Abstract
HISTORY/THEORY/ADMINISTRATION
10. Planning History
10-1 GENERAL HISTORY
Geographic information systems. Geography. History. Military. Mobility.
In the aftermath of World War I, U.S. discourse was animated by the concern that demobilized soldiers, having experienced the world outside of their hometowns, would resist returning to farms and to their preinduction occupations. Did military service really encourage an occupational shift? Were rural individuals especially susceptible to and was emplacement in foreign locales especially culpable for this change, as popular culture suggested? Focusing on North Dakota, a state with unusually detailed World War I records, this article uses a novel linked census–military data set and statistical analysis to examine how individuals' place-based military experience might have inflected their postwar occupational mobility. Whereas univariate models support the contemporary perception that farm boys with overseas service were less likely to remain in agriculture, increasingly complex models suggest more nuanced interpretations, with civilian individual and contextual characteristics and their interaction being significantly predictive of farm leaving. Addressing substantive gaps in World War I historiography by contextualizing neglected subpopulations, this research also shows the value of using quantitative methods to engage with critical military geographies. Operationalizing theories of place–individual co-constitution through the analysis of longitudinal, individual data demonstrates how interest in soldiers' experiences and in the spatiotemporally distant effects of war can be productively intertwined.
11. Concepts of Planning
11-1 APPROACHES (COMPREHENSIVE/STRATEGIC/COLLABORATIVE)
37-6692
Citizen participation. Communication. Community participation. Environment.
This study investigates practices of uncertainty disclosure and communication in Canadian environmental assessment (EA) in the context of the Joslyn North Oil Sands Mine project. Nineteen interviews with project stakeholders were conducted, revealing significant uncertainties about the project, attributed to multiple factors including lack of clarity in the terms of reference and requirements of the proponent; the project's predicted impacts and proponent commitments to mitigation; cumulative effects and the potential for effects interaction with other projects; Aboriginal engagement, including engagement processes and broader socio-political context; and poor uncertainty disclosure and communication practices. Some uncertainties were disclosed but at times downplayed to render the project more palatable through the EA process. Informants stated that this is not an uncommon occurrence in oil sands EA. Recommendations to improve uncertainty disclosure and communication in EA and enhance the consideration of uncertainties in decision-making are provided.
37-6693
Displacement. Forest planning. Forest regions. Garden suburbs. Narrative analysis.
Urban forests provide numerous benefits to human health and wellbeing, the local urban environment and biodiversity. Despite this, many suburban areas are experiencing declining urban forests due to urban consolidation. In response, this paper proposes scenarios for improving canopy coverage using an Australian middle ring suburb as a case study. The paper employs a Delphi method assessment of the scenarios regarding their benefits and feasibility. The paper concludes that while experts focus on the technical dimensions of urban forest planning, planners should ensure that urban forest plans embody a place-based narrative that captures the public imagination and engenders stewardship.
37-6694
Border regions. Conflict. Europe.
This paper seeks to contribute to debates on the potential for conservation planning to engage actively with conflict. Current research in conservation planning generally approaches conflict by concentrating on the challenges of securing agreement and consensus. Recent planning literature advocates approaches that are more open to conflict. In the analysis of a Norwegian regional planning process for wild reindeer conservation, we examine how planning authorities handled conflict, and in particular how planning documents portrayed conflicts expressed during the planning process. Findings show that the aim of reaching regional consensus limited the scope of planning, and led to the exclusion of difficult issues and opposing views. Instead of engaging actively with conflict, the planning authority framed opposing positions as unplannable, and failed to recognise them as legitimate. This contributed to weakening of the legitimacy of the regional plan when put to the test.
37-6695
Adaptive management. Collaborative planning. Complexity in planning. Environmental management. Environmental responsibility.
Adaptive strategies to deal with uncertainty in water management are often collaboratively developed. So far, however, little attention has been paid to the influence of collaboration on handling uncertainty through adaptive planning. In this paper, we study how collaboration has influenced the handling of uncertainty through adaptive planning for water management strategies for the IJsselmeer area in the Netherlands. We show how a fixation on certainty, different perspectives among actors and unclear responsibilities between arenas affect the handling of uncertainty, and found that it is adversely affected by collaboration. The use of adaptive planning challenged current water uses and system functions, creating resistance from actors. We conclude that developing a shared problem perception, creating a common understanding of uncertainties and ensuring a clear demarcation between the water system, its societal functions and water usage, are necessary to make adaptive planning successful in handling uncertainty.
11-2 PLANNING THEORIES
37-6696
Adaptation. Adaptation strategies. Bureaucracy. Climate change. Institutions. Learning.
The institutional and political contexts of climate action matter. Planning and sustainability science have parallel interests in politics and institutions, particularly in institutional reforms that balance continuity and change. Our theorizing inert resilience highlights micro (individual) and meso (institutional) foundations of macro-state capacities for climate adaptation through social learning and transformative capacity building. Using survey, conversations, and participant observation in a Philippine case study, we discuss six inertia-inducing institutional traps shaping climate adaptation challenges in inert resilience contexts. Examining resource constraints, value conflicts, and colonial legacies influencing inertia, we propose pathways toward local capacity-building and social learning for climate adaptation.
37-6697
Australia. Collective organization. Complexity in planning. Culture. Leadership. Municipal governments. National parks.
Few studies have considered greenspace governance provision from a local government perspective. This paper applies previously overlooked insights from urban planning and social research, to investigate the key question: ‘how do governance factors influence the provision of greenspace in cities?'. It examines governance tools, organisational leadership and culture, and political leadership. Findings reveal the tensions between a need for certainty and a desire for flexibility, highlighting inconsistencies between planning theory and practice. Better understanding the interplay of these enablers and constraints can inform policy-making to ensure that rapidly growing cities can respond to their residents' needs using available resources.
37-6698
Complexity theory. Diversity. Land use.
In Italy, the religious cityscape appears singularly homogeneous, with a Christian-Catholic predominance that fails to reflect the country's increasingly heterogeneous population. Facing the disconnection, this study makes enquiries into the administration's methods of handling new claims for religious space, and questions whether planning – as currently configured in Italy – can contribute to the formation of different, more diverse, cities. The findings suggest that public administrations perceive non-Catholic places of worship as something to avoid or conceal, if not openly refuse; and planning, due to technical, cultural, and political limitations, supports this modus operandi, contributing to the creation of conflicting tracks of recognition and legitimacy among religious groups.
37-6699
Community. Consumer behavior. Consumers.
Concern for the future of town centres and their retail cores, the ‘high street', is not new. Responses to this have often been somewhat one dimensional, focusing on their role as places of consumption, employment, leisure and heritage. We consider the potential multiple roles of older people in helping revive and rejuvenate town centres given the centrality of place for healthy supportive living, community and social participation and ‘ageing in place'. Taking an environmental gerontology perspective, we ask whether the WHO age friendly cities/communities' framework should be considered further in approaches to reviving town centres in a post-Covid-19 world.
37-6700
Consultancy. Environmental planning. Europe. Foreign investment.
This article focuses on west-east planning policy transfers in Europe – the movement of ideas, principles, priorities, and processes related to the development, implementation and evaluation of planning policy. It examines the case of Albania, where various activities to promote the transfer of policy have taken place over the last quarter century. Since the end of communism in 1990, foreign consultants have been involved in providing advice on a range of policy issues, including urban and regional planning. Drawing on a survey of consultants with direct experience of providing policy advice in Albania, the article explores the impact of west-east planning policy transfer and the key barriers it has faced.
11-5 APPLICATIONS/TECHNIQUES
37-6701
Land use planning. Land-use planning. Mapping techniques. Maps.
Participatory methods that are structured, equitably collected, and produce analysable data offer improvement to the often predetermined and hierarchical land-use planning process. Participatory Risk Mapping (PRM), was used to garner feedback on potential land uses and current concerns regarding an abandoned hospital property in Laredo, Texas, USA by interviewing 496 participants who live within view of the former hospital. Overall, PRM is an efficient and systematic approach to including key stakeholders into sustainable and equitable urban land-use planning.
11-7 CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
37-6702
Citizen participation. Community participation. Energy resources. Individual rights.
This article is concerned with public participation and its linkages with appeal rights in planning decisions for major onshore wind farms in England and Denmark. We are particularly interested in how the legal framework shapes the scope of participation and appeals and, more specifically, whether a third party right to appeal (TPRA) has a participatory potential beyond the initial decision-making process. Despite structural differences, our analysis shows that in both countries the legal frameworks limit the participatory potential of administrative appeals, either through a restricted third party access to appeal mechanisms or through a restricted scope of review in appeals. Even where access is unrestricted, TPRA can hardly constitute an extension of participation, unless the scope for review is equally extended. Thus, reliance on TPRA as a participatory tool would require changes to the legal framework in both jurisdictions.
37-6703
Citizen involvement. Citizen participation. Institutional change.
In this paper, we analyze the institutional work that underlies the attempt to institutionalize a more active role of citizens in urban planning. We draw on a case in which a group of citizens aims to redevelop a brownfield site into a vital urban area. This citizens' initiative is co-creating a new form of urban planning with the municipality, private organizations and individual citizens. The study shows how citizens' initiatives can be a driver for institutional change, but that uncertainties about new institutions tend to reinforce the maintenance of existing ones. This paradox explains why even if the ambition for a new form of planning is widely shared, actually realizing institutional change can still be difficult and time-consuming.
37-6704
Citizen participation. Civil service. Environmental nongovernmental organizations. Environmental planning.
Sustainable development principles are based on the fundamental recognition of humans as an integral part of the ecosystem. Participation of civil society should therefore be central to marine planning processes and enabling ecosystem-based management, and development of mechanisms for effective participation is critical. To date, little attention has been given to the role of Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGOs) in public participation. In this paper, the results of two workshops, which involved various stakeholders and addressed public participation in marine planning, are reported and discussed in the context of the Scottish marine planning process. ENGOs' role in communicating complex policies, representing members' interests and contributing towards participatory governance in marine planning is highlighted. Innovative outreach methods are still required by decision-makers to translate technical information, integrate local knowledge, improve public representation and conserve resources. This could include collaboration with ENGOs to help promote public participation in decision-making processes.
37-6705
Community participation. Environmental assessment. Environmental planning.
Participatory planning tools are increasingly applied in strategic delta planning processes. Additional to its design criteria, such tools commonly promote a variety of aspects including (1) facilitation of communication, (2) knowledge sharing, (3) social learning, (4) decreasing differences in power, (5) integration between sectors, and (6) supporting agreements. Yet tools are rarely assessed systematically on these participatory process dimensions. This paper presents a participatory planning tool assessment framework. The paper shows how the framework is tested on its usefulness in a training workshop on participatory planning tools for strategic delta planning. It is concluded that the framework offers potential to assess participatory planning tools beyond a tool's technological design criteria and that it can contribute to advancing our knowledge on the performance of tools in participatory planning activities.
37-6706
Citizen participation. Community participation. Decision making. Environmental modeling. Environmental value. Mining. Mining industry.
Citizen perspectives on a controversial aggregate mining application amendment are elicited using an online participatory platform P2P-Surveys. The interface uses interactive visual cues to focus the subject's attention on their social values framework as a decision-aide. Interactive elements encourage learning by providing values feedback and then allowing the subject to adjust their preference input or to change the values-modeling parameters prior to submitting their responses. Individual preference rankings are then aggregated using a Modified Borda Count for subsets of the participants. The resulting group preference rankings provide insights useful to researchers interested in the interface between social values and environmental decision making, and for decision makers who wish to harness citizen input for integrated decision making. A real-life case study for citizen input into a below-water aggregate mining controversy in Southern Ontario, Canada, is utilized to explain this new methodology and to demonstrate the useful information generated to assist in resources management decision making.
37-6707
Community participation. Decision making. Evaluation.
Currently, participatory evaluation processes using multicriteria decision aids are barely used in the context of contaminated sites, even though they are a powerful tool for supporting land-use decision-making. The aim of this paper is to show how to apply such a participatory evaluation process (mixed methods) to the redevelopment of a contaminated brownfield site in France. Following the Model for the Operationalization of Democratic Evaluation (MODE), we designed a participatory process that enabled stakeholder empowerment to implement participatory multicriteria evaluations. We show that the (Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality) ELECTRE I method can be used to select consensus-based brownfield redevelopment projects and that such a participatory process can be implemented to ensure that feasible, coherent, and transparent choices are made for other brownfield redevelopment processes.
37-6708
Citizen participation. Environmental responsibility. Governmental legitimacy. Local government.
The planning and implementation of climate adaptation measures requires the participation of citizens. The design of public participation is often determined by local government. Yet, it remains largely unclear to what extent there is deliberate design of participation efforts and which objectives are served with the designs put into practice. This article reviews three cases of adaptation planning in the Netherlands, using a theory-derived framework that links the design of public participation with nine different objectives that participation could have. These case studies illustrate that participants did not depart from an explicitly formulated and agreed-upon objective, leading to a design of the participatory process that was highly contingent. The findings suggest that a more systematic and deliberate approach, in which both the objectives and the design of public participation are communicated explicitly, and are discussed by participants, increases the chance that the objectives are met.
37-6709
Air quality. Air quality management. Behavior. Citizen participation. Democracy. Environment. Europe.
Citizen science projects are increasingly recognised as catalyst for triggering behaviour change and building social capital around environmental issues. However, overview studies observe recurrent challenges in many citizen science projects in terms of combining high levels of data quality with deep citizen engagement and policy influence. This paper reports on the findings of the CurieuzeNeuzen project (www.CurieuzeNeuzen.eu), a large-scale citizen science project on air quality in Antwerp, delivering results in the three areas described above. Through CurieuzeNeuzen, 2,000 citizens studied the air quality levels in and around Antwerp in 2016 and were intensively deliberating on possible causes and solutions. Surveys were conducted at the start and towards the end of the project, with participants stating that their participation resulted in changed views and behaviour towards air pollution, mobility solutions, and city planning. The findings were picked-up academically and contributed to policy debates on air quality at city and regional level.
37-6710
Behavior. China. Citizen participation. Community participation. Human behavior.
Public participation is playing an increasingly important role in the process of environmental protection, especially in some developing countries such as China. However, the studies that have focused on public participation in air pollution control, especially those that have used quantitative research, are comparatively insufficient in China. This paper investigated residents' participation intention and behavior in air pollution control in Beijing, China, and related the theory of planned behavior and the concepts of risk perception to analyze the formation mechanism of participation behavior. The results indicated a remarkable discrepancy between participation intention and behavior. Subjective norm was the major factor in predicting participation intention, followed by risk perception and attitude. Income was observed to have a negative effect on participation intention and a positive effect on participation behavior.
12. Policy and Planning Administration
12-5 POLITICS AND PLANNING
Canada. Colonialism. Human settlements. Land claim settlements.
This article documents how the Indian Act, the historic legal regime structuring settler colonialism in Canada, is being displaced by new statutory law, as nearly fifty federal statutes passed by successive governments between 2005 and 2020 rewrite First Nations land, taxation, resource, and governance regimes. I focus attention on these new laws, asking how they differ in instrument and ideology from the Indian Act. Particularly, I explore how new legislation responds to the Indian Act's (unintended) affirmation of the unique political status of Indigenous peoples and manages the long-sedimented legal and regulatory differences between reserve and Canadian jurisdictions. Transferring our attention from the Indian Act to actual sites of legislative activity, we are better positioned to perceive, critique, and challenge the evolving formation of settler colonialism in Canada today.
14. Planning and Society
14-4 URBAN SOCIOLOGY
Bus transportation. Europe. Mass transportation.
Taking the Muslim other into consideration, this article investigates Muslims' everyday encounters within the (im)mobile spaces of public transport that entangle bodies with different histories, backgrounds, and imaginaries. Building on affective atmospheres, I propose an embodied understanding of othering practices and traveling with difference in public transport. Employing (auto)ethnography in Amsterdam, I present public transport as a cross-cultural meeting place with spatial negotiation of difference to study everyday travel experiences of young Muslims. Contributing to the field of mobilities studies, this article bridges the gap in the empirical evidence on the role of public transport, race, and religion in the othering of Muslims.
Cities. Community transformation. Geometrics.
Substantial efforts have been devoted to investigating the effects of urban form on fundamental natural and social patterns. Such efforts, however, focus mostly on the urban and regional scales. Despite fine-scale investigations that have been conducted recently to analyze how the urban landscape influences urban vitality at the local scale, these studies are often based on the two-dimensional shape of spaces and ignore the diversification of economies and activities in various cities throughout the day. This work examined the relationships between multidimensional urban form and urban vitality at the street block level and explored their variations across fifteen megacities in China. Based on the framework of Conzen's town-plan analysis, multidimensional urban form was quantified from three fundamental aspects: city plan, building forms, and land utilization. The local vitality was measured in social and economic dimensions at different times of day using restaurant data and nighttime lights. Our results revealed the time- and place-varying relationships between urban form and urban vitality and indicated the successes and failures of widely accepted norms of a good city form. In particular, connectivity, compactness, building arrangement, iconic buildings, transport facilities, and open and green spaces were found to be important for urban vitality, whereas land-use mixture and building density presented limited or unintended effects. Furthermore, some urban form indicators could contrarily contribute to vitality for different cities, times, or dimensions, suggesting that urban spaces bearing these qualifications might not be constantly attractive. We suggest a consideration of local spatiotemporal characteristics in urban revitalization policies.
Communication technology. Efficiency. Integrated urban planning. Interurban communities.
Smart urbanization has become a popular discourse in urban policy circles across the world. This is due to the rising popularity of the smart city notion, the main premise of which is achieving heightened economic development, quality of life, and sustainability through the use of digital data and technology for generating urban service efficiency (Ahvenniemi, Huovila, Pinto-Seppä, & Airaksinen, 2017). The smart city movement has created numerous initiatives globally, but almost all of them have failed or lack adequate potential to generate sustainable urban futures (Cugurullo, 2018). The main reason behind this inadequacy is that current smart city practice portrays technologically determined and reductionist approaches to the city. These approaches overlook urban, human, and social complexities, and create conditions for new forms of social control, increased social inequality, and marginalization (Bina, Inch, & Pereira, 2020). This article highlights the fundamental shortfalls around smart city conceptualization and practice, and points to an approach that utilizes technology, policy, and community as interconnected and balanced drivers to secure sustainable urban futures for all.
14-6 CRIME/DELINQUENCY
Buildings. Collaboration. Construction.
Too many ex-offenders are condemned to a life of unemployment, under-employment and benefit-dependency with significant ongoing costs to themselves, the economy and to wider society. To address this growing and intransigent problem, recent public policy innovations have led to the re-emergence of collaborative instruments such as social procurement which require companies tendering for construction and infrastructure contracts to train and employ ex-offenders on their projects. To comply, construction firms need to form new collaborate arrangements with organizations from the social and government sectors, yet little is known about how these new cross-sector collaborations work, what barriers to collaboration exist and how to overcome them. Mobilising theories of cross-sector collaboration, this exploratory case study research draws on findings from interviews, observations and documentary analysis of eleven collaborative pilot projects in the UK designed to explore new employment pathways for ex-offenders into construction. The findings reveal numerous barriers to cross-sector collaboration including little experience of cross-sector working; challenges working across different organizational logics; transaction costs associated with new organizational practices; and misaligned incentives. It is concluded that new forms of social project management, intrapreneurship and relational competencies need to be developed to enable these new collaborative arrangements to work.
14-7 HEALTH/EDUCATION/SOCIAL SERVICES
Adaptive behavior. Behavior. Community. Health. Health services.
The United States is bearing the brunt of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The spatially uneven viral spread and community inequality will jointly bring about worse consequences. The combined effects on U.S. communities remain unclear, however. Given spatially heterogeneous compliance with the stay-at-home orders and the varying timing of local directives, the uneven spread should be further examined. In this research, we first exploited county-level data to study the spatiotemporal pattern of viral transmission by a Bayesian approach. We then examined the uneven effects of socioeconomic and demographic variables on viral transmission across U.S. counties using geographically weighted panel regressions. Our results show that, first, the early epicenters shifted from the West Coast to the East Coast with a transmission rate of over 2.5 and continued to expand into Midwestern states in May, although the spread in the majority of counties had been greatly mitigated since the middle of April. Second, increased stay-at-home behaviors reduced the transmission of COVID-19 across the United States. The effects of socioeconomic and demographic variables varied from place to place, except that high household income was more consistently associated with a reduction in viral transmission. Finally, when the order was lifted, high household income was found to increase the viral transmission in the Midwestern United States and the high unemployment rate contributed to the viral spread in the Western United States. The knowledge obtained from this study can offer new insights for the containment actions of COVID-19.
Forest regions. Health. Health inequalities.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has exposed and, to some degree, exacerbated social inequity in the United States. This study reveals the correlation between demographic and socioeconomic variables and home-dwelling time records derived from large-scale mobile phone location tracking data at the U.S. census block group (CBG) level in the twelve most populated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and further investigates the contribution of these variables to the disparity in home-dwelling time that reflects the compliance with stay-at-home orders via machine learning approaches. We find statistically significant correlations between the increase in home-dwelling time (?HDT) and variables that describe economic status in all MSAs, which is further confirmed by the optimized random forest models, because median household income and percentage of high income are the two most important variables in predicting ?HDT. The partial dependence between median household income and ?HDT reveals that the contribution of income to ?HDT is place dependent, nonlinear, and different given varying income intervals. Our study reveals the luxury nature of stay-at-home orders with which lower income groups cannot afford to comply. Such disparity in responses under stay-at-home orders reflects the long-standing social inequity issues in the United States, potentially causing unequal exposure to COVID-19 that disproportionately affects vulnerable populations. We must confront systemic social inequity issues and call for a high-priority assessment of the long-term impact of COVID-19 on geographically and socially disadvantaged groups.
Environmental modeling. Flow networks. Health.
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a process of detecting damages to engineering structures. The goal of SHM is to improve both the safety and reliability of infrastructures such as buildings, bridges, and highways. Several efforts have been made to develop improved SHM systems. However, most of these studies only considered vibration as a monitoring parameter without incorporating expert systems based on fuzzy inference. In this work, an expert system was incorporated into SHM for monitoring residential buildings based on building temperature and vibration measurements. The developed system used a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) with a 2.4 GHz Radio Frequency (RF) band. Results of the system performance evaluation indicated a decrease in reliability from 99% to 50% within a decade of its deployment. In terms of energy conservation, results showed that the system was able to save 30% of energy, thereby increasing its lifetime. The fuzzy expert SHM system is able to detect building conditions with a good level of reliability, energy conservation capability and high accuracy of 94.4% and 100% as the least and best performance, respectively. Hence, direct integration of this system into building structures could aid early detection of building impairment.
37-6711
Health. Health services. Municipal governments. Municipalities.
Selecting appropriate sites for municipal solid waste (MSW) is a challenging problem for urban communities and has economic and environmental implications. This paper proposes a mathematical optimization model to solve the location problem of MSW sites incorporating both push and pull characteristics. Four objective functions comprising health, safety, environmental (HSE), and economic indicators are considered. These objectives are combined into a single objective function using the weighted sum method and the best method is selected based on noise analysis. The parameter uncertainty is incorporated into the model using expert judgments followed by sensitivity analysis to show the effect of the most important parameters. Using the data from a network of 360 population centers in Tehran, the solution for the model is demonstrated. To our knowledge, this is the first study on location optimization of MSW considering combined HSE and economic indicators. The proposed approach is flexible and parsimonious.
14-8 PLANNING AND GENDER/RACE/ETHNICITY
Environmental racism. Ethnic relations. Ethnicity. Law.
Overt expressions of White nationalism and White supremacy are once again mainstream in U.S. politics. Social movements advancing racist and nativist policies often do so through the language of constitutional rights, appealing to the Founding Fathers to advance exclusionary politics. Studying the legal discourse of conservative activists reveals the ideological work of law in buttressing White proprietary claims to the nation. This article investigates the Constitution as a key text and symbol in the current struggle over the hegemony of White supremacy in the United States. Examining the interpretive work of constitutional educators and online commenters, this study performs a discursive analysis of the racial ideology embedded within a conservative constitutional discourse. Tracing this constitutional discourse across multiple platforms and political projects, I find that this constitutional discourse maintains a commitment to White supremacy while disavowing its explicit logic of racial superiority. To conclude, I suggest that rights claims function as territorial claims and can serve as vehicles for restricting, rather than expanding, state membership. As such, geographers interested in populism and nationalism should attend to the way in which rights claims are enrolled in nationalist politics.
Capitalism. Cities. Environmental racism. Ethnicity. Financing. Interurban communities. Municipalities.
Majority-Black cities in North America are not often described in the academic literature as such. Racial capitalism is a restorative approach that puts majority-Black cities in the Global North into analytical relation with other cities in the global urban landscape. This is an important step to take for many reasons, including rising interest in conversations about the financial production of urban natures in the context of climate change. Moreover, there is a dearth of mixed method empirics documenting the role of racial capitalism in the production of urban space and urban natures. To address this gap, I pair a case study of Jackson, Mississippi's, struggle to fund mandated upgrades to its water system with analysis of a data set containing interest rates of approximately 5 million municipal bonds issued between 1970 and 2014. I find that since financial deregulation in 1999 and 2000, majority-Black cities have been charged more than their white counterparts to produce their built environments. These findings reveal a conflation between territorialized Blackness and financial risk. Thus exposed, I argue that the racialization of urban finance has previously unexamined implications for the production of urban natures and the establishment of just transitions and socioecological futures.
Ethnic enclaves. Ethnic minorities. Ethnicity. Immigration.
Chinese were first imported to the Mississippi Delta1 as the solution to the shortage of Black laborers and the maintenance of the plantation system after the Civil War. As foreigners and people of color, the Delta Chinese found the economic niche of grocery stores in the Jim Crow South. Simultaneously concentrated and scattered around the Delta region, these grocery stores served as multiscalar, multiracial, and multifunctional space triangulated between White and Black, not only as one of the most racially mingled spaces in the Jim Crow South but also as a space for self-mobilization and cultural preservation. By examining the Chinese experiences and Chinese grocery stores in the Mississippi Delta during the Jim Crow Era through a multiscalar lens, this article attempts to incorporate space/place/scale2 into racial triangulation theory. Racial formation is both relational and spatial. Space/place/scale are not only axes of racialization but also constituted, produced, and transformed by historical, socioeconomic, and political processes of racialization and racial formation. The Chinese experience between Black and White exemplifies the power of human agency in rescaling the hegemony of White supremacy through the making of place and identity. This article also echoes with Black geographies and calls for the geographies of non-Whiteness that cross-examine multiracial relationships and advocate for cross-racial solidarity against racism and White supremacy.
15. Development Planning
15-1 COMMUNITY AND NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT
Community. Community development. Development. Diverse neighborhoods.
Targeted interventions to improve specific geographic areas have been a significant policy and intervention tool for the past 50 years. However, few reviews provide a comprehensive examination of studies' methodological rigor that assesses the effects of geographically targeted place-based community development interventions across intervention types. Accordingly, this review synthesizes research on geographically targeted place-based community development interventions to identify strategies utilized, outcomes measured, methodological strengths and limitations, and intervention effectiveness. A systematic search yielded 31 articles representing 29 unique studies for review. The methodological quality of each study was assessed, and intervention effects were examined. Workforce and economic development programs are the most commonly evaluated intervention in this review, whereas property value is the most common outcome measured. Geographically targeted interventions are effective at increasing property values but achieve mixed results across other indicators. Recommendations include measurement of consistent outcomes and conducting program-wide and site-specific analyses to assess intervention effectiveness.
