Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Spatial Validation Of Agent-Based Models, Kristoffer Wikstrom, Hal T. Nelson

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper adapts an existing techno–social agent-based model (ABM) in order to develop a new framework for spatially validating ABMs. The ABM simulates citizen opposition to locally unwanted land uses, using historical data from an energy infrastructure siting process in Southern California. Spatial theory, as well as the model’s design, suggest that adequate validation requires multiple tests rather than relying solely on a single test-statistic. A pattern-oriented modeling approach was employed that first mapped real and simulated citizen comments across the US Census tract. The suite of spatial tests included Global Moran’s I, complemented with bivariate correlations, as well as …

Real-Time Evaluation Of City–University Partnerships For Sustainability And Resilience, Liliana Elizabeth Caughman, Lauren Withycombe Keeler, Fletcher Beaudoin

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Cities face many challenges in their efforts to create more sustainable and resilient urban environments for their residents. Among these challenges is the structure of city administrations themselves. Partnerships between cities and universities are one way that cities can address some of the internal structural barriers to transformation. However, city–university partnerships do not necessarily generate transformative outcomes, and relationships between cities and universities are complicated by history, politics, and the structures the partnerships are attempting to overcome. In this paper, focus groups and trial evaluations from five city–university partnerships in three countries are used to develop a formative evaluation tool …

Do Corporate Owned Adaptive Learning Platforms Perpetuate Banking Style Learning? Integrating Technology For Activism Into Transformational Sustainability Education, Tina M. Garner

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

We live in a world that tends to be controlled by corporations. The public school system should be wary of the problems that corporate control has on education. Even though public schools should not have corporate influence, the fact remains that they do, and this perpetuates Freire's banking style learning. Through time, the corporate influence in education was through educational materials such as book sales. Since the decline of the use of books and the growth of the use of technologies, corporations have followed suit through the sales of Adaptive Learning Platforms. Through leveraging the technology which students enjoy using, …

A Comparison Of Neighborhood-Scale Interventions To Alleviate Urban Heat In Doha, Qatar, Salim Ferwati, Cynthia Skelhorn, Vivek Shandas, Yasuyo Makido

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent evidence suggests that many densely populated areas of the world will be uninhabitable in the coming century due to the depletion of resources, climate change, and increasing urbanization. This poses serious questions regarding the actions that require immediate attention, and opportunities to stave off massive losses of infrastructure, populations, and financial investments. The present study utilizes microclimate modeling to examine the role of landscape features as they affect ambient temperatures in one of the fastest growing regions of the world: Doha, Qatar. By modeling three study sites around Doha—one highly urbanized, one newly urbanizing, and one coastal low-density urbanized—the …

Reorganizing School Lunch For A More Just And Sustainable Food System In The Us, Jennifer Gaddis, Amy K. Coplen

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Public school lunch programs in the United States are contested political terrains shaped by government agencies, civil society activists, and agri-food companies. The particular organization of these programs has consequences for public health, social justice, and ecological sustainability. This contribution draws on political economy, critical food studies, and feminist economics to analyze the US National School Lunch Program, one of the world's oldest and largest government-sponsored school lunch programs. It makes visible the social and environmental costs of the "heat-and-serve" economy, where widely used metrics consider only the speed and volume of service as productive work. This study demonstrates that …

Garden Pollinators And The Potential For Ecosystem Service Flow To Urban And Peri-Urban Agriculture, Gail A. Langellotto, Andony Melathopoulos, Isabella Messer, Aaron Anderson, Nathan Mcclintock, Lucas Costner

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hedgerows, flowering strips, and natural areas that are adjacent to agricultural land have been shown to benefit crop production, via the provision of insect pollinators that pollinate crops. However, we do not yet know the extent to which bee habitat in the form of urban gardens might contribute to pollination services in surrounding crops. We explored whether gardens might provision pollinators to adjacent agricultural areas by sampling bees from gardens in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, and estimating typical foraging distances in the context of commercialand residential-scale pollination-dependent crops up to 1000 m from garden study sites. We estimate that …

Managing Herbicide Resistance: Listening To The Perspectives Of The Practitioners, Jill Schroeder, David Shaw, Michael Barrett, Harold Coble, Amy Asmus, Raymond Jussaume, David E. Ervin

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Multiple Methods Of Public Engagement: Disaggregating Socio-Spatial Data For Environmental Planning In Western Washington, Usa, Rebecca J. Mclain, David Banis, Alexa Todd, Lee Cerveny

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Highlights

• The effectiveness of participatory GIS approaches at engaging different publics was explored.

