Developing a Soil Moisture-Based Irrigation Scheduling Tool (SMIST) Using Web-GIS Technology (open access)

Developing a Soil Moisture-Based Irrigation Scheduling Tool (SMIST) Using Web-GIS Technology

Software as a service (SaaS) is a primary working pattern and a significant application model for next generation Internet application. Web GIS services are the new generation of the Software as a service that can provide the hosted spatial data and GIS functionalities to the practical customized applications. This study focused on developing a webGIS based application, Soil Moisture-Based Irrigation Scheduling Tool (SMIST), for predicting soil moisture in the next seven days using the soil moisture diagnostic equation (SMDE) and the upcoming seven precipitation forecasts made by the National Weather Service (NWS), and ultimately producing an accurate irrigation schedule based on the predicted soil moisture. The SMIST is expected to be capable of improving the irrigation efficiency to protect groundwater resources in the Texas High Plains and reducing the cost of energy for pumping groundwater for irrigation, as an essential public concern in this area. The SMIST comprised an integration of web-based programs, a Hydrometeorological model, GIS, and geodatabase. It integrates two main web systems, the soil moisture estimating web application for irrigation scheduling based on the soil moisture diagnostic equation (SMDE), and an agricultural field delineation webGIS application to prepare input data and the model parameters. The SMIST takes …
Date: May 2018
Creator: Nikfal, Mohammadreza
System: The UNT Digital Library
How Receiving Communities Structure Refugee Settlement Experiences: The Case of Burmese Immigrants in DFW (open access)

How Receiving Communities Structure Refugee Settlement Experiences: The Case of Burmese Immigrants in DFW

The Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex (DFW) serves as a diverse resettlement location for globally displaced refugees. While research examines how the nation impacts refugee resettlement, studies that examine the role of the city and community in placemaking are still lacking. In city resettlement investigations, research often focuses broadly on advocacy and political movements rather than the impacts of local-level structures and policies. In this paper, I develop an evaluation model using Jenny Phillimore's categories for successful refugee resettlement that examines how structural barriers, community interactions, and resource accessibility affect space and place for refugee populations. Through an ethnography of Chin and Rohingya refugee communities in DFW, I explore the differences between community-settled and state-settled refugee groups and the idea of an integrated resettlement program. Additionally, I argue that refugees who choose their settlement location in the United States are empowered and thus have a stronger connection to their host community than state-settled refugees. For example, in interviews, the Chin emphasized their ownership of Lewisville and feelings of home, while the Rohingya expressed feelings of placelessness and dispossession in Dallas. As governments push towards an entirely privatized system of refugee resettlement, this research argues for an integrated method that draws upon federal …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Stewart, Kaitlin Victoria
System: The UNT Digital Library
Renewable Electricity in DFW: Access, Distribution, and Consumer Awareness (open access)

Renewable Electricity in DFW: Access, Distribution, and Consumer Awareness

Texas is the leading producer of renewable energy in the U.S, and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) is the largest metropolitan area in the state. Texas has a deregulated energy market, with three types of providers: privatized, public-owned, and co-operatives. Privatized providers compete in the deregulated market, and consumers choose between hundreds of electricity retailers. Public-owned providers are owned by the municipality, and electricity consumers that live within the city limits must use the municipal provider. Electric co-operatives operate similarly where customers within the region must use the co-operative, but instead of being owned by the city, co-ops are owned by the members (customers). To date, the availability, cost, accessibility, and outreach of renewable electricity among these provider types remains unclear. For this reason, my research examines the renewable energy market in DFW by asking: (1) Who has access to renewable energy and how do they understand it? (2) How do electricity retailers distribute and make renewable energy available? and (3) If consumers can choose their provider, why do they select certain electricity plans over others? My findings suggest that while many consumers want or are open to using renewable energy, uncertainties surrounding how to find or choose a provider, price, and …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Greer, Marissa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Quantification of the Seasonality and Vertical Dispersion Environment of PM2.5 Variation: A Comparative Analysis of Micro-Scale Wind-Based Buffer Methods (open access)

Quantification of the Seasonality and Vertical Dispersion Environment of PM2.5 Variation: A Comparative Analysis of Micro-Scale Wind-Based Buffer Methods

