Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Environmental Health Effects Of Multiple Exposures: Systemic Risks And The Detroit River International Crossing Study, Tor H. Oiamo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines cumulative exposures to traffic noise and outdoor air pollution on environmental and health related quality of life in Windsor, Ontario, and provides a critical analysis of the environmental assessment process for the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) Study. The research utilizes a systemic risk framework to understand environmental health and stress effects of cumulative exposures. The significance of this research is based on a relative absence of literature on the systemic health risks of cumulative exposures and the need to elucidate environmental annoyance as a health outcome for risk assessment. The objectives of the research were to …

Land Rights Among Subsistence Farmers: An Examination Of Madagascar’S Land Reform And Prevailing Systems Of Land Tenure In Betafo, Taylor Crowl

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In Madagascar, legal systems of land tenure have been inaccessible for the vast majority of the rural population. This has stranded millions of subsistence farmers in a sense of insecurity, as they lack legal rights for the property that they have farmed for generations. Madagascar’s land reform, launched in 2005, attempted to change these exclusionary tenure practices. This reform —known as the Plan National Foncier—created land certificates and local land offices in an attempt to make legal land tenure financially, geographically, and logistically accessible to the local population. This study discusses the successes, failures, and unforeseen consequences of Madagascar’s land …

A Framework For Creating Active And Healthy Communities: A Case Study Of The Gold Coast, Bhishna Bajracharya, Linda Too, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Linda Too

Poor modern lifestyle choices have led to a burgeoning health concern for various government agencies prompting urgent review and action. Whilst the health sector has the primary role in addressing health issues, town planning can also contribute to better health by providing supportive environments for an active and healthy lifestyle. Local councils and other decision makers have a fundamental role in promoting healthy lifestyles among local community members through city planning and implementing physical activity and health programs. This research paper has two primary objectives. First, it develops an integrated 3-P (Place, Program and Partnership) framework for promoting active and …

Impacts Of Climate Change On The Evolution Of The Electrical Grid, Melissa Ree Allen

Doctoral Dissertations

Maintaining interdependent infrastructures exposed to a changing climate requires understanding 1) the local impact on power assets; 2) how the infrastructure will evolve as the demand for infrastructure changes location and volume and; 3) what vulnerabilities are introduced by these changing infrastructure topologies. This dissertation attempts to develop a methodology that will a) downscale the climate direct effect on the infrastructure; b) allow population to redistribute in response to increasing extreme events that will increase under climate impacts; and c) project new distributions of electricity demand in the mid-21^st century.

The research was structured in three parts. The first …

An Interpretive Plan Guide For Wilderness Park In Lincoln, Nebraska, Rachel J. Ward

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

Wilderness Park, located in Lancaster County, Nebraska, is a public park of unique ecological and historical value to the city of Lincoln and to the surrounding region. The natural and historical features of the park present an opportunity to communicate environmental and historical topics that are relevant on local, national, and global levels, as well as inspire a lively sense of pride in the community. The problem is that many topics relevant to Wilderness Park are not currently being interpreted at the park, and that there are relatively few interpretive resources available to park visitors.

The purpose of this project …

A Framework For Creating Active And Healthy Communities: A Case Study Of The Gold Coast, Bhishna Bajracharya, Linda Too, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Bhishna Bajracharya

Poor modern lifestyle choices have led to a burgeoning health concern for various government agencies prompting urgent review and action. Whilst the health sector has the primary role in addressing health issues, town planning can also contribute to better health by providing supportive environments for an active and healthy lifestyle. Local councils and other decision makers have a fundamental role in promoting healthy lifestyles among local community members through city planning and implementing physical activity and health programs. This research paper has two primary objectives. First, it develops an integrated 3-P (Place, Program and Partnership) framework for promoting active and …

Australian Bid Cost Benchmarking Of Public Private Partnerships, Michael Regan, Jim Smith, Peter Love

Michael Regan

Bid costs are essentially a concern of private companies and evidence is difficult to source from companies keen to safeguard their cost structures in a competitive bid market. Little evidence is available from the product disclosure statements of public companies or published statutory or Securities Exchange returns. Few companies disclose detailed information although there is wide use of generic “rules of thumb” for different project categories and most companies engaged in the PPP market are unwilling to provide information other than in anecdotal form. This paper reviews empirical and pilot survey evidence to ascertain bid cost benchmarks for public private …

Financing Mechanisms For Public Private Partnerships: Australian Experience, Michael Regan, Jim Smith, Peter Love

Michael Regan

Recent events in international capital markets has had major impact on the ongoing rollout of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and slowed their use. Capital has been hard to source especially for projects over $300 million, the patronage risk model for economic infrastructure is no longer available, debt is more expensive than it was 18 months ago and credit risk insurance is no longer readily available. This has affected bid markets and slowed the delivery of new infrastructures with longer-term implications for economic performance across the whole economy.

