Master of Environmental Science, Miami University, 2016, Environmental Sciences

Place names are vital to orienting ourselves in the world. In ancient times, people must have had names for places like hunting grounds or berry groves. This act of naming roughly delineates geographic features which can be revisited and described to others, affixing an added cultural meaning to that place. Place naming has since come a long way. Official place names for the United States and its territories are managed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), National Geospatial Technical Operations Center (NGTOC). This report details my experience working in the Geographic Names Unit. As a Pathways Career Intern, my main duties were to manage the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), a database containing official place names for features outlined on federal topographic maps. Most of the work involved duplicate names; an issue where there are two name records for one feature, often indicating that one record is a copy and should be deleted. Sometimes the two records were not copies, and the correct locations were identified by visually analyzing historic and recent maps. The coordinates were then updated respectively in the GNIS. I gained valuable experience reading topographic maps, identifying features and managing a large database of geographic names.

Committee: Robbyn Abbitt MS (Committee Chair); Suzanne Zazycki JD (Committee Member); Mark Allen Peterson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Cartography; Computer Science; Cultural Anthropology; Earth; Environmental Science; Geographic Information Science; Geography; History; Information Science; Information Technology; Language; Native American Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2003, Civil Engineering

In this dissertation, four positional quality measures for linear features presented by Ramirez (2000) were thoroughly investigated on shoreline features including Generalization Factor, Distortion Factor, Bias Factor, and Fuzziness Factor. The investigation addresses the uniquness of each one of the four measures and the effect of random errors, systematic errors and blunders in the shoreline on the four measures. The results show that these four measures describe different characteristics of a shoreline. Also a new shoreline change modeling method was developed in this study based on a new concept known as shoreline-segment orientation. This method helps to better analyze shoreline-change at the segment level by studying the angular deviation from the surrounding segments and also from the whole shoreline. Shoreline segment orientation is critical in shoreline erosion analysis because it considers the direction of the incoming waves towards the shoreline. The results of analyzing shoreline change in the study area based on this concept of segment orientation have been found to correlate to the recorded change in the period of study. Using shoreline segment as a modeling unit, a new shoreline change forecast model was developed to analyze changes and furthermore to predict future shoreline positions. This model has the advantage of capturing the physical movement of a given shoreline segment through time by two indices. These indices represent the effects of scale-and-rotation and translation that have occurred to shoreline at a previous time causing the change. These indices are assumed to encapsulate the effects of the coastal erosion processes in the study area including shoreline shape, water-level change, shoreline geology or soil types, and erosion structures. The model uses the recorded change in the period of study to capture the pattern of shoreline-change at the segment level. Furthermore, the incorporation of shoreline positional quality information in t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Rongxing Li (Advisor) Subjects: