Publications

  • Cova, T.J. & Tsou, M.H. (2017). GIS Methods and Techniques: Volume 1 in Comprehensive Geographic Information Systems (B. Huang, EIC). Elsevier. Published, 09/2017.
    http://mrw.elsevier.com/gisy/editors.html
  • Cova, T.J. & Dennison, P.E., Li, D., Drews, F.A., Siebeneck, L.K., Lindell, M.K. (2017). Warning triggers in environmental hazards: who should be warned to do what and when?. Risk Analysis. Vol. 34(4), 601-611. Published, 07/2017.
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/risa.12...
  • Cova, T.J. (2017). Data model: o-fields and f-objects. (pp. 1-5). Wiley. Published, 03/06/2017.
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118...
  • Li, Dapeng, Thomas J. Cova & Philip E. Dennison (2017). Setting wildfire evacuation triggers using reverse geocoding. Applied Geography. Vol. 84, 14-27. Published, 10/01/2017.
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
  • Nicoll, K.A., Cova, T.J., Siebeneck, L.K., Martineau, E. Assessing “preparedness elevated”: seismic risk perception and household adjustment in Salt Lake City, Utah. Journal of Geography & Natural Disasters, 6(2): doi:10.4172/2167-0587.1000168. Published, 04/2016.
    https://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/geography-natu...
  • Li, D., Cova, T.J. (2015) Dennison, P.E., A household-level approach to staging wildfire evacuation warnings using trigger modeling. Computers, Environment, & Urban Systems, 54:56-67. Published, 11/2015.
  • Drews, F.A., Siebeneck, L.K., Cova, T.J. (2015) Information search and decision making in computer based wildfire simulations. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making. 9(3): 229-240. Published, 10/2015.
  • Hile, R. and Cova, T.J. (2015) Exploratory testing of an artificial neural network classification for enhancement of the social vulnerability index. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 4(4): 1774-1790. Published, 09/2015.
  • Cova, T.J. (2014) Evacuation planning. Encylopedia of Transportation, M. Garrett (ed.). Published, 10/2014.
    http://www.sagepub.com/refbooks/Book240185
  • Dennison, P.E., Fryer, G.K., Cova, T.J. (2014) Identification of firefighter safety zones using Lidar. Environmental Modeling and Software, 59: 91-97. Published, 05/2014.
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S...
  • Drews, F.A., Cova, T.J., Siebeneck, L.K., and Musters, A. (2014) Environmental Factors that affect wildfire protective-action recommendations. International Journal of Emergency Management, 10(2): 153-168. Published, 11/2014.
    http://inderscience.metapress.com/content/452m037r...
  • Siebeneck, L.K., and Cova, T.J. (2014) Risk communication after disaster: re-entry following the 2008 Cedar River Flood. Natural Hazards Review, 15: 158-166. Published, 10/2014.
    http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)NH.15...
  • Fryer, G., Dennison, P.E. and Cova, T.J. (2013) Wildland firefighter entrapment avoidance: modeling evacuation triggers using WUIVAC, International Journal of Wildland Fire, 22(7): 883-893.. Published, 07/2013.
    http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/WF12160.htm
  • Cova, T.J., Theobald, D.M, Norman, J. and Siebeneck, L.K. (2013) Mapping wildfire evacuation vulnerability in the western US: the limits of infrastructure. Geojournal, 78(2): 273-285. Published, 04/2013.
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-01...
  • Siebeneck, L.K. and Cova, T.J., (2012) Spatial and temporal variation in evacuee risk perception throughout the evacuation and return-entry process, Risk Analysis, 32(9), 1468-1480. Published, 09/2012.
  • Cova, T.J., Dennison, P.E., Drews, F.A. (2011) Modeling evacuate versus shelter-in-place decisions in wildfires. Sustainability, 3(10): 1662-1687. Published, 09/30/2011.
    http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1662/
  • Kobayashi, T., Medina, R., and Cova, T.J. (2011) Visualizing diurnal population change in urban areas for emergency management. Professional Geographer, 63: 113-130. Published, 02/07/2011.
  • Larsen, J.C., Dennison, P.E., Cova, T.J., Jones, C. (2011) Evaluating dynamic wildfire evacuation trigger buffers using the 2003 Cedar Fire. Applied Geography, 31: 12-19. Published, 01/30/2011.
  • Cao, L., Cova, T.J., Dennison, P.E., and Dearing, M.D. (2011) Using MODIS imagery to predict hantavirus risk. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Published, 02/16/2011.