• Online surveys engaged urbanites; community workshops engaged rural residents.

• Urban and rural residents went to similar places but engaged in different activities.

• Use of multiple data collection methods will broaden public engagement.

• Mapping behavior studies are needed to improve understandings of PPGIS data quality.

Deconstruction In Portland: Summary Of Activity, Emma Willingham, Peter Hulseman, Mike Paruszkiewicz

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

On October 31st, 2016, the City of Portland instituted an ordinance requiring the deconstruction of all residential homes and duplexes built prior to 1917 or possessing a historical designation. Deconstruction is a relatively new industry, and with this local regulatory encouragement, several new contractors became certified to participate in the expanded market. This report provides background on the industry, largely from the 2016 report researched and written by the Northwest Economic Research Center (NERC) in anticipation of the requirement, and an examination of what has occurred in the year following the ordinance’s passage, using deconstruction and demolition permit data and …

Building Planner Commitment: Are California’S Sb 375 And Oregon’S Sb 1059 Models For Climate-Change Mitigation?, Keith Bartholomew, David Proffitt

TREC Final Reports

California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act (SB 375) and the Oregon Sustainable Transportation Initiative (SB 1059) have made them the first states in the nation to try and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using the transportation-planning process. Evaluating how these pioneering laws have changed local planning processes – as well as plans themselves – in each state provides insight into the laws’ effectiveness at changing development patterns in a way that reduces GHG emissions, without waiting decades to see the effects in the built environment. Both states’ laws require metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and the municipalities that comprise them …

Using The Planning Process To Mitigate Climate Change, Keith Bartholomew

TREC Project Briefs

This research evaluates how Oregon’s SB 1059 and California’s SB 375 have integrated climate change mitigation strategies into local planning processes, and seeks to understand how transportation planning can help slow climate change.

Values Mapping And Counter-Mapping In Contested Landscapes: An Olympic Peninsula (Usa) Case Study, Rebecca J. Mclain, Lee Cerveny, Kelly Biedenweg, David Banis

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Indigenous peoples, local communities, and other groups can use counter-mapping to make land claims, identify areas of desired access, or convey cultural values that diverge from the dominant paradigm. While sometimes created independently, counter-maps also can be formulated during public participation mapping events sponsored by natural resource planning agencies. Public participation mapping elicits values, uses, and meanings of landscapes from diverse stakeholders, yet individuals and advocacy groups can use the mapping process as an opportunity to make visible strongly held values and viewpoints. We present three cases from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State to illustrate how stakeholders intentionally used …

Mapping Meaningful Places On Washington’S Olympic Peninsula: Toward A Deeper Understanding Of Landscape Values, Lee Cerveny, Kelly Biedenweg, Rebecca J. Mclain

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Landscape values mapping has been widely employed as a form of public participation GIS (PPGIS) in natural resource planning and decision-making to capture the complex array of values, uses, and interactions between people and landscapes. A landscape values typology has been commonly employed in the mapping of social and environmental values in a variety of management settings and scales. We explore how people attribute meanings and assign values to special places on the Olympic Peninsula (Washington, USA) using both a landscape values typology and qualitative responses about residents’ placerelationships. Using geographically referenced social values data collected in community meetings (n …

Plans And Living Practices For The Green Campus Of Portland State University, Yoon Jung Choi, Minjung Oh, Jihye Kang, Loren Lutzenhiser

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study aims to comprehend Portland State University (PSU)’s green campus strategies, and students’ level of knowledge and living practices relating to green campus. PSU’s sustainable campus plan has been nationally and internationally recognized. A literature review, field investigation, and interviews were conducted to ascertain the PSU green campus strategies. This study also used a survey to understand students’ level of knowledge and practices. The survey results were analyzed by SPSS. Green campus projects at PSU were operated by official organizations and funded according to PSU’s long term plans in 12 multilateral categories: administration, energy, water, climate action, green buildings, …

Daytime Variation Of Urban Heat Islands: The Case Study Of Doha, Qatar, Yasuyo Makido, Vivek Shandas, Salim Ferwati, David J. Sailor

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent evidence suggests that urban forms and materials can help to mediate temporal variation of microclimates and that landscape modifications can potentially reduce temperatures and increase accessibility to outdoor environments. To understand the relationship between urban form and temperature moderation, we examined the spatial and temporal variation of air temperature throughout one desert city—Doha, Qatar—by conducting vehicle traverses using highly resolved temperature and GPS data logs to determine spatial differences in summertime air temperatures. To help explain near-surface air temperatures using land cover variables, we employed three statistical approaches: Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Regression Tree Analysis (RTA), and Random Forest …

