Environmental Policy Commons^™

Dr. Kim Scipes: Building A Network Of Compassion In A World Waiting To Be United, Kayla Vasilko

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

In his career, Dr. Kim Scipes has been globally active in the labor movement for almost 40 years and has published over 240 articles and book reviews. Additionally, Dr. Scipes has authored four books, three of which were completed while Dr. Scipes taught at PNW (the first two while he was teaching four courses a semester); his publication list is accessible via: https://www.pnw.edu/faculty/kim-scipes-ph-d/publications/, a listing that strongly illustrates his impressive range of work and dedication to advancing knowledge not just for the university, but for the world. Dr. Scipes’ Sociology 404 course (Environment and Social Justice) gives students a …

Research-Practice Collaborations To Address Equity Through Implementable, On-The-Ground Coastal Resilience Projects, Wie Yusuf

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Summary. The discussion of research-practice collaborations to address equity through implementable, on-the-ground projects and programs converged around several interconnected themes that included: (1) prioritizing equity focus in defining and measuring projects’ success, (2) involving local communities in projects early on and through long-term monitoring, using interdisciplinary teams, and (3) incentivizing such projects through proper resourcing. Prioritizing equity in project measurement is only possible with the community’s involvement, and proper resourcing would ensure that community partners are resourced appropriately to support their resilience efforts.

Equity Concerns Underpinning Policy Analysis And Decision Making For Coastal Resilience, Wie Yusuf

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Summary: Equity is increasingly becoming a consideration in resilience-focused policy. There is heightened interest in measuring how resilience policies, projects, and programs may impact equity. Equity may be advanced by a more inclusive policy process, well-developed communication channels, regular reference to the resilience research body of knowledge, and consultation with subject matter experts. There is need for increased clarity in the conceptual and operational definitions of equity, and consideration of the impact of resilience investments on a range of social and economic disparities.

Emergency Management For Equitable Coastal Resilience, Wie Yusuf

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Summary: The discipline and practice of emergency management provide opportunities to promote equity in resilience. This may be accomplished by (1) expanding and deepening emergency management’s responsibilities to more explicitly incorporate mid-to-long-term recovery, and (2) advancing workforce diversity. Further, the prioritization of planning investments may promote more equitable recovery pathways for communities. Tracking of resilience investments and associated benefits across communities may provide opportunities to assess the equity of investments. Advancing resilience literacy and risk assessment among the citizenry may promote equity in resilience.

Coastal Squeeze, Climigration, And Equity Implications, Wie Yusuf

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Summary: Coastal squeeze is impacting communities across the United States. Agricultural lands are affected by groundwater salt intrusion, habitats are lost due to limited space for species to migrate inland, natural capital and flood protection values are impacted by reduction in undeveloped land for natural ecosystems, infrastructure such as transportation are affected by flooding, and insurance companies are withdrawing from covering properties in coastal communities experiencing sea level rise and flooding. Resulting ‘climigration’ is occurring, for example, in Puerto Rico residents moving off the island, and subdivisions in North Carolina and Virginia being turned over to conservation. Lower-income communities are …

Acreage Of Foreign Owned Farmland In The Mountain West, 2020, Geneva Martin, Saha Salahi, Zachary Billot, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet examines foreign-owned farmland in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, as originally reported by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency.

Health Rankings: Mountain West States, 2021, Hira Ahmed, Sofia Takhtadjian, Olivia K. Cheche, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Health

Using data from the United Health Foundation’s “America’s Health Rankings Annual Report 2021,” this fact sheet compares various measures of health in the Mountain West using data from 2014 to 2021. The original report includes data on the five determinants of health including social and economic factors, physical environment, clinical care, behaviors, and health outcomes. This fact sheet examines health metrics for the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

Weathering The Storm: Navigating Urban Ecologies Of Communication In Times Of Crisis, Austin Hestdalen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project explores cities as urban ecologies of communication in which crises emerge and are given significance within the dialogic relations cultivated among public actors attempting to make a living, together, within the shared historical-cultural contexts of everyday life. To describe cities as urban ecologies of communication is to describe them in terms of urban communication and its interdisciplinary foundations in the study of rhetoric, philosophy, planning, policy, architecture, sociology, geography, and media. The first chapter introduces the challenges of urban risk and crisis management within the complex ecologies of communication constituted by cities and reviews how ‘risk’ and ‘crisis’ …

Perspectives On Living Shorelines: Marine Contractors And Agents In Southeast Virginia, Michelle Covi, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf

Presentations, Lectures, Posters, Reports

No abstract provided.

