Department of Geography (DoG) News and Events Where it's at!

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Head of the Department Cynthia Brewer shares this image of her remote teaching workspace, complete with green screen and ring light for Zooming. This set up shows best practices; natural light in front and a non-distracting background behind the speaker.

GOOD NEWS

January 27 at 1:25 p.m. EST: Value of Biodiversity webinar featuring Bronwen Powell. Part 2 of the Mainstreaming Biodiversity in the Decade of Action Symposium

February 1 at 5:30 p.m. EST: Geography undergraduate clubs join virtual meeting. For more information visit: https://sites.psu.edu/geogundergrad/undergraduate-clubs/

Nominations are being accepted for the Rock Ethics Institute’s 2021 Stand Up Awards. This award honors Penn State undergraduate students who have demonstrated courage, fortitude, and ethical leadership by taking a stand for a person, cause, or belief. Stand Up Award winners receive a $1,000 prize and will be honored at the 2021 Stand Up Awards ceremony on April 22. The deadline for nominations is February 5, 2021. Additional information about the Stand Up Awards, including profiles of previous honorees, can be found at StandUpPSU.com.

The Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE) announced its 2020–21 Seed Grant Program. The funding is intended to foster basic and applied interdisciplinary energy and environmental research that leverages faculty expertise across the University. The deadline to submit proposals is 5 p.m. on February 12, 2021.

The deadline for Department of Geography academic enrichment, Easterling Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant, and E. Willard Miller Award submissions is March 10, 2021. Luke Trusel is chair of the awards committee.

Who’s in charge here? Check out the Department Leadership webpage.

Erica Smithwick has been awarded the title of Distinguished Professor.

Joshua Inwood was quoted in the article, “Don’t Move On Just Yet: Could a truth and reconciliation commission help the country heal?” in The Atlantic.

First-year undergraduate student Rylie Adams was awarded placement in the NASA PA Space Grant Research Internship Program with Alexander Klippel as her mentor. Learn more about the program: https://sites.psu.edu/wisermurefurp/

Alumna Emily Klipp, who earned a postbaccalaurate certificate in GIS in 2010, was promoted to associate in Dewberry’s geospatial and technology services group.

COFFEE HOUR

Michael Widener, University of Toronto
The Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation Study: A New Approach to Food Environment Research and Preliminary Findings

• 4 p.m. on January 29, 2021
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom

In this talk, the Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation (FASTT) Study, a project that integrates concepts of time geography with theories from food and health geographies, will be introduced. In March 2019, time-use diaries, GPS trajectory data, and dietary questionnaires were collected from partnered-parents in households from two Toronto neighbourhoods; one urban and one suburban. These data are used to explore questions about time pressure and dietary behaviour, the division of food labour, and the role of the built environment in food shopping. Findings from two papers currently underway— one on coupled exposure to food retail and the other on how food-related time use patterns link to differing geographies—will be presented, and implications for future work discussed.

NEWS

Apply for UROC spring projects

The Department of Geography’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Connection (UROC) program allows undergraduate students to gain valuable research experience and technical skills through collaboration on projects within the department and supervised by faculty and/or graduate students, as well as 1-3 credit hours to apply towards graduation (GEOG 494).  Information on current and past projects is available at https://sites.psu.edu/uroc/

Cervone elected to lead AGU natural hazards section

Guido Cervone, associate director of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, professor of geography, meteorology and atmospheric science and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) associate, was elected as president-elect of the Natural Hazards Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and begins a two-year term as president-elect on Jan. 1, 2021, and a two-year term as president on January 1, 2023.

Sanborn Fire Insurance maps newly available online through University Libraries

As of Jan. 1, materials published or copyrighted in 1925 became part of the public domain and are now freely available for use. Among the most anticipated collections of such materials in the Penn State University Libraries are the Pennsylvania Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of 1925, a collection of maps of 69 towns consisting of 1,600 individual map sheets, most notably four volumes each of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Drip irrigation as a socio-technical configuration: policy design and technological choice in Western India

Karan Misquitta & Trevor Birkenholtz
Water International
https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2020.1858696
Through a case study of farmers in India we examine the relationship between drip irrigation subsidy policies, farmer adoption and technological choice. We examine changes in the subsidy design and the implications that these have for farmers. We show how the negotiation of multiple interests influences the kind of technology promoted and the design of the subsidy programme. This creates barriers to adoption, particularly for relatively resource-poor farmers. For these famers, the relative advantages of low-cost alternative technologies appear to be significant.

