Search

• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has altered the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) river system. • Past and current Army Corps projects in the ACF contour legal conflicts between states. • Florida v. Georgia invites future geographic engagement with the history and practices of engineers in the ACF. This paper examines the role of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) in a recent Supreme Court case, Florida v. Georgia , concerning water allocation in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) river basin. Although several non-federal, run-of-the-river hydropower dams exist on the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, the system of five federal dams operated by the Corps most profoundly impacts the flow regime of the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola rivers. While the Corps was not a party in Florida v. Georgia , findings throughout the legal proceedings demonstrated the centrality of the Corps to contemporary politics and conflicts in the ACF. We propose the results of Florida v. Georgia can serve as inspiration for geographers studying the ACF river basin and other transboundary rivers to analytically and politically engage with experts and technical knowledge in new ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the value of human connection and community, drawing parallels to stories from literature and film. It highlights the success of the Southeastern Geographer journal, which receives exceptional contributions from scholars studying topics relevant to the American South. The journal's success is attributed to organizational support, positive experiences, and a nurturing editorial approach. The article also provides summaries of papers on topics such as office space developments following the COVID-19 pandemic, socioeconomic inequality among immigrant populations, the distribution of cooling centers in the Southeastern United States, and the relationship between gentrification and police-involved fatalities in Florida. Additionally, it discusses the strengths and roles of regional geography organizations, with the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers (SEDAAG) being described as the most robust. [Extracted from the article]

Historically, dense vegetation cover near buildings has caused power disruptions during weather phenomena. These types of severe storms impact the coast of Florida each year. However, challenges exist for obtaining both power outage data and calculating the impact of tree cover. NASA's Nighttime Lights, Black Marble, VNP46 product is utilized to analyze the natural and built environments. One aspect of the built environment that can be mapped with the Black Marble data is the megawatts of electricity used by the electrical power grid based on the magnitude of emitted nighttime light energy. This paper discusses using Black Marble data and other landscape variables within a probabilistic model to examine spatial patterns and map electricity outages with Bayesian networks. The research results indicate a high probability of a significant power outage when dense vegetation is present, but nuances in our natural and built environments like electric substations and land cover type alter the chance of reducing energy emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several regular papers discussed at the 60th annual meeting of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers held at the West Palm Beach in Florida from November 20-22, 2005 is presented. During the event, Steve Birdsall from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been chosen as the recipient for the Wheeler Award for the first paper submission.

Copyright of Southeastern Geographer is the property of University of North Carolina Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article announces the recipients of various awards at the 60th annual meeting of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers held in West Palm Beach, Florida from November 20-22, 2005. It informs that the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Awards are Neal Lineback and Chor-Pang Lo.

