradually becoming formal. Formal and registered businesses are increasingly capitalizing on hawking activities to occupy public spaces. The advent of the informality trend, I term corporate street hawking opens up new issues for the political economy, labor, and urban studies. By employing semi-structured interviews with 47 street hawkers in Accra, this paper sought to investigate three broadly interrelated questions. First, how do neoliberal policies impact the production of public space in Accra? Second, is corporate street hawking a form of creative destruction? Finally, how do corporate street hawkers practice agency within Accra?

Due to inadequate long-term and large-scale observation approach for observation of soil moisture across the globe, this study intends to unveil the importance of using simulated soil moisture fields from land surface models, forced with observed precipitation and near-surface meteorology in monitoring drought and formulating effective water management practices for continued production irrigation applications. This study shows that socio-economic and ecosystem effects can be determined by evaluating spatial-temporal changes in irrigation applications. Thus, it facilitates understanding of the importance of water management and how water, energy, and carbon flows protect our climate and environment. By using Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) in monitoring soil moisture, the information obtained is critical in providing early drought warnings, particularly in those parts of the United States that experience flash agricultural droughts. Further, this study highlights that frequent and reliable soil moisture measurements from SMAP helped improve the predictive capability of weather and climate models.