MSc thesis topic: Environmental justice in Oklahoma: the growth of regulated and unregulated poultry farms

The rapid, and relatively unregulated expansion of poultry farms in Oklahoma has mostly gone under the radar (Bodine, 2020). Only recently a relatively small air pollution study was funded to investigate the impact of poultry farms in Northeastern Oklahoma (Bodine, 2020). Here we propose to carry out a study focused on the mapping of environmental impact of poultry farms within the region. The study will focus on Ottawa and Delaware counties. Ottawa county had 19 registered poultry farms as of 2021, and Delaware county had another 162 registered poultry operations, representing an estimated 22 million broilers, layers, pullets, and turkeys, more than 120 thousand birds per farm. Almost 25% of these farms (43) have owners outside of Oklahoma, almost all of them in Arkansas. Approximately half of these operations, representing more than 10 million new birds, were established after 2015. There is a lot of flux in the poultry houses in Oklahoma, with many of them starting new in the last decade and several older ones closing. This project will use building footprint data, in combination with Planet data and Landsat Land Surface Temperature data to understand how many poultry houses are actually in use, and to identify potentially unregistered poultry farms. Spatial analysis will identify the distance between the farms and surface water, as well as the distance to population centers. Time permitting a time series of changes will be produced starting in 2015, to understand and map the growth of the poultry industry.

Relevance to research/projects at GRS or other groups

This project will foster a collaboration between GRS and researchers of the University of Oklahoma with extensive experience in the tribal areas of northeast Oklahoma that are affected by these poultry operations.

Objectives and Research questions

• Study the development of the Oklahoma poultry farms and develop annual maps for the past 10 years.
• Evaluate with land surface temperature (and other measures?) whether the poultry houses are active.
• Evaluate the distance of working poultry farms to open surface water and population centers.

Requirements

• At least Intro to Remote Sensing
• Geoscripting
• Affinity with the processing of satellite image time series
• Affinity with complex environmental problems and human impact analysis

Literature and information

• Bodine, S., 2020. Advocates Are Concerned About Air Quality Near Poultry Farms. Researchers Are Studying It. NPR All Things Considered.
• Gržinić, G., Piotrowicz-Cieślak, A., Klimkowicz-Pawlas, A., Górny, R. L., Ławniczek-Wałczyk, A., Piechowicz, L., ... & Wolska, L. (2023). Intensive poultry farming: A review of the impact on the environment and human health. Science of the Total Environment, 858, 160014.
• Koc, A.B., Anderson, P.T., Chastain, J.P. and Post, C., 2020. Estimating rooftop areas of poultry houses using uav and satellite images. Drones, 4(4), p.76.

Expected reading list before starting the thesis research

• See above.
• https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/landsat-collection-2-surface-temperature

Theme(s): Human – space interaction, Empowering & engaging communities