Physical Geography

Prepared by Martin Otundo Richard (PhD Fellow in Project Management at JKUAT-Mombasa Campus). A long serving Geography and Kiswahili teacher at Lungalunga Sec. Kwale County, an Author of several university and high school  materials,  a lecturer at JKUAT, a Scholar and Senior Researcher. He can be reached via: martinotundo@gmail.com  : +254721246744

Prepared by Martin Otundo Richard (PhD Fellow in Project Management at JKUAT-Mombasa Campus). A long serving Geography and Kiswahili teacher at Lungalunga Sec. Kwale County, an Author of several university and high school  materials,  a lecturer at JKUAT, a Scholar and Senior Researcher. He can be reached via: martinotundo@gmail.com  : +254721246744

A project conducted over one year (Fall '17 - Fall '18) as a product of the GIS for Coastal and Marine Applications course. The study reveals continual build-up in areas surrounding the habitats of nine threatened/endangered species in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Remote sensing data is enhanced with the Built-up Area Extraction Index (BAEI) to approximate human development density and cross-referenced with arbitrary 1.5km buffers around areas designated as critical coastal habitats by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Paper per il Seminario Geografia e Letteratura. Giornate dottorali del Centro Pio Rajna, Roma, Villa Altieri, 28 febbraio-1° marzo 2019.
L’Europa tra ‘400 e ‘500 iniziò a guardare politicamente alla Russia a causa dell’espansione ottomana. Parallelamente, l’ignoto est dell’Asia suscitò nelle corti la fervida curiosità di principi e umanisti, desiderosi di cimentarsi con i materiali provenienti da terre sconosciute. Primissimo dato esperienziale riportato da viaggiatori, mercanti e diplomatici, la geografia stimolò innanzitutto l’interesse verso luoghi e popoli lontani. Soprattutto con Leone X e il V Concilio Lateranense l’appello alla crociata fu rivolto alla Moscovia, possibile alleato antiturco. A Roma un’orazione di Alessandro Geraldini riproponeva la conciliazione tra le Chiese d'occidente e d'oriente in vista della crociata. Qualche anno più tardi sarebbe stato invece Paolo Giovio a dedicare a papa Clemente VII un’operetta sulla legazione romana dell’ambasciatore moscovita Demetrio "Erasmo" Gerassimov. Più volte nel corso del pontificato leonino vari nunzi raggiunsero i principi per convincerli a unirsi contro il nemico comune ottomano. Un’alleanza Papato-Impero fece sì che nel biennio 1518-19 una delegazione cercò di mediare la pace tra Moscovia e Polonia, affinché potessero entrambe partecipare alla crociata. Possediamo ben due resoconti del viaggio e della permanenza degli ambasciatori imperiali: i Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii di Sigismund von Herberstein (Vienna 1549) e il Trattamento de pace di Francesco da Collo (Venezia 1603), che trovarono successivamente fortuna letteraria. Incuriosito sui “confini” fra geografia reale o leggendaria delle Russie, non prive di importanti risvolti teologici rispetto all’auctoritas tolemaica, Massimiliano I mandò i due ambasciatori a raccogliere – l’uno indipendentemente dall’altro –dettagli cosmografici, etnografici, storico-culturali.

This paper explores long-term trends in human population and vegetation change in the Levant from the early to the late Holocene in order to assess when and how human impact has shaped the region’s landscapes over the millennia. To do so, we employed multiple proxies and compared archaeological, pollen and palaeoclimate data within a multi-scalar approach in order to assess how Holocene landscape dynamics change at different geographical scales. We based our analysis on 14 fossil pollen sequences and applied a hierarchical agglomerative clustering and community classification in order to define groups of vegetation types (e.g. grassland, wetland, woodland, etc.). Human impact on the landscape has been assessed by the analysis of pollen indicator groups. Archaeological settlement data and Summed Probability Distribution (SPD) of radiocarbon dates have been used to reconstruct long-term demographic trends. In this study, for the first time, the evolution of the human population is estimated statistically and compared with environmental proxies for assessing the interplay of biotic and abiotic factors in shaping the Holocene landscapes in the Levant.

Waste management is a serious threat to many cities in Ghana and for this reason, many cities are characterised by poor waste management systems and strategies. This situation is a reflection of the issue of urbanization and uncontrolled urban growth, and for that matter, waste generation is in a constant rise and dealing with it has become a challenge to city waste management officials. The key aim of this research is to identify the various waste management strategies in Tamale and assesses their effectiveness. The study also suggests the alternative waste management strategies that can be adopted by the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly in dealing with the waste situation of the city. The mixed research methodology was used in the research work. Data were obtained from both primary and secondary sources. The key findings of the research were that the waste management strategies of Tamale were generally ineffective since the findings revealed that, the city’s waste management officials are unable to manage the overwhelming waste generated in the city per day. The study also further revealed that this situation is further worsened by inadequate logistics, and well-trained personnel to manage the large sums of waste generated in the city daily. The research recommends that the city officials should adopt factors such as adequate funding of waste management institutions, proper siting of landfills, strict legislation on waste disposal situation, the introduction of the Polluter Pay Policy, and the adoption of the integrated solid waste management strategy.

