We have experienced a massive digital transformation and these new trends are powerful - cloud and analytics driven. The shift to cloud technology is changing our workforce needs, and geospatial education is changing as well. What are some of these changes, and what do they mean for skills of today’s graduates? What skills do we…
Landscape-scale intensification of individual crops and pesticide use that is associated with this change is a problem that has had unequal effects on pests with different lifecycles, host ranges, and dispersal abilities. Understanding the fundamental connections between agricultural intensification and pests remains a major obstacle to improving the long-term sustainability of modern agriculture. In this…
Malnutrition linked to poor quality diets affects at least 2 billion people globally. Forests and trees are key sources of dietary diversity in some rural settings. Here, we develop and explore the conceptual links between diet diversity and forested landscapes in the rural tropics. We summarize the state of knowledge regarding diets obtained from forests,…
A rapidly growing body of work suggests mountain streams emit surprisingly large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Studies in these environments are scarce and estimates of CO2 fluxes from aquatic environments are poorly constrained. High-altitude tropical grasslands, known as “páramos,” are characterized by high solar radiation, high precipitation, and low temperature. They also…
As data, including geospatial data, are increasingly mobilized in the service of governments and corporations, their unequal conditions of production, their asymmetrical methods of application, and their unequal effects on both individuals and groups have become increasingly difficult for data scientists--and others who rely on data in their work--to ignore. But it is precisely this…
Biomass feedstock utilization has the potential to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and improve energy security while decarbonizing our energy needs. Energy crops, short rotation woody crops, municipal solid waste, and agricultural and forest residues are considered promising sources of renewable energy. Computer modeling has proven to be a key tool towards minimizing logistics cost.…
A spatial perspective isn’t (just) about making compelling visualizations, but also investigating how complex human-environment interactions impact the theory, design, methods and infrastructure of research. Detangling how place impacts, interacts with and/or drives factors of health outcomes for different people and neighborhoods is essential to reducing health disparities. In this forum talk, Dr. Kolak highlights…
Come learn about some of the most widely adopted machine learning methods used for clustering of spatial data. This forum will illustrate how the algorithms work, how to interpret the results, and how and when to apply them. We’ll go beyond the basics of several key spatial data science techniques, including density-based clustering and multivariate…
Cucurbit downy mildew exhibits significant long distance dispersal within the continental United States. The disease is characterized by annual extinction and recolonization cycles that make it an excellent model system to understand and quantify epidemic expansion in both time and space. Using disease records collected as part of a cucurbit downy mildew monitoring system, the…
Insured flood loss in Texas has risen rapidly since 1978, totaling nearly $16.4 billion USD by the end of 2021. These losses have been predominantly concentrated in coastal and urban areas where changes in extreme precipitation coupled with rapid population growth at the coastal margin and in upland areas have dramatically altered the hydrologic response…