Integrating Freight Into Livable Communities, Kristine M. Williams, Alexandria Carroll

TREC Final Reports

Where livability is a goal of the planning process, freight runs the risk of not being considered except as an afterthought or as something to be excluded. Yet, freight is an integral part of local economic development. Because economic prosperity is a key characteristic of livable communities, freight must be incorporated into the planning process. This study explores the relationship between freight and livability through a comprehensive literature review and case study research. The final report includes a menu of strategies and case study perspectives that highlight the importance of transportation and land use integration, interagency coordination, and context-sensitivity in …

Portland’S Food Economy: Trends And Contributions, Jamaal Green, Greg Schrock, Jenny H. Liu

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

The primary goal of this report is to document the scope, growth, and contribution of the food economy to the city of Portland and the region. Specifically, this report addresses the following research questions:

• What is the "food economy," and how is it defined?
• What is the size of Portland’s food economy, and how has it changed in recent years?
• How is the food economy distributed spatially within the city and the region? How is this changing?
• What kind of employment opportunities does Portland’s food economy offer? How do they compare to the broader economy?
• Who works in Portland’s food …

Herbicide Resistance: Challenges For Farmers And Implications For The Environment, George Frisvold, David E. Ervin

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Genetically modified, herbicide resistant (HR) crops offer not only improved weed control, but also the potential to reduce soil erosion and fossil fuel use and to allow substitution toward less toxic or persistent herbicides. The widespread adoption of HR crops, however, has reduced the diversity of weed control tactics and increased ecological selection pressure for weeds resistant to dominant herbicides. This has led to a dramatic rise of HR weeds in many cropping systems. Resistant weeds threaten the sustainability of HR crops, pose environmental risks from alternative weed control practices, are altering public and private R&D programs, and necessitate new …

Experiential Knowledge And Interdisciplinary Approaches To Address Herbicide Resistance: Insights From Theory And Practice, David Shaw, David E. Ervin

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The exponential increase in herbicide resistant weeds around the globe poses a “wicked problem” that resists solutions developed from disciplinary science (Ervin and Jussaume; Shaw). Traditonal voluntary education and technical assistance approaches have failed to stem the advance of resistance. Scholars and practitioners recognize that improved understanding of human behavior leading to more resistant weeds must provide the foundation of knowledge for innovating more effective approaches. Principles to negotiate progress on wicked problems stress interdisciplinary approaches that integrate frontier social and natural science concepts with stakeholder experiences to discover novel approaches (Sayer et al). Standard templates to address the problem …

Forest Park Ecosystems Services Inventory: An Exploratory Study, Pablo Barreyro, Jenny Dempsey Stein

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

This report presents both qualitative and quantitative survey data concerning resident perceptions of ecosystem services in Portland’s Forest Park. Focus group best practices and ecosystem services in urban parks literature are reviewed. Representative focus groups were conducted to ascertain local awareness and understanding of the urban wilderness area’s ecosystem services, identify concurrent challenges and measure interest in a potential interpretive center. Individual surveys were also administered in order to connect issues with demographics and recreational use information. Regression analyses were conducted to examine related park usage, access and economic trends.

While the study is preliminary, the results reveal opportunities for …

Who Is At The Forest Restoration Table? Final Report On The Blue Mountains Forest Stewardship Network, Phase 1, Rebecca J. Mclain, Kirsten Wright, Lee Cerveny

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Forest collaboratives have emerged throughout the western U.S. as a governance model to address complex ecological challenges that occur at the landscape scale across multiple landownerships and jurisdictional boundaries. Collaborative groups typically involve multiple parties with diverse interests working together to address complex management challenges. Collaboratives often provide input on or make recommendations about public lands actions and decisions. The Blues Stewardship Project was developed to better understand the size, composition, participation, and diversity of forest collaboratives and to identify organizations that may not currently be represented at the collaborative ‘table.’

The study focuses on five collaborative groups in the …

Putting Impact First: Community-University Partnerships To Advance Authentic Neighborhood Sustainability, Michelle L. Holliday, Tony Defalco, Jacob Sherman

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

This article profiles a partnership between the Living Cully ecodistrict and Portland State University’s Sustainable Neighborhoods Initiative. The case studies presented in this article explore how Living Cully leveraged PSU assets to advance their goals, highlighting successes and lessons learned. This article also addresses how the partnership was formed, what makes the partnership innovative, the role of interdisciplinary/intercommunity organizational strategies, and how the community partner commits to urban sustainability and social justice.

