Christopher Burton
Department of Geography,
University of South Carolina

burton@mailbox.sc.edu



Hello and welcome to my world on the web. I am a Masters Candidate with various interests pertaining to my discipline, yet Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has long been my passion. My primary research interest involves the application of spatial information processing techniques to decision-making and risk assessment in flood prone areas. For example, according to experts such as urban planning scholar William Fulton, about 3.5 million acres of California land is devoted to urban use, a figure is rising by more than 100,000 acres per year. The growth machine is powerful in California in general, especially in the greater Sacramento area where the state’s booming population and rising demand for affordable housing have spurred huge developments in a historic floodplain. On the northern edge of Sacramento, in an area now labeled North Natomas, tens of thousands of homes are envisioned in low lying basins between the Sacramento and American Rivers. A levee break could cause the area to be fully inundated, leading to devastating loss of life and property. My interest involves devising strategies by which my study area can effectively grow while dealing with their flood problems and protecting the beneficial functions of their floodplain.

EDUCATION
M.S., Geography, University of South Carolina, 2007 (expected)
B.A., Geography with emphasis in Cartography, GIS, and Planning, California State University, Sacramento, 2005
A.S., Social Science, American River College, Sacramento, CA,2002

DISCLAIMER:
The Views and opinions expressed in
this page are strictly those of the page
author. The contents of the page have
not been reviewed or approved by the
University of South Carolina.


Last modified on February 15, 2006