  • Moffatt, S.F. and Cova, T.J. (2010) Parcel-scale earthquake loss estimation with HAZUS: a case-study in Salt Lake County, Utah. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 37:17-29. Published, 01/2010.
  • Pultar, E., Cova, T.J., Yuan, M., and Goodchild, M.F. (2010) EDGIS: a dynamic GIS based on space-time points. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 24: 329-346. Published, 03/03/2010.
  • Anguelova, Z., et al. (2010) Integrating fire behavior and pedestrian mobility models to assess potential risk to humans from wildfires within the US-Mexico border zone. Professional Geographer, 62: 230-247. Published, 02/09/2010.
  • Cova, T.J., Drews, F.A., Siebeneck, L.K. and Musters, A. (2009) Protective actions in wildfires: evacuate or shelter-in-place? Natural Hazards Review, 10(4): 151-162. Published, 2009.
  • Pultar, E., Raubal, M., Cova, T.J., and Goodchild, M.F. (2009) Dynamic GIS case studies: wildfire evacuation and volunteered geographic information, Transactions in GIS, 13: 85-104. Published, 2009.
  • Siebeneck, L.K., and Cova, T.J. (2008) An assessment of the return-entry process for Hurricane Rita 2005. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 26(2): 91-111. Published, 2008.
  • Cova, T.J., Miller, H.J., Beard, K., Frank, A.U., Goodchild, M.F., Eds. (2008) Geographic Information Science - 5th International Conference (GIScience 2008), Park City, Utah. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) 5266, Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Published, 2008.
  • Goodchild, M.F., Yuan, M., and Cova, T.J. (2007) Towards a general theory of geographic representation in GIS. International Journal of Geographical Information Science. 21(3): 239-260. Published, 2007.
  • Dennison, P.E., Cova, T.J., and Moritz, M.A. (2007) WUIVAC: a wildland-urban interface evacuation trigger model applied in strategic wildfire scenarios. Natural Hazards, 40, 181-199. Published, 2007.
  • VanLooy, J. and Cova, T.J. (2007) GIS-based indices for comparing airline flight-path vulnerability to volcanoes. Professional Geographer, 59(1): 74-86. Published, 2007.
  • Kim, T.H., and Cova, T.J. (2007) Tweening grammars: deformation rules for representing change between discrete geographic entities. Computers, Environment & Urban Systems, 31(3): 317-336. Published, 2007.
  • Kim, T.H., Cova, T.J., and Brunelle, A. (2006) Exploratory map animation for post-event analysis of wildfire protective action recommendations. Natural Hazards Review, 7(1): 1-11. Published, 2006.
  • Sutton, P.C., Cova, T.J. and Elvidge, C. (2006) Mapping "Exurbia" in the conterminous U.S. using nighttime satellite imagery. Geocarto International, 21(2):39-45. Published, 2006.
  • Cova, T.J., Dennison, P.E., Kim, T.H., and Moritz, M.A. (2005) Setting wildfire evacuation trigger-points using fire spread modeling and GIS. Transactions in GIS, 9(4): 603-617. Published, 2005.
  • Cova, T.J. (2005) Public safety in the urban-wildland interface: Should fire-prone communities have a maximum occupancy? Natural Hazards Review, 6(3): 99-108. Published, 2005.
  • Cova, T.J., Sutton, P.C., and Theobald, D.M. (2004) Exurban change detection in fire-prone areas with nighttime satellite imagery. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 70(11): 1249-1257. Published, 2004.
  • Cova, T.J., and Conger, S. (2004) Transportation hazards. in Handbook of Transportation Engineering, M. Kutz (ed.), McGraw Hill, New York, pp. 17.1-17.24. Published, 2004.
  • Cova, T.J., and Johnson, J.P. (2003) A network flow model for lane-based evacuation routing. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 37(7): 579-604. Published, 2003.
  • Cova, T.J., and Goodchild, M.F. (2002) Extending geographical representation to include fields of spatial objects. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 16(6): 509-532. Published, 2002.
  • Cova, T.J., and Johnson, J.P. (2002) Microsimulation of neighborhood evacuations in the urban-wildland interface. Environment and Planning A, 34(12): 2211-2229. Published, 2002.
  • Cova, T.J., and Church, R.L. (2000) Contiguity constraints for single-region site search problems. Geographical Analysis, 32(4): 306-329. Published, 2000.
  • Church, R.L., and Cova, T.J. (2000) Mapping evacuation risk on transportation networks using a spatial optimization model. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 8(1-6): 321-336. Published, 2000.