Whose Urban Forest? The Political Ecology Of Foraging Urban Nontimber Forest Products, Patrick T. Hurley, Marla R. Emery, Rebecca J. Mclain, Melissa R. Poe, Brain Grabbatin, Cari L. Goetcheus

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Drawing on case studies of foraging in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, we point to foraging landscapes and practices within diverse urban forest spaces. We examine these spaces in relation to U.S. conservation and development processes and the effects of management and governance on species valued by foragers. These case studies reveal the everyday landscapes of urban foraging and suggest that ideas about what constitutes the suite of appropriate human-environment interactions in the sustainable city are contested and accommodated in diverse ways.

Institute For Sustainable Solutions Annual Report (2013-2014), Portland State University. Institute For Sustainable Solutions

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

This brief annual report from Portland State University's Institute for Sustainable Solutions captures the highlights from the year and signals where sustainability at PSU is headed in the years to come.

Mapping Landscape Values: Issues, Challenges And Lessons Learned From Field Work On The Olympic Peninsula, Washington, Diane Besser, Rebecca J. Mclain, Lee Cerveny, Kelly Biedenweg, David Banis

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

In order to inform natural resource policy and land management decisions, landscape values mapping (LVM) is increasingly used to collect data about the meanings that people attach to places and the activities associated with those places. This type of mapping provides geographically referenced data on areas of high density of values or associated with different types of values. This article focuses on issues and challenges that commonly occur in LVM, drawing on lessons learned in the US Forest Service Olympic Peninsula Human Ecology Mapping Project. The discussion covers choosing a spatial scale for collecting data, creating the base map, developing …

A Missing Piece In The Sustainability Movement: The Human Spirit, Deborah S. Peterson

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The sustainability movement, committed to the health of our natural world, is making a critical contribution to society. While many agree the sustainability movement should focus on the natural world, recent articles call for an additional focus on human welfare. This article proposes that a missing piece of the sustainability movement is a discussion of the role of the human spirit. By focusing narrowly on an examination of the state of the natural world, we are neglecting to incorporate the deep and enduring power of the human spirit to transform our natural and human-made environment and to support change agents …

Diverted Opportunity: Inequality And What The Southnorth Water Transfer Project Really Means For China, Britt Crow-Miller

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

The article discusses China’s South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) and argues that not only does the SNWTP reflect existing spatially articulated power discrepancies, but it reinforces and potentially exacerbates those inequalities by prioritizing Beijing’s present and future water needs above those of its neighbors and locking them in place for decades to come. Smaller, regional cities and rural areas — Shijiazhuang and Baoding in Hebei, Nanyang in Henan and the gritty, struggling towns and villages around Danjiangkou Reservoir — might have gained muchneeded jobs and government investment in the short term around the construction of the Middle Route, but without …

Values Mapping With Latino Forest Users: Contributing To The Dialogue On Multiple Land Use Conflict Management, Kelly Biedenweg, Lee Cerveny, Rebecca J. Mclain

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Values mapping that represents how humans associate with natural environments is useful for several purposes, including recognizing and addressing different perceptions of natural resource ownership and management priorities, documenting traditional ecological knowledge, and spatially identifying the public's perception of economic and non-economic services provided by natural resources (McLain et al. 2013). The majority of this work has been conducted in developing countries and with disenfranchised communities, where participatory mapping associated with natural resource management is more widely practiced. As access to GIS technology has expanded, however, several projects have tested the benefits of values mapping for natural resource management decisions …

The Perils Of Ignoring (Or Misunderstanding) Politics And Organizing, David Johns

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Conservation scientists and advocates were surprised by the U.S. Congress stripping away protection for wolves in the US northern Rocky Mountains. If they had paid attention to earlier political lessons in which court victories had been undermined by determined political organizing they would not have been surprised and could have adopted strategies that would have given them much more leverage with elected officials. Instead conservationists were out-organized and elected officials normally supportive of the U.S. Endangered Species Act responded to anti-wolf groups because they brought more pressure to bear than conservationists. Although political lessons are specific to the system in …

Assessing Possible Cruise Ship Impacts On Huna Tlingit Ethnographic Resources In Glacier Bay, Douglas Deur, Thomas Thornton

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report provides a thematic summary of an ethnographic study addressing the effects of cruise ships within Glacier Bay proper on the people known as the Huna Tlingit. Occupying the heart of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Glacier Bay proper is considered to be the core homeland of Huna Tlingit. The Huna occupied the Bay prior to its most recent glaciation and, though they now live nearby in Hoonah and other communities, they have continued to use, occupy, and value the lands and waters within the Bay since the glaciers began to retreat over two centuries ago. Simultaneously, since …