Geography Issues in the News - Annotated Bibliography Example

GEOG 102: Cultural Geography due: Journal assignment: Geography issues in the news i. Journal Entry Application of Geographically Weighted Regression to Investigate the Impact of Scale on Prediction Uncertainty by Modelling Relationship between Vegetation and Climate, International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures. Research. Volume 3, 01/2008 pages 73-94. reseaerchgate.net ii. Summary: a fire occurrence analysis of spatial patterns was done in two South European regions that focused on the long term factors of fire distribution influence. The correlation between the fire occurrences, as well as the physical and anthropogenic variables gathered, was examined with the geographically weighted regression (GWR) and were resultantly compared with the ordinary least squares (ols). The important variables of the local patterns were explored and a robust spatial variability regarding their descriptive power was shown. Livestock, as well as land cover, (shrub land) and climate (precipitation) were found to be vital within both regions, although in certain areas and to diverse extents. Concerning model performance within both regions, GWR had better improvement over OLS (Propastin, et, al 73-94). iii. Social Commentary/opinion: this examination of the spatial variation regarding the significance of the key drivers over a wide study area provides a valuable contribution to improving fire management as well as preventive strategies, in adjustment to specific conditions in different areas. i. Journal Entry #2. Spatial sensitivity of grassland yields to weather variations in Austria and its implications for the future. Volume 45, December 2013, pages 332-341. Sciencedirect.com ii. Summary: agricultural production accomplishes economic, ecological as well as structural functions. In spite of technological advances, agricultural production remains delicate to climate variations. Climate change in central Europe is anticipated to bring more rainfall during winter, and less during the summer, and more drought risk among other effects. Agricultural grassland, which is the dominant land use within the Alpine regions, may be seriously affected by climatic changes in the nearby future (Neuwirth and Hofer 332-341). Stirred by this issue, the grassland susceptibility yields to weather variations in Austria is empirical assessed as a study case? The key objective of this study is to derive spatially distributed indications for climate change exposure by evaluating the impacts of weather variations on past yields. iii. Social Commentary/opinion: the assumption is that the water supply during the summer establishes a threat to grassland productivity within regions that are warmer as well as drier. i. Journal Entry #3. Remote sensing and GIS for mapping and monitoring land cover and land-use changes in the Northwestern coastal zone of Egypt. Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2007, Pages 28–41. Sciencedirect.com. Web 13 may, 2014 ii. Summary: in this study, maximum possibility of supervised classification, as well as post- classification alteration detection techniques, were used to landsat images in 1987, as well as 2001, in order to map land cover changes within the Northwestern Egyptian coast. The classification supervision was done on six reflective bands for two individual images with the help from ground truth data. The ground truth data gathered was used to assess the precision of the resulting classification (Shalaby and Tateishi 28-41). In addition, usage of ancillary data as well as visual interpretation with expert knowledge regarding the area through GIS added extra result classifications. Regarding post-classification, in order to produce image change through cross tabulation, change detection technique was used. iii. Social Commentary/opinion: because of agricultural and tourist developmental projects taking place land cover has changed and has led to vegetation degradation as well as water logging in parts of the area that were studied. i. Journal Entry #4. Teaching Geography Using Films: A Proposal. Volume 108, issue 2, 17 June 2009, pages 47-56. Tranfonline.com. Web 13 May, 2014 ii. Summary: films are usually used within schools to explain the geography, however, doing so will mainly favor passive learning. The experiment was carried out that included 28 pupils aged 13 years (an entire class) with the objective of using film to promote geographical active learning. Firstly, it was established what the main geographical stereotypes were amid the pupils as well as films that portrayed these stereotypes. Later, the traditional textbook lesson was given but proved to be inefficient at removal of the stereotypes (Di Palma 47-56). In other words, the historic discipline of geographical learning has mainly been descriptive, but the latter section of the 20th century has seen a change in knowledge creation. iii. Social Commentary/opinion: in a classroom setting, the construction of geographical imagery in relation to places is both beneficial to students and teachers directly and indirectly because viewing of the film creates a closer reality perception of what is being taught.There is a negative side effect to viewing film as a learning tool for instance, limited, superficial stereotyped knowledge or information overload. Therefore, it is vital to scrutinize the various forms of teaching through film. i. Journal Entry #5. Putting Geography Education into Place: What Geography Educators Can Learn from Place-Based Education, and Vice Versa? Volume 111, issue 2, 01 February 2012, pages 76-81. Tandfonline.com. Web 13 May, 2014 ii. Summary: this article looks at the pedagogy of place based education in comparison to present practices within geography education. The dispute is that integrating the methods of place based education can make geography education more significant and that a perspective on geography can aid place based educational programs to be more effective in promoting social justice, as well as environmental sustainability (Andrei 76-81). iii. Social Commentary/opinion: over the years, geography educators have wanted to make their pedagogy important in dealing with environmental and social issues, yet these efforts have mostly imported pedagogies from outside of geography. In contrast, in place based education, places one of geography’s defining themes and serves as a core organizing principle for a socially vital pedagogy. i. Journal Entry #6. Monitoring 25 years of land cover change dynamics in Africa: A sample based remote sensing approach. Volume 29, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 501-512 scopus.com Web 13 May, 2014 ii. Summary: this study examined resource changes within sub-Sahara’s natural land cover for a period of 25 years. The study assessed