Cities. Community development. Community involvement. Equity.
Smart city investments are happening in many cities around the United States. All too often, however, smart city interventions are solutions in search of problems, rather than solutions that seek to meet the needs of cities and their most vulnerable residents. This study asks how the engagement of communities can help to improve smart city investments that aim to address the needs and concerns of low-income communities of color. Through focus groups and surveys in West Baltimore, Maryland, the research showed how smart city technologies can aid residents in navigating uneven regional geographies of opportunity, addressing the existing digital divide, and developing plans that leverage their creative problem-solving capacities and existing uses of technology to address critical community needs and priorities. The study reveals how engaging communities at the front end of planning switches the focus away from technology-driven solutions to more equitable, community-centered, and place-based smart city plans and investments.
Cities. Community planning. Integrated urban planning.
Urban management in the South of Europe is a very complex issue. The smart city model can offer an innovative response to this complexity, both by improving quality of life and by furthering sustainable development. Implementing an effective smart city model requires its inclusion in urban strategic planning in an integrated and comprehensive manner, sometimes backed by regional, national, and international support policies. Within this framework, the aim of this article is twofold. It intends to clarify the definition of the smart city model as it is applied in the Southern European context, and it aims to contribute to the development of the smart city as an effective model for urban management and to the assessment of its planning in mid-sized cities. This in-depth assessment will bring into focus some critical considerations involved in smart city planning initiatives and will offer useful recommendations for future policymakers.
16. International Planning
16-1 DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
37-6712
Africa. Environment. Health. Institutions.
This paper discusses the impacts of solid waste on human health and environmental wellbeing in Johannesburg, South Africa. Using both secondary and primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with members of a local community of Windsor, municipal officials and other stakeholders involved in solid waste management (SWM) in Johannesburg, it finds that mismanagement of solid waste negatively affects the urban environment and human health, leading to reduced productivity and economic growth. Further, it is argued that ineffective SWM must be seen as a consequence both of institutionalised failure to implement and enforce urban policies and regulations and a parallel failure to recognise the importance of private agents and community participation in urban development and management. Developing an effective and sustainable SWM system in Johannesburg requires city authorities to devolve resources and authority to local level along with clear guidelines and strategies to strengthen local management processes.
METHODOLOGY/QUANTITATIVE/ECONOMIC/QUALITATIVE
20. Methodology
20-1 MATHEMATICAL MODELS
Data. Housing facilities. Learning. Life domains.
Machine learning techniques have been used for predicting facility-related costs but there is a lack of research on developing machine learning models for the complete life-cycle cost (LCC) analysis of facilities. This research aims to systematically investigate the feasibility of forecasting facilities’ LCC by implementing machine learning on historical data. The authors propose a comprehensive and generalizable framework for developing facility LCC analysis machine learning models. This framework specifies the data requirements, methods, and expected results in each step of the model development process. First, a literature review and a questionnaire survey were conducted to determine the independent variables affecting facility LCC and to identify the potential data sources. The process of using raw data to derive LCC components is then discussed. Finally, a proof-of-concept case study was conducted on a university campus to demonstrate the application of the proposed framework. This research concludes that current building systems already contain the data for LCC analysis and that the proposed framework is effective in facility LCC prediction.
20-2 INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Digital capitalism. Digital divide. Geographic information systems. Mapping techniques. Maps.
The aim of this article is to investigate the nature of information sharing in social media about missing persons by using social media data (mostly Twitter) and conventional media coverage (media archives), adopting a platial perspective to this geographical information. By focusing on the cases of three people gone missing, we report on ways in which civil society establishes relational networks through social media to collectively support local searches and share information in rural Sweden. Geographical information systems and visualization techniques underlie the methodology of this study. Findings show that the geography of information sharing in social media about a missing person is not random, revealing a globally dispersed pattern across the country. Information sharing contains more emotional than informational content, hitting a peak of spread after a person is found deceased. This finding indicates that the value of information shared by social media as a problem-solving resource might have so far been overestimated in the process of finding missing persons. In addition, tweets show indications that voluntary organizations constitute a valuable resource in rural contexts but not without impact on the existing networks of stakeholders delivering emergency services.
37-6713
Data. Database modeling. Environmental assessment. Information and communication technology.
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) requires the simultaneous assessment of multiple considerations to identify and mitigate any significant adverse effects on the environment resulting from plan/programme/policy implementation. In order to do this and support decision-making for sustainable development, it relies on sound and scientifically verifiable data from a variety of sources and on analytical tools to identify patterns and predict changes in the data. The advent of big data and technological advancements are highly relevant to SEA, given their potential to enhance the evidence-base, better assess, anticipate and communicate environmental effects and advance overall SEA practice. This review article explores the opportunities for an increased use of smart technologies and approaches in SEA, and proposes an operational framework for smartening SEA. It concludes by identifying a number of new research areas for exploring untapped opportunities in SEA.
37-6714
China. Information and communication technology. Information technology and communication. Internet.
Internet-based electronic waste (e-waste) collection is an effective way to achieve both profitability for collectors and convenience for consumers. However, its introduction faces significant challenges in China. Few studies have systematically identified and analyzed the barriers to an Internet-based e-waste collection system in China. This study proposes a research framework that considers stakeholder theory to identify the barriers faced by Internet-based e-waste collection systems. A grey-based Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory method is applied for the analysis of the major barriers. The findings show that a lack of tax preference is a key barrier, which should be carefully considered both in the short- and long term. Additionally, low consumer participation intention is the strongest barrier. This study not only contributes to the literature on Internet-based e-waste collection systems but also provides valuable insights for decision-makers toward improving the performance of Internet-based e-waste collection practices.
22. Economics
22-1 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH
Construction. Construction industry. Diversity. Employment. Migrants.
International migrant and refugee numbers are at record levels and continue to grow. The construction industry is a major source of potential employment for migrants and refugees and emerging social and sustainable procurement policies in many parts of the world are also requiring construction supply chains to employ refugees and migrants as a condition of public sector contracts. However, there is virtually no research into the barriers that refugees and migrants face in seeking decent employment in the construction sector. Addressing this important gap in knowledge an exploratory survey of refugees’ and migrants’ job-seeking experiences in the Australian construction industry is presented. Results show that by far the greatest barrier to employment is lack of construction industry experience, followed by poor recognition of previous skills and experience. Recent migrants and refugees and those with the greatest previous experience of working in construction face the greatest barriers in finding decent work. Men from an Arabic background also experience greater difficulties than other cultural groups. It is recommended that policy-makers develop more initiatives to provide work experience and engage with construction employers about the challenges which refugees and migrants face in finding work in construction.
22-2 ECONOMIC DECLINE/RESTRUCTURING
37-6715
Economic recession. Environmental indicators. Europe. Growth. Indicators. Metropolitan growth.
Economic expansions and recessions have had a relevant influence on urbanization patterns, altering building cycles and depressing local housing markets. In regions with declining employment and wealth, the 2007 economic crisis has resulted in urban containment and inherent transformations in metropolitan structures and socioeconomic functions. This study aims at verifying whether urban growth spatial direction and intensity have changed during the 2007 economic crisis in Athens, the capital of Greece, based on a diachronic analysis (1990–2016) of indicators assessing population dynamics, building characteristics and land-use change. Urban growth rate in the study area was the highest over a period of economic expansion spanning from 1990 to 2006, decreasing largely in the subsequent decade, characterized by economic recession. Conversely, dispersed development as a proportion of total urban growth was the lowest during economic expansion, rising after 2007. With economic expansion, discontinuous urban growth concentrated in peri-urban districts. During recession, the same districts experienced a trend towards settlement re-densification, with new sprawled settlements expanding in marginal areas. Taken together, the empirical results of this study suggest that economic recession has promoted a moderate change in spatial direction and intensity of Athens' expansion, with distinct patterns of urban densification and dispersion depending on the specific local context. Our findings bring insights on the debate over post-crisis development of Mediterranean cities, suggesting that – without policy interventions – dispersed settlements will remain the dominant urbanization pattern in heterogeneous and fragmented metropolitan regions.
22-6 SPATIAL ANALYSIS/MODELS
Building materials. Green space planning. Mining. Mining communities.
This article explores the constitution of subterranean space in a Bolivian tin mine through an analysis of the discursive practices that materialize differentially valued people and differentially valued rocks. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, I examine the processes through which tin miners are formed as socially stratified subjects and tin is mattered in its multiple forms—as mineral, as commodity, and as symbolic metal of modernity. Through this analysis, I develop a conceptual–methodological approach that integrates insights from feminist materialisms with commitments recuperated from “old” materialist geographies; I call this approach material history. Using this analytic, I argue that nonliving matters (1) are always historied before becoming materially entangled with human bodies, (2) are unevenly distributed and unevenly valued across volumetric space, and (3) contribute to the social stratification of the humans who labor with them. In the tin mine, racialized and gendered differences manifest in spatial association with differences in ore quality, ore exhaustion, and technologies of extraction. These arguments show how apparently inanimate matters can be counterintuitively influential in shaping human bodies and human social worlds, where subjects and objects are relationally formed, sorted, and ranked.
Comparative analysis. Environmental racism. Interurban communities. Interurban comparison.
With the development of global logistical systems to coordinate the movement of goods, cities around the world are being reconceived as nodes in circuits of commodity capital. These efforts are reshaping urban environments and provoking novel forms of political resistance. They are also bringing distant places and subjects into new relations of interaction and interdependence. This article traces the web of urban change and contestation that has taken shape around the expansion of the Panama Canal, an infrastructure megaproject with reverberations that have been felt in port cities throughout the Americas. Drawing on research conducted in the Panama City, Los Angeles, and New York City areas, I examine efforts to remake urban space in the name of smooth, efficient circulation—what I call supply-chain urbanism—and the struggles that have ensued over land, labor, and environments. The concept of supply-chain urbanism calls attention to the life-damaging impacts of goods movement on communities and workers, impacts that are unevenly distributed across space, race, and class. Crucially, it also underscores the connections between seemingly disparate episodes of urban change and resistance. Beyond shedding light on emerging forms of logistics-based urbanization, the article illustrates the value of relational methodologies for the study of networked urban dynamics. In disclosing the wider forces, processes, and flows that connect far-flung experiences of urban transformation and struggle, such approaches can apprehend the interlinked character of contemporary urbanization processes in ways that purely local perspectives cannot.
PHYSICAL/ENVIRONMENTAL
30. Housing and Real Estate
30-1 HOUSING/REAL ESTATE POLICY
Economic policy. Housing. Housing markets. Housing policy. Low income. Low-income housing.
The main aim of this article is to analyze the participation of different government levels and institutions in promoting the financialization of housing in Mexico. Furthermore, it examines some of the implications of following this logic, particularly at the local and household levels, such as surmounting mortgage debt, the clustering of vacant and abandoned housing, and, ultimately, the reproduction of poor housing conditions. Since the late 1990s, millions of households have acquired mortgages to buy homes in the periurban fringes of Mexican cities. Such new sprawling housing developments, however, have offered limited access to economic opportunities, and have imposed a significant burden on local governments to provide infrastructure and services. Many families have also seen their mortgage debt increase, forcing many of them to leave their dwellings behind. By 2010, Mexico had the highest vacancy rate among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and about a third of Mexicans still live in precarious housing conditions. Such paradoxical coexistence, I argue, exposes a tension between the financialization of and the right to housing, and the extent to which the former has trumped the latter.
Economic policy. Europe. Housing. Housing policy. Housing prices.
Financialization influenced the Turkish economy and housing industry mostly through financial liberalization moves and soaring capital inflows. It both increased household liabilities and mortgage loans dramatically and offered various facilities for the housing industry. Relevant legal regulations not only helped the Turkish housing industry prosper but also eased its integration into the national and global financial system. In addition, political implications constituted a strong motivation for governments to attach special importance to the housing industry. I examine housing financialization as an integral part of the accumulation model of the Turkish economy and argue that the housing industry lies at the very heart of the contradictions of this model. The large-scale capital inflows both intensified the dependency on foreign resources and increased the role of the domestic demand. This is the main contradiction of the accumulation model; it manifests itself in the interest rate dilemma and is also critical for housing financialization in Turkey because the characteristics of this model are especially valid for the housing industry. Moreover, not only do the contradictions of the accumulation model disrupt the housing industry, but also the characteristics of the housing industry contribute to the disruption of this model.
Diverse neighborhoods. Housing. Housing policy. Housing vouchers.
This study analyzes how different neighborhood opportunity characteristics are associated with Housing Choice Voucher recipients' subjective well-being, as measured by neighborhood satisfaction. We focus on this topic because subjective well-being is linked to a variety of important outcomes, such as health, productivity, and social relationships. Thus, a complete understanding of how opportunity neighborhoods impact low-income households' lives requires consideration of subjective well-being. Relying on a sample of Housing Choice Voucher recipients living in Charlotte, North Carolina, we find that neighborhood opportunity indicators are not strong predictors of neighborhood satisfaction after controlling for perceptions of neighborhood conditions and household composition. This result suggests that mobility to opportunity neighborhoods may not result in corresponding increases in neighborhood satisfaction and, thus, subjective well-being.
Commodity. Commodity chains. Housing. Mining. Mining industry. Natural resource development.
What impact does public expenditure on housing have on the deficit in a municipality? This article answers this question for Peru for the period 2001–2013. Municipalities with high expenditure levels saw a reduction in the number of households lacking access to water, sanitation, and electricity. There was no significant change in cohabitation, overcrowding, or lack of documents of ownership. The analysis was based on the empirical association between mineral exploitation and housing deficit at the municipal level. Municipalities that benefited from the mineral boom after 2007 saw housing expenditures increase dramatically, which reduced the housing deficit associated with poor materials to 18% from 33% (the national average). In addition, the housing deficit related to lack of water, sanitation, and electricity decreased from 26% to 22%.