Increasing PM2.5 (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers) poses a significant health risk to people. Understanding variables critical to PM2.5 spatial and temporal variation is a first step towards protecting vulnerable populations from exposure. Previous studies investigate variables responsible for PM2.5 variation but have a limited temporal span. Moreover, although land-use classes are often taken into account, the vertical environment's influence (e.g., buildings, trees) on PM2.5 concentrations is often ignored and on-road circle buffers are used. To understand variables most critical to PM2.5 concentration variation, an air pollution sensor and GPS unit were affixed to a bicycle to sample for variables over three seasons (spring, summer, fall). Samples were taken on a route during the weekdays at four targeted hours (7AM, 11AM, 3PM, and 7PM) and joined with meteorological data. 3D morphology was assessed using LiDAR data and novel wind-based buffers. Wind speed only, wind direction only, and wind speed and direction buffers were computed and compared for their performance at capturing micro-scale urban morphological variables. Zonal statistics were used to compute morphological indicators under different wind assumptions in seasonal ordinary least squares regression models. A comprehensive wind and buffer performance analysis compares statistical significance for spatial and temporal variation …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Ray, Noah R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Using Machine Learning to Develop a Calibration Model for Low-Cost Air Quality Sensors Deployed during a Dust Event (open access)

Using Machine Learning to Develop a Calibration Model for Low-Cost Air Quality Sensors Deployed during a Dust Event

Low-cost sensors have the potential to create dense air monitoring networks that help enhance our understanding of pollution exposure and variability at the individual and neighborhood-level; however, sensors can be easily influenced by environmental conditions, resulting in performance inconsistencies across monitoring settings. During summer 2020, 20 low-cost particulate sensors were deployed with a reference PM2.5 monitor in Denton, Texas in preparation for calibration. However, from mid to late-summer, dust transported by the Saharan Air Layer moved through the North Texas region periodically, influencing the typical monitoring pattern exhibited between low-cost sensors and reference instruments. Traditional modeling strategies were adapted to develop a new approach to calibrating low-cost particulate sensors. In this study, data collected by sensors was split according to a novel dust filter into dust and non-dust subsets prior to modeling. This approach was compared with building a single model from the data, as is typically done in other studies. Random forest and multiple linear regression algorithms were used to train models for both strategies. The best performing split-model strategy, the multiple linear regression models split according to dust and non-dust subsets (combined R2 = 0.65), outperformed the best performing single-model strategy, a random forest model (R2 = 0.49). …
Date: May 2021
Creator: Hickey, Sean
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Assessment of Riparian Buffer Effectiveness in the Upper Hickory Creek Watershed: A GIS Approach Using the Riparian Buffer Delineation Equation (RBDE) and the Buffer Improvement Potential Percentage (BP) (open access)

An Assessment of Riparian Buffer Effectiveness in the Upper Hickory Creek Watershed: A GIS Approach Using the Riparian Buffer Delineation Equation (RBDE) and the Buffer Improvement Potential Percentage (BP)

As population increases and urbanization occurs, watershed management will be critical in the protection of water resources in North Central Texas. By 2040, Denton County will nearly double its 2010 population. The Upper Hickory Creek Watershed lies west of Denton and empties into Lake Lewisville. Lake Lewisville provides drinking water for Denton, Dallas, and other neighboring cities. Mitigation of non-point source pollutants as a result of urban and agricultural practices is essential to protecting Lake Lewisville water resources. A common best management practice used to mitigate pollutants is the protection of riparian ecotones that occupy river corridors; however, recent agricultural and urban practices are diminishing these ecosystems and their services. In this paper, the riparian buffer delineation equation (RBDE) is used to assess the current state of Upper Hickory Creek Watershed to aid in the monitoring of the riparian buffers along stream corridors. While the RBDE was used as pre-assessment tool for the riparian buffer effectiveness in the watershed, a new form of the equation was used to evaluate riparian buffer improvement potential (BP) in conjunction with Denton County parcel data to provide insights into buffer effectiveness and identify areas for improvement on a landowner scale.
Date: May 2019
Creator: Yesildirek, Monica Veale
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Geography of Partial-Market Exits: Applying Geospatial and Econometric Methods to Analyze 2017 Department Store Closures in the United States (open access)