Comparing Project Costs Internationally: Methodology And Data Issues, Rick Best

Rick Best

It is not uncommon to see or hear statements that suggest that the cost of a project in one country is some multiple of the cost in another. Whether the claim is that it is more or less costly is irrelevant – the fact is that such statements are often meaningless yet governments and clients are all too ready to accept such claims and act on them in their decision-making. In some cases relative cost, however poorly calculated, is used as the basis for conclusions regarding relative productivity in industries such as construction. Arriving at truly comparable costs between countries …

Development Of A Public Education Website: Building Bridges Over Water, Angelina Mckee

Agricultural Education and Communication

Website created by Angelina McKee to educate the public about water resource issues. Water is the basic unit of life, water resources are the basis for what societies and ecosystems are founded upon. Water shortages and droughts are more prevalent in our ever-changing world. It is no shock that there are discrepancies between various stockholders on either sides of the dry riverbed. This senior project resulted in the development of a website that addresses global water resources, water use in California, water conservation, and water allocation. The website informs the public on water resources and related issues and will hopefully …

Global Economic Impacts Of Shoreline Degradation: A Socioeconomic Analysis, Alexa Brockamp

Global Honors Theses

Shoreline Degradation is an economically important issue, which damages coastal tourism economies, and causes shifts in flows of tourist capital. Shifts in flows of tourist capital have the potential to cause shifts in economic power relationships between nations. Governments and planning agencies should acknowledge the inherent dependence of coastal tourism economies on shoreline health and water quality, and conceptions framing the two issues as dichotomous are destructive – causing urban decisions to be made as if environmental and economic interests are mutually exclusive. It is important that such perceptions shift in order to maintain healthy coastal economies. Additionally, the socio- …

Transportation Safety And Access: A Case Study Of The St. Claude Bridge In New Orleans, Earthea Nance

Earthea Nance, PhD (Stanford University, 2004)

The community-university collaborative model, first developed in early-1990s public health research, expands opportunities for new research partnerships and joint problem-solving. This model is ideally suited to land-grant colleges and urban research universities whose mission involves community engagement. At the University of New Orleans, this model is employed in “practicum” graduate courses offered in the Department of Planning and Urban Studies. One such practicum partnered with the Lower 9th Ward community in spring 2012 to address serious safety problems with the St. Claude Bridge. The bridge, which linked the lower and upper halves of the community and served as an essential …

In Harm's Way: How Philadelphia's Urban Renewal Practices Steered Marginal People To Marginal Land, Katera Ya'shea Moore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dumping of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) on marginal communities has been well documented, however environmental justice scholars have rarely written about how marginal groups have come to occupy their landscapes, particularly when natural hazards lie beneath.

This dissertation research focuses on a broad definition of the environment that includes the built, social, and physical. I am interested in extending Logan and Molotch's Growth Machine theory to consider how the political and economic elite guided the urban renewal process to place particular communities on particular landscapes, despite the presence of a flooding hazard. To understand this issue, I examined …

The Reclamation Of Public Parks: An Analysis Of Environmental Justice In Los Angeles, Allison Rigby

Scripps Senior Theses

People who live in cities are far more likely to suffer the physical and psychological effects of urban environments--high noise levels, automobile emissions, toxic industrial waste, crowded living conditions, and a general scarcity of open space. Combating these issues, public parks do more than provide recreational space. They are fundamental to any efforts focusing on urban revitalization, social justice, and sustainability. In downtown Los Angeles, public parks are rare, especially in low-income communities. Several new public parks have reclaimed abandoned land, unwelcoming spaces, and the City’s brownfields. After years of intense private use and neglect, spent land has been reinvigorated …

Green Cities, The Search For Sustainability, And Urban Environmental History, Christopher Wells

Christopher W. Wells

No abstract provided.

