Concordia University - Department of Geography, Planning and Environment

Thesis defence of Nève Djevalikian-Couture - Friday, August 21 @ 10:00pm in H-1269-3 (Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest)

Dear Faculty and Students:

You are invited to attend the following M.Sc. (Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies) Thesis examination:

Candidate: Nève Djevalikian-Couture
Thesis Title: Effects of forest texture and edge proximity on spatial cohesion in Endangered blond capuchin monkeys (Sapajus flavius) in a fragmented Atlantic Forest, Brazil

Date & Time: Friday, August 21, 2026 @ 10:00am
Room H-1269-3 of the Hall Building
(1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest, 12th floor)

Examining Committee:

Chair & Examiner: Dr. Angela Kross
Supervisor: Dr. Sarah Turner
Co-Supervisor Dr. Renata G. Ferreira
Ex. Examiner: Dr. Emma Despland



Abstract:
Habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation are critical threats to the survival of Endangered blond capuchin monkeys (Sapajus flavius). I tested whether two continuous habitat features – distance to the fragment edge and forest texture from a Grey-Level Co-occurrence Matrix measure of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) variation, measured by satellite and Global Positioning System (GPS) – predicted spatial cohesion in a group of Endangered blond capuchins in an Atlantic Forest fragment in northeastern Brazil. I measured spatial cohesion at two levels: individual distance from the group center (4,475 observations from 156 scans) and group spread, calculated from minimum convex polygons (156 scans).

I used Linear mixed models (individual level) and linear models (group level), accounting for age-sex class, behaviour, vegetation layer, and group size, in R to analyze the data. Individuals and groups near the fragment edge on the ground stayed closer together, but this effect was weaker higher up in the canopy. Forest texture showed a scale-dependent opposite effect, matching a priori hypothesis. Individuals in more varied microhabitats moved farther from the group center, while groups in more varied forest were more cohesive. Behaviour, age-sex class, and their interactions with vegetation layer also significantly affected individual spacing. These results show that fine-scale habitat structure influences capuchin use of space, and edge proximity and forest texture capture different aspects of habitat quality. This study demonstrates the value of using detailed, continuous habitat measures to detect how habitat structure affects primate behaviour and provides data for conservation planning.

Dear Faculty and Students:
You are invited to attend the following M.Sc. (Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies) Thesis examination:

Candidate: Théo Pagé-Robert
Thesis Title: The Race for Place: Safety, Belonging, and Racialization in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal Chinatown

Date & Time: Monday, August 24, 2026 @ 2:00pm
Room H-1271 of the Hall Building
(1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest, 12th floor)

Examining Committee:
Chair: TBA
Supervisor: Dr. Ted Rutland
Examiner: Dr. Allan Lumba
Ex. Examiner: Dr. Jennifer Ridgley


Abstract:
This thesis examines competing visions over Montreal Chinatown as they articulate around divergent visions of urban safety and homelessness. Between 2020 and 2024, two community groups held parallel campaigns to address safety concerns in the neighbourhood. One pursued an exclusionary approach based on policing and spatial control, while the other advanced a radically inclusionary approach centring harm reduction, social support, and systemic change. This thesis argues that, through these debates, Chinatown functioned as a material-discursive site where different articulations of Asian racialization both reinforce and disrupt the model minority stereotype. The findings expose the limitations of exclusionary approaches to address urban safety while identifying the conditions for the emergence of place-based solidarity to emerge across community divisions.

Thesis defence of Maya Moghrabi - Monday, August 24 @ 2:00pm in H-1269-3 (Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest)

Dear Faculty and Students:

You are invited to attend the following M.Sc. (Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies) Thesis examination:

Candidate: Maya Moghrabi

Thesis Title: Impacts of Human Induced Landscape Changes on Social Tolerance in Blond Capuchins (Sapajus flavius) in a Forest Fragment

Date & Time: Monday, August 24, 2026 @ 2:00pm
Room H-1269-3 of the Hall Building
(1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest, 12th floor)

Examining Committee:
Chair & Ex. Examiner: Dr. Rassim Khelifa
Supervisor: Dr. Sarah Turner
Co-Supervisor Dr. Renata G. Ferreira
Examiner: Dr. Katherine MacKinnon