Precipitation alters the CO₂ effect on water‐use efficiency of temperate forests

Belmecheri, S., Maxwell, R.S., Taylor, A.H., Davis, K.J., Guerrieri, R., Moore, D.J.P. and Rayback, S.A.
Global Change Biology
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15491
Increasing water‐use efficiency (WUE), the ratio of carbon gain to water loss, is a key mechanism that enhances carbon uptake by terrestrial vegetation under rising atmospheric CO₂ (c_a). Existing theory and empirical evidence suggest a proportional WUE increase in response to rising c_a as plants maintain a relatively constant ratio between the leaf intercellular (c_i) and ambient (c_a) partial CO₂ pressure (c_i/c_a). This has been hypothesized as the main driver of the strengthening of the terrestrial carbon sink over the recent decades. However, proportionality may not characterize CO₂ effects on WUE on longer time‐scales and the role of climate in modulating these effects is uncertain. Here, we evaluate long‐term WUE responses to c_a and climate from 1901 to 2012 CE by reconstructing intrinsic WUE (iWUE, the ratio of photosynthesis to stomatal conductance) using carbon isotopes in tree rings across temperate forests in the northeastern USA. We show that iWUE increased steadily from 1901 to 1975 CE but remained constant thereafter despite continuously rising c_a. This finding is consistent with a passive physiological response to c_a and coincides with a shift to significantly wetter conditions across the region. Tree physiology was driven by summer moisture at multi‐decadal time‐scales and did not maintain a constant c_i/c_a in response to rising c_a indicating that a point was reached where rising CO₂ had a diminishing effect on tree iWUE. Our results challenge the mechanism, magnitude, and persistence of CO₂‘s effect on iWUE with significant implications for projections of terrestrial productivity under a changing climate.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Jaiwei Huang’s article, “Walking through the forests of the future: using data-driven virtual reality to visualize forests under climate change,” was recognized for receiving an Altmetric score of 120, placing it in the top 5 percent of all research outputs scored by Altmetric. https://tandf.altmetric.com/details/94104372. The image above is a still of the video walkthrough of their 3D simulation model.

GOOD NEWS

Alan MacEachren has announced his retirement at the end of June 2021. By that time, He will have been a faculty member for 42 years (starting with 4 at VA Tech, follow by 2 at Colorado-Boulder, then 36 here at Penn State).

Lorraine Dowler has been appointed as the department’s first Associate Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (AHDEI). She begins this new role in January 2021.

Wednesday, January 20, 1:25 pm, Karl Zimmerer will speak on, “What drives value? Integrating food, land use, and livelihood models with sociocultural analysis of biodiversity,” in section, week 1 of the “Mainstreaming Biodiversity in the Decade of Action” spring virtual symposium. For more information: https://spark.adobe.com/page/m3u8xAk8Pp488/#section-1-value-of-biodiversity

Friday, January 22, 12:15–1:30, C-SoDA Colloquium with Periloux Peay,”From Protest to Police Reform: How #BlackLivesMatter Fueled State-Level Policing Policy Adoption and Diffusion.”  Zoom link:  https://psu.zoom.us/j/93835347840.

AAG 2021 Posters: Deadline January 29

Bradley Hinger, Gillian Prater-Lee, and Jacklyn Weier have been elected as the new grad reps within the Department of Geography. They join Chanel Lange-Maney and Hannah Caudill, and serve from SP21 to FA21.

Ruchi Patel and Connor Chapman are the new EMS Graduate Council representatives for the Department of Geography. They begin their term in January 2021 and serve for the 2021 calendar year.

Alumnus Sid Pandey, who earned his bachelor’s degree in geography in 2014, has been promoted to senior associate at Dewberry.

Alumnus Megan Ruffe, a Schreyer Scholar who graduated in 2013, earning degrees in film production and geography, has been working at Florentine Films for eight years. She is currently working on a series about the American Revolution, producing & editing for Ken Burns’s archive website project, UNUM, and launching a web series called “UNUM Shorts.” You can see a short teaser for the series here. [In case you missed it, we published a profile of Ruffe in October 2020]

COFFEE HOUR

Spring 2021 Coffee Hour

Coffee Hour resumes on January 29, 2021 with Michael Widener, University of Toronto, speaking on “The Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation Study: A New Approach to Food Environment Research and Preliminary Findings.”

Additional scheduled speakers include:

• February 5: Jacqueline Vadjunec, NSF and Oklahoma State University, on “Research in the Time of COVID”
• February 19: Karen SETO, Yale University, as an EMS 125^th Anniversary Honorary Lecturer
• March 19: Tatiana Gumucio, Penn State

Coffee Hour lectures are 4–5 p.m. on Fridays on Zoom.  For more information and the Zoom link, see each talk’s event page on the department website. Details are added throughout the semester.