This paper recounts struggles over a Confederate monument in Tampa, Florida. Dedicated in 1911 to white supremacy and "undying love" of the Confederate cause, by 2017 the monument hung in the balance of contestations over landscape, power, and city form between anti-racist social justice movements, white nationalist neo-Confederates, and post-racial neoliberal boosters. Drawing on urban political economy, regional history, and discourse analysis, we read the fight over the monument as a flashpoint in ongoing struggles over the racialization of urban space and over regional political realignments. We trace differences among the monuments' opponents over whether its removal heralds a closing or opening of struggles for racial justice, and delineate tensions emerging among Southern white nationalists over a position with one foot searching for continued purchase in hegemonic cultures of American nationalism and militarism, and another newly planted among ascendant neoliberal-multicultural paradigms. Este artículo relata las luchas por un monumento confederado en Tampa, Florida. Dedicado en 1911 a la supremacía blanca y al "amor eterno" de la causa confederada, en el 2017 el monumento se coló en el balance de las disputas sobre el paisaje, el poder y la ciudad entre los movimientos de justicia social antirracistas, los nacionalistas blancos neo-confederados y los impulsores neoliberales pos-raciales. Usando la economía política urbana, la historia regional y el análisis del discurso, leemos la lucha por el monumento como un punto crítico en las luchas sobre la racialización del espacio urbano y sobre los realineamientos políticos regionales. Analizamos las raíces de los differencias entre los opositores de los monumentos que si su eliminación anuncia un cierre o apertura de las luchas por la justicia racial, y delimitamos las tensiones que surgen entre los nacionalistas blancos del sur sobre una posición con interés en busca de una compra continua en las culturas hegemónicas del nacionalismo y el militarismo estadounidense y otro recién plantado entre paradigmas neoliberales-multiculturales ascendentes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Southeastern Geographer is the property of University of North Carolina Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 1999, Florida instituted a performance-based school accountability program for K-12 public schools that tied state funds to a formula heavily weighted towards standardized test scores. This paper discusses the educational and political issues in the debate and then quantitatively compares the stated goals with the program's actual award money flows through a combination of univariate and multivariate measures. This case study of the elementary schools in Jacksonville, Florida finds that the new system allocated public funds with a bias against predominantly African- American and poor neighborhoods while not necessarily meeting its own objectives of encouraging better teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Southeastern Geographer is the property of University of North Carolina Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines Florida's response to the globalization of the shrimp industry. The U.S. shrimp market has been dramatically transformed by the expansion of aquaculture-produced shrimp in Asia and Latin America as processing and transportation technologies deliver this high-value food to U.S. markets. Florida shrimpers sell wild-caught shrimp sourced from the ocean and are experiencing great difficulty competing with the cheaper imports. The State of Florida developed the ''Wild and Wonderful Shrimp'' Program as a response to this situation and to aid Florida shrimpers. This program illustrates a role for the state as a promoter and facilitator—that is, a purveyor for the Florida shrimp industry. We examine the ''Wild and Wonderful Shrimp'' Program and its geographic strategy to influence how consumers think about shrimp as a way to shape the market to benefit Florida shrimpers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to answer several questions addressing the provision of health care services in the Jacksonville, Florida MSA. Previous literature in the field of medical geography has focused on describing potential accessibility to hospitals and healthcare services, but this study also models actual use of such services by using a hospital patient database. Findings from a GIS-based analysis using ESRI ArcGIS and the Business Analyst extension suggests that distance to the nearest hospital is not the best measure of access to hospital care because of the lack of consideration of hospital capacity. This study demonstrates that health services delivery can be better understood and planned when the potential accessibilities to services and the actual utilization of such services are jointly considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origin of modern spring flow in Florida is generally presumed to correspond with sea-level stabilization at or near present levels during the Middle Holocene. Low sea level and associated karstic aquifer drawdown have been assumed to have prevented artesian flow in current Florida spring systems throughout the Terminal Pleistocene. However, little paleoenvironmental work has been undertaken to test these assumptions. Substantial ecological changes within many of Florida's spring runs over the past two decades have raised interest in the use of sediment core analyses to characterize the nature, extent, timing, and potential triggers of these changes. We evaluated the extent and age of organic material accumulation in a broad sample of fifteen spring runs in central Florida. Radiocarbon dating of sediment cores indicated that many of these runs have accumulated organic material for thousands of years; five of the fifteen spring runs contain organic material that pre-dates Holocene sea-level stabilization. Therefore, either saturation or inundation of Florida's artesian spring runs was much more geographically and temporally variable than has been previously assumed. It is likely that paleoenviron-mental reconstructions of those runs with lengthy sediment records will produce new knowledge about paleoclimate, paleobiology, and more recent ecological change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrians involved in vehicle accidents are at high risk of injury because they lack protection in the event of a collision. Hillsborough County, Florida is an especially dangerous area for pedestrians, where 1.5 pedestrians per day on average are involved in a motor vehicle accident. To maximize efficiency for planners and increase resulting benefits for pedestrians, this study aims to identify zones or hotspots of pedestrian-involved accidents based on pedestrian-involved crashes on major roads from 2012 to 2016 in Hillsborough County, Florida, USA. Using the network-based Moran's I index, the Ripley's K-function, and kernel density estimation as exploratory data analysis tools, this study investigates possible spatial dependence for pedestrian-involved crash events in Hillsborough County and identifies areas of high pedestrian risk. First, this study will apply the Moran's I Index and Ripley's K-function to demonstrate that pedestrian-involved accident sites are not randomly distributed in the study area. Next, we proceed with application of kernel density estimation to determine zones where high pedestrian risk might be associated with a high density of accidents. Identification of specific locations of high risk allows infrastructure improvement projects to prioritize resources efficiently, ultimately resulting in increased benefits to pedestrians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hurricane Irma, which threatened nine out of ten local Florida television markets, provided a unique case study to survey Floridians to examine the relationship between media-related variables, risk perception, and protective decision-making. Hurricane-specific variables such as severity and forecast track were the most frequently cited reasons for evacuating. As in previous research, risk perception and the perceived vulnerability of one's home were motivating factors for hurricane evacuation. Local television news was the most important source for hurricane information. Trust in local news and viewing a weathercast in the last twenty-four hours were related to risk perception. This study was the first to examine the one-sided parasocial relationship (PSR) that develops between a viewer and a local television news or weathercaster and the viewer's response to a hurricane. Although PSR was not related to hurricane risk perception or protective actions as anticipated, this article explores reasons that may have led to this surprising result including changes in the media landscape, or the potential for the weathercaster to play different roles in different extreme weather events. The findings contribute to our understanding of information use during a hurricane. It also raises questions about the future of media influence on decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the historic stream flow of the Santa Fe River, Florida from year 1932 to 2012. Topics discussed include the effect of the increase of the water consumption on the irrigation water supply, the changes on the maxima and minima annual water discharge of the river, and the impact of the growth of urban population.