Abstract:
Anthropogenic landscape change is one of the greatest threats to primate populations, yet little is known about how long-term land-use change influences wild primate populations. We investigated how agricultural land-use changes influenced demography, social dynamics and social tolerance in a habituated group of Endangered blond capuchins (Sapajus flavius) inhabiting a 270-ha Atlantic Forest fragment in northeastern Brazil. We combined behavioural datasets collected in 2014, 2021, 2022, and 2025, comprising 895 scan samples and 24,116 individual observations. We examined changes in group size, age-sex composition, agonistic vocalizations, spatial organization and behaviour as the surrounding landscape transitioned from industrial sugarcane plantations to small-scale settler agriculture. Group size, age-sex composition, and agonistic vocalization rates changed over time, indicating shifts in social dynamics associated with landscape change. Group spread increased between 2014 and 2021/2022 before declining in 2025, whereas individual spatial positioning within the group remained relatively stable. Behaviour also changed significantly across study years, with increased crop and fruit foraging and reduced locomotion, indicating behavioural flexibility in response to changing landscape conditions. Our findings demonstrate that behavioural, social and demographic responses to anthropogenic landscape change do not necessarily occur simultaneously and may occur on different timescales. These results highlight the importance of long-term studies for understanding how primate populations respond to environmental change and provide insight into the conservation of Endangered primates living in increasingly human-modified landscapes.

Thesis defence of Amirhossein Kardaniyazd - Monday, August 24 @ 9:00am in H-1269-3 (Hall Building)

Candidate: Amirhossein Kardaniyazd
Thesis Title: Lake level prediction for large-scale flood modelling of rivers
Date & Time: Monday, August 24, 2026 @ 9:00am in Room H-1269-3 of the Hall Building (1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest, 12th floor)

Examining Committee:
Chair & Examiner: Dr. Angela Kross
Supervisor: Dr. Pascale Biron
Ex. Examiner: Dr. Thomas Buffin-Bélanger



Abstract:
Canada contains an exceptional abundance of lakes, and it is therefore important to include them in regional flood modelling. However, their representation in hydraulic models remains difficult because the vast majority of these lakes are ungauged. This thesis addresses two related questions: how return-period lake-level rises can be estimated for ungauged lakes using transferable hydrological and physiographic characteristics in a statistical model, and how lake water levels compare with adjacent river stages during a major flood event. The study combines long-term in-situ hydrometric records with Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite observations.
For the first research question, an initial dataset of 39 gauged lakes from Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Maine, and Vermont was screened on the basis of annual water-level behaviour to eliminate reservoirs controlled by dams, resulting in 17 retained simple lakes for regression analysis. Several candidate predictors and transformations were tested to estimate lake-level rises for the 20-, 100-, and 350-year return periods. The best-performing model used log-transformed lake area and drainage area as predictors, with improved performance compared to a previous statistical model based solely on Quebec lakes, with adjusted R² values of 0.65, 0.70, and 0.72, and RMSE values of 0.29 m, 0.35 m, and 0.40 m for return periods of 20, 100 and 350 years, respectively.
For the second research question, SWOT lake and river-node products were analysed during the calibration/validation period where daily passes were available, and where a flood event took place during the period between 29 April and 7 May, 2023. After screening, 12 lakes and 14 retained lake-node pairs were used to examine event-scale lake-river correspondence. SWOT lake elevations agreed well with coincident in-situ observations, whereas SWOT river-node elevations were more uncertain. Pearson correlation coefficients between lake and river time series ranged from 0.066 to 0.995, indicating that correspondence varied markedly among systems and was generally stronger for upstream and near-node pairs.
Overall, the results show that lakes should not be treated uniformly in regional flood modelling. Instead, they should first be screened by behavioural type, then represented using parsimonious regional predictors, and finally interpreted in light of their hydrological coupling to nearby river reaches.

Thesis defence of Amirhossein Kardaniyazd - Monday, August 24 @ 9:00am in H-1269-3 (Hall Building,

Abstract:
Canada contains an exceptional abundance of lakes, and it is therefore important to include them in regional flood modelling. However, their representation in hydraulic models remains difficult because the vast majority of these lakes are ungauged. This thesis addresses two related questions: how return-period lake-level rises can be estimated for ungauged lakes using transferable hydrological and physiographic characteristics in a statistical model, and how lake water levels compare with adjacent river stages during a major flood event. The study combines long-term in-situ hydrometric records with Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite observations.