The Geography of Partial-Market Exits: Applying Geospatial and Econometric Methods to Analyze 2017 Department Store Closures in the United States

Many factors have prompted the adoption of partial-market exit strategies in retail as a means of reducing cost and minimizing risk. These mass closures have become more frequent in recent years. Marketers and economists have offered explanations for these closures linked to the rise of e-commerce, the real estate cycle and general changes in consumer taste. The research here marks an attempt to apply geospatial and econometric methods to better understand what factors explain the spatial variation of these closures across the United States. Specifically, the analysis examines the store networks of Sears, J.C. Penney and Macy's- large, established department stores that, collectively, announced over 100 closures at the beginning of 2017. By treating each store as a unit of observation, and a closure as a limited dependent variable, this analysis will attempt to quantify the relationship between place-specific factors and retail closures using Probit modeling. This application of modeling marks a deviation from traditional analyses in retail geography which, up until the early 2000s, have focused almost entirely on store development and growth. The results reveal patterns of spatial clustering of closures in and around the Rust Belt and demonstrate the strong negative effect of competitive agglomeration on the …
Date: May 2019
Creator: Reed, Connor
System: The UNT Digital Library
Public Market Trade Areas:  Local Goods, Farmers, and Community in the U.S. Southwest Region, 1996-2016 (open access)

Public Market Trade Areas: Local Goods, Farmers, and Community in the U.S. Southwest Region, 1996-2016

The number of public markets in the United States increased from more than 300 in the 1970s to more than 8,600 by 2016. This increase in markets is related to changes in food production, localism and the local food systems movement, socioeconomic changes, cultural changes, and perceptions of embeddedness. Research on the underlying conditions for the success of public markets is scant in the United States, and especially in the USDA Southwest Region. This study provides analysis of public market locations as compared with non-market locations by drive-time trade areas during a 20-year period, 1996 and 2016, to gain further insights into factors leading to their success. The results from logit regression analyses and simulations of socioeconomic, college-town status, and climate-grid classifications find an increased likelihood of public markets with population, education, college town status, and some climate-grid locations. Median income, surprisingly, has an inverse relationship with public market success. Qualitative data and a literature review point to three types of embeddedness that motivate customers to attend public markets. This study concludes that "local nontradable consumer goods" tied to place are offered at these "nontradable consumption amenities." These amenities are "third places" that promote social interaction and become important places …
Date: May 2018
Creator: Oppenheim, Vicki Ann
System: The UNT Digital Library
Urban Trees as Sinks for Soot: Deposition of Atmospheric Elemental Carbon to Oak Canopies and Litterfall Flux to Soil (open access)

Urban Trees as Sinks for Soot: Deposition of Atmospheric Elemental Carbon to Oak Canopies and Litterfall Flux to Soil

Elemental carbon (EC), a product of incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, contributes to climate warming and poor air quality. In urban areas, diesel fuel trucks are the main source of EC emissions from mobile sources. After emission, EC is deposited to receptor surfaces via two main pathways: precipitation (wet deposition) and directly as particles (dry deposition). Urban trees may play an important role in removing EC from the atmosphere by intercepting and delivering it directly to the soil. The goal of this research was to quantify the magnitude of EC retention in leaf waxes (in-wax EC) and EC fluxes to the soil via leaf litterfall in the City of Denton, Texas. Denton is a rapidly growing urban location in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. A foliar extraction technique was used to determine EC retention in leaf waxes. Foliar samples were collected monthly, from April through July, from pairs of Quercus stellata (post oak, n=10) and Quercus virginiana (live oak, n = 10) trees. Samples were rinsed with water and chloroform in a two-step process to determine EC retained in leaf waxes. A Sunset OC/EC aerosol analyzer was utilized to analyze the EC content of extracts filtered onto quartz-fiber …
Date: May 2018
Creator: Rindy, Jenna
System: The UNT Digital Library

Green Entrepreneurialism and the Making of the Trinity River Corridor: The Intersection of Nature and Capital in Dallas, Texas

