Graduate Student, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning
Research Assistant
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Billie Turner
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About
I am a PhD student in the School of Geographical Sciences at ASU. My research interests include land change science, remote sensing, GIS, global change, paleoenvironments, arid and semi-arid landscapes. I have worked in a number of fields including telecommunications, archaeology, and geography. The unifying theme throughout my work has been the application of computer based analysis to develop solutions for research and practical problems. Now I focus mostly on applying geospatial methods to human environment problems and questions.
Current projects:
My dissertation research investigates land cover change and climate variability in Dhofar, Oman. I am trying to understand anomalies in vegetation indices that seem to indicate overgrazing and/or climate variability leading to alterations in net primary production. This can affect ecosystem services (benefits humans derive from the environment) and may have implications for environmental change and sustainability of the landscape. I use remote sensing and spatial analysis to look at long term land use effects (going back to the 1970's) and I combine it with biogeographical models of flora to understand the distribution of trees, shrubs, and grass covers. The output will be policy driven models that can offer stakeholders more information on how to manage the landscape more sustainably.
I am engaged in an ongoing project to study human origins in southern Arabia. Utilizing biophysical and landscape variables, I am developing a model of to analyze the site distribution of Arabian prehistory in Dhofar, Oman.
I also work with CAP-LTER (Central Arizona Phoenix - Long Term Ecological Research) on a number of projects. Using Quickbird satellite data and object based information analysis, I have been classifying land covers in the Pheonix area to support a number of different efforts. I am also doing research to investigate the relationship between landscape configuration and composition with urban night time temperatures for possible connections to the urban heat island effect.
A third project I am working stems from a small grant issued to me by ASU's GPSA (Graduate and Professional Student Association) to purchase Quickbird satellite imagery. The imagery covers the hinterland of Kumzar in the northern Oman exclave of Musandam. I am using object oriented techniques and spatial analysis to perform a comprehensive, high resolution study of traditional agricultural terraces that are thought to be mostly abandoned. Archaeologists believe that the terraces were built sometime during the rise of the city of Julfar (modern Ras al'Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates) in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Some though are still in use today, demonstrating a long tradition. In addition, I am currently investigating the potential of adapting a maximum entropy model to predict and understand the environmental context of agricultural terraces in Cyprus - working with Liz Ridder, Pat Fall, and Steve Falconer.
New project: working on using satellite remote sensing to assess the sustainability of urban communities. More to come.
Contact Information
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