changes in four land cover areas, namely- forests, non-forest natural vegetation, barren and agriculture, by using spatial high resolution earth satellites (Brink and Eva 501-512). The result, presented at an aggregated and eco-regional level showed a 57% increase within the agricultural area at a cost of natural vegetation which in itself reduced by 21% over the period, with almost 5 million hectares of forest as well as natural non forest vegetation being lost annually. iii. Social Commentary/opinion: the environmental impacts of these changes on a particular site, as well as socio-economy, are discussed and the likely pressures regarding the well-being of humans is also highlighted. i. Journal Entry #7. Human activity impact on the heterogeneity of a Mediterranean landscape. Volume 30, Issue 3, July 2010, Pages 370-379. Scopus.com Web 13 May, 2014. ii. Summary: this article aims at detecting both the rate and direction of landscape change while focusing on the human activity effects on the Mediterranean environmental heterogeneity landscape. In specific, an analysis was carried out on the landscape changes that occurred in the Mediterranean area between 1954 and 2000. The analysis of the difficult phenomena in relation to land usage changes can be a useful resource in defining effective strategies for natural resource management as well as biodiversity conservation (Geri et, al). iii. Social Commentary/opinion: the Mediterranean area is viewed as one of the most important changed hotspots on earth and has been severely affected by human activity, and as a result, just 4.7% of its basic vegetation has stayed unchanged while the landscape has repeatedly been transformed. i. Journal Entry #8. New geography of the land commodification in Chinese cities: Uneven landscape of urban land development under market reforms and globalization. Volume 51, 2014, Pages 118–130. Sciencedirect.com Web 13 May, 2014. ii. Summary: this study examined popular land commodification practices as a way of generating local revenues within Chinese cities as well as identifying the uneven emerging landscape as a consequence of financed land urbanization. Chinese cities in the land commodification have generated revenues in trillions of Yuan annually (Lui et, al). The Chinese scenario is in theory important in that it portrays the sophisticated state market relations depending upon diverse economic, social, and political conditions, as well as the different developmental landscape evolving in a quickly urbanizing country. iii. Social Commentary/opinion: land commodification has been used as a form of generating revenues and it has been observed that they Is so much unevenness within the practice of the land commodification that has been characterized by huge gaps between coastal and inland cities. i. Journal Entry #9. Does food environment influence food choices? A geographical analysis through “tweets." Volume 51, 2014, pages 82-89. Chenxiangpeter.com Web 13 May, 2014 ii. Summary: access to nutritious food is vital in the physical well-being as well as quality of life. Prior studies of the food environment have shown a disparity in accessing health food on several geographical scales. A facet that is overlooked in this regard is the impact of the food environment at the individual level (Xiang 82-89). People have a tendency of purchasing diverse food and dinning choices of which include when, where, how and which kinds of foods they will have. Furthermore, an area that is yet to be explored is that of food preference by people that is elicited by exposure of their food environment. iii. Social Commentary/opinion: it can be said that, an innovative method was used in soliciting individual data regarding food related activities by use of social media from different geographical areas. i. Journal Entry #10. Why urban solar mapping is the future. 25 August 2010. Pv-magazine.com ii. Summary: promoting the usage of solar energy within urban environments require knowledge of geographical distribution as well as characteristics of the most suitable locations to implement solar systems. Within this context, building structures can be utilized to generate electricity, and based on remote sensing geographical information, the surface of the city can be modeled and a solar income location estimated. They are two model variables, namely, solar energy income on roof tops and building level populations and this study assesses photovoltaic (PV) of potential residential buildings( Pavlovski and Kostylev 1). iii. Social Commentary/opinion: with such results, it is fair to say that urban solar mapping is the way forward regarding energy management sustainability. Works cited Propastin Pavel, Kappas Martin, Erasmi Stefan. “Application of Geographically Weighted Regression to Investigate the Impact of Scale on Prediction Uncertainty by Modelling Relationship between Vegetation and Climate” International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research Volume 3, January 2008, pages 73-94. Researchgate.net. Web 13 May, 2014 Neuwirth Christian, Hofer Barbara. “Spatial sensitivity of grassland yields to weather variations in Austria and its implications for the future.” Volume 45, December 2013, Pages 332–341. Sciencedirect.com. Web 13 may, 2014 Shalaby Adel, Tateishi Ryutaro. “Remote sensing and GIS for mapping and monitoring land cover and land-use changes in the Northwestern coastal zone of Egypt.” Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2007, Pages 28–41. Sciencedirect.com Web 13 may, 2014 Di Palma, T. Maria. “Teaching Geography Using Films: A Proposal.” Volume 108, Issue 2, 17 June 2009, pages 47- 56. Tandfonline.com. Web 13 May, 2014 Israel, L. Andrei. “Putting Geography Education into Place: What Geography Educators Can Learn from Place-Based Education, and Vice Versa.” Volume 111, issue 2, 01 February 2012, pages 76-81. Tandfonline.com. Web 13 May, 2014 Brink, A.B, Eva, H.D. “Monitoring 25 years of land cover change dynamics in Africa: A sample based remote sensing approach.” Volume 29, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 501-512. scopus.com. Web 13 May, 2014 Geri, F, Amici, V, Rocchini,D. “Human activity impact on the heterogeneity of a Mediterranean landscape.” Volume 30, Issue 3, July 2010, Pages 370-379. Scopus.com Web 13 May 2014 Lui Tao, George C.S, Lin. “New geography of land commodification in Chinese cities: Uneven landscape of urban land development under market reforms and globalization.” Volume 51, July 2014, Pages 118–130. Sciencedirect.com Web 13 May, 2014 Chen Xiang. “Does food environment influence food choices? A geographical analysis through "tweets," Volume 51, 2014, pages 82-89. Chenxiangpeter.com Web 13 may, 2014. Pavlovski Alexandre, Kostylev Vladimir. “Why urban solar mapping is the future.” 25 August 2010, pv-magazine.com Web 13 May, 2014 Read More