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Since the adoption of neoliberalism, many cities have taken to integrating nature with capital accumulation to create a sense of place. This has been closely tied to urban greening, or green "revitalization." As part of curating this desired character, city governments are working to roll out plans to restore and renew neighborhoods using their natural landscapes through methods such as reforestation, the creation of parks, and commercial development. These cities, deemed Entrepreneurial cities, are increasingly incorporating natural or green spaces into their development of character as part of their branding schemes. This research focuses on the role of nature as the site of economic development and community revitalization within Dallas, Texas. This research examines how the City of Dallas uses nature to attract capital, and how the narratives of development relate to residents' visions for development in the historically neglected Joppa neighborhood in the Trinity River Corridor. Development near Joppa could be an example of how the natural landscape is being used to not only attract developers but also to bring a different ‘class' of resident into the area. By exploring this intersection of nature and capital in Dallas, we can better understand the nuanced ways through which the neoliberalization …
Date: May 2019
Creator: Krupala, Katie Ilene
System: The UNT Digital Library
What Would a Waterbird Do? An Annual Study of 13 Urban Wetlands in Frisco, Texas (open access)

What Would a Waterbird Do? An Annual Study of 13 Urban Wetlands in Frisco, Texas

Intention for this study is driven by finding patterns that may be shown to reveal primary factors of influence for the abundance and diversity of wetland birds. These correlations may be used to promote wetland management strategies for the benefit of waterbird species, and help illuminate current local wetland conditions for waterbirds, respectively. The idea is to help enliven individuals to become a more conscious steward and manipulator of our environment through incorporating structural and biological components into wetland development and management strategies, and broadly speaking, urban development practices.
Date: May 2020
Creator: Proctor, Jayce Alan
System: The UNT Digital Library

Analysis of Interrelationships between Climate Change and Cotton Yield in Texas High Plains

The Texas High Plains produces the most substantial amount of cotton in Texas. The region is a semi-arid area with limited precipitation, and it is, therefore, susceptible to climate change. Cotton production in the Texas High Plains is mostly dependent on irrigation to increase yield. The overall goal of this research was to study the interrelationships between climate change and cotton yield using correlation analysis and also to study how climate has changed in the region using trend analysis. A three-decade data (1987-2017) was analyzed to establish the relationship between climate change and cotton and also to determine how climate has changed in the area over the last 30 years. The research used precipitation and temperature data to assess climate change.The results of this research showed that annual mean temperature has lesser impacts on cotton yield, and the correlation between annual precipitation and cotton yield is insignificant. It also found out that high rates of temperature at the boll opening stage of cotton growth results in decreased cotton yield and that at the boll development and boll opening stages, precipitation is needed. Again, the research indicated that, on average, there had been a significant increase in temperature, but precipitation trends …
Date: May 2020
Creator: Sarbeng, Lorenda
System: The UNT Digital Library
Reconstructing Identity with Urban Community Agriculture: How Refugees Confront Displacement, Food Insecurity, and Othering through Community Farming (open access)

Reconstructing Identity with Urban Community Agriculture: How Refugees Confront Displacement, Food Insecurity, and Othering through Community Farming

Ethnic and religious conflict, and the deepening of capitalism have led to global diaspora at unprecedented levels. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that as of 2015, 1 in every 122 persons worldwide were either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. The U.S. currently admits the largest number of refugees worldwide. However, policies fail to reflect the multitude of elements that constitute successful resettlement. Moreover, many refugees come from farming backgrounds and are forced to migrate to a landless urban environment, where their skill sets may not be utilized and farm land is not available. I argue that existing resettlement processes are embedded in logics and practices that alienate humans from nature and from each other through competition, isolation, and placeless environments. Through an exploration in concepts of urban agriculture, place-making, identity, and otherness, and illuminating the experiences of resettled refugees involved in a community gardening project in Fort Worth, Texas, show how the urban refugee garden provides the individual a space to narrate an identity, and to resist industrial agriculture and labor outside their industry. Exploring best practices in resettlement should be a priority to governments, politicians, and communities involved in the process and highlight the …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Griffin, Marinda
System: The UNT Digital Library
Improvement of the Soil Moisture Diagnostic Equation for Estimating Root-Zone Soil Moisture (open access)

Improvement of the Soil Moisture Diagnostic Equation for Estimating Root-Zone Soil Moisture