NEWS

Four students named EMSAGE Laureates for scholarship, service and global experiences

Four students in the Department of Geography were named as College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Academy for Global Experience, or EMSAGE Laureates for fall 2020. Amanda Byrd, Talia Potochny, Harman Singh and Sophie Tessier were recognized by Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Yvette Richardson at a virtual ceremony in November.

Online educator establishes scholarship for distance learners

It didn’t take a global pandemic for David DiBiase to understand the value or impact of distance learning. As one of the pioneers of online instruction at Penn State, he watched for three decades as programs offered through the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute broadly expanded access to education.

GEOSPATIAL WORLD
Why maps point North on top?

Even though historically maps have pointed to other directions, why maps point North on top is largely because of the huge influence of European culture.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Can we turn the tide? Confronting gender inequality in climate policy, Gender & Development

Sophia Huyer, Mariola Acosta, Tatiana Gumucio & Jasmin Irisha Jim Ilham
Gender & Development
https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2020.1836817
Emerging global crises such as climate change, massive migrations, pandemics, and environmental degradation are posing serious risks to humanity, threatening ecosystems and rural livelihoods across the globe. The poor, and especially the most marginalised among the poor, are disproportionately affected. Climate change in particular is expected to exacerbate pre-existing social inequalities, including gender inequalities. Therefore, innovative and equitable climate adaptation and mitigation strategies will be needed. This article reviews the progress so far in integrating a gender perspective into climate change policy discussions and agreements at global and national levels.

Spatial patterns of tree cover change at a dry forest margin are driven by initial conditions, water balance and wildfire

Harris, L.B., Taylor, A.H.
Landscape Ecology
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01178-3
Context: Increases in tree cover at dry forest margins are a global phenomenon. Yet, how pre-existing tree cover interacts with terrain and water balance to influence tree cover change is not well-understood, nor whether subsequent disturbances restore prior tree cover patterns or create novel patterns.

Objectives: To assess how terrain, water balance and pre-existing patterns of tree cover influenced late twentieth century tree cover change, and how subsequent wildfires altered tree cover patterns.

Methods: We analyzed tree canopy cover at four sites at the forest-steppe ecotone on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, California, U.S.A., using aerial photographs from 1953/1955, 1999/2002 and 2016. Influences on tree cover change were assessed using statistical modeling, and tree cover in 1953/1955 was compared with post-wildfire tree cover in 2016.

Results: From 1953 to 2002, area with > 25% canopy cover increased by 1.5 to 5-fold and treeless area decreased by 17–111%. Mesic areas and areas of sparse tree cover close to existing forest tended to gain more canopy cover. Subsequent wildfires caused a mix of net tree cover loss, little change and gain relative to 1953/1955, but at all sites areas with > 25% cover and < 10% cover in 1953/55 experienced net losses and gains respectively by 2016.

Conclusions: Accounting for initial tree cover and its configuration are crucial to assessing water balance and terrain effects on tree cover change. Our work highlights how wildfires can generate novel patterns of tree cover relative to historical baselines, especially following decades of fire exclusion.

Characterization of ice shelf fracture features using ICESat-2 – A case study over the Amery Ice Shelf

Shujie Wang, Patrick Alexander, Qiusheng Wu, Marco Tedesco, Song Shue
Remote Sensing of Environment
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.112266
Fractures are important structural features that affect the stress condition and stability of ice shelves. Previous studies have mainly focused on the measurement of fractures in the horizontal dimension. However, the vertical morphology of fractures could also be potentially important in determining their evolution and role in ice shelf stability. In this regard, the dense and high-resolution surface elevation measurements collected by the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) provide an excellent opportunity for studying fractures in the vertical dimension over a regional scale. Here we developed an object-oriented algorithm to automatically detect and characterize fracture features (including rifts, surface fractures, and the surface expressions of basal fractures) from ICESat-2 data. We successfully applied the algorithm to ICESat-2 L3A Land Ice Height (ATL06) data over the Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, and retrieved the vertical structural information of two major fracture fields. The detected fracture features match well with the visible fracture lines in Landsat-8 satellite imagery, and the edges of fracture features are well-captured from the ATL06 data. We analyzed the fracture patterns in terms of surface depth, width, vertical shape, length, and orientation. We found that the fracture feature depth is a key factor determining the formation of new fractures and the spatial pattern of depth is closely related to rift formation. We anticipate that further application of the object-oriented method over other ice shelves will produce important insights regarding fracture formation and ice shelf vulnerability by combining ICESat-2-derived vertical information with the horizontal structure retrieved from satellite imagery.