Copyright of Southeastern Geographer is the property of University of North Carolina Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Southeastern Geographer is the property of University of North Carolina Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Southeastern Geographer is the property of University of North Carolina Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Florida has been visited by some of the most destructive and devastating hurricanes on record in the United States causing well over $450 billion in damage since the early 20th century. The value of insured property in Florida against windstorm damage is the highest in the nation and on the rise. The frequency and severity of hurricanes affecting Florida are examined from the best set of available data and the damages are related to characteristics of the storms at landfall. Results show that normalized losses are increasing over time consistent with small increases in hurricane intensity and hurricane size. The best predictor of potential losses is minimum central pressure. Hurricane size alone or in combination with hurricane intensity does not improve on the simpler relationship. An estimate of potential losses from hurricanes can be obtained using a formula involving only a forecast of the minimum pressure at landfall. The ability to estimate potential losses in Florida will increase the ability to estimate losses in other areas of the United States, and will also allow policy makers and insurance companies to provide relevant information to the concerned public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identity of surfers and the surfing industry is intimately connected with romantic conceptions of nature linked to the ocean. Representations of surfers, such as those from deep ecology, recent scholarly work, the Surfrider Foundation, and within countless surfing media sources tend to include a keen sense of environmental awareness and developed environmental ethics. To investigate the surfer-environmentalist connection, specifically aiming to uncover if surfing inspires environmental action, we question Florida surfers about how nature plays into their surfing experience and how surfing may influence their roles as ecological actors. Using a two phase, mixed methods approach, we find that surfers generally self-identify as ecologically aware and socially active for environmental protection, reflecting the popular representations of the surfing community. In contrast, analysis of respondents' activities reveals lifestyles often incongruent with environmentally progressive ideologies and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even as ex-urban population growth has shifted attention to possible economic revitalization, rural communities in the U.S. continue to exhibit long-standing trends of agricultural decline. This article focuses on the nature and extent of farm losses in the rapidly urbanizing state of Florida. It aims to provide a rural perspective on contemporary concerns with urban sprawl, and contrast national-level studies of farm decline with regional understandings. Recent county-level changes in farm proprietorship are measured in terms of the difference in number of farms between 1997 and 2002. This change is related through regression models to four categories of explanatory factors: degree of urbanization, farm operator demographics, economic characteristics, and agrarian land use characteristics. A detailed understanding of agricultural decline is obtained by contrasting variables that significantly affect likelihood of farm loss across all counties with those that influence magnitude of farm loss among counties experiencing decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sinkhole database of the Florida Geologic Survey (FGS) is the primary publicly-accessible database of recent sinkhole occurrence and distribution. However, it does not use a consistent and predictable approach to recording sinkhole occurrences. Thus, the possibility exists that the database is largely a reflection of the distribution of people in sinkhole-prone areas of Florida, rather than a true enumeration of all sinkholes that occur. In order to assess the validity of the data contained within the database, a comparison was made of population distribution and sinkhole occurrences. The results indicate that sinkhole reporting is not associated with population distribution, and that reporting bias is not a major problem with the data contained therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quarter century ago we surveyed Florida residents in an attempt to locate vernacular regions. Since that time place scholarship and survey methods have changed, and so has the state. This study uses a telephone survey to gauge citizen perceptions of regions. In addition, we use web imagery for representation of the results. This representational mode is chosen in response to the need for an understanding of place that is dynamic, contested and multi-faceted. Our cartographic representation of survey results is intended to give a visual impression of the fibrous nature of perception among Floridians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As coastal communities are experiencing increased impacts from climate stressors, it is becoming more important for policy makers to establish sound policy objectives for the protection of these communities. Top-down focused policies are not always successful as they do not always align with the wants and needs of a community. Bottom-up information, on the other hand, can be highly insightful for local policy makers to help design management strategies that include social needs and potential conflicts as they take into account the public's attitudes, perceptions, and expectations of the environment. This study sought to assess how beach users – local residents and tourists – perceive the environmental [End Page 309] and economic ecosystem services that coastal dunes provide as well as their views on management strategies for the protection of these environments at Pensacola Beach. A total of sixty surveys were conducted at various beach locations in Pensacola Beach, Florida. Results indicated that beach users, both local and tourist, understood the environmental and economic value of coastal dunes, yet the different user groups showcased differing levels of willingness to support dune management initiatives. Local residents showed a substantially higher propensity to support dune management both financially as well as through action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]