Soil moisture information can be used accurately in determining the timing and amount of irrigation applied to plants. Pan and Pan et al. proposed a robust and simple daily diagnostic equation for estimating daily soil moisture. The diagnostic equation evaluates the relationship between the soil moisture loss function and the summation weighted average of precipitation. The loss function uses the sinusoidal wave function which employs day of the year (DOY) to evaluate the seasonal variation in soil moisture loss for a given year. This was incorporated into the daily diagnostic equation to estimate the daily soil moisture for a location. Solar radiation is an energy source that drives the energy and water exchanges between vegetation and the atmosphere (i.e., evapotranspiration), and thus impacts the soil moisture dry-down. In this paper, two parameters (the actual solar radiation and the clear sky solar radiation) are introduced into loss function coefficient to improve the estimation of soil moisture. After the Introduction of the solar radiation data into soil moisture loss function, a slight improvement was observed in the estimated daily soil moisture. Pan observed that generally the correlation coefficient between the estimated and the observed soil moisture is above 0.75 and the root …
Date: May 2018
Creator: Omotere, Olumide Olubunmi
System: The UNT Digital Library
Automated Tree Crown Discrimination Using Three-Dimensional Shape Signatures Derived from LiDAR Point Clouds (open access)

Automated Tree Crown Discrimination Using Three-Dimensional Shape Signatures Derived from LiDAR Point Clouds

Discrimination of different tree crowns based on their 3D shapes is essential for a wide range of forestry applications, and, due to its complexity, is a significant challenge. This study presents a modified 3D shape descriptor for the perception of different tree crown shapes in discrete-return LiDAR point clouds. The proposed methodology comprises of five main components, including definition of a local coordinate system, learning salient points, generation of simulated LiDAR point clouds with geometrical shapes, shape signature generation (from simulated LiDAR points as reference shape signature and actual LiDAR point clouds as evaluated shape signature), and finally, similarity assessment of shape signatures in order to extract the shape of a real tree. The first component represents a proposed strategy to define a local coordinate system relating to each tree to normalize 3D point clouds. In the second component, a learning approach is used to categorize all 3D point clouds into two ranks to identify interesting or salient points on each tree. The third component discusses generation of simulated LiDAR point clouds for two geometrical shapes, including a hemisphere and a half-ellipsoid. Then, the operator extracts 3D LiDAR point clouds of actual trees, either deciduous or evergreen. In the fourth …
Date: May 2018
Creator: Sadeghinaeenifard, Fariba
System: The UNT Digital Library
Seeds of Disempowerment: Bt cotton and Accumulation by Dispossession in the States of Maharashtra, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh in India (open access)

Seeds of Disempowerment: Bt cotton and Accumulation by Dispossession in the States of Maharashtra, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh in India

In 1991, India adopted neoliberalism, a system of political economic practices that promotes private property and free trade, as its political and economic system to promote development in their country. India's neoliberal reform has created issues surrounding human development, resource accumulation, and power struggles. Eleven years later, in 2002, Bt cotton was introduced to the Indian agricultural sector. This research examines how the genetically modified organism Bt cotton is being used to commodify nature in the context of agriculture under neoliberalism. The research focuses on the dispossession of the rural farmers through the commodification of agriculture using Bt cotton. Dispossession of the rural farmers happen through the implications that arise from the commodification of nature. Through Marxist theory of primitive accumulation, this research analyzes accumulation by dispossession and how it neglects the working class and its struggle in rural India. Through this examination, the research will argue alternatives to the dispossession of the working class and the commodification of nature through Bt cotton. Dispossession, in this research, is examined both through working class, but also through the dispossession of biodiversity. Through the loss of biodiversity, the rural farmers are becoming dispossessed from a more sustainable environment. Along with these goals, …
Date: May 2018
Creator: Hoyt, Andrew
System: The UNT Digital Library
Assessing Rainfall Interception by Urban Tree Canopies in Denton, Texas (open access)

