KU NEWS SERVICE

LAWRENCE — When Jude Kastens was developing a new floodplain mapping model more than a decade ago as part of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Kansas, he aimed to address a critical information gap that often hindered officials during major flooding events: the lack of real-time, wide-area predictions for floodwater extent and depth.​

Dependable, detailed inundation estimates are vital for emergency managers to have enough situational awareness to quickly get the right resources and information to flood-impacted communities. In 2007, severe flooding in southeastern Kansas put a spotlight on the lack of timely, reliable projections for floodwater spread.

With heavy rains this spring (May 2019 was the wettest month ever recorded in Kansas), officials at the Kansas Water Office and Kansas Division of Emergency Management worked with Kastens, now a KU associate research professor with the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Program at the Kansas Biological Survey, to get a more precise read on where floodwaters could rise to, based on his approach to integrating data from elevation maps, stream gauges and National Weather Service river stage forecasts.

“I worked with the Kansas Water Office in May,” Kastens said. “The ground was saturated, and the reservoirs were getting full, and with a lot more rain in the forecast, major flooding across central and eastern Kansas was looking imminent. Some years ago we’d developed this inundation library largely in collaboration with the Water Office and the Kansas GIS Policy Board but had never had the chance to put it through its paces in real time. It was based on the approach that I developed for my dissertation, and we had flood libraries for the greater eastern half of Kansas, based on the gauged stream network. For instance, if you drive south of Lawrence on Highway 59, you’ll see a USGS stream gauge box by the bridge over the Wakarusa River.

There are about 200 gauges in Kansas that collect real-time stream stage information, and in times of flood, the National Weather Service provides stage forecasts several days out for a lot of these. We can take these data and map estimated current or future flooding, between gauges or around one.”

Kastens’ model (called FLDPLN, or “Floodplain”) maps potential inundation as a function of stage height using basic hydrologic principles and gridded elevation data. Because the approach requires so few inputs and little supervision, it has significant advantages for real-time mapping over existing methods such as the more precise but more complicated hydrodynamic models that FEMA uses to map 100-year floodplains.

Working with Kansas officials as historic rainfalls of 2019 threatened several areas of Kansas with flooding, mapping efforts were focused on three critical locations.

“We modeled the Neosho River south of John Redmond Reservoir in Coffey County down to Oklahoma, which is about a 100-mile stretch,” Kastens said. “We also modeled the Neosho and the Cottonwood rivers above John Redmond, centered around Emporia close to where those two rivers come together in Lyon County. The third area was around Salina, where flooding along the Saline River and Mulberry Creek was approaching historic levels.”

When John Redmond Reservoir just above Burlington on the Neosho River was nearly at capacity and the Army Corps of Engineers was planning the release of large volumes of water, Kastens’ efforts helped inform local leaders of the potential flooding extent — and they shared his flood maps with the public.

“Using projected discharge and stage information from the Corps, we modeled Neosho River flooding at Burlington and down through the rest of Coffey County,” Kastens said. “John Redmond was built by the Corps in the early 1960s to provide flood control along the Neosho, but the reservoir flood pool had reached capacity and needed to have some pressure released to avoid compromising the dam. With the Neosho already running high, city managers and commissioners had a lot of concern with how bad it was going to get because the Army Corps was going to have start releasing a very large quantity of water out of the reservoir. I made some maps using Corps projections supplied by the Kansas Water Office and also by the Coffey County GIS coordinator, Cara Mays. It helped greatly that Cara recently completed her master’s thesis at KU using the FLDPLN model to simulate the historic 1951 flood in Burlington, so she was well aware of its capabilities.”

Going forward, Kastens — who did a lot of this work during his free time in the evenings and weekends as a public service — hopes to automate the task of generating flood maps to lessen the workload when streams and rivers threaten to overspill their banks.

“With my other obligations at KBS, a lot of off-the-clock effort was needed to see this through,” he said. “Time is of the essence during major flood events. We need to develop software tools to help automate the mapping process and hand it off to these other agencies so they have the freedom to map whichever scenarios they want. I think our work in May demonstrated the value of our mapping approach, and hopefully we can pull together a project to help us move forward with the automation. So, when that next flood hits, emergency response personnel can just run the models as they see fit. That’s how we always envisioned this thing — we construct the inundation libraries for others to use during flood emergencies or simulations.”

Kastens’ novel approach to flood mapping has proven to be such an improvement, recently he’s worked with a private firm to commercialize the technology and provide services outside of Kansas to emergency management officials and entities with property in flood-prone areas.

