UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    WINDS OF CHANGE: HURRICANE PATTERNS AND IMPACTS ON EARLY NATIVE COASTAL COMMUNITIES
    (2024) Martin, Nicole Linsey; Palus, Matthew; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Over time society has learned to adapt during hurricane season with various methods of preparations, some including evacuating. But how did early Native settlements prepare and withstand such adversity? Hurricanes would have tested the resiliency and adaptability of early Native settlements. Utilizing common theories and methods of paleotempestology and marine historical ecology, this research analyzes the relationship between early Native settlement patterns and hurricane patterns in the Panhandle and Northwest Region of Florida. Early storm data is extracted from cores processed through sedimentary particle size analysis. The storms identified are compared to the historical hurricane data published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Archaeological sites with pertinent existing collections within the vicinity of the research areas are identified and with permissions of the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research (BAR), new data on shell height was recorded to support this research project. The shell height data had a noticeable relationship with the periods of stormy impact. The period of stormy occurrence is compared to archaeological site location data provided by the Florida Master Site Files (FMSF) identifying an apparent relationship between the storm occurrences and the archaeological site density along the coastline.
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    Post-Hurricane Recovery in the United States: A Multi-Scale Approach
    (2019) Kerr, Siobhan Elizabeth; Patwardhan, Anand; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    As we increasingly consider resilience as a central strategy for addressing climate change, recovery emerges as an important dimension that is often the focus of public policy. The progression of global climate change will cause an increase in the scale and magnitude of disasters, so it is more important than ever to understand how we can not only prevent impacts, but also recover from them. This research was carried out with the primary goal of examining recovery at multiple scales, while simultaneously considering the social and economic forces and community behaviors that influence recovery outcomes. This dissertation proposes new ways of conceptualizing and quantifying recovery and analyzes the way that neighborhood characteristics and community engagement influence the recovery process. The findings emphasize the importance of assessing recovery progress on multiple timescales and highlight the opportunities that emerge as a result of community engagement with local government throughout the recovery process. The first analytical chapter considers the interaction between vulnerability and recovery by studying power outages and restoration following Hurricane Isaac in Louisiana. This approach uses power restoration as a metric by which to better understand short-term recovery of a specific infrastructure system, building a model for recovery that takes into account antecedent conditions, impact, hazard and prioritization. The next chapter considers 311 requests in Houston TX as a potential proxy measure for civic engagement and social capital. This chapter analyzes 311 contact volumes across the City of Houston and identifies the neighborhood characteristics that influence proclivity to call. Finally, the 311 data is used to better understand system-level recovery and community engagement in the recovery process in Houston TX following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The chapter compares neighborhood-level use of 311 services prior to Hurricane Harvey to the way it was used for storm-related concerns in the weeks directly following the storm.