Assessing Rainfall Interception by Urban Tree Canopies in Denton, Texas

Rainfall interception is one mechanism by which tree canopies can reduce surface runoff in urban areas. The objectives of this research were to: 1) quantify rainfall interception by urban tree canopies, and 2) determine the influence of vegetation and microenvironmental factors on rainfall interception rates. In the city of Denton, Texas, 30 mature post oak (Quercus stellata) and blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica) trees were selected for study. Trees were assigned to one of three categories: clusters of trees on greenspace (CG), isolated trees on greenspace (IG), and isolated trees surrounded by pavement (IP). Throughfall (the volume of water that travels through the canopy and reaches the soil surface) collectors were placed beneath these trees and rainfall collectors were placed in nearby open areas. Throughfall and rainfall were collected daily from 19 March to 4 July. Interception was calculated as the difference between throughfall and gross rainfall. Over the study period, there were 27 days with measurable rainfall; daily rainfall ranged from 1-51 mm. Over the sampling period, rainfall interception for individual trees ranged from -10% to 49%, indicating high spatial variability in interception. Percent interception was highest for the CG treatment (22.7 ± 3.8 SE), intermediate for IG (27.4 ± …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Edington, Patrick
System: The UNT Digital Library

Assessing Agricultural and Hydrologic Potential of Ancestral Puebloan Community Centers using Open Source Data

The Pueblo III period marks a critical shift in settlement location of Ancestral Puebloan people within the Mesa Verde region. Community centers during the Pueblo I and Pueblo II periods were built on mesa tops, whereas canyon-rims and alcoves became the preferred settlement location during the Pueblo III period. Beginning in the Pueblo I period, community centers consisted of linear roomblock villages. By the late Pueblo II period great house community centers influenced by the Chaco culture system spanned the Mesa Verde region. The Pueblo III period hallmarks the transition to canyon-rim villages and cliff dwellings. The location of these Pueblo III centers is thought to be related to the need for a defensive position on the landscape, and access to water sources. This shift in settlement locations undoubtedly led to change in the access to resources, such as water, arable farmland, and wild food plants and game. This study aims to evaluate whether the change in community center location impacted the accessibility to arable farmland and water sources immediately available to Ancestral Puebloan people throughout time. Specifically, several variables related to farming potential and hydrologic potential, including soil type, soil moisture, elevation, cropland suitability, distance to water sources, drainage …
Date: May 2020
Creator: Zarzycka, Sandra Elzbieta
System: The UNT Digital Library

Women in Wrestling Arenas: How Globalization, Socially Produced Spaces, and Commodification Impact their Portrayal and Empowerment Post Women's Revolution

The Women's Revolution in 2015 has led to a drastic shift in the ways women are portrayed in professional wrestling. The Women's Revolution came as a result of the social unrest over the lack of time women were receiving on the televised shows. Where women's storylines had centered on their sexuality, they are now presented as equal to their male counterparts after the Women's Revolution. Through an exploration of concepts in globalization, commodification, and socially produced spaces, this research seeks to understand and contextualize the Women's Revolution, the degree to which the portrayed women's equality has been achieved, and the resulting impacts of the female superstars overall. I argue that that this "equality" has been achieved through inscribing the traditionally masculine qualities of wrestling to women, has resulted in an unequal distribution of opportunities to particular female superstars rather than equality for all women on the shows, and that phallocentric objectification of the female superstars still occurs in certain aspects of professional wrestling.
Date: May 2020
Creator: Kohlmeyer, Collin
System: The UNT Digital Library

A Spatial Decision Support System to Dynamically Compute and Map Neighborhood Indices

Neighborhoods are organic entities that are in a state of constant change and are driven by the specific context of the problem being investigated. The subsequent lack of consensus on a universal geographic definition for what constitutes a neighborhood can lead to biased interpretations of relationships between human activities and place. Further, while existing geographical information system software allows users to combine a range of geographic objects to generate regional units of analyses, their design does not explicitly assess how changing patterns, such as populations, impact the data expressed within them. This research develops an exploratory geographical information system framework that allows users to dynamically delineate neighborhoods based on user-specified characteristics. These include socioeconomic and similar measurements of neighborhood classification from information obtained from secondary data sources, including parcel data, land use/land cover information, and attribute data provided by the United States Postal Service. The proposed methodology creates custom geographies from readily available tract data obtained from various federal and state data repositories to produce indices. By allowing the user to dynamically weigh the combinations of variables used to define their neighborhood, this thesis introduces a solution to a common analytical problem in the discipline.
Date: May 2020
Creator: Barnett, Melissa Marie
System: The UNT Digital Library
Soil Carbon Accumulation in an Urban Ecosystem: Canopy Cover and Management Effects (open access)