All That Sprawl, Y’All: An Analysis Of Development On Steinwehr Avenue And York Street In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, From 1971 To 2014, Elizabeth K. Emmons, Kalley S. Hansel, Daly Simpson

Student Publications

The advent of the automobile transformed the American landscape in the 20th century. In conjunction with the increasing importance of the automobile, numerous post-WW II government programs such as the Interstate Highway System encouraged suburban sprawl. Towns and cities adjacent to tourist attractions, known as gateway communities, face unique problems caused by sprawl. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is an example of a gateway community as it includes the Gettysburg National Military Park. Two study sites, portions of Steinwehr Avenue and York Street, were studied to analyze the effects of sprawl in Gettysburg. The sites were analyzed using ArcGIS, data compiled from historic …

Spatial Decision Support Systems For Sustainable Urban Redevelopment, Amy V. Johnson-Ferdinand

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

A recent United Nations study concludes that worldwide population will grow from approximately 7 billion today to 9.3 billion in 2050 and 10.1 billion in 2100. Nowhere is this population growth more evident than in the major cities of the world. For the first time in history, a majority of the world’s people lived in cities. In 1950, by comparison, less than 30% of the world’s population dwelled in cities. This rapid growth of population, coupled with an aging infrastructure, and the abandoning of urban manufacturing sites, creates an urgent need for inner city revitalization. There are several urban areas …

Urban Foraging And The Relational Ecologies Of Belonging, Melissa R. Poe, Joyce Lecompte, Rebecca J. Mclain, Patrick T. Hurley

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Through a discussion of urban foraging in Seattle, Washington, USA, we examine how people's plant and mushroom harvesting practices in cities are linked to relationships with species, spaces, and ecologies. Bringing a relational approach to political ecology, we discuss the ways that these particular nature–society relationships are formed, legitimated, and mobilized in discursive and material ways in urban ecosystems. Engaging closely with and as foragers, we develop an ethnographically grounded ‘relational ecologies of belonging’ framework to conceptualize and examine three constituent themes: cultural belonging and identity, belonging and place, and belonging and more-than-human agency. Through this case study, we show …

Relationships Between Environmental Governance And Water Quality In A Growing Metropolitan Area Of The Pacific Northwest, Usa, Heejun Chang, Paul R. Thiers, Noelwah R. Netusil, J. Alan Yeakley, Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens, Steve Bollens, Sonia Singh

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

We investigate relationships between environmental governance and water quality in two adjacent growing metropolitan areas in the western US. While the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington metro areas share many common biophysical characteristics, they have different land development histories and water governance structures, providing a unique opportunity for examining how differences in governance might affect environmental quality. We conceptualize possible linkages in which water quality influences governance directly, using monitoring efforts as a metric, and indirectly by using the change in the sale price of single-family residential properties. Governance may then influence water quality directly through riparian restoration resulting from …

Issue Brief: Asset Management For Stormwater, New England Environmental Finance Center, Sustainable Communities Learning Network

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

Asset management is a strategic approach to maintaining and sustaining infrastructure in order to meet the needs of the community at the lowest overall life cycle cost. This approach helps communities know how and where to prioritize limited funds in order to achieve the greatest benefit. Often applied to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, this method is well suited to managing any assets, including stormwater systems.

This issue brief is intended to introduce local governments to the asset management process and to show how it can be applied in managing stormwater assets. It was adapted from an appendix written by …

Understanding Secrets Of Sustainability Through Triz Philosophy, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

After creating the weapons that can destroy the world, the next challenge of man is not to win an enemy but to survive the disasters. The modern man realizes that the worst challenges to face are the manmade disasters. While the nature has given us a well-disposed atmosphere to grow we are spoiling the natural resources through various anti-environmental activities. Our partial knowledge on development has taken us through a so-called development, which is neither eco-friendly nor sustainable. It is therefore important to control our own activities and behavior to minimize their negative effects on other adjacent systems and environment. …

Identifying High Crime Areas Using Spatial Analysis, Elisa Trepanier

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

Crime incident locations and trends are examined spatially using GIS to produce maps that pinpoint high crime areas or Hot Spots Crime mapping aids police departments by identifying areas to allocate limited resources where and when they are most needed. This project introduces the availability of GIS technology to smaller police departments as a tool to assist in the development of crime prevention strategies. In this model crime incident reports for Windham, Maine are geocoded and patterns of motor vehicle and structure burglaries analyzed for date, time and location of incident. An addressing protocol is followed to protect victim privacy …

Retrofiting Lid Practices Into Existing Neighborhoods: Is It Worth It?, Timothy Wright

Open Access Theses

Low impact development (LID) practices are gaining popularity as a way to manage stormwater close to the source. This reduces infrastructure requirements and helps to maintain hydrologic processes close to predevelopment conditions. Studies have shown LID practices to be effective in reducing runoff and improving water quality. However, little has been done to aid decision makers in selecting the most effective practices for their needs and budgets.