Wildfire Risk In Mountain West States, 2017-2021, Olivia K. Cheche, Corryn Richardson, Zachary Billot, Miguel Soriano Ralston, Vanessa Booth, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet examines data on wildfire destruction in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The original report from the Insurance Information Institute presents findings on percent of properties at risk of wildfire destruction, the number of wildfires by state, and numbers of acres burned per state.

Between The Public And The Private Interest: The Interrelationship Of Intermediary Roles Of Environmental Nonprofits In Coastal Resilience, Marina Saitgalina, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Taiwo Olanrewaju-Lasisi

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Government regulators cannot mitigate the loss of wetlands and coastal erosion alone. Nonprofits, uniquely situated between coastal property owners with personal interests and governments with regulatory interests, are positioned to mediate the interests of different parties while considering local context and individual circumstances. However, it is unclear what roles environmental nonprofits play within the network of actors. This study asks: (1) What roles do environmental nonprofit organizations play in local stakeholder network arrangements for wetlands conservation and shoreline management? (2) How are these roles interrelated? We use two frameworks describing the roles of nonprofits to examine the roles of environmental …

A Multi-Criteria Approach To Building Resilient Neighborhoods Through Green Space Investments In Sacramento, Luis E. Montes

Master's Projects and Capstones

The consequences of climate change and urbanization have increased heat, air pollution, and flood risks in urban areas. Green spaces—parks, trees, trails, and gardens—are multifunctional solutions that help communities adapt to these various climate vulnerabilities, promoting urban resiliency through the socio-ecological service they provide. Yet, low-income communities and neighborhoods of color are often deprived of these services. As a result, this study utilizes a multi-criteria analysis to assess a variety of social, climate, and green space indicators in North and South Sacramento, two racially diverse and historically marginalized communities, to recommend more robust green space implementation strategies. Priority areas are …

Global Climate Governance: Rising Trend Of Translateral Cooperation, Nataliya Stranadko

Public Affairs and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The transformation from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement has been analyzed by international relations scholars, international law, and transnational governance theory. The international relations literature looks at the climate regime from a perspective of power distribution, state interests, institutions, and multilateral negotiations. International law theory focuses on legal analysis and design of international climate agreements. The transnational governance literature examines the participation of transnational actors at different levels of governance. However, each of these theories overlooks a bilateral trend of cooperation in a multilateral setting that arises as part of the construction or reconstruction of the international regime. …

Dirtiest Cities In The Mountain West, 2021, Olivia K. Cheche, Kristian Thymianos, William E. Brown Jr., Caitlin J. Saladino

Environment

This fact sheet presents rankings of the dirtiest cities in the Mountain West, as originally reported by LawnStarter in “2021’s Dirtiest Cities in the U.S.” The original report examines various measures for 200 major U.S. cities. Twenty-five Mountain West cities are included in the original report and are showcased here.

A Review Of Environmental Vulnerabilities Related To Nepal’S Graduation Process From Least Developed To A Developing Country Status, Ambika P. Adhikari, Keshav Bhattarai, Basu Sharma

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal has long aspired to graduate from the Least Development Country (LDC) to Developing Country category as defined by the United Nations system. Nepal had met two of the three graduating criteria and could have technically graduated from the LDC status in 2015. However, based on the Nepal government’s request to defer the review, the new 2021 assessment by the United Nations Committee for Development Policy (CDP) recommended that the country should graduate from the LDC status by 2026. The graduation requires not only meeting pre-defined development-related thresholds, but also maintaining sustained improvements in at least two consecutive assessments in …

From Policy To Implementation: Adaptation To The Impacts Of Climate Change On Agriculture On Egypt/ من السياسة إلى التنفيذ: التكيف مع اثار تغير المناخ على الزراعة في مصر, Fatma Barakat, Hagar Salama, Hager Yehia Shalaby, Nahla Taher, Rachad Bani Samari

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

Dead crops, fruitless trees, and barren lands. Such is the print left by the climate catastrophe in Egypt. As these impacts increase in intensity and frequency, Egypt lies between a rock and a hard place. The global economic and food crisis, internal demographic pressures, and a cash-strapped financial state coupled with the climate crisis have set the government’s teeth on edge. Adapting to climate change impacts on agriculture to feed over 100 million citizens and protect the livelihoods of over 25 million actors in the agro-food industry has become one of the most pressing policy issues of the government. National …

Reforming The Solid Waste Management System: The Case Of Rural Areas In Egypt /إصلاح نظام إدارة النفايات الصلبة: حالة المناطق الريفية في مصر, Ahmed El Masry, Fatema El Ghonemy, Ibrahim Abugazia, Raghda El Khater