Housing policy. Low income. Low-income housing. Municipalities.
Exclusionary zoning takes many forms, but always aims to limit economic integration within certain communities. Understanding the effectiveness of programs designed to reduce exclusionary zoning yields insight for future policy design, and the program that followed the Mount Laurel decisions in New Jersey remains relatively unexplored. The program created the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), which used an incentive-based structure to implement affordable housing requirements. Municipalities that volunteered to meet their requirement received legal protection from zoning lawsuits. They could also engage in a regional contribution agreement (RCA), which allowed them to pay another municipality to complete up to 50% of their affordable housing obligation. Using probit and multinomial logit models, I investigate two questions concerning the program's design: (a) Did COAH's incentive-based structure succeed in attracting those municipalities with the greatest need for affordable housing? And (b) Did RCAs exhibit a pattern of high-income municipalities sending their affordable housing obligations to low-income municipalities? I find that the program succeeded in attracting high-income municipalities to participate, but that these municipalities were also likely to use RCAs to send housing units to low-income municipalities. I argue that the program's design undermined the Mount Laurel decision's original intent by limiting economic integration in high-income municipalities.
Housing. Housing policy. Integrated urban planning.
Urban–rural renewal is an instrument not only to manage urbanization but also for sustainable development. In this process, major stakeholders are affected differentially. The case studied here shows how the most vulnerable stakeholders are deprived of benefits in the urban–rural renewal process. Through an analysis of Mantin, a small Malaysian town, the study depicts conflicts among stakeholders. Beyond the traditional stakeholder analysis framework stressing the role of government, developers, and the community affected by development, this research delves into an extended nexus of related stakeholders (the nongovernmental organization sector and media) that complicates the confrontation between the developer with legal right to the land and residents who claim hereditary occupation rights. It also reveals the stance of the government, often neglected in discussions of private–public partnerships. Here, politicians from both opposition and government saw opportunities to gain political advantage from the contest. The result of these stakeholder interfaces was a conflict that dragged on for a protracted period. The events show that the involvement of third-party stakeholders can increase the likelihood of and prolong conflict. Generally, the case also illustrates the failure of top-down policies that can be subverted at local levels.
China. Housing. Housing markets. Housing policy. Income inequality.
Long-term collective saving schemes are widely adopted in many emerging economies to support residents' housing consumption. This article evaluates the effect of the Housing Provident Fund (HPF), one of the most prominent housing policies in China, on income redistribution beyond its housing support role. Based on micro survey data, our results suggest that the current HPF policy design widens the income gap between HPF participants and nonparticipants and aggravates income inequality across the whole population; further simulation results suggest that expanding HPF coverage has an alleviating effect. However, in the event of housing purchases through HPF loans, lower income participants can leverage more benefits, and the floor-and-ceiling policy design decreases the marginal benefits for higher income participants, resulting in mitigated income inequality among HPF participants. One notable risk of the HPF's widening of the income gap among participants is the unavailability of HPF loans for low-income participants. Our findings indicate that optimizing the HPF system might be a better option than its abolishment, from the perspective of its income redistribution function. We also provide some valuable recommendations for gradual future reform of the HPF.
Ethnicity. Gender. Gender differences. Housing. Housing policy. Housing vouchers.
Whereas federal aid to the poor has traditionally focused on support for families, a central contradiction in these policies is the degree to which the state employs antifamily modes of regulation and punishment, a finding consistent across welfare, health, and child services. I extend this analysis to Housing Choice Vouchers, the nation's largest rental assistance program. Interviews with voucher renters show how, like welfare's early man in the house rules, the public–private regulation of the program turns personal bonds into eviction liabilities. I trace these vulnerabilities to two rules: one banning unauthorized tenants from residing in the home, and another banning drug- and crime-related activity. After documenting how the enforcement of these rules forces tenants to choose between family and housing, I suggest that these dynamics illustrate similarities between the punitive regulation of housing and other safety net programs.
Affordable housing. Diverse neighborhoods. Housing. Housing policy. Mixed-income communities.
Mandatory inclusionary housing, which requires market-rate housing developments to include a proportion of affordable housing units, has the potential to deliver affordable housing in more affluent neighborhoods and create mixed-income communities. This study evaluates this potential effect in London, United Kingdom, where mandatory inclusionary housing has been implemented in all local authorities since the early 2000s. Comparing the spatial concentration and average neighborhood characteristics of affordable housing delivered under inclusionary housing and those created via conventional means (i.e., in the public or nonprofit sector), we find that a higher percentage of inclusionary affordable units are concentrated in a small number of neighborhoods, and both types of affordable units are more likely to be placed in disadvantaged neighborhoods than market-rate units are. We explore the ways in which local implementation of inclusionary housing could have allowed developers to shift some of the inclusionary affordable housing toward disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Housing. Housing policy. Housing sector.
This study introduces a new international longitudinal database of governmental rental market regulations. The regulations are measured using binary variables based on a thorough analysis of real-time, country-specific legislation. Three major restrictive policies are considered: rent control, protection from restriction, and housing rationing. The database covers 101 countries and states between 1910 and 2020. This allows comparisons of regulation intensity across both time and space. The analysis reveals a surge in restrictive policies in the first half of the 20th century. However, following World War II, the evolution of policies diverged: whereas rent control became more flexible or was phased out, tenure security stabilized at a high level or even increased, and housing rationing became used less frequently.
Affordable housing. Ethnicity. Health. Health care.
This study examines the relationship between state preemption of inclusionary zoning policies and health outcomes among different demographic groups. Controlling for state- and individual-level controls, preemption of inclusionary association was negatively associated with health outcomes, particularly among Black adults. Adults living in states that preempt inclusionary zoning were more likely to have poor or fair self-rated health status. Additionally, Black adults were more likely to report delaying medical care because of cost in preemption states. Study findings suggest that changes to land-use regulation and zoning policy are important policy levers for improving health and longstanding racial health inequities. Policy interventions should be race-conscious and account for the historical and systemic barriers experienced by Black people.
Government agencies. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
This article offers a vision of the future of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) as mortgage utilities. The designation of the GSEs as systemically important mortgage market utilities preserves recent reforms that enable the entities to carry out their congressionally chartered mission while protecting taxpayers. We show that mortgage utilities can generate the stable profits necessary to attract private investors. If the GSEs are simply privatized, it will be difficult for these entities both to be profitable enough to pay for sufficient capital to protect the taxpayer and to do so at mortgage rates low enough to maintain broad access to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.
Economic policy. Fixed mortgage rates. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
The COVID-19 pandemic mortgage forbearance programs are valuable, providing relief to approximately 2 million homeowners. At the same time, aggressive Federal Reserve intervention has decreased mortgage rates substantially, encouraging refinancing. However, mortgage rates remain elevated, as the industry is capacity constrained, and mortgage underwriting has become more restrictive, limiting the potential gains to borrowers from the Fed's actions. This article proposes a streamlined refinance program for Federal mortgages. We estimate the impact of this program, showing that it would reduce mortgage defaults by allowing approximately 3 million families to refinance, who would otherwise be unable to do so because of tight underwriting requirements. It would also provide a further stimulus of $53 billion per year to the economy.
Age segregation. City residents. Data. Housing. Information and communication technology. Information technology. Mobility.
Housing scholars stress the importance of the information environment in shaping housing search behavior and outcomes. Rental listings have increasingly moved online over the past two decades and, in turn, online platforms like Craigslist are now central to the search process. Do these technology platforms serve as information equalizers or do they reflect traditional information inequalities that correlate with neighborhood sociodemographics? We synthesize and extend analyses of millions of U.S. Craigslist rental listings and find they supply significantly different volumes, quality, and types of information in different communities. Technology platforms have the potential to broaden, diversify, and equalize housing search information, but they rely on landlord behavior and, in turn, likely will not reach this potential without a significant redesign or policy intervention. Smart city advocates hoping to build better cities through technology must critically interrogate technology platforms and big data for systematic biases.
Affordability. Affordable housing. Data. House prices. Housing prices. Information and communication technology. Information technology and communication.
Housing issues, including affordability, instability, and the search for available units, present ongoing challenges for urban inhabitants. Supporters claim information and communication technology (ICT) can solve housing problems through increased efficiency, transparency, and the creation of smart cities. However, little is known about the actual use and application of ICT data on housing issues. This article reviews and assesses recent empirical research involving housing and ICT data. Using Web of Science to identify relevant articles, we find most studies focus on housing search and prices or home sharing, which partly reflects the availability of data in these domains. Few articles use ICT data to explore housing challenges for economically vulnerable, historically disadvantaged, or marginalized groups. We discuss concerns about representation in ICT data related to housing and argue for more attention to the needs of vulnerable groups to help build more inclusive smart cities.
Federal housing policies. Housing. Housing policy.
Housing Policy Debate is grateful for the hard work of nearly 350 reviewers over the past year. This is critical service, without which the Journal could not maintain its high quality and continue contributing to the housing and community development policy literature.
Diverse neighborhoods. Housing. Housing policy.
Aging in place is a policy goal for many governments and a personal goal for numerous older people. But what does it mean? Drawing on both scholarly and gray literature, this article outlines seven themes underlying definitions of aging in place. Some are descriptive: never moving, staying put for as long as possible, or remaining in the same vicinity. Two are related to care: staying out of a nursing home or receiving progressively higher levels of care in the same residential care facility without moving. Others are more normative approaches: aging in place as a policy ideal or as an exercise of choice. Definitions have implications for policy debates, urban planning activities, development approaches, and personal decisions. Recognizing that the term has many different definitions and nuances will help clarify policy, planning, and development options.
Community. Diverse neighborhoods. Housing.
Research has documented the negative impacts of eviction on individuals, particularly the resulting financial insecurity, health challenges, and increased likelihood of homelessness. In this article we study a potential unintended impact on the neighborhoods that experience evictions: a decrease in community engagement with neighborhood problems. Using data from the Eviction Lab and calls to 311 collected from seven cities' online depositories, we study the level of participation in neighborhoods, as well as how changes in eviction impact changes in public engagement. We find evidence that eviction is a predictor of the number of service calls within a census block group and a clearer indication that increases in eviction reduce calls to 311. These results demonstrate that the costs of eviction may extend beyond the individuals who are forced from their residences and can be reflected throughout a neighborhood.
House prices. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
We examine the effects of the legal reform passed in 2012 in Spain to protect mortgage debtors. Under the new regime, it is difficult for low-income debtors who meet certain requirements to be evicted. In the case of default, the bank is forced to offer the debtor a restructuring of the debt, or the debtor can even, as a last resort, transfer the property to the bank as an alternative to having the lender foreclose on it, thus being allowed to stay in the property as a tenant and paying a reduced rent, and avoiding eviction even after foreclosure. We consider quarterly data from 50 Spanish provinces (NUTS III regions) from 2001 to 2019(Q3). We use panel data models with regional, year, and quarter fixed effects, linear and quadratic region-specific time trends, and other relevant control variables at the regional level (house prices, inflation, and unemployment rates), and our results reveal that the reform significantly reduced the number of foreclosures, but that this effect was transitory, fading 6 years after the reform. However, the negative effect on the mortgage loans market was permanent throughout the period under consideration.
Fare-free transit. Mass transportation. Mobility.
This article uses eviction data to test the transit-induced displacement hypothesis—that the placement of new transit stations will lead to elevated property values, gentrification, and displacement. We use a case study of four cities in the United States that built or extended rail lines between 2005 and 2009: Newark, New Jersey; San Diego, California; Seattle, Washington; and St. Louis, Missouri. We employ a combination of propensity score matching and difference-in-differences modeling to compare eviction filing rates in gentrifiable neighborhoods near new transit stations with a set of similar neighborhoods not close to the station. We find very limited evidence that new transit neighborhoods experienced heightened rates of evictions compared with the controls. In three of the four cities, the effect of the opening of the station on eviction rates was insignificant. Eviction rates did spike in St. Louis immediately following the opening of the line, but this time period also coincided with the financial crisis.
Federal housing policies. Housing. Housing policy.
When we released the call for articles for a special issue on eviction in November 2019, we had no idea that eviction—and policy responses to address it—would become a central concern of policy across the country. However, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated the disparate impacts of eviction on Black and Brown households. In March 2020 when schools closed and families faced a range of employment challenges that impacted housing instability, the need for a way to understand the patterns, trajectories, and impacts of eviction became more critical. This special issue offers a comprehensive look at eviction from multiple perspectives, including how it is measured and spatialized, its roots and manifestations at the household and community levels, and the long-term impacts and policy responses. By taking a deep dive on eviction before the pandemic, this special issue offers ways to understand and address the needs of the current crisis and beyond.
Federal Housing Administration. Housing. Housing policy.
Administrative court records are increasingly used to study the prevalence of eviction. Yet inaccuracies in court records bias estimates of eviction and distort tenants' true rental histories. This is the first study to systematically assess the prevalence of inaccuracies across jurisdictions. Drawing on over 3.6 million administrative eviction court records from 12 states, we find that, on average, 22% of eviction records contain ambiguous information on how the case was resolved or falsely represent a tenant's eviction history. Adjusting for multiple inaccuracies in the data produces significantly different eviction rate estimates. Cases with increased complexity, such as those involving multiple tenants and lawyers, are more likely to contain inaccuracies. However, inaccuracies vary most prominently between states, indicating that state court system characteristics fundamentally shape the official record of the evicted population.
American cities. Cities. Housing. Housing markets.