Cultural Plant Geography Introducer: Karl S. Zimmerer

Zimmerer K.S.
In: WinklerPrins A.M., Mathewson K. (eds) Forest, Field, and Fallow. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42480-0_3
Cultural plant geography has undergirded the research career of William M. Denevan. Rooted in human-environment geography, Denevan’s contributions provided landmark advances. He first utilized cultural plant geography in research on the region-scale anthropogenic influences and human use of tropical pine forests in Central America. Denevan subsequently directed this approach to research on the landscapes and adaptive strategies of the tropical lowland agriculture of indigenous groups. Subsequently it was central to his comprehensive analysis of Amazonian and Andean landscapes, global-scale synthesis, and interpretation such as the anti-Pristine Myth project, and the current interdisciplinary subfields of historical ecology, social forests, and agrobiodiversity.

Antarctica dominates uncertainty in projected land ice contribution to sea level rise this century

Edwards, T. L., … Trusel, L. … et al
Nature
https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_25040
The land ice contribution to global mean sea level rise has not yet been predicted with ice sheet and glacier models for the latest set of socio-economic scenarios, nor with coordinated exploration of uncertainties arising from the various computer models involved. Two recent international projects generated a large suite of projections using 100 multiple models, but mostly used previous generation scenarios and climate models, and could not fully explore known uncertainties. Here we estimate probability distributions for these projections under the new scenarios using statistical emulation of the ice sheet and glacier models, and find that limiting global warming to 1.5°C since preindustrial would halve the land ice contribution to sea level rise this century, relative to 105 predictions for current climate pledges under the Paris Agreement: the median 4 decreases from 25 to 13 cm sea level equivalent (SLE) by 2100, with glaciers responsible for half the sea level contribution. The Antarctic contribution does not show a clear response to emissions scenario, due to competing processes of increasing ice loss and snowfall accumulation in a warming climate. However, under risk-averse (pessimistic) assumptions, Antarctic ice loss could be five times higher, increasing 110 the median land ice contribution to 42 cm SLE under current policies and pledges, with the upper end (95th percentile) exceeding half a metre even under 1.5°C warming. This would severely limit the possibility of mitigating future coastal flooding. Until climate policies and the Antarctic response are further constrained, adaptation must therefore plan for a factor 115 of three uncertainty in the land ice contribution to global mean sea level rise.

From spatial to platial – the role and future of immersive technologies in the spatial sciences

Alexander Klippel
Journal of Spatial Information Science
https://doi.org/10.5311/JOSIS.2020.21.722
Immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality have been part of the technology mindset in computer and geospatial sciences since early on. The promise of delivering realistic experiences to the human senses that are not bound by physical reality has inspired generations of scientists and entrepreneurs alike. However, the vision for immersive experiences has been in stark contrast to the technology that has yet to properly support that vision; the community has battled nuisances such as cybersickness, tethers, and display quality for the last few decades. With the “final wave” of immersive technologies, we are now able to fulfill a long-held promise and freely envision how immersive technologies change spatial sciences by creating embodied experiences for geospatial applications. These experiences are not restricted by time or place, nor are they limited to the physical world. This contribution envisions a future for spatial sciences that is enabled by immersive technologies discussing their potential and challenges.

Evaluating a remote wetland functional assessment along an alteration gradient in coastal plain depressional wetlands

P.J. Backhaus, S. Lee, M. Nassry, G. McCarty, M. Lang and R.P. Brooks
Journal of Soil and Water
https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2020.00094
As anthropogenic disturbance continues to degrade wetland condition in many geographic areas, it is imperative to inventory wetland functions to monitor potential loss of associated ecosystem services. Field-based functional assessments are resource intensive, prohibiting their widespread application at landscape scales. This obstacle can be avoided by basing functional assessments on publicly available remote sensed data. This pilot study examined the use of Watershed-based Preliminary Assessment of Wetland Function (W-PAWF) in the assessment of wetland restoration sites. W-PAWF was used to assess 15 depressional wetlands in the US Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. These sites spanned a human alteration gradient (i.e., natural wetlands, restored wetlands, and prior-converted croplands) to determine the sensitivity of the assessment method to variation in the assemblage and performance of wetland functions. Field-based rapid assessment methods were used to verify the W-PAWF assessment and detect potential functional gaps of importance to wetland restoration. Results indicate that W-PAWF can differentiate varying levels of restoration condition, but refinement will be necessary to assess functional restoration goals related to biogeochemistry and water quality. An evaluation of the field-based methods and an alternate remote functional assessment system suggest the potential for these functional characteristics to be incorporated in future iterations of the W-PAWF.