Joshua D. Kent

• PhD
• GIS Manager & Research Lead at Louisiana State University

This paper describes a project that was undertaken using naturalistic driving data collected via Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for proactive safety assessments of crash-prone locations. The main hypothesis for the study is that the segments where drivers have to apply hard braking (higher jerks) more freq...

New measurements of ongoing subsidence of land proximal to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, and including areas around the communities of Norco and Lutcher upriver along the Mississippi are reported. The rates of vertical motion are derived from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) applied to Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aper...

High subsidence rates, along with eustatic sea-level change, sediment accumulation and shoreline erosion have led to widespread land loss and the deterioration of ecosystem health around the Lower Mississippi River Basin (LMRB). A proper evaluation of the spatial pattern of subsidence rates in the LMRB is the key to understanding the mechanisms of...

The Center for GeoInformatics (C4G) at Louisiana State University (LSU) has conducted a three-part study addressing accurate, precise, and consistent positional control for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD). First, this study focused on Departmental standards-of-practice when utilizing Global Navigational Satellite S...

The Center for GeoInformatics (C4G) at Louisiana State University (LSU) has conducted a three-part study addressing accurate, precise, and consistent positional control for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD). First, this study focused on Departmental standards-of-practice when utilizing Global Navigational Satellite S...

The Mapping Sciences program in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at LSU has been led for many years by a single individual, Dr. Nina N.S. Lam, who built the program into one of national prominence. Today, this program has expanded to four fulltime faculty and offers a suite of courses in GISc & T at the undergraduate and graduate levels...

Accurate, reliable, and consistent elevation information contributes to informed decisions for a wide range of important activities, including mapping and charting, determining flood risk, transportation, land use planning and management, environmental management, economic development, coastal sustainability, and engineering design. In no place is...

In August 2012 a sinkhole developed in the swampy marshland near the rural community of Bayou Corne in Assumption Parish (i.e., county), Louisiana. The area was evacuated, and some residents have still not been able to return. The sinkhole—which now measures about 450 meters wide and is continuing to grow—is being monitored by multiple systems, inc...

A significant challenge during any emergency response scenario is the timely compilation of actionable data from disparate sources. Although numerous strategies exist, crisis mapping techniques have emerged as effective tools for synthesizing and visualizing event specific data when establishing situational awareness. User generated content (UGC) v...

A steady-state subsidence forecast model was developed as a proof of concept to estimate changes in surface elevations of the wetlands and evacuation routes across coastal Louisiana for the years 2015, 2025, 2050, and 2100. Subsidence estimates were derived from an empirical study published by the National Geodetic Survey. Forecasted vertical chang...

Crime occurs within asymmetrical landscapes that are occupied by physical and cultural structures that influence a criminal's behavior in space. These structures manipulate the distribution of available targets and bias the offender's perceptions of opportunity and target attractiveness. A recent study demonstrated that criminal geographic profiles...

Disaster response to incidents such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill requires rapid access to comprehensive, consumable, and actionable data. Providing effective situation awareness requires data collection methodologies capable of account for the inherent spatial and temporal characteristics of the incident. However, data collection is ofte...

This research assesses the impact that one natural disasterHurricane Katrinaand subsequent population movements have had on crime in the state of Louisiana. Using Index Crimes from the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, time series of violent and nonviolent crime rates were first analyzed u...

This study tested different Bayesian Journey-to-Crime (JTC) models on a sample group of 850 serial offenders apprehended in Baltimore County, MD from 1993 to 1997. In this research, Bayesian JTC models were being used to predict the home locations of the offenders. The sample group data included 133 assaults, 90 burglaries, 497 larcenies, 81 robber...

Traditional Journey-to-Crime (JTC) estimations are used to create probability surfaces from which a Geographic Profile is derived. While effective as a decision support tool, existing JTC methodologies do not account for the physical and cultural landscape in which serial offenders operate. This research proposes to enhance existing JTC techniques...

The premise for this study is that the physical and cultural landscape has a deterministic effect on the location and distribution of serial crime. As a consequence, the distribution of linked crime scenes should exhibit a shape and orientation that is consistent with the underlying landscape. Geographic Profiling models that are able to account fo...

The geoforensic analysis method is one of the earliest criminal geographic profiling models introduced by Newton in the late 1980s. The literature on geographic profiling acknowledges its existence, however, its methodological approach remains mostly unknown. The two main contributions of this research are first, to fill the gap in the spatial crim...

Maps and graphics created by the Louisiana Geographic Information Center (LAGIC) during hurricanes Katrina and Rita occurring between August and September, 2005. These maps were generated by request for various purposes associated with Louisiana's hurricane response and recovery efforts. Content was based on best available information collected at...

This research evaluates the usefulness of applying functional distance measures to criminal geographic profiles using mathematically calibrated distance decay models. Both the travel-path (i.e., shortest distance) and temporally optimized (i.e., quickest travel time) functional distance measures were calculated based on the impedance attributes sto...