To this end, the L-THIA LID model has been applied. Using readily available data sources, multiple scenarios can quickly be examined, and then analyzed to determine the cost of implementation and the approximate …

Coastal And Ocean Economic Summaries Of The Coastal States 2014, Pat Johnston

Publications

The following summaries of the ocean and coastal economies were prepared by the National Ocean Economics Program as a companion the State of the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economies 2014. The U.S. report, its appendices, and these state summary reports are available on the NOEP website at www.OceanEconomics.org/download.

Seasonal Dynamics Of A Suburban Energy Balance In Phoenix, Arizona, Winston T. L. Chow, Thomas J. Volo, Enrique R. Vivoni, G. Darrel Jenerette, Benjamin L. Ruddell

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Observations of local-scale urban surface energy balance (SEB), which include fluxes of net all-wave radiation (Q*), and eddy covariance measurements of sensible (QH) and latent heat (QE) were collected in an arid Phoenix, AZ suburb from January to December 2012. We studied diurnal variations in SEB partitioning over four distinct seasons: winter, equinoxes, and summer; the latter period is further subdivided into (1) months prior to and (2) months occurring during the North American Monsoon. Largest flux densities were observed in summer, with most available energy partitioned into QH. Much less energy is partitioned into QE, but this term is …

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 …

The General Public’S Weather Information-Seeking And Decision-Making Behavior During Tornado Outbreaks In The Oklahoma City Metroplex In May 2013, Chen Ling, Michelle Madison, Jessica Adams, Kevin Warren, Michael Mudd, Kim Graves Wolfinbarger, Lans Rothfusz

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research

Severe weather impacts the lives of many people. Today's technology allows weather information to be distributed to the general public in many ways. However, it is not clear how people obtain information regarding severe weather, and how they make decisions based on the information. This study surveyed people in the Oklahoma City metroplex about their weather information–seeking and decision-making behaviors during the May 2013 tornado outbreaks. The preliminary results based on 124 survey responses show that people used and trusted television news most to obtain the severe weather information, followed by siren, weather radio, radio, looking at the sky, and …

Suburban Heat Islands: The Influence Of Residential Minimum Lot Size Zoning On Surface Heat Islands In Somerset County, New Jersey, Jennifer Renee Cox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The process of suburbanization blurs regional bounds, forms mega-regions and fosters the expansion of multifaceted environmental problems, such as the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Defined by differences in air- and surface- temperature between rural and urban areas, UHI is the result of the characteristics of urbanization which modify the land surface condition, urban geometry, thermal properties of construction materials, anthropogenic heat and air pollution, which increase storage and re-radiation of heat to the atmosphere. Climate change is predicted to worsen the UHI effect. Hence, the objective of this research to characterize the UHI effect as it pertains to suburban …

Evaluating American Rainwater Harvesting Policy: A Case Study Of Three U.S. Cities, Russell J. Fricano, Alison Grass

Urban and Regional Studies Institute Publications

In spite of increasing support for rainwater harvesting by public agencies, environmental organizations and well-defined industry guidelines, the researchers found a strikingly limited number of municipalities with formal rainwater harvesting policies and programs. With literature on rainwater harvesting limited to mostly instructional material, the researchers were compelled to examine the feasibility of rainwater harvesting guidelines and practices. International and domestic rainwater harvesting guidelines were considered. The researchers surveyed municipalities which have implemented rainwater harvesting policies and ordinances to determine the extent to which industry prescribed guidelines are feasible. The subject jurisdictions commonly regulated rainwater harvesting through ancillary city codes or …

Cities, Disaster Risk And Adaptation, Christine Wamsler

Christine Wamsler

Worldwide, disasters and climate change pose a serious risk to sustainable urban development, resulting in escalating human and economic costs. Consequently, city authorities and other urban actors face the challenge of integrating risk reduction and adaptation strategies into their work, although related knowledge and expertise are still scarce.

Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation explores ways in which resilient cities can be ‘built’ and sustainable urban transformations achieved. The book provides a comprehensive understanding of urban risk reduction and adaptation planning, exploring key theoretical concepts and analyzing the complex interrelation between cities, disasters and climate change. It further provides an overview …