This study draws on 71 indepth, semistructured interviews with landlords and property managers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We find that the perceived burdens associated with evictions often make evictions less desirable for small-scale landlords than finding ways to work with tenants to keep them in their homes, including developing payment plans to help tenants catch up on back rent, adjusting rental rates, accepting services in lieu of rent, and aiding in referrals to housing and social service programs. Some landlords employ a technique of paying tenants to vacate, a practice referred to as cash for keys, which is an informal, off-the-books eviction. Our findings suggest that off-the-books evictions are far more prevalent than has been measured in official eviction data; therefore, the prevalence of residential displacement is more severe than previously documented.
Health. Health inequalities. Housing policy.
U.S. cities are increasingly adopting antieviction policies predicated on the belief that evictions have negative consequences for families and communities. Yet the nature and duration of many of these consequences are relatively unknown. We add to the literature on the consequences of evictions by assessing the enduring effects of eviction on the self-reported health of young adults. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we find evictions have both short-term (12 months) and medium-term (7–8 years) negative impacts on multiple measures of health. Individuals who experience an eviction are more likely to report being in poor general health or experiencing mental health concerns, even many years after an eviction. As state and local governments develop policies to reduce evictions, it is worth noting that any resulting decrease in evictions may have a positive impact on population health, making health professionals effective potential policymaking partners.
Affordable housing. Housing. Housing policy.
One of the primary eviction prevention measures jurisdictions across the country have taken is to expand access to free legal counsel for low-income tenants facing eviction. In 2017, New York City became the first jurisdiction to enact universal access to counsel (UAC), guaranteeing free legal representation to all low-income tenants facing eviction in the city's housing courts, and other cities are also starting to channel significant resources into programs designed to increase representation in eviction proceedings. Proponents argue that access to counsel will reduce the incidence of evictions and decrease levels of homelessness. Research, however, has yet to evaluate these claims rigorously. We aim to address this gap by examining the effectiveness of legal representation in preventing evictions. Specifically, we study the early implementation of UAC in New York City and use its sequential rollout across ZIP Codes to study impacts on both individual case outcomes and broader eviction patterns. We find relative increases in legal representation for treated ZIP Codes after the adoption of UAC. We also see small relative (and absolute) reductions in the share of filings resulting in executed warrants after UAC was implemented in the earliest ZIP Codes.
Affordable housing. Diverse neighborhoods. Housing.
This article assesses (a) the extent to which state landlord–tenant legislation may influence local evictions and (b) whether those laws may influence eviction-related outcomes within communities of color. This analysis uses an original data set combining 2016 state- and block group-level data from Princeton University's Eviction Lab, the American Community Survey, and landlord-tenant policy typologies, based on state statutes related to landlord-tenant law. Using multilevel mixed-effects models, we find that neighborhoods in states with more tenant-friendly policy environments were associated with lower eviction and filing rates compared with those in states with more landlord–friendly policies. However, compared with majority-White neighborhoods, eviction and filing rates in communities of color and majority-Black neighborhoods remained significantly higher—even in states with more tenant-friendly policies. In other words, tenant-friendly policies appear to support the reduction of eviction disparities but not the elimination of them. These findings suggest state housing policy environments matter for eviction-related outcomes broadly and for communities of color. We propose that eliminating racial disparities should include a focus on the implicitly racialized nature of housing and landlord–tenant policy, specifically.
Affordable housing. Diverse neighborhoods. Gentrification. Housing.
There has been an increasing body of literature analyzing eviction in different cities and contexts in urban studies, public health, sociology, geography, and housing studies. Still, little has been known about the underlying spatial point process of how housing evictions are generated. After geocoding eviction filing cases in Salt Lake County in 2015, this study analyzed factors affecting the intensity of eviction using the inhomogeneous Poisson point process (IPP) model. The IPP model result identified demographic, economic, and housing covariates associated with the high intensity of eviction filings. This study also found a significant relationship between eviction filings and the built environment characteristics—such as proximity to central business district (CBD) and light rail transit stations, intersection density, and land use mix score. Particularly, this study found that the intensity of housing evictions is negatively associated with an increase in the distance to CBD when CBD was transformed into gentrified areas led by new high-end apartment constructions during the housing boom since 2000. The article ends with some recommendations for policymakers, including the implementation of an “anti-eviction zone” in CBD areas to reduce the high intensity of housing evictions led by new high-end apartment constructions.
Affordable housing. Gentrification. Housing. Housing markets.
The lack of sufficient affordable housing in Los Angeles, California burdens many renter households with the threat of an eviction. Research has identified individual- and neighborhood-level sociodemographic correlates of eviction, but the uneven distribution of sociodemographic characteristics and housing conditions across neighborhoods likely produces broader patterns of spatial clustering in eviction prevalence across local areas. We use spatial autoregressive models to explain the spatial concentration and spillover effects for two types of formal eviction filings—court-based and no-fault Ellis Act petitions—within and across census tracts in Los Angeles. Court-based filings show greater and more persistent spatial concentration, particularly in neighborhoods with higher percentages of Black residents. We find evidence of spatial correlation for both types of eviction, however, suggesting that identifying the spatial distribution of eviction prevalence across local areas is important to understanding how location shapes eviction risk in metropolitan areas.
Affordable housing. Housing. Housing policy.
Since 2003, when Hartman and Robinson identified eviction as “the hidden housing problem,” a growing body of research has provided detailed, empirical analyses of the eviction process in specific locations. However, there has been little effort to systematically compare the legal regimes and institutional contexts governing eviction proceedings. Drawing on our research in four cities—Baltimore, Maryland; Dallas, Texas; Los Angeles, California; and Washington, DC—we consider how the legal regimes of landlord–tenant courts shape the eviction process for tenants and landlords. Specifically, we draw on fieldwork and administrative records from these four cities to identify how procedural and legal contexts differ by place, and the ways that these processes shape both eviction's institutional life and its underlying social meanings. Although the problem of eviction is no longer hidden in the housing literature, the explosion of eviction research has introduced a comparative analysis problem.
Affordable housing. Diverse neighborhoods. Housing.
A growing body of evidence documents the negative impacts of eviction case filings on U.S. tenants, including forced moves, additional costs, and obstacles tenants face in finding future housing. Existing research relating evictions or eviction cases to neighborhood characteristics is geographically limited, often to metropolitan regions. In this article, we analyze nearly all eviction case filings in Michigan from 2014 to 2018 at the census tract level, allowing us to analyze how eviction filings differ in urban and rural places. Statewide, a negative binomial regression model confirms eviction case filings are related to previously hypothesized variables, including the presence of children and mortgage foreclosures. The use of interaction terms for urban tracts shows eviction filings in these tracts are more strongly related to the percentage of the population with an associate's degree or higher, vacancy rate, and mortgage foreclosures than in rural tracts. In rural areas, variables related to eviction case filings include job accessibility and the presence of mobile homes.
Displacement. Gentrification. Multifamily housing.
Gentrification research is often based on aerial units that function as proxies for neighborhoods. Despite the applicability of this approach, the method is susceptible to the modifiable aerial unit problem that obscures sociospatial patterns of interest both within and across units. This research seeks to complement and problematize findings from aerial unit-based approaches to gentrification through the use of georeferenced temporal data representing two specific processes that are generally understood to occur in real estate-led gentrification processes: new multifamily housing development and displacement in the form of recorded eviction filings. Interrupted time series analysis is used to compare two time points in the development process for various types of new multifamily housing projects with different distance thresholds of recorded eviction filings in the City of Madison, Wisconsin. Findings demonstrate that large multifamily housing developments produce increased eviction filings within a small radius (a tenth of a mile).
Affordable housing. Data. Economic instability. Housing.
This study uses linked administrative records to examine the disruptive effects of eviction on adults and children in low-income households. By linking eviction filings for the City of Cleveland, Ohio, with administrative records, we depict residential mobility, homeless shelter use, and children's school attendance for households, spanning a period of 2 years before and after the filings. Using difference-in-differences models, we find that eviction orders further erode housing stability, with differential impacts for tenants of private and public housing. Children of evicted households have lower rates of lead testing relative to children of nonevicted households, despite the extremely high levels of poisoning both groups exhibit. These findings point to the need to focus on eviction prevention, in conjunction with an overall strategy to address the weaknesses in our social safety net and housing programs. Throughout the analyses we discuss the potential and challenges of using linked administrative data to understand the consequences of evictions with the goal of informing social and housing policy.
Ethnic relations. Ethnicity. Gentrification.
Displacement of Black communities through gentrification is a major concern among policymakers, community groups, and advocates. This research investigates whether investor purchases of multifamily rental housing predict evictions and the displacement of Black residents from Atlanta, Georgia, between 2000 and 2016. In a series of quantitative analyses, we identify the financialization of rental housing and subsequent eviction-led displacement as key neighborhood-level processes in racial transition and the gentrification of Atlanta. We find that eviction judgments grew by 8% annually in the Atlanta region, and same-site apartment sale prices increased by an average of $5.5 million. Investor purchases of rental housing in a neighborhood predict a spike in eviction judgments in the same year, and presage racial transition. Neighborhoods with investor purchases of apartment buildings lose 166 Black residents and gain 109 White residents over a 6-year period compared with adjacent neighborhoods with no investor purchases.
Geographical models. Homeownership. Housing. Housing policy.
Homeownership approach differs across the global south and north. Several factors influence the decision to own a house, and the impact varies in the different economy. Housing stakeholders struggle with balancing the aspiration to own a house within the pressured market based on diverse factors associated with such choices. This study provides a comprehensive empirical investigation of the factors influencing homeownership in Hong Kong from three broad categories of associated risks, rewards, and external intervention factors. Literature review evidence identifes seven associated-risk, eight rewards, and seven external intervention factors as the basis of the variance based, partial least square structural equation model (V PLS-SEM) analysis of the study. A case study methodology with 502 valid responses was analyzed using mean item score (MIS), standard deviation (SD) and V-PLS-SEM. The result shows that the observed factors have a significant positive influence at 1.000 threshold level and have substantial predictive power and influence on homeownership. This study, therefore, recommends the integration of empirical factor analysis with other strategies for homeownership decision and policy statements to guide homeownership issues in Hong Kong. The approach adopted is useful for individuals, organizations, academicians, facilities managers, and policymakers to implement homeownership strategies.
30-3 HOUSING/REAL ESTATE FINANCE AND VALUE
Housing. Housing markets. Housing policy. Housing prices.
Financialization has become a new keyword to describe and analyze contemporary developments in economies and societies. It has also become a key concept in understanding recent trends in housing markets and policies. Since most scholarship that has initially studied these new trends was produced by scholars based in Europe, North America, and Australia and reflected on the dynamics of countries situated at the centers of the world economy, questions arose on the extent to which these trends could also be detected outside of these countries. The call for articles that originated this special issue was intended to collectively answer this question: Does the financialization of housing shape, and is it shaped by, housing policies and practices in countries situated at the peripheries of the global economy?
Commodity. Financing. Housing policy. Metropolitan areas. Metropolitan economy.
For more than 30 years, housing in Mexico has been undergoing a transformation that is best studied using INFONAVIT and FOVISSSTE as starting points. Both funds were established in 1972 to implement the constitutional right to decent housing for workers and state employees in Mexico. In their first few years, both funds were responsible for, among other things, granting loans and investigating ways to achieve low-cost but high-quality housing. However, in the aftermath of the debt crisis of 1981, a comprehensive reconfiguration of housing provision was pushed forward. The aim of this contribution is to characterize changes in housing policy and ask whether and in what way they can be described as financialization. We argue that financialization is a political-economic project that has developed in a particular, stepwise form. Building on the stylized distinction between destructive (roll-back) and creative (roll-out) moments of financialization, we try to understand how financialization took hold. Two projects—Cuautitlan Izcalli from the 1970s and Huehuetoca from the 2000s—symbolize this change.
Europe. Housing. Housing prices. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
This study presents an assessment of the political economy of housing in contemporary Turkey in conversation with the main issues of the financialization of housing (FoH) debate. Since the early 2000s, the built-environment scene in Turkey has been undergoing a radical transformation toward a situation characterized by growing penetration of financial concerns into the housing sector. FoH in Turkey, however, is remarkably different from typical Global North examples in terms of the current depth of the process, prevalent mechanisms, leading components, and driving actors. The Turkish case is characterized by a relatively small financial footprint generating an unprecedented construction boom, under the command of a decisive and persistent state strategy. Going well beyond the enabling/facilitating role of states covered in the existing literature, this strategy represents a case in which the state itself effectively drives the housing–finance nexus.
Financing. Housing. Housing policy. Housing prices.
Housing financialization research has aimed at explaining the links between financial macrodynamics and urban phenomena. But as this article argues, a focus on the Global South's variegated trajectories demands both a consideration of the effects of the subordinate character of financialization in these economies and an attentive look at the changing coalitions pushing for new financial reforms. In this article, I take the case of an urban–financial coalition in Argentina responsible for setting up a new housing finance system revolving around inflation indexed mortgage loans. By looking at developers' associations' key role in coproducing consensus over indexed loans despite hyperinflation, I highlight the importance of studying the stability of the coalition to better comprehend housing financialization and the contradictions arising when attempting to subsume housing credit to the logic of finance capital—that is, creating a financialized financial infrastructure—in unstable financialized economies. The findings of this article are based on a macroanalysis of the major transformations in the real estate and financial sectors in Argentina and a microanalysis of developers' collective action.
Africa. Housing. Housing policy.
With different contours than those of the Global North, financialization logic enters and consolidates itself progressively in the African Continent, namely in the sub-Saharan region, changing the relations of power and real estate property in the urban scenario. Following this recolonization process, this article aims, from a sociourbanistic point of view, to contribute to the knowledge of its specificities in the Mozambican context and, particularly, that of the capital city, Maputo. The analysis and critical reflection focus especially on the production and transformation of the urban margins, where the majority of the urban population lives, taking as a case study the neighborhood of Polana Caniço A, paradigmatic because of the interventions that have been occurring there over the last few decades. There, a new order, simultaneously local and global, erects symbolic and physical borders, reinforcing historical processes of exclusion and segregation, through a strong alliance between the state and new urban actors.