Soil Carbon Accumulation in an Urban Ecosystem: Canopy Cover and Management Effects

Black carbon (BC), a stable form of organic carbon (OC), is a byproduct of the incomplete combustion of biomass, biofuels, and fossil fuel. The main objectives of this research are to examine the spatial distribution of OC and BC in urban soil and determine the influence of tree canopy cover and landscape maintenance on soil carbon accumulation. Soil sampling was conducted at 29 sites throughout the City of Denton, Texas, in May 2019. Samples were collected from underneath post oak canopies and in adjacent open areas and were analyzed for total carbon (TC), total organic carbon (TOC), total N (TN), C:N ratio, and BC. Although maintenance levels had no significant effect, TOC was greater underneath trees (5.47%, 5.30 kg/m2) than lawns (3.58%, 4.84 kg/m2) at the surface 0-10 cm. Total nitrogen concentration was also greater underneath trees (0.43%) than lawns (0.31%) at the surface 0-10 cm. Preliminary results for BC were closely correlated to TOC. The lack of difference in C:N ratio between cover types indicates that leaf litter quality may not be the primary driving factor in soil C and N accumulation. Instead, differences in soil properties may be best explained by manual C inputs and greater atmospheric deposition …
Date: May 2020
Creator: Kang, Katherina A
System: The UNT Digital Library
App Stole My Gayborhood? A Transforming Ethos at the Intersection of Queer Urban Life and Cyberspace(s) (open access)

App Stole My Gayborhood? A Transforming Ethos at the Intersection of Queer Urban Life and Cyberspace(s)

This thesis demonstrates a queer perspective stemming from a qualitative analysis of data gathered in interviews with LGBTQ+ people to analyze a transforming ethos of gayborhoods and queer desires. In particular, the research focuses on the interactive relationship between self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) participants; the cyberspace(s) of LGBTQ+ mobile-dating applications (apps); and tangible urban places. The topic of gayborhood demise and whether such places are worth saving has been debated by scholars and journalists for the last decade. The demise of gayborhoods is often thought to be a symptom of neoliberal urban processes such as gentrification within the context of the post-gay era and broader societal acceptance of homosexuality. This means the question of "if the gayborhood is worth saving" is inherently imbedded in an assumption that homosexuality is not viewed or treated as different or lesser than heterosexuality. In this imagined post-gay era, gayborhoods are declining because the dangers posed to the LGBTQ+ population are purported to no longer exist, so there is no longer a need for designated queer and/or safe places. This research destabilizes the assumptions embedded within the conception of the post-gay era by asking whether the gayborhood meets the needs and …
Date: May 2021
Creator: Stucky, Farrell
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Death and Life of Great American Malls: (Un)Spectacular Creative Destructions, Luxury Mixed-Use Developments, and Gentrification in Dallas-Fort Worth (open access)

The Death and Life of Great American Malls: (Un)Spectacular Creative Destructions, Luxury Mixed-Use Developments, and Gentrification in Dallas-Fort Worth

Mall after mall was built in American cities, exhaustively emulated by developers often working in concert with civic governments. In service of capital, neoliberal urban governance engages in the risky subsidization of spatio-spectacle production, working together with private business entities to bolster tax revenue and aid in private capital accumulation. The extensive replication of malls in close geographic proximity to one another across the American landscape, erected through the neoliberal partnerships of civic governments and private business interests, has greatly contributed to mall decline and mall death. There is now, however, a new spatio-spectacle that has arisen to take the place of the "great American shopping mall"—the luxury mixed-use development. These luxury mixed-use projects have been adopted as a new trend within urban development following the reality of sweeping mall decline and are proliferating across the (sub)urban landscape. Luxury mixed-use developments, I argue, are merely a continuation of late capitalism's problematic spectacle fetish. Moreover, this process is revealed to be inextricably entangled with gentrification, driven by cities' neoliberal desires to become/maintain status as global, "world-class" cities, performed through the spatialized ideology of neoliberal multiculturalism.
Date: May 2022
Creator: Kirk, Richard L.
System: The UNT Digital Library