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Drought is defined, experienced, and communicated about in multiple ways. This case study examines individual definitions of drought (timing, impacts, and severity) and attitudes about climate change. Household surveys (n = 120) were conducted in Cimarron County, Oklahoma and Union County, New Mexico using a stratified random sampling method to select farmers, ranchers, and town residents. Information about drought is primarily communicated between neighbors, friends, and family, as well as media and local governing agencies. Residents perceive the recent drought to be the worst drought on record, regardless of previous drought experiences. Residents reported widespread drought-related impacts on agriculture, environment, and society. Most residents see drought as cyclical and driven by natural causes, rather than human causes. We recommend adaptive drought communication engage more fully with identity, place, and history. Climate information should be presented in a relevant manner to diverse agricultural stakeholders with differing attitudes about climate change, management, and climate information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately mapping the spatial distribution of forests in sub-humid to semi-arid regions over time is important for forest management but a challenging task. Relatively large uncertainties still exist in the spatial distribution of forests and forest changes in the sub-humid and semi-arid regions. Numerous publications have used either optical or synthetic aperture radar (SAR) remote sensing imagery, but the resultant forest cover maps often have large errors. In this study, we propose a pixel- and rule-based algorithm to identify and map annual forests from 2007 to 2010 in Oklahoma, USA, a transitional region with various climates and landscapes, using the integration of the L-band Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS) PALSAR Fine Beam Dual Polarization (FBD) mosaic dataset and Landsat images. The overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient of the PALSAR/Landsat forest map were about 88.2% and 0.75 in 2010, with the user and producer accuracy about 93.4% and 75.7%, based on the 3270 random ground plots collected in 2012 and 2013. Compared with the forest products from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), National Land Cover Database (NLCD), Oklahoma Ecological Systems Map (OKESM) and Oklahoma Forest Resource Assessment (OKFRA), the PALSAR/Landsat forest map showed great improvement. The area of the PALSAR/Landsat forest was about 40,149 km2 in 2010, which was close to the area from OKFRA (40,468 km2), but much larger than those from JAXA (32,403 km2) and NLCD (37,628 km2). We analyzed annual forest cover dynamics, and the results show extensive forest cover loss (2761 km2, 6.9% of the total forest area in 2010) and gain (3630 km2, 9.0%) in southeast and central Oklahoma, and the total area of forests increased by 684 km2 from 2007 to 2010. This study clearly demonstrates the potential of data fusion between PALSAR and Landsat images for mapping annual forest cover dynamics in sub-humid to semi-arid regions, and the resultant forest maps would be helpful to forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations that hire GIS professionals look for entry-level employees with specialized technical skills but also other competencies such as effective communication and a capacity to think critically and creatively. Indeed, the success of GIS projects and initiatives often depends on individuals who possess a combination of specialized GIS skills and more general competencies that influence their ability to collaborate and manage resources. This article presents findings from a survey of GIS employers and educators concerning the importance of hard and soft skills among entry-level GIS professionals. A key finding is the high level of consistency in ratings assigned by employers and educators concerning hard skills such as data editing and GIS analysis and soft skills including problem solving and adaptability. However, the groups were less similar in ratings assigned to data capture skills, project management, and written/verbal skills. GIS qualifications were also compared, revealing a greater emphasis on internships among educators and higher ratings assigned to academic GIS certificates among employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the enormous growth of college courses dealing with spatial information, curriculum planning involving geographic information science ( GIS) courses and programs has received little attention within the GIS literature. As the number and variety of GIS courses expands, so too does the importance of both systematic and inclusive planning and campus-wide coordination. In this article we explore course planning through an exploration of 312 GIS course syllabi used at US colleges and universities with the goal of characterizing the degree to which learning resources, student evaluation methods, and course topics have become standardized across institution types, academic levels, and disciplines. Our findings reveal a consensus in the use of GIS software across courses but no similar agreement in the use of textbooks. Hands-on activities were used as evaluation methods in nearly every course in the sample regardless of institution type or academic level. However, quizzes, tests and final exams were used more often in community colleges while papers and projects were used more frequently in four-year and comprehensive research universities. The frequency of topic categories listed on syllabi was relatively consistent across institutions, academic levels and disciplines with a few topics such as vector analytic operations, data models, and data creation/acquisition/editing included on more than 50% of syllabi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An understanding of the contemporary biogeography of a region must be predicated not only on the current environmental conditions that influence species distributions but also on historical factors including anthropogenic disturbance regimes. Increasingly, researchers are using historical data, such as the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) records, to create baselines from which subsequent biogeographic changes can be gauged. The present-day state of Oklahoma is unique in that two separate PLSS surveys were conducted in the state during a relatively short time span. We compare these two historical data sets, from the 1870s and 1890s, respectively, to quantify changes in landscape structure and woody plant assemblages corresponding to rapid demographic changes occurring within the Arbuckle Mountains in Oklahoma. During this period, the PLSS data show a landscape that became increasingly fragmented, as well as differences in stand composition and density. The documentation of these important historical anthropogenic changes occurring on the western fringes of the eastern deciduous forest could serve as a valuable guide for conservation and restoration initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]