Jeanne M Jones
My research focuses on designing and developing software tools for a variety of platforms to support diverse research goals and applications. My aim is to increase researcher productivity and push the boundaries of current research limits by incorporating software best practices and innovative designs and products into the research process.
Biography
I have a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Boston University and an M.A. in Geography/GIS from San Jose State University, with additional graduate coursework in computer science and applied mathematics from Santa Clara University. I have designed and developed research tools for analyzing land cover trends, investigating well water contamination, modeling emergency pedestrian evacuations, processing earthquake strong motion data, and visualizing the effects of coastal storms and sea level rise on communities.
Science and Products
Subsidence Susceptibility Map for the Conterminous U.S.
Sinkholes present hazards to humans due to subsidence and by focusing contaminated surface water runoff into groundwater. Sinkholes create instability in the foundations of buildings, roads and other infrastructure, resulting in damage and in some cases loss of life, but may also play an important role as vernal pools in some ecosystems. This project created a prototype nationwide subsidence...
CDI Risk Map
The Community for Data Integration (CDI) Risk Map Project is developing modular tools and services to benefit a wide group of scientists and managers that deal with various aspects of risk research and planning. Risk is the potential that exposure to a hazard will lead to a negative consequence to an asset such as human or natural resources. This project builds upon a Department of the...
Tsunamis
The 2004 Indian Ocean, 2010 Chilean, and 2011 Tohoku disasters have shown how tsunamis are significant threats to coastal communities. To help U.S. coastal communities prepare for future tsunamis, the Hazards Vulnerability Team completed projects related to population exposure and sensitivity, pedestrian evacuation modeling, and vertical-evacuation decision support.
A recent article of...
Coastal Change
The continued devastation from recent hurricanes and tropical storms demonstrates the vulnerability of coastal communities to coastal-change hazards. Changes in sea level and storm-wave intensity are changing the areas that are prone to erosion and storm-related flooding. The Hazards Vulnerability Team has worked with USGS coastal researchers and partners to improve our understanding of...
Earthquakes
The U.S. Pacific Northwest is an active seismic zone, as evidenced by the 2001 Nisqually earthquake near Olympia (WA) and several other earthquakes in the 1990's. The Hazards Vulnerability Team worked with emergency managers and USGS earthquake researchers to better understand how communities are vulnerable to earthquake hazards.
Hazards Vulnerability Team
Our country faces a wide array of natural hazards that threaten its safety, security, economic well-being, and natural resources. To minimize future losses, communities need a clear understanding of how they are vulnerable to natural hazards and of strategies for increasing their resilience. Vulnerability and resilience are influenced by (1) how communities choose to use hazard-prone land, (2...
A data management and visualization framework for community vulnerability to hazards
USGS research in the Western Geographic Science Center has produced several geospatial datasets estimating the time required to evacuate on foot from a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake-generated tsunami in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. These data, created as a result of research performed under the Risk and Vulnerability to Natural Hazards project, are useful for emergency managers and...
Pedestrian Evacuation Analyst Tool
The Pedestrian Evacuation Analyst is an ArcGIS extension that estimates how long it would take for someone to travel on foot out of a hazardous area that was threatened by a sudden event such as a tsunami, flash flood, or volcanic lahar. It takes into account the elevation changes and the different types of landcover that a person would encounter along the way.
PRISM software: Processing and Review Interface for Strong Motion Data
PRISM is designed to be used for automatically processing raw strong-motion acceleration time series to produce compatible acceleration, velocity and displacement time series, acceleration, velocity and displacement response spectra, Fourier amplitude spectra, and standard earthquake-engineering intensity measures.
Rooftop Refuge
Pedestrian evacuation modeling by USGS geographers Nathan Wood and Jeanne Jones and Sacramento State University is featured in a story about vertical evacuation refuges in southwest Washington for the February 2014 issue of National Geographic magazine.