Asia. Developmental state. Housing. Housing prices.
This article deals with the path-dependent features of financialization of housing in Taiwan, an East Asian developmental state. The levels of foreign capital and securitization in Taiwan's housing market remain relatively low, meaning domestic capital, of which there is an abundance, is the major financial source of such speculation. The process does not include the retrenchment of the welfare state, because Taiwan has been a homeowner society. After financial liberalization in the 1980s, Taiwan's state intervention in the housing and financial sectors has actually intensified via the enactment of more regulations to decrease the role of the informal financial and housing sectors. As a result of neoliberalization giving precedence to market mechanisms, various low-interest mortgage programs in the 1990s, all subsidized by public funding, have increased the rate of homeownership and sustained housing prices. Even though this varied the development of housing financialization, housing in Taiwan has largely become a tool of speculation, and housing affordability has become a serious problem.
Africa. Credit. Credit unions. Financing. Housing markets. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
Focusing on Cape Town, this article investigates how financialization unfolds in the South African housing market. I use a mixed method that combines in-depth field research conducted among key market players with an analysis of georeferenced residential transactions. Connecting financial and urban geography, the article retraces the institutional and social anatomy of financialization. I demonstrate how financialization unfolds in metropolitan areas through the classification of people and the selection of spaces, by staying away from the urban poor, and instead incorporating the middle- and upper-income sections of society. In that regard, the article unpacks the urban and class structures of housing financialization in South Africa, which challenges narratives from the urban Global North. Two market segments drive financialization in South Africa: the rental market, which became a new financial frontier with the emergence of corporate landlords; and the owner-occupied market, with the rise of the mortgage industry and the limited implementation of securitization, underpinned by highly restrictive lending practices. In both segments, financial institutions and corporate landlords rely on credit scoring to classify and select tenants or mortgage beneficiaries; they target specific areas within the post-apartheid city to develop residential portfolios and allocate mortgages.
Asia. Commercial real estate. Housing. Housing policy. Housing prices.
This article investigates housing financialization processes in low-income countries (LICs). Considering housing as both capital and commodity, the article excavates the roots of housing financialization in LICs since the 1960s, and shows how financialization has been used, since the 1990s, to circumvent long-standing obstacles to the marketization and commodification of LICs' housing markets. Focusing on the recent development of the condominium market in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, the article then investigates the role of various stakeholders (e.g., development agencies, public institutions, foreign and international investors, transnational developers, brokers) in the contemporary financialization of local housing markets. Detailing their strategies, discourses, and actions, I argue that in economic contexts where the financial sector remains underdeveloped, local and international developers and brokers act as agents of financialization by creating specific channels of real estate capital circulation and landing. I argue that the case of Phnom Penh reveals how foreign and transnational stakeholders, mainly originating from Asia, have created a specific regime of capital accumulation through housing financialization, which I name the foreignization of housing markets. This regime emphasizes the significant capacity of financialization to penetrate markets that have long remained out of its reach by establishing capital extraversion mechanisms.
Development. Financing. Housing. Housing markets. Lenders. Lending. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
The financialization of housing in the Global South (GS) and peripheries of the Global North (GN) develops in different ways than in the GN because the mechanisms underlying and pushing financialization are fundamentally different. We argue that subordinated financialization in the GS is the contemporary form of uneven and combined development, shaped by the financialization of the GN. The recycling of GN excess liquidity in countries lower in the global money hierarchy has contributed to the growth of mortgage lending in the GS and peripheries of GN. With the macrocomparative perspective in our article we provide a framework to rethink the relations between GN and GS in shaping distinct patterns of uneven and combined financialization, but also to rethink the varieties of capitalism and residential capitalism approaches. In the GS we can distinguish between at least two additional types: state-led market economies and less-financialized market economies.
Community. Community development. Diverse neighborhoods. Foreclosure. Housing.
This article explores the impacts of community land trust (CLT) properties on the real estate prices of nearby homes through a case study of a relatively large CLT in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We use hedonic regression and a difference-in-difference estimation with spatial error correction to measure price effects. The number of developments citywide is insufficient to yield significant results. However, we find evidence that clustering CLTs stemmed the decline in sales prices during the foreclosure crisis. The introduction of the first nearby CLT had no measurable price impact, but each additional CLT was associated with a 5% higher sales price in North Minneapolis, and 3% higher in Central Minneapolis. In the postrecession period, we estimate that the introduction of CLTs in North Minneapolis was associated with a 10.9% increase in nearby sales prices. These results suggest that, contrary to common assumptions, price effects are strongest when affordable properties are spatially clustered.
Africa. Family. Housing. Multifamily housing.
The family compound housing system in Ghana ensures both nuclear and extended family live in the same house and have reciprocal relationships. It is a social safety net that prevents homelessness in Ghana. The rent-free compound housing remains predominant in rural areas and indigenous parts of the cities. However, many Ghanaians prefer to live in single-family houses rather than the family compounds, resulting in a gradual reduction in the number of family compound houses. Based on a study conducted in four communities, the article uses a qualitative approach, with social capital theory as the analytical basis for the research, to investigate why most Ghanaians now wish to live outside their family homes. Based on the findings, the article questions the future of housing the poor in Ghana if the family compound housing system collapses and suggests a rental form of compound housing as a new policy for the state.
Affordability. Affordable housing. Housing. Mass transportation.
Findings from a study using the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (PSID) and detailed urban environment and transit data support the location affordability hypothesis. Households in location-efficient places spent significantly less on household transportation, enough to offset high housing costs. Walkable blocks and good transit especially contribute to these savings. But households with very low incomes (below 35% AMI) do not see significant enough savings. Authors recommend investments in transit, sidewalks, and economic development in disinvested areas; the preservation and creation of affordable housing of all types and tenures; and more supports for households with very low incomes. For decades, researchers have explored how location efficiency (LE) affects housing affordability, including incorporating transportation costs into a holistic housing affordability measure known as location affordability. Others have argued that estimated transportation savings from LE may be overstated because of limits in data and methods. Smart and Klein's 2018 article in Housing Policy Debate analyzed the PSID and found “no evidence to support the location affordability hypothesis.” Considering their study's policy implications, as well as its methodological limitations, we tested the PSID data at a smaller geography using more detailed household and urban form variables, per the LE literature. With this approach, we find statistically significant and meaningful transportation cost differences that are enough to offset higher housing prices for several income groups. However, the transportation savings for households in the lowest-income group in urban areas do not offset high housing costs. Because location-affordable places are in short supply, and the extreme shortage of affordable housing, both housing and transportation investments are needed to support households with low and moderate incomes. Expanding location affordability regionally will also help to address climate change and expand access to job opportunities, goods, services, and other amenities.
Health. Health inequalities. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, collectively known as the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), have been in conservatorship for more than a decade. These organizations continue to dominate the housing finance system, together financing close to half of the $11 trillion market for home mortgages in the United States. In September 2019, the U.S. Treasury put out a report in which they described the conservatorship of the GSEs as the “last unfinished business of the financial crisis.” Although the Treasury made it clear that legislative reform is the preferred solution, it also set out an administrative path to get the GSEs out of conservatorship and re-privatize them. The first step in this process is a set of capital rules for the GSEs post-conservatorship. In June 2020, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, containing a detailed set of capital rules.
Federal Housing Administration. Federal housing policies. Lenders. Lending.
In this article, the authors summarize and critique the Federal Housing Finance Agency's recent capital proposal for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, concluding that it misapplies the bank capital regime in a way that would ultimately take the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and the housing finance system in the wrong direction, unnecessarily leading to higher mortgage rates, riskier GSEs, and a less stable housing finance system. Note that after this article was written, FHFA finalized their capital rule. While they modified it somewhat from the proposal critiqued here, the final rule is largely subject to the same criticisms.
Capital markets. Collective-risk situations. Enterprise. Housing. Housing policy.
This article examines the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)'s 2020 notice of proposed rulemaking (2020 NPR) for the government-sponsored enterprises' capital standards and finds that there are several issues of concern that will distort the relationship between capital and risk. We urge FHFA to better tailor its proposed risk-based capital requirements to the risk and mission of these monoline entities and rely less heavily on a Basel-like framework. We offer a package of specific adjustments that will better align capital with risk, without reducing the overall rigor or stringency of the capital standard. Better tying capital to risk will result in a better regulated and stronger mortgage finance system.
Housing. Housing policy. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
Mortgage borrowers who have experienced employment disruptions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic are unable to refinance their loans to take advantage of historically low market rates. In this article, we analyze the effects of a streamlined refinance program for government-insured loans that would allow borrowers to refinance without needing to document employment or income. In addition, we consider a cash-out component that would allow borrowers to extract some of the substantial housing equity that many have accumulated in recent years.
Affordable housing. Housing. Housing policy.
Given Russia's public policy of increasing affordable housing, this study estimates its achievements. It highlights future obstacles and argues for modernization. Statistical estimates of housing affordability indicators in Russia generally and in major Russian metropolitan areas specifically show trends of substantial increase for the past 15 years. Although the housing affordability indicators are imperfect measures of actual levels, they are useful for monitoring trends. The affordability indicator trend in Russia differs from similar indicators for other countries. The main influencing factors for growth in housing affordability in Russia include a reduction in real housing prices, which declined faster than per capita real income, and a decrease in mortgage interest rates. Moreover, market housing pricing is influenced by housing supply. Nonetheless, extending the potential of housing affordability through lower interest rates has been largely exhausted, and further housing affordability may be achieved by increasing the stock and tenure types of affordable housing, including affordable renting.
Asset-building programs. Debt. Demographic characteristics. Demographics. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
The share of older households with debt secured by their primary residence more than doubled between 1995 and 2016. This study uses the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to examine the sources of this shift. The empirical analyses first use a series of regressions to examine the relative influence of several hypothesized demographic contributors. The results suggest that these factors explain approximately one quarter of the increase in housing debt. The remainder is shown to be attributable to factors that affect the incidence of housing debt conditional on homeownership and the number of years that households have owned their homes, such as equity extraction, refinancing, and extended financing terms. The detailed loan information in the SCF further suggests that rate refinancing and associated term extensions may be an overlooked contributor to the rise in housing debt.
Credit. Federal Housing Administration. Federal housing policies. Housing. Mass transportation. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
A dramatic decline in the maximum loan amount eligible for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance in the Salt Lake City, Utah, metropolitan statistical area between 2013 and 2014 provides a natural experiment in the impact of borrowing constraints on housing decisions. Using a difference-in-differences design within a seemingly unrelated regression model, we estimate the impact of this constraint on the size and location of homes purchased by FHA borrowers. We find that borrowers likely constrained by the new loan limits purchased smaller homes with larger downpayments than similar borrowers prior to the loan limit decline. Likely constrained borrowers do not appear to compromise on location, including the quality of local schools. The net effect of the housing choices compelled by the reduction in loan limits does not appear to change the credit risk of borrowers.
Business loans. Discrimination. Financial crisis. Lending. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
This article examines mortgage broker pricing in New York during the years leading up to the financial crisis. Broker compensation practices in 2005 through 2007, primarily the use of yield spread premiums (YSPs), led the Federal Reserve to promulgate new rules in 2011 that disallowed loan originators who receive compensation directly from the consumer from also receiving compensation from the lender or another party. This consumer testing rule passed because the board found that consumers were not aware of the payments lenders make to originators and how those payments can affect the consumer's total loan cost. Focusing on total costs paid by the borrower, we find that minority borrowers paid more in total fees as a percentage of the loan amount when including or excluding YSPs. Moreover, white borrowers were more successful in substituting YSPs for up-front cash fees, resulting in a reduction in total loan fees compared with minority borrowers. This may reflect information advantages for white borrowers that allow them to more accurately assess the total cost of loans.
Diverse neighborhoods. Foreclosure. Housing markets. Mortgage rates. Mortgages.
Government intervention in the housing market in response to the 2007–2010 mortgage crisis was driven in part by research showing that foreclosures lower neighboring housing values and thus increase neighbors' risk of foreclosure. Researchers have consistently identified a negative spillover effect of foreclosures on nearby housing values, but the magnitude of the effect varies widely across studies. Although this variation is due, in part, to differences in the geographic region, time period, and empirical strategy of prior research, we argue that the spillover effect on nearby housing prices exhibits hyper-local variation, which may be obscured by models that aggregate spillover effect estimates within existing geographic units. In this article, we employ geographically weighted regression to capture the extent of spatial and temporal variation of foreclosure spillover effects in three Ohio metropolitan statistical areas. We find extensive heterogeneity of foreclosure spillover effect estimates over time and across space, suggesting that such spillovers perhaps should not be thought of as universal phenomena. These findings raise the possibility that policies and programs designed to intervene in the housing market should analyze and use local variation in the negative externalities of foreclosure to best target scarce resources within and across communities.
Aging. Business taxes. Common property. Housing.
The U.S. housing market is being reshaped by the housing decisions of seniors aged 65 and older. This study examines the reasons why senior homeowners choose to move, downsize, and transition out of homeownership, placing particular emphasis on the role of property taxes and property tax abatement programs. Our findings suggest that although rising property taxes increase the probability that senior homeowners will become renters or downsize, property tax abatement programs seem to have largely failed to help low-income senior homeowners remain in their homes. High-income seniors receive a modest transfer from property tax abatement programs and continue owning their homes when moving, whereas low-income seniors transition from owning to renting when moving, even in places with generous property tax abatement programs. The U.S. senior population will grow significantly over the next several decades, and policymakers will need to design effective policies to create stable, affordable housing environments for seniors aged 65 and older. Our findings provide evidence to inform this effort.
30-4 HOME OWNERSHIP/RENTAL HOUSING
Africa. Housing. Land rent.