Alcalá del Río (Sevilla), la presente aportación al conocimiento del sitio
de la Angorrilla se centra en el estudio del contexto geomorfológico del yacimiento. Apoyados en el análisis cartográico y la fotointerpretación de fotogramas aéreos de diversas épocas y escalas, se lleva a cabo una caracterización general del emplazamiento, al objeto no sólo de caracterizar los rasgos morfo-topográicos generales y de detalle del yacimiento, a través de sus distintas fases de su ocupación (Calcolítico, Tartesos, Roma), sino asimismo de contextualizarlo en el marco geomorfológico regional del valle bajo del Guadalquivir.

UMI. ProQuest® Dissertations & Theses The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest. An investigation into the use of geospatial technologies as part of disaster management efforts related to the Asian tsunami of 2004. ...

Spatiotemporal patterns are difficult to portray through traditional methods, but the space-time cube allows time to be analyzed as a third dimension. The spatio-temporal GIS analysis of the MODIS data enables us to know about the varying degree of stubble burning in the regions of Punjab and Haryana. The said activity is one of the crucial reasons for the smog problem that is faced by the NCR (National Capital Region) every winter for last decade. With the help of spatio-temporal tools in GIS, the intensity and trends of the study area, that burns agricultural waste, can be assessed and analyzed.

Inundation dynamics are a key driver of ecosystem form and function in river-valley bottoms. Inundation itself is an outcome of multi-scalar interactions and can vary strongly within and among river reaches. As a result, establishing to what degree and how inundation dynamics vary spatially both within and among river reaches can be challenging. The objective of this study was to understand how river-valley morphology, basin size, and flow-event magnitude interact to affect inundation dynamics in river-valley bottoms. We used 2D hydraulic models to simulate inundation in four river reaches from Maryland's Piedmont physiographic province, and qualitatively and quantitatively summarized within-and among-reach patterns of inundation extent, duration, depth, shear stress, and wetting frequencies. On average, reaches from confined valley settings experienced less extensive flooding, shorter durations and shallower depths, stronger gradients of maximum shear stress, and relatively infrequent wetting compared to reaches from unconfined settings. These patterns were generally consistent across flow-event magnitudes. Patterns of within-reach flooding across event magnitudes revealed complex interactions between hydrology and surface topography. We concluded that valley morphology had a greater impact on flooding patterns than basin size: Inundation patterns were more consistent across reaches of similar morphology than similar basin size, but absolute values of inundation characteristics varied between large and small basins. Our results showed that the manifestation of out-of-bank flows in valley floors can vary widely depending on geomorphic context, even within a single physiographic province, which suggests that hydrologic and hydraulic conditions experienced on the valley floor may not be well represented by existing hydrologic metrics derived from discharge data alone. We thus support the notion that 2D hydraulic models can be useful hydrometric tools for cross-scale investigations of floodplain ecosystems.

CREATION OF CAVES AS THE FACTOR OF ANTHROPOGENIC LANDSCAPE FORMATION OF MIDDLE DON
Here  are  considered  landscape  features  of  placing  of  cave  complexes  of  Middle  Don. Transformation of separate components of natural complexes under the influence of anthropogenic activity of the humans at creation and functioning of caves is described. Artificial caves are considered as special kinds of anthropogenic cave-cretaceous landscapes.

ABSTRACT
The research was conducted in Meru district. The researcher sought to investigate the influence of infrastructure on the performance of science students in their studies in secondary schools.The main objective of the study was to investigate the problems facing science students in secondary schools and how infrastructure influences performance of science students in their studies. The researcher used questionnaire, interview and observation to obtain information. The population of the study was 50 respondents who included science students, science teachers, heads of school and education officer. Two schools were randomly selected, which were Tengeru boys’ secondary school and Poli secondary school, also the methods used to select the population were simple random and quota sampling and in the process of data analysis
quantitative and qualitative procedures were used. The study found out that shortage of science teachers, poor competence of science teachers, poor ideology of parents, shortage of learning facilities and poor correlation between subjects, students and number of teachers are
infrastructural factors which affected the academic performance of students in secondary school.The study recommends that, Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, parents and science teachers should play their role in improving academic performance especially in science subjects and to provide enough facilities of teaching and learning, also the government should train enough science teachers.