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.

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 …

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 …