Across the globe, private rental housing performs a critical role within modern housing systems. However, the nature of the sector, the households it serves, and the contractual landlord–tenant relationships are markedly different. In this article, we explore Ghana's informal rental housing market, which provides accommodation to most renters because of limited housing in the formal housing sector. Drawing on exploratory research and survey data from renters in Dansoman, Accra, we contend that landlords' practice of requiring renters to pay 2 years' advance rent and to furnish their property imposes significant financial burden on the renters. We further demonstrate the extent to which different categories of renters are made worse off by these financial commitments. As government regulatory powers remain weak, private landlords' unscrupulous practices have become an accepted social norm. The younger segments of society that are heavily dependent on this sector are, in particular, made considerably worse off, with knock-on consequences for labor mobility and the ability to create well-functioning housing systems.
Affordable housing. Housing. Housing policy.
This article examines the relationship between housing market segmentation and eviction in Richmond, Virginia. Housing market segmentation conceptualizes housing consumption through multiple distinct submarkets instead of a unitary regional market. To examine the production of housing segmentation we rely on an original large-building database for all multifamily buildings in Richmond with more than 25 units, which we complement with qualitative interviews with more than 25 Richmond tenants who have experienced at least one eviction. Our analysis makes three key contributions. First, by placing two different scholarly traditions in conversation—urban economics and critical urban political economy—we foreground the importance of understanding what institutions and actors create and maintain submarkets. Second, the article takes a novel methodological approach to segmentation by analyzing ownership of rental housing and tenant experience. Finally, these approaches allow us to move beyond framing eviction as simply a feature of some rental submarkets and to pose the question about what role eviction plays in creating and maintaining submarkets and class-monopoly rents. We offer evidence that through eviction and the threat of eviction landlords create targeted housing scarcity for specific groups of tenants. We argue for understanding eviction as a formative institution of housing submarkets.
Affordable housing. Housing. Impact.
Evictions are a pressing issue facing many low-income renters. The growing scholarship on evictions generally groups together all types of evictions across multiple property and owner types. Eviction dynamics may differ, however, between publicly subsidized affordable housing providers and private, market-rate rental landlords, or between evictions filed for different reasons, such as non-payment of rent or for no-fault. We examine the neighborhood, property and owner characteristics of evictions in private market-rate rental housing. Analyzing all evictions filed in Boston Housing Court between 2014 and 2017, we find that in market-rate multifamily rental housing, eviction filings are more likely in more recently constructed or renovated nonowner-occupied properties with higher assessed values compared with other properties in the same neighborhood. Eviction filings are also more likely in neighborhoods with a higher share of Black renters, and lower average educational attainment, above and beyond neighborhood economic characteristics. Nonpayment and no-fault eviction filings show more similarities than they do differences. These findings suggest that policies designed to mitigate evictions and their impacts on low-income renters should take into account the salience of owner-occupancy status, property age and value, and the particularly precarious situation of low-income renters in neighborhoods where a majority of renters are Black.
City events. Community. Community involvement. Homeownership. Housing policy.
While the relationship between homeownership and community involvement is mixed and unclear, this study aims to contribute to this debate by further examining the relationship between these two. Using data from the 2019 Metro Atlanta Speaks survey, we find that homeowners and residents with longer community tenure have higher odds of being involved in the community compared with renters in the metro Atlanta region of the U.S. state of Georgia. Among various community activities examined, homeowners are associated with higher odds of participating in parent–teacher association meetings, neighborhood association meetings, and public meetings held by local governments. Because housing needs of and challenges faced by residents are different, a balanced and comprehensive housing policy ensuring safe, decent, and affordable housing options—rental housing and homeownership opportunities—is crucial in stabilizing homeownership rates and in keeping residents in their communities longer.
Cities. Diverse neighborhoods. Homebuyers. Homeownership.
Homebuying by African American households in the United States dropped sharply after the foreclosure crisis but has rebounded since 2013. As Black homebuyers have returned strongly to the homebuying market, however, their spatial decisions have shifted significantly. Using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data for a cluster of large legacy cities, we found that in comparison to earlier periods, recent Black homebuyers are significantly more likely today to be buying homes in suburban rather than central-city locations and less likely to buy in predominantly African American rather than racially mixed census tracts within central cities. These preference shifts have particularly problematic implications for the predominantly Black middle-income neighborhoods that emerged in these cities in the 1960s and 1970s. Building on previous research that has documented a significant decline in socioeconomic and housing market conditions in those neighborhoods since 2000, we suggest that these shifts in homebuying patterns, although not causing those declines and arguably reflecting rational decisions by homebuyers, nonetheless represent an existential threat to these neighborhoods' viability. To succeed in stabilizing or reviving these neighborhoods, efforts by public agencies or community organizations must address the reasons for their loss of homebuyers.
Citizen perceptions. Housing. Housing policy. Housing prices.
Private housing buyers' perceptions of housing policies and responses are key determinants of the effectiveness of policies, yet little attention has been paid to them. This article establishes a cognitive-behavioral model to explore how private housing buyers perceive housing policy and respond. Based on a survey conducted in Xi'an, China, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is applied to empirically analyze policy perception and response. The results show that individuals' perception and response vary across homeownership status. About 50% of renters and single-home owners postpone their housing purchase plan whereas 37.40% of multihome owners postpone housing purchase and 10.69% intend to sell their own houses after the implementation of the policy in question. Higher housing policy perception brings about lower housing price expectation, which in turn leads to delay of housing purchase or sale of self-owned houses. In addition, individuals who are female, working in a government sector, public institution or state-owned company, or paying more attention to the housing market are more likely to have higher housing policy perception, whereas older individuals are more likely to have lower housing policy perception. Education level, household income, and housing conditions positively affect the modification of the housing plan.
Asset-building programs. Equity. Homeownership. Income.
This article assesses the asset building of households that take part in shared-equity homeownership (SEH) models. The contribution of this article is a comparison of outcomes for households participating in shared-equity programs with other low- and moderate-income households who rent or own properties without restrictions on appreciation. We matched participants in SEH programs to households with similar characteristics from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) over the 1997–2017 period. The findings indicate that in real terms, median SEH homeowners accumulated about $1,700 in housing wealth annually or around $10,000 during their holding period. This amount is lower than the $2,100 median annual gain in home equity experienced by similar PSID owners but statistically and economically significantly larger than the $16 in annual gain experienced by similar PSID renters. The findings provide evidence that households participating in SEH programs experienced positive, but modest, wealth gains that were slightly lower than those of homeowners in unrestricted units but substantially higher than those of renters.
30-6 HOUSING FOR SPECIAL POPULATIONS
Assessment. Homelessness. Housing vouchers.
This article describes the development of an evidence-informed screening tool and process to allocate 25 Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs) to homeless and unstably housed survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) through an innovative pilot program called SASH (Survivors Achieving Stable Housing). Informed by empirical and community-defined evidence, the screening tool comprised two forms, a survivor self-referral form and a form completed by a domestic violence (DV) advocate on the survivor's behalf. Responses were scored such that higher scores indicated fewer barriers to the SASH definition of housing success (i.e., to lease up with and maintain an HCV). We received 92 applications, primarily from survivors living in DV shelters. Of those, 31 were excluded; the remaining 61 were randomized into either the voucher or the queue group. Survivors needed considerable advocacy from the SASH team to move through the public housing authority application process as well as financial assistance to lease up. Lessons learned during the SASH project have important implications for DV and housing practitioners, especially those involved in developing coordinated entry procedures. These lessons include the utility and feasibility of screening questions and tools, moral dilemmas of resource allocation, and challenges of working across siloed systems and policies.
Advocacy coalition. Cities. Community organizing. Gentrification. Historic preservation.
As cities become increasingly gentrified, the experiences of their oldest and longest residents often go underrecognized in favor of class-based and racialized concerns about displacement. Underrepresented in both scholarship and organizing efforts, eviction and displacement pose unique threats to seniors because of the link between their health and housing needs. To uncover possible strategies for coalition building and senior housing policy advocacy in quickly changing neighborhoods, this article examines the strategic efforts of Senior Housing Preservation-Detroit (SHP-D). Originally formed in 2013 to address the displacement of a single building of seniors, SHP-D aims to raise awareness of and advocate to preserve housing in a city whose core is rapidly changing. In this article, we offer an overview of the coalition's advocacy as a way to highlight the role of community mobilization toward preserving affordable senior housing. We outline (a) the formation of the coalition, (b) recent developments, (c) strategic planning processes, and (d) lessons learned by this coalition that may be useful for other senior housing advocacy efforts. We conclude by addressing SHP-D’s attention to immediate health needs of older adults in congregate housing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
American cities. Cities. Displacement. Gentrification.
A growing number of studies have used evictions data as a way to address the methodological challenges to measuring gentrification-induced displacement. The spatial and temporal dimensions of evictions data enable researchers to potentially trace the movement of tenants over time. This article explores the role of evictions in gentrification-led displacement in Detroit, Michigan, by conducting a spatiotemporal analysis of eviction filings in the city between 2009 and 2015, and by addressing the question Where do displaced households go? This is a question that often goes unanswered in gentrification studies. Using a mixed-methods approach, this article documents the relocation of tenants from a project-based Section 8 building and traces the movement of tenant households out of a gentrifying downtown to the periphery of the city.
Data. Diverse neighborhoods. Housing.
Each year, nearly 2.5 million evictions are filed in the United States. Recent research links evictions to a host of negative outcomes, but effects on child well-being are less studied, even as evictions are disproportionately experienced by families with children. In this article, we investigate the relationship between evictions and reports of child abuse and neglect, a key indicator of child well-being. Drawing on 5 years of block-group-level administrative data in Connecticut, we find that as eviction notices increase within a neighborhood, reports of maltreatment also increase, even net of zip-code-level factors and time-invariant block group characteristics. The relationship is driven by reports of neglect and is strongest among adolescents (children ages 10–17). These results suggest that mitigating housing insecurity has the potential to reduce child abuse and neglect reports.
Family. Homelessness. Housing. Housing policy.
This study is concerned with homeless families that returned to the shelter and qualified to participate in the Rapid Rehousing Program (RRHP) again. Because RRH is a short-term voucher where families rent in the private market, one of the main barriers to finding housing is having an eviction record. Focus groups with tenants and case managers/service providers, as well as interviews with landlords participating in The Road Home's RRHP in Salt Lake County, found that families tend to find housing in buildings where other homeless families with multiple evictions and criminal records are concentrated. Tenants often encounter lenient landlords, only to be evicted at a later time. Families returned to the shelter for various reasons, but mainly because after their RRH voucher ends, households end up violating their leases due to nonpayment. The article offers recommendations to those administering RRHP about how evictions and becoming homeless again can be prevented.
Affordable housing. Housing. Housing subsidy. Multifamily housing.
Housing affordability and eviction are intertwined, yet much remains unknown about how policy responses to increase affordable housing affect the local dynamics of eviction. This article establishes a framework for understanding how supply-side housing subsidy programs in the United States may impact the incidence of eviction filing. We apply this novel framework in a descriptive analysis of 9 years of eviction filing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Overall, we find theoretical and practical support for the hypothesis that tenants in subsidized multifamily housing are less vulnerable to eviction than tenants in similar unsubsidized properties, but we find those protections vary between subsidy programs. Namely, we find public housing and project-based rental assistance properties are associated with decreases in the incidence of eviction filing, whereas the findings for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit properties are inconclusive. We cannot treat subsidized housing programs as a universal solution to eviction, but both theory and our analysis suggest it is an important tool for lowering eviction and eviction filing rates.
Health care. Health services. Homeownership.
Inaccessible home environments that create barriers to the enjoyment and the approachability of the living space impact some U.S. Veterans. Injuries acquired while serving in the military or developed through the aging process complicate matters for Veterans with disabilities. Home modifications (HM) afforded by the Home Improvements and Structural Alterations (HISA) program can increase accessibility. We examine the difference between urban and rural Veterans in their health service utilization (hospitalization versus outpatient encounters) 12 months before and 12 months after their HISA use. All the study patients were Veterans with disabilities who use the HISA program. There is a significant decrease in hospitalization post-HM as compared with pre-HM provision for all HM users. There is a significant increase in outpatient encounters post-HM as compared with pre-HM provision for all users. Rural vs. urban status was only significant in outpatient encounters 12 months pre-provision of HM. Provision of HM is associated with favorable clinical outcomes such as decreased hospitalization and increased preventative outpatient care visits. Our findings suggest some subset of hospitalizations could be prevented or delayed if timely and appropriate outpatient care is accessible to patients along with HM. Increasing the provision of HM services such as HISA can free up hospital beds, reduce cost to both individuals and institutions, decrease the risk of hospital acquired morbidity, and promote community integration.
30-7 LOW- AND MODERATE-INCOME HOUSING
Affordable housing. Climate change. Climate policy. Housing subsidy.
Extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of mortality in the United States, but there is little evidence about how this climate hazard affects residents of different housing types. In this study, we examine whether Californians living in subsidized housing are more vulnerable to extreme heat than those living in unsubsidized housing. We create a tract-level data set combining housing characteristics, downscaled climate projections, and an index of adaptive capacity and sensitivity to heat. We analyze exposure and vulnerability to heat by housing type and location. We find that subsidized housing is disproportionately located in the hottest tracts that simultaneously also have the most sensitive populations and barriers to adaptation (high-high tracts). Whereas 8% of California's housing units are in high-high tracts, these tracts contain 16% of public housing units, 14% of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit units, and 10% of Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers. Our findings indicate the need for targeted housing and land-use policy interventions to reduce heat vulnerability.
Affordability. Affordable housing. Housing.