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

The policy paper tackles the issue of managing solid waste in rural areas in Egypt. It mainly targets the reform of the solid waste management system. The authors deal with rural areas specifically due to their importance and significance. In this context, the policy paper research demonstrated that the current solid waste management system in the governorates studied has a number of flaws and limitations. These issues show the inadequate solid waste management technical performance at the governorate level in terms of institutional, technical, financial, economic, and environmental factors, due to the lack of or ineffective solid waste management departments …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of The Pennsylvania Wine Industry With Actionable Recommendations For Industry Improvement And Growth, Seth Porter

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Local wine industries are vital engines of agricultural economic growth, rural development, and sustainable long-term tax base creation. While the Pennsylvania wine industry has made admirable progress, the industry still has a poor collective reputation, high variance in product quality differential, and a perceived regulatory environment that creates negative externalities for local wine, agricultural production, and auxiliary enterprises. This comprehensive analysis attempts to diagnose and remedy all primary public policy, regulatory, state, non-profit, and non-state private actions that have impeded the Pennsylvania wine industry. A methodology of grounded theory qualitative processes, furthered by texting mining and document analysis techniques, were …

Monitoring And Evaluation Of The Egyptian National Climate Change Mitigation & Adaptation Efforts/ رصد وتقييم الجهود الوطنية للتخفيف والتكيف مع آثار تغير المناخ في مصر, Amira Mousa, Amira Mostafa Ahmed, Nada Elbakri, Sohaila Essam Gaheen

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

Egypt has a medium overall score in climate mitigation efforts according to the Climate Change Performance Index (Germanwatch, 2021) and a relatively low performance in the adaptation measures when compared with other African countries such as Kenya (Pörtner et al., 2022). This policy paper aims to examine the current efforts by Egypt to monitor and evaluate its mitigation and adaptation efforts and review what similar countries have done in this regard. Hence, the paper will then provide policy alternatives to ensure a workable Monitoring and Evaluation Framework that considers the Egyptian context and the current policy environment. The Monitoring and …

Looking To The Future Of Wildlife Conservation: Durable Wildlife Policy For The 21st Century, Charlie R. Booher

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Wildlife conservation in the United States was built by the dollars of consumptive users. Monies from the sale of hunting licenses, as well as excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, and archery tackle through the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (PR), currently fuel a complex system of wildlife conservation via multiple levels of government. However, the number of hunters in this country is rapidly declining, the sale of firearms and ammunition is increasingly unrelated to hunting, and contemporary consumers tend to express different values than traditional hunters. These changes pose significant challenges of relevancy and funding to state and …

Climate Trailblazer Or Corporate Giveaway: An Economic And Political Evaluation Of Cap-And-Trade In California, Benjamin Reicher

Pomona Senior Theses

In this thesis, I conduct an economic and political analysis of California’s cap-and-trade program, the leading national (and international) example of a market-based strategy to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. I evaluate the program on several economic and political measures of success, especially as contrasted with the performance of various regulatory policies that California also relies on to meet its emissions reduction targets. These regulations exemplify a command and control approach to emissions mitigation as opposed to a market-based approach, and indeed tend to be favored by grassroots activists who may be skeptical about market-friendly policies; my thesis seeks to …

Undersea Cables: The Ultimate Geopolitical Chokepoint, Bert Chapman

FORCES Initiative: Strategy, Security, and Social Systems

This work provides historical and contemporary overviews of this critical geopolitical problem, describes the policy actors addressing this in the U.S. and selected other countries, and provides maps and information on many undersea cable work routes. These cables are chokepoints with one dictionary defining chokepoints as “a strategic narrow route providing passage through or to another region."

Communicating And Co-Producing Information With Stakeholders: Examples Of Participatory Mapping Approaches Related To Sea Level Rise Risks And Impacts, Pragati Rawat, Khairul A. Anua, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Jon Derek Loftis, Ren-Neasha Blake

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

This chapter discusses practical approaches for using participatory mapping as a tool to visualize and communicate sea level rise (SLR) and climate change risks, to share information about the vulnerability to, and threats of, climate change, and to co-produce knowledge with stakeholders. The examples presented in this chapter are from demonstrated applications in communities in Virginia (USA) that involve participatory mapping and that utilize a web-Geographic Information System (GIS). The web-GIS is innovatively combined with other technologies and participatory processes to create low-cost high-tech approaches so that even people with little to no knowledge of GIS can interact with maps …

Feasibility Of Development Of Flood Resiliency Clearinghouse Program, Commonwealth Center For Recurrent Flooding Resiliency, Mujde Erten-Unal, Carol Considine, Mark W. Luckenbach, Elizabeth Armistead Andrews

Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency (CCRFR): Reports

[Introduction]

House Bill 2187ⁱ, introduced by Delegate Keith Hodges in the 2021 session of the Virginia General Assembly, directed the Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency (CCRFR), a partnership between Old Dominion University, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and the William & Mary Law School’s Virginia Coastal Policy Center (VCPC) established by Virginia Chapter 440 of the 2016 Acts of Assembly (HB 903), to evaluate the development of a Flood Resiliency Clearinghouse Program (henceforth Clearinghouse). The bill stipulated that the Center should work with the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) to evaluate solutions that manage …

Engaging Residents In Policy And Planning For Sea Level Rise: Application Of The Action-Oriented Stakeholder Engagement For A Resilient Tomorrow (Asert) Framework, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, J. Gail Nicula, Daniel P. Richards, Ogechukwu Agim, Michelle Covi, Khairul A. Anuar

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

This chapter describes the application of the Action-oriented Stakeholder Engagement for a Resilient Tomorrow (ASERT) framework for communicating with and engaging both residents and community stakeholders in their localities’ efforts to prepare for and to respond to flooding and sea level rise. The application of ASERT incorporates communication, education/learning, and gamification elements that can be embedded into community meetings. We describe the way in which ASERT community meetings are designed (1) to provide an inclusive and engaging process that will allow residents to participate in their city’s resilience efforts; (2) to provide information about resilience in an environment that encourages …

Evaluation Of Existing Climate-Change Adaptation Plans For Municipalities In Mexico: Proposition Of A “Sustainable Mac-Water Framework” That Considers Vulnerability To Impacts On Water Resources, Tsanta Rakotoarisoa

Sustainability and Social Justice

This paper presents a sustainable adaptive capacity framework for water management for municipalities, named Sustainable MAC-Water framework, after assessing the strengths and weaknesses of adaptive capacity in Mexico and its municipalities. It provides municipalities with an instrument to help them create sustainable adaptive capacity plans (Sustainable MAC plans) to prevent adverse impacts on water resources and related sectors. It is based on a study of policy instruments crafted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Government of Mexico, and literature on adaptive capacity, assessment, and planning. The Sustainable MAC-Water framework recommends the establishment of a Reactive Barriers …

Planting Seeds For Success: An Evaluation Of Agricultural Reentry Programming For Formerly Incarcerated Individuals, David J. Jefferson

Master's Projects and Capstones

Black and brown communities are over-incarcerated and are much more likely than their white counterparts to be involved with the criminal justice system. Hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people are released each year and they face substantial barriers to reentry such as lack of employment opportunities, difficulty securing housing, accessing education, and just simply reintegrating back into society. The criminal justice system within the United States is fueled by systemic racism and overt discrimination towards people of color, and the same can be said for the food system within the United States as well. They share a history of oppressive …

The Political Economy Equilibrium Of Environmental And Trade Policies In The U.S., Linda Allen

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

The U.S. has incorporated environmental policies into its all free trade agreements since it negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the early 1990s. The inclusion of environmental policies represented a major shift in trade policy but the environmental policies have not drastically changed in subsequent trade agreements over the past 25 years despite the continued involvement of environmental constituencies and policymakers. The punctuated equilibrium model provides the analytical framework for understanding the factors that gave rise to the drastic policy shift under NAFTA as well as the subsequent policy stasis, in order to inform future policymaking efforts. …

Water Elites’ Perceptions Of Water Security In The Middle East And North Africa Region, Ghaleb Akari

Dissertations

The Middle East and North African region continues to face significant water security challenges. The purpose of this dissertation is to gain a deeper understanding of water elites’ perceptions of water security in the MENA region. It is not meant to generalize the findings. Instead, the intention for the research is to identify, explain, and analyze by national elites' contrasting perceptions in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Tunisia.

The study examines water elites’ perceptions in four areas: current knowledge level of water security, water resource management, water service delivery, and water-related risk mitigation. These elites’ perceptions of water security will help …

Evaluating Urban Parks Accessibility And Equity: A Case Study Of Hartford, Ct And New Haven, Ct, Natalie Roach, Mara Tu

Honors Scholar Theses

Public parks provide cities with environmental benefits, positive health effects, recreational opportunities, community building, educational spaces, and public amenities. However, certain populations have been systematically denied their fair share of these benefits because of unjust practices in the creation and maintenance of urban parks. With a lens of environmental justice, the goal of this research was to assess park quality and accessibility of two Connecticut cities, Hartford and New Haven, by gathering publicly available information as well as using GIS tools.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has an existing ParkScore rating system that evaluates the quality of a city’s …