“In 2015, we entered an agreement with Riverside Technology Inc. based in Fort Collins, Colorado, working through KU Center for Technology Commercialization to try to commercialize this stuff,” Kastens said. “They did their homework and market research and saw a real opportunity to develop inundation mapping solutions built around our flood libraries. Our contract with Riverside expires next year, so we will just have to see what happens after that. We made sure we carved out Kansas from the agreement, which allows us the freedom to provide direct assistance during flood events like we did in May.”

Kastens likens the projected inundation maps to predicted storm tracks or tornado watch or warning maps.

“They are never perfectly accurate, but then again neither are more sophisticated models. No two floods are the same, and a lot of resources are being expended in the public and private sectors to do what we are already capable of doing cheaply and efficiently right now here in Kansas.”

The Kansas Biological Survey, a KU Designated Research Center, was established at KU in 1911. It houses a diverse group of environmental research and remote sensing/GIS programs. The survey also manages the 3,700-acre KU Field Station, established in 1947; it offers sites for faculty and student study in the sciences, arts, humanities and professional schools.

By NOMIN UJIYEDIIN
Kansas News Service

TOPEKA — Courtney Train spends her days going to nail salons, the pool and the dog park.

As a paid mentor and advocate for children ages 8 to 18 who’ve seen domestic violence at home or experienced it while dating, Train knows quality time — and fun — with a trusted adult can be in short supply for her clients.

So, she talks to them about safer sex. She analyzes media portrayals of relationships. She’s also taken them to the zoo, on college visits and to a county fair art competition.

“The idea of childhood is stolen from them,” Train said. “For them to just play, not have to think about adult issues, it’s really powerful.”

Domestic violence centers across Kansas are often ill-equipped to serve the needs of older children and teens, instead focusing on shelter for adult survivors and the young children they bring with them.

“It’s easy for us to think, ‘Oh, teens aren’t an issue,’” Train said. “It does not seem like there’s a lot of information and support out there.”

But thanks to a pilot project, Train, based in Salina, is one of six mentors at five domestic violence organizations across Kansas who have worked with older children and teenagers over the past two years.

Funded by a federal grant and coordinated by the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, the Empowered Families Kansas Project is trying to fill that gap in Salina, Newton, Iola, Pittsburg and Garden City.

The coalition said results from the first two years are hard to quantify, but look to be promising. It plans to expand the pilot to cover more of the state over the next year.

The mentors, like Train, help connect children with therapists. Older children receive guidance on career paths. That kind of long-term, individual attention is rare.

“Our services are crisis-oriented,” said Kathy Ray, director of advocacy education and rural projects at the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. “But it’s often short term.”

In surveys, kids involved in the program and their parents say they’ve seen an improvement in grades, emotional control and communication between family members.

Rebuilding trust in adults is crucial, Ray said, because it helps children trust their parents again.

“Those relationships have often been undermined by the batterer, by the abuser,” she said. “So it’s helping to rebuild that communication and relationship with the non-abusive parent.”

Train has mentored about 15 children since she started her role in December 2017. She said she’s taught them to give compliments, play games and trust family again.

“Usually at first, when I start working with the kids, they do not like their sibling. They’re screaming at each other,” she said. “It’s been over a year, and the mom will tell me, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re getting along and it’s a completely different household.’”

It’s common for domestic violence programs across the country to lack services specifically for older children and teenagers, said Baonam Giang of Break the Cycle, a national organization that specializes in combating teen dating violence. Parents often don’t want to admit their children are dating, so they don’t know if they need to seek help.

“We know that young people are dating whether you choose to believe it or not,” he said. “They’re having relationships in school.”

Abuse among teens often manifests in digital form, through cyberbullying or sharing explicit photos without consent. Violence in relationships is especially common for teens whose own parents have been abusive.

That makes relationships with other adults especially important, Giang said.

“It’s really modeling to them what a healthy relationship is that they can see,” he added.

If those lessons are never taught, it can become a cycle, where a child witness to domestic violence can later become a perpetrator. Or the child can suffer from the effects of trauma well into adulthood.

“It’s such a pivotal time in a person’s life,” Train said. “That’s where they decide the types of behaviors that they’ll have, the types of relationships that they’ll get into.”

Nomin Ujiyediin reports on criminal justice and social welfare for the Kansas News Service. Follow her on Twitter @NominUJ or email [email protected].

The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on the health and well-being of Kansans, their communities and civic life. 

KDWPT

PRATT – The Kansas Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KWPT) Commission will conduct its next public meeting on August 15, 2019 at the University of Kansas Edwards Campus, Best Conference Center, 12600 Quivira Rd. in Overland Park. All are welcome to attend the meeting, which begins at 1:30 p.m., followed by a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Time will be set aside for public comment on non-agenda items at the beginning of both the afternoon and evening sessions.