  • Radke, J., Cova, T., Sheridan, M., Troy, A., Lan, M., and Johnson, R. (2000) Application challenges for GIScience: implications for research, education, and policy for risk assessment, emergency preparedness and response. URISA Journal, 12:15-30. Published, 2000.
  • Cova, T.J., and Church, R.L. (2000) Exploratory spatial optimization in site search: a neighborhood operator approach. Computers, Environment & Urban Systems, 21: 401-419. Published, 2000.
  • Cova, T.J. (1999) GIS in emergency management. In: Geographical Information Systems: Principles, Techniques, Applications, and Management, P.A. Longley, M.F. Goodchild, D.J. Maguire, D.W. Rhind (eds.), John Wiley & Sons, New York, pp. 845-858. Published, 1999.
  • Cova, T.J., and Church, R.L. (1997) Modelling community evacuation vulnerability using GIS. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 11(8): 763-784. Published, 1997.
  • Xu, N., Lovreglio, R., Kuligowski, E.D., Cova, T.J., Nilsson, D. & Zhao, X. (2023). Predicting and assessing wildfire evacuation decision making using machine learning: Findings from the 2019 Kincade Fire. Fire Technology. Vol. 59. Published, 10/2023.
    https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/predicting-...
  • Kuligowski, E.D., Waugh, N.A., Sutton, J. & Cova, T.J. (2023). Ember alerts: assessing wireless emergency alert (WEA) messages in wildfires using the Warning Response Model. Natural Hazards Review. Vol. 24. Published, 06/2023.
    https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/NHREFO.NHENG-1...
  • Riyadh, A.M., Cova, T.J., Medina, R.M. & Collins, T.W. (2023). Comparing GIS-based flood resilience models in a developing nation: a case study in Bangladesh. Natural Hazards Review. Vol. 24. Published, 06/2023.
    https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/NHREFO.NHE...
  • Wu, A., Yan, X., Kuligowski, E., Lovreglio, R., Nilsson, D., Cova, T.J., Xu, Y. & Zhao, X. (2022). Wildfire evacuation decision modeling using GPS data. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Vol. 83. Published, 12/2022.
  • Xu, Y., Zhao, X., Lovreglio, R. , Kuligowski, E., Nilsson, D., Cova, T.J. & Yan, X. (2022). A highway vehicle routing dataset during the 2019 Kincade Fire evacuation. Scientific Data. Vol. 9, 608. Published, 10/2022.
  • Bhattarai, A., Cova, T.J. & Brewer, S.C. (2022). Perceived Recovery Trajectories in Post-Earthquake Nepal–A Visual Exploration With Self Organizing Maps. IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society. Vol. 3, 111-121. Published, 06/2022.
  • Zhao, X., Xu, Y., Lovreglio, R., Kuligowski, E., Nilsson, D., Cova, T.J., Wu, A. & Yan, X. (2022). Estimating wildfire evacuation decision and departure timing using large-scale GPS data. Transportation Research D: Transport and Environment. Vol. 107. Published, 06/2022.
  • Kar, A., Wan, N., Cova, T.J., Wang, H. & Lizotte, S. (2022). Using GIS to understand the influence of Hurricane Harvey on spatial access to primary care. Risk Analysis. Published, 04/2022.
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ri...
  • Curtin, K.M. & Cova, T.J. (2021). Spatial Optimization and GIS. Curtin, K.M. and Cova, T.J. Spatial Optimization and GIS. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (ISSN 2220-9964). ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (ISSN 2220-9964). Published, 11/01/2021.
    https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi/special_issues/S...
  • Cova, T.J., Li, D., Drews, F.A. & Siebeneck, L.K. (2021). Toward simulating dire wildfire scenarios. Natural Hazards Review. Vol. 22(3). Published, 08/01/2021.
    https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29...
  • Siebeneck, L.K. & Cova, T.J. (2021). The disaster return-entry process: a discussion of issues, strategies, and further research. Disaster Prevention and Management: an International Journal. Vol. 30(3). Published, 07/08/2021.
    https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110...
  • Li, D. & Cova, T.J., Dennison, P.E. (2019). Why do we need a national address point database to improve wildfire public safety in the US?. Science Direct: International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Vol. 39. Published, 10/2019.
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
  • Li, D. & Cova, T.J., Dennison, P.E. (2018). Setting wildfire evacuation trigger points. Fire Technology. Vol. 55, 617-642. Published, 09/2018.
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10694-0...

