Xie, Zhixiao

The Space Shuttle Program at the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Brevard County made a significant impact on the aerospace industry, but what is unknown is how it impacted the county surrounding it, specifically through land use/land cover (LU/LC) change and population dynamics. This research collected land cover and population data throughout the program to determine the impact, while also creating a record of the state of LU/LC and population in Brevard County in general during the same period. Urbanization and tourism were also evaluated as possible catalysts for change when analyzing the LU/LC maps created in ArcMap and the population graphs from Microsoft Excel. Calculated area for different LU/LC classes were the main focus of this research, which led to the finding that urbanization has been a major factor of change in Brevard County through expanding residential areas rather than tourism and change from the Space Shuttle Program was centered in cities closest to the KSC.

Within the U.S. in recent decades a renewed interest in downtown and city living has become known as the “back-to-the-city movement” and contributed to the stabilization and regrowth of cities that were previously losing population. This trend, however, is not occurring equally and many cities within the U.S. that have been losing population for decades are still continuing to lose population (“shrinking city”). This study seeks to understand what sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics are contributing the greatest to the back-to-the-city movement and develop a composite index that can be used to identify if similar trends are beginning to emerge in shrinking cities. Variables identified through various literature for their association with back-to-the-city movement were analyzed through a proportion composition analysis comparing changes in growing versus non-growing census tracts at the city-wide and downtown level of 86 cities within this study. The analysis was conducted for the time periods of 1970 to 2017 and 1990 to 2017. The results justified variables for inclusion in back-to-the-city movement composite index, however, the analysis found some trends differed at the city-wide versus downtown geographic levels resulting in three potential index combinations. The three indices were calculated on census tracts for the 86 cities within this study and the results were decomposed to assess performance of individual variables. The results conclude that areas within some shrinking cities are exhibiting back-to-the-city movement trends, however, additional recommendations are provided for refining the index and methodology.

The Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) known as Miami Fort Lauderdale
Pompano Beach consistently gains migrants from both the United States and abroad.
However, despite the constant increase in population, the domestic out-migration for
Miami-Dade County has consistently been more than the domestic in-migration.
Recently a similar trend is occurring in Broward and Palm Beach Counties. The
continual gain in population despite the domestic out-migration is mostly due to the large
international in-migration for the region. Using data from the Internal Revenue Service,
this paper discusses the migration of domestic populations and determines if possible new
trends exist for this MSA. Furthermore, income data collected from the IRS was used to
establish any possible relationship between migration and income.

Invasive exotic plant species cause a number of problems in native south
Florida ecosystems, and a great deal of effort is being put into controlling the
populations ofthese species. Control efforts require updated information on the
locations of exotic species. This information can be obtained from high resolution
remotely sensed data such as digital orthoimagery and LIDAR. Extraction of
information from these data sources is often problematic using traditional pixel-based
image processing techniques. An object oriented method of image analysis, however,
has been shown to be better suited to this task.
One invasive exotic species that has become widespread in south Florida is
Casuarina equisetifolia, also known as Australian pine. This study develops a semiautomated
procedure for detecting Australian pine over a large, diverse area with high
resolution remotely sensed data using the object oriented method of analysis.

Planners and managers often rely on coarse population distribution data from the
census for addressing various social, economic, and environmental problems. In the
analysis of physical vulnerabilities to sea-level rise, census units such as blocks or block
groups are coarse relative to the required decision-making application. This study
explores the benefits offered from integrating image classification and dasymetric
mapping at the household level to provide detailed small area population estimates at the
scale of residential buildings. In a case study of Boca Raton, FL, a sea-level rise
inundation grid based on mapping methods by NOAA is overlaid on the highly detailed
population distribution data to identify vulnerable residences and estimate population
displacement. The enhanced spatial detail offered through this method has the potential to
better guide targeted strategies for future development, mitigation, and adaptation efforts.

Knowledge of the geospatial distribution of vegetation is fundamental for resource management. The objective of this study is to investigate the possible use of airborne LIDAR (light detection and ranging) data to improve classification accuracy of high spatial resolution optical imagery and compare the ability of two classification algorithms to accurately identify and map wetland vegetation communities. In this study, high resolution imagery integrated with LIDAR data was compared jointly and alone; and the nearest neighbor (NN) and machine learning random forest (RF) classifiers were assessed in semi-automated geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) approaches for classification accuracy of heterogeneous vegetation assemblages at
Everglades National Park, FL, USA.

As ecosystems degrade globally, ecosystem services that support life are increasingly threatened.
Indications of degradation are occurring in the Northern Indian River Lagoon (IRL) estuary in east central
Florida. Factors associated with ecosystem degradation are complex, including climate and land use
change. Ecosystem research needs identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) include the
need to: consider the social with the physical; account for dynamism and change; account for complexity;
address issues of scale; and focus on ecosystem structure and process. Ecosystems are complex, self-organizing, multi-equilibrial, non-linear, middle-number systems that exist in multiple stable states. Results found are relative to the observation and the frame of analysis, requiring multi-scaled analytical techniques. This study addresses the identified ecosystem research needs and the complexity of the associated factors given these additional constraints. Relativity is addressed through univariate analysis of dissolved oxygen as a measure of the general health of the Northern IRL. Multiple spatial levels are employed to associate social process scales with physical process scales as basin, sub-basins, and watersheds. Scan statistics return extreme value clusters in space-time. Wavelet transforms decompose time-scales of cyclical data using varying window sizes to locate change in process scales in space over time. Wavelet transform comparative methods cluster temporal process scales across space. Combined these methods describe the space-time structure of process scales in a complex ecosystem relative to the variable examined, where the highly localized results allow for connection to unexamined variables.