During the afternoon session, attendees will hear a report on agency and state fiscal status, and a 2019 legislative session update. Staff will then present information for a general discussion on big game regulations and deer research, outdoor mentors, and microchemistry in fisheries. Then, a series of workshop topics – items that may be voted on at a future commission meeting – will be discussed. Workshop items include electronic licensing, threatened and endangered species regulations, fishing regulations, state park regulations, turkey regulations, and electric bicycles.

Commissioners will recess by 5 p.m. and reconvene at 6:30 p.m. to vote on the following items:

• Reduction of disabled veteran’s license fees
• Backcountry access pass
• Furbearer and coyote management units
• Otter management units
• Furbearer season dates and bag limits

If necessary, the Commission will reconvene at 9 a.m. at the same location, August 16, 2019, to complete any unfinished business. Should this occur, time will again be set aside for public comment on non-agenda items.

Information about the Commission, including the August 15, 2019 meeting agenda and briefing book, can be downloaded at ksoutdoors.com/KDWPT-Info/Commission.

If notified in advance, the Commission will have an interpreter available for the hearing impaired. To request an interpreter, call the Kansas Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at 1-800-432-0698. Any individual with a disability may request other accommodations by contacting the Commission secretary at (620) 672-5911.

The next KWPT Commission meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 19, 2019 at the Kansas Wetlands Education Center in Great Bend.

KU NEWS SERVICE

LAWRENCE — Politicians pay close attention to the demands of gun owners. They also pay attention to women voters. But little of their focus is aimed at women who are gun owners.

Apparently, that is a big oversight by those seeking public office.

“I wanted to explore the ‘gun gap’ among women,” Alexandra Middlewood said.

“There’s research out there on the political effects of gun ownership, but the effect on women specifically really hasn’t been looked at — especially not in a quantitative way, using survey analysis and data.”

Middlewood, who earned her doctorate in political science at the University of Kansas in May, joins KU professors Mark Joslyn and Don Haider-Markel in crafting an article titled “Intersectionality in Action: Gun Ownership and Women’s Political Participation.” It will be published in a forthcoming issue of Social Science Quarterly (now available online).

The article contends that female gun owners display levels of political involvement in gun policy and a greater willingness to engage in discussions about gun control than those who don’t own weapons. Interestingly, the evidence also suggests greater political participation among gun-owning women in matters not related to policy.

Simply put: A woman who owns a gun is more likely to vote.

“A lot of people in politics right now are talking about gun control versus gun rights. If we know who is participating in politics and why they’re participating, and why guns are getting them to engage, it has pretty substantial effects on actual policymaking,” Middlewood said.

To determine these results, Middlewood and her associates accessed Pew Research Center data examining political participation pertaining to gun policy. They then launched their own national survey of nearly 900 gun owners. Integrating a 2016 American National Election Studies survey about behavioral and cognitive forms of political participation completed the process.

“There has been a strong movement among gun groups and businesses to attract more women, but the evidence seems to suggest those efforts have failed,” said Haider-Markel, professor and chair of political science at KU.

“However, if you examine gun ownership since the 1970s, you can see that male gun ownership has declined while female gun ownership has stayed about the same as a percentage of the adult population.”

Specifically, the ratio of women who possess guns has remained stable at 11 percent since 1980, even though ownership among men has dropped from 50 to 33 percent during that same span.

Middlewood cites several factors for this statistic.

“A lot of the reason women will say they own guns is fear of victimization. They also want to feel empowered. They want to feel like they can protect themselves if needed in certain circumstances,” she said.

“There is some significant research that shows when women feel like they’re going to be the victims of crime, or they live in areas where crime rates are increasing, the number of concealed carry permits that women apply for increases.”

Does Middlewood herself own a firearm?

“I do not,” she said. “However, some of the surveys about gun ownership ask, ‘Is there a gun in the house?’ I personally do not own a firearm. But my partner is a police officer, and he owns several. So in certain surveys, I would be considered a gun owner as well.”

A Michigan native, Middlewood spent the last three years at KU earning her doctorate, and she will relocate to Wichita State University this month as an assistant professor of American politics. Her area of expertise is public opinion and political behavior.

She’s already expanded on the politics of gun ownership and gender for her dissertation. She hopes to soon turn this topic into a book.

“The Me Too Movement is becoming stronger and stronger, and it’s what we think of as being a pretty liberal movement. And we think of gun ownership as being associated with conservatism,” Middlewood said. “But the research shows that when women feel victimized, they’re more likely to own a gun. So there may be some unexplored connection there.”