Research Statement

My research and teaching interests lie at the nexus of hazards, transportation, and geographic information science. I am interested in all three of these areas separately, but topics that incorporate two or three are especially interesting. A prime example is the role of transportation in emergencies, which may involve relocating people to safety or deploying resources to a disaster site. My primary focus is advancing the field of regional evacuation analysis. The methods that I've developed are explicitly geographic and rely on integrating techniques in operations research and geographic information science.

Research Keywords

  • Hazards, Risks & Disasters
  • Emergency Management
  • Evacuation
  • Warning systems
  • Transportation
  • Geographic Information Science

Presentations

  • Cova, T.J. 2023 “Public safety in the wildland-urban interface.” Earth Lab, University of Colorado, Jan. 31 (virtual). Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 01/31/2023.
  • “Public safety in the wildland-urban interface.” Department of Geography, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, November. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/2019.
  • Cova, T.J. Geosimulating warning triggers. Geocomputation, Queenstown, NZ, September, 2019. Conference Paper, Presented, 09/2019.
    https://www.otago.ac.nz/geocomputation/index.html
  • Cova, T.J. and Drews, F.A. , Wildfire protective actions and collective spatial cognition, Collective Spatial Cognition Innovative Research about Spatial Thinking by Human Groups, Santa Barbara, April 2019. Conference Paper, Presented, 04/2019.
    https://locationscience.ua.edu/Research/Collective...
  • “Public safety in the wildland-urban interface.” Department of Geography, Texas A&M (TAMU), College Station, February. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/2019.
  • Cova, T.J. (2017) “Improving situational awareness in wildfire evacuations with volunteered geographic information.” NSF IBSS/IMEE Summer Workshop, San Diego, August. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 08/06/2017.
  • Cova, T.J. (2017) Simulating warning triggers. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, CA, April. Conference Paper, Presented, 04/12/2017.

Grants, Contracts & Research Gifts

  • Evacuation decision making of hospital administrators in Hurricane Harvey. PI: Kimberley Shoaf. Co-PI(s): Thomas J. Cova. National Science Foundation, 10/01/2017 - 09/30/2018. Total project budget to date: $49,301.00