For the first research question, an initial dataset of 39 gauged lakes from Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Maine, and Vermont was screened on the basis of annual water-level behaviour to eliminate reservoirs controlled by dams, resulting in 17 retained simple lakes for regression analysis. Several candidate predictors and transformations were tested to estimate lake-level rises for the 20-, 100-, and 350-year return periods. The best-performing model used log-transformed lake area and drainage area as predictors, with improved performance compared to a previous statistical model based solely on Quebec lakes, with adjusted R² values of 0.65, 0.70, and 0.72, and RMSE values of 0.29 m, 0.35 m, and 0.40 m for return periods of 20, 100 and 350 years, respectively.
For the second research question, SWOT lake and river-node products were analysed during the calibration/validation period where daily passes were available, and where a flood event took place during the period between 29 April and 7 May, 2023. After screening, 12 lakes and 14 retained lake-node pairs were used to examine event-scale lake-river correspondence. SWOT lake elevations agreed well with coincident in-situ observations, whereas SWOT river-node elevations were more uncertain. Pearson correlation coefficients between lake and river time series ranged from 0.066 to 0.995, indicating that correspondence varied markedly among systems and was generally stronger for upstream and near-node pairs.

Overall, the results show that lakes should not be treated uniformly in regional flood modelling. Instead, they should first be screened by behavioural type, then represented using parsimonious regional predictors, and finally interpreted in light of their hydrological coupling to nearby river reaches.

Abstract:
Canada contains an exceptional abundance of lakes, and it is therefore important to include them in regional flood modelling. However, their representation in hydraulic models remains difficult because the vast majority of these lakes are ungauged. This thesis addresses two related questions: how return-period lake-level rises can be estimated for ungauged lakes using transferable hydrological and physiographic characteristics in a statistical model, and how lake water levels compare with adjacent river stages during a major flood event. The study combines long-term in-situ hydrometric records with Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite observations.

For the first research question, an initial dataset of 39 gauged lakes from Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Maine, and Vermont was screened on the basis of annual water-level behaviour to eliminate reservoirs controlled by dams, resulting in 17 retained simple lakes for regression analysis. Several candidate predictors and transformations were tested to estimate lake-level rises for the 20-, 100-, and 350-year return periods. The best-performing model used log-transformed lake area and drainage area as predictors, with improved performance compared to a previous statistical model based solely on Quebec lakes, with adjusted R² values of 0.65, 0.70, and 0.72, and RMSE values of 0.29 m, 0.35 m, and 0.40 m for return periods of 20, 100 and 350 years, respectively.

For the second research question, SWOT lake and river-node products were analysed during the calibration/validation period where daily passes were available, and where a flood event took place during the period between 29 April and 7 May, 2023. After screening, 12 lakes and 14 retained lake-node pairs were used to examine event-scale lake-river correspondence. SWOT lake elevations agreed well with coincident in-situ observations, whereas SWOT river-node elevations were more uncertain. Pearson correlation coefficients between lake and river time series ranged from 0.066 to 0.995, indicating that correspondence varied markedly among systems and was generally stronger for upstream and near-node pairs.

Overall, the results show that lakes should not be treated uniformly in regional flood modelling. Instead, they should first be screened by behavioural type, then represented using parsimonious regional predictors, and finally interpreted in light of their hydrological coupling to nearby river reaches.

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/op-eds/opinion-montreal-police-racial-profiling-and-the-long-history-of-hair-locs/

Opinion: Black hair, identity and policing What lies behind the allegations of officers in Montreal North cutting the locs of Black men to keep as “trophies”?

Opinion: Black hair, identity and policing
What lies behind the allegations of officers in Montreal North cutting the locs of Black men to keep as “trophies”?

By Oceane Jasor, Nalini Mohabir and Ronald Cummings

Opinion: Black hair, identity and policing What lies behind the allegations of officers in Montreal North cutting the locs of Black men to keep as “trophies”?

Opinion: Black hair, identity and policing
What lies behind the allegations of officers in Montreal North cutting the locs of Black men to keep as “trophies”?

by Oceane Jasor, Nalini Mohabir and Ronald Cummings

Opinion: Black hair, identity and policing What lies behind the allegations of officers in Montreal North cutting the locs of Black men to keep as “trophies”?

Op Eds
Opinion: Black hair, identity and policing
By
Oceane Jasor, Nalini Mohabir and Ronald Cummings
July 2, 2026 at 6:00 a.m.
Last Updated: July 2, 2026 at 9:28 a.m.

Opinion: Black hair, identity and policing What lies behind the allegations of officers in Montreal North cutting the locs of Black men to keep as “trophies”?

''Through courses such as Urban Laboratory and Advanced Urban Laboratory, students are asked to balance research, design and stakeholder engagement within tight timelines.''

Concordia alumni team wins the 2026 National Capital Commission Waterway Design Challenge | News - Concordia University A team of four recent alumni from Concordia’s Department of Geography, Urban Planning and Environment has earned top honours in the National Capital Commission’s (NCC) annual Design Challenge. Abigail Dawe-Roy, BA 24; Niraj Dayanandan, BA 25; Pierre-Luc Gingras, BA 25; and Raquel Stewart Higgins...