Adequate and affordable housing is a basic human need, and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a federation composed of seven emirates, housing is treated as a constitutional right of every Emirati national. Using interviews with municipal and housing officials and a survey of the housing beneficiaries, the study evaluates the efficacy of the two national housing programs in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah that provide subsidies for affordable homeownership—the Sheikh Zayed Housing Program and the President's Initiative. The study found that the UAE is shifting back to a provider approach to housing for its citizens. The program beneficiaries seemed satisfied with the design of their homes but raised concerns about their locations. The locations and growth spurred by the two programs have significantly shaped the current sprawling urban form of the Ras Al Khaimah municipality. The question of the long-term sustainability of the two programs looms large, funded as they are entirely by the government, with limited participation from the private, nonprofit, or informal sectors. To make housing programs financially and environmentally sustainable, every stakeholder must play a role: the federal government, the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, the Ras Al Khaimah Municipality, and the individual program beneficiaries.
Affordability. Affordable housing. Analytic hierarchy. Gentrification.
Gentrification, the growing presence of middle- and upper-income residents in previously low-income communities, is associated with unaffordable housing. However, there is a lack of research examining gentrification's relationship to perceived housing unaffordability across all city neighborhoods. This study addresses this limitation by pooling three waves of the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation's Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey—2010, 2012, 2014/15—and nesting them within census tracts measuring gentrification with U.S. Census 2000 and 2010/14 American Community Survey data. Using hierarchical linear models, we find that gentrification overall has a negative relation with residents' sense of their housing unaffordability. This association is likely driven by gentrification accompanied by increases in non-Whites. Gentrification marked by increases in Whites but decreases in non-Whites has no measurable relationship with perceived housing unaffordability, although these places have the most expensive housing among gentrifying neighborhoods.
Affordability. Affordable housing. Displacement. Low-income households. Low-income housing. Multifamily housing.
Evictions cause substantial harm to lower income families. Housing subsidy might be expected to reduce eviction rates and provide greater stability. However, little research has examined the eviction rates of subsidized, affordable rental properties. We examine eviction filings for multifamily rental buildings in five-county metropolitan Atlanta, using a data set of eviction filings, property characteristics, and ownership information. We find that senior, subsidized multifamily properties have substantially lower eviction rates than market-rate properties do. A senior, subsidized multifamily rental building is expected to have an annual eviction rate that is 10.7 percentage points below that of a nonsenior, market-rate property; this result is significant (p < .01) and compares with a mean eviction filing rate of 16.3% (16.3 evictions per 100 rental units). On the other hand, a nonsenior subsidized building is expected to have an eviction rate that is 1.4 percentage points lower than a nonsenior market-rate building; this result is not statistically significant. We do not have data on the economic characteristics of tenants, and that may account for some of the relatively high eviction rates of the nonsenior-affordable properties. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and housing policy and practice.
Affordable housing. Family. Housing. Multifamily housing.
In the wake of the foreclosure crisis, investors purchased large numbers of single-family residential properties and converted them to rentals. Activists and scholars have documented investor practices of withholding maintenance while raising rents to maximize profits. Increased demand for rental housing since the crisis has constrained the options of low- and moderate-income households, tilting power toward investor-landlords and raising the odds of abuse. A similar although less-discussed dynamic plays out in motels, which are often the last stop before homelessness. Leveraging 10 years of property ownership and eviction records, this article first examines differences among institutional investors and other landlords of single-family rentals in the scale of their holdings and the likelihood of their properties having an eviction record in Las Vegas, Nevada. Second, this article examines the scale of residential motel properties and their association with evictions. Through statistical analysis, we find institutional investors in single-family rentals are associated with higher rates of evictions, although these odds are highest for local actors expanding existing portfolios of rental properties. Large residential motel operators are similarly associated with extremely high eviction rates. We offer a number of recommendations for policy and research.
30-8 PUBLIC SECTOR HOUSING
Antipoverty. Community participation. Design research. Housing. Housing policy. Minority youth. Mixed-income communities.
Many public housing communities are undergoing redevelopment into mixed-income communities, with researchers raising concerns that the redevelopment process may reinforce exclusionary practices and inadequately involve residents in the planning process. These concerns highlight the need to better understand residents' views of public housing communities and the redevelopment process. To fill this gap, we elicited a detailed view of youths' lived experiences within a Boston, Massachusetts, housing development preparing to undergo conversion into a mixed-income community. Using participatory photo mapping and interviews, we partnered with youth co-researchers in an assessment of important community spaces and neighborhood strengths and stressors. Results highlight neighborhood strengths such as social cohesion and stressors such as gun violence. Results also elucidate youths' wishes for the redevelopment, including the creation of formal and informal youth-centered spaces. We discuss implications for policy and practice and consider youths' suggestions in the context of current community development approaches.
Housing policy. Housing projects. Labor force characteristics.
Critics of U.S. public housing often argue that the program discourages nonemployed residents from looking for work, yet little research has actually explored how public housing residents make decisions about whether to look for work. Thus, this article explores what factors distinguish nonemployed residents who are in the labor force (actively looking for work) from those who are out of the labor force (not actively looking for work). Relying on a sample of nonelderly, nondisabled public housing residents from Charlotte, North Carolina, we find that nonemployed residents who were older and showed signs of depression were more likely to be out of the labor force. In contrast, residents who were younger, had previously completed jobs training, or had some college education were more likely to be in the labor force. These findings suggest that health, education, and life-course stage may play an important role in determining nonemployed residents' decision to look for work. Our conclusion discusses how these factors may influence labor-force participation and the relevance of our findings to housing policymakers and scholars.
Capitalism. City redevelopment. Displacement. Downtown redevelopment. Federal Housing Administration. Federal housing policies.
This article reports on a study of the Waterloo public housing estate in Sydney, Australia. In 2015, the state government announced the inner-city estate would be redeveloped to accommodate some affordable/social dwellings (30%) but with the majority of new dwellings being private market housing (70%). Based on ethnographic research conducted with residents of Waterloo between 2010 and 2017, we analyze the Waterloo redevelopment as an example of emplaced displacement. We draw on the work of geographer Doreen Massey and legal scholar Sarah Keenan to understand place as more than physical space, allowing us to conceptualize displacement as something more than simply the movement of people from one physical place to another. We bring to the fore the subjective experience of place, as articulated by public housing tenants, demonstrating that although they remain physically in place, the threat of eviction posed by the redevelopment significantly alters tenants' spatial, sociocultural, and temporal relationship to place (i.e., the spaces tenants carry with them). The concept of embodied displacement seeks to capture the spatiotemporal diversity of low-income public renters' experiences of loss of place.
31. Energy
31-1 ENERGY POLICY
Energy policy. Knowledge. Knowledge systems. Learning.
Efforts are being directed towards the implementation of data analysis in various areas of policymaking. In many studies, data analysis has been conducted by applying scientific methods on objective data. However, very few studies have dealt with this aspect pragmatically, starting from the data collection stage. This paper presents knowledge and reasoning systems for establishing city policies based on data analysis. First, city policy-related data are collected, and a clustering method is used for analysis. Next, Shapley value theory is used to determine the levels of inter-variable influence, and machine learning techniques, such as the decision tree, Bayesian analysis, and regression analysis, are implemented using the major variables to determine policies. Finally, a system dynamics model is designed to review the policy reasoning and assess its practicality.
China. Collaboration. Energy policy. Management networks.
Compared to buildings constructed in situ, prefabricated buildings (PBs) offer many environmental benefits in terms of carbon emissions, energy consumption, material consumption, and waste generation. To mitigate adverse impacts by the building sector on the environment, PBs have been widely applied in many countries. Although PB policies (PBPs) have played a significant role in guiding, supporting, and promulgating China's PB development, few studies have systematically investigated these PBPs. As a result, the evolution of PBPs in China is not clear, which limits practitioners' overall understanding of PBPs. To bridge this knowledge gap, a bibliometric analysis method was employed to review 136 PBPs issued in China from 1956 to 2019. Through text mining, a co-word network analysis, and a collaboration network analysis, we mapped, visualized, and described the PBP system over time. The evolution of PBPs can be divided into four phases: exploration (1956–1995), fluctuation (1996–2005), steady improvement (2006–2015), and rapid growth (2016–2019). Our findings indicate that the PB policy targets, policy objects, policy tools, performance indicators, and the collaboration structure of policymaking agencies have changed significantly across these phases. Lastly, the PB experience in China was compared with those of countries exhibiting higher levels of PB development, which can serve as a reference for PB development.
Buildings. Energy efficiency. Housing. Housing policy. Innovation.
This article analyses the integration of green building with the largest low-income housing production programme in the US and the innovativeness of state housing agencies. Drawing on policy innovation literature, panel data and regression analysis are employed to quantify associations between state-level characteristics and the adoption of green building criteria into the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) programme. Results show that housing agencies have increasingly adopted green building criteria, and most have identified co-benefits from energy-efficient buildings and smart growth. Despite overall progress, the rate of adoption of green building criteria has decreased, few US states have comprehensive criteria, and many have dropped important criteria, such as on-site renewable energy generation, often due to perceived additional costs to developers and, in some cases, due to perceived progress in building codes. Results are consistent with hypotheses derived from the literature and suggest that the integration of green building with the LIHTC programme is significantly associated with the states' internal factors, such as public housing agencies' motivations and resources, and external factors like regional policy diffusion from other states. Future research should explore organization-level factors that affect environmental policy innovation.
37-6716
Appraisal. Energy planning. Energy policy.
The planning of renewable energy infrastructure has proven highly controversial across many countries. We critically examine the lessons that can be learned from research investigating the causes of controversy over wind turbines. The review focuses on a specific, but often highly controversial, component of planning practice: environmental and social appraisal. The review advances understandings of the reasons for contestation over the social impacts of wind turbines; the basis and legitimacy of plurality and contestation; and, the biases that tend to underpin understandings of the role and functioning of participation in appraisal. A typology of actors’ attitudes to wind energy is employed to elucidate the implications of our review for appraisal practices. We conclude that a broader understanding of the societal purposes of public participation needs to be integrated into appraisal theory and practice, including an acceptance of the legitimacy of antagonism and dissent and its value in fostering social learning.
37-6717
Air pollution. Energy efficiency. Environmental pollution. Growth.
Improving the energy efficiency of the residential building stock has increasingly been promoted by policy makers as a means of reducing energy demand in the residential sector. We review the literature on some non-energy impacts of energy efficiency retrofitting measures aimed at increasing the air tightness and thermal insulation of residential properties. Specifically, we review the impact of retrofitting measures on indoor pollutants, mould growth, attenuation of radio signal and overheating. We show that without the provision of adequate ventilation, increased air tightness can result in higher levels of indoor pollutants and mould growth. Similarly, we show that in certain circumstances thermal insulation has the potential to result in increased signal attenuation and overheating. We detail the policy implications of these findings and outline policy actions that have been implemented in case study countries where these consequences have been identified as potential issues.
37-6718
Community. Energy planning. Energy policy.
Community-owned energy projects are viewed as compelling contributors towards renewable energy targets. They contribute to curtailing the use of carbon intensive energy sources, consequently aiding mitigation of climate change, and can contribute towards a sustainable, localised economy. The success and expansion of the sector varies. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the development of the sector between sub-state nations. This qualitative, comparative study looks at the sector in the sub-state, devolved nations of Wales and Scotland within the UK. Through a series of in-depth interviews with community energy practitioners in four case study sites in Scotland and Wales, this study shows how policy and governance practices can influence the sector and those working at grassroots level. The study shows a disparity in confidence and outlook for the sector, based on the perceived (in)effective governance in each devolved nation.
37-6719
Distribution. Energy planning. Energy resources. Environmental policy. Europe.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the impacts of land-use policies on wind power deployment at the regional levels in Germany and Sweden. We use data for the period 2008–2012, and an econometric approach in which the probability of having any wind power capacity additions and the actual level of increased capacity, given that it is positive, are permitted to be determined by different processes. The results confirm the importance of land-use policies, e.g., priority and exclusion areas, and interesting differences across the two countries are found. The impact of priority areas has been more profound in Germany, while the assignment of protected areas instead has constituted a more binding policy tool in Sweden. Cross-country differences in the relevance of various explanatory variables are linked to factors such as geographical patterns, design of wind power support schemes, and the allocation of decision-making power in planning processes.
31-2 ENERGY MODELING
Energy consumption. Energy efficiency. Energy planning. Models.
Residential energy models are a common tool for determining the overall energy consumption attributed to the housing sector of a country as well as for projecting the future energy demand in relation to energy conservation policies. However, current residential energy models often require large amounts of input data, have a limited transferability to different countries and often fail to correctly depict trends in energy consumption. Furthermore, no current model gives an indication of the underlying uncertainties in its results. This paper presents a transferable residential energy model that combines statistical and building physics approaches and, with input data typically available in most countries, is able to model the annual and monthly residential energy demand of a given nation or region. In addition to providing trends in the residential sector's final energy demand according to area of use, the model also estimates uncertainties in the results in three probability bands at 30%, 60% and 90% confidence intervals. Results for a ‘forecast period' 2001–2010 in three case study countries: Germany, Chile and the UK show a high overall agreement of the new modelling approach with the statistical data and the residential sector's energy consumption trends of these three countries.
Data. Energy consumption. Environmental modeling.
The fast development of urban advancement in the past decade requires reasonable and realistic solutions for transport, building infrastructure, natural conditions, and personal satisfaction in smart cities. This paper presents and explores predictive energy consumption models based on data-mining techniques for a smart small-scale steel industry in South Korea. Energy consumption data is collected using IoT based systems and used for prediction. Data used include the lagging and leading current reactive power, the lagging and leading current power factor, carbon dioxide emissions, and load types. Five statistical algorithms are used for energy consumption prediction:(a) General linear regression, (b) Classification and regression trees, (c) Support vector machine with a radial basis kernel, (d) K nearest neighbours, (e) CUBIST. Root mean squared error, Mean absolute error and Coefficient of variation are used to measure the prediction efficiency of the models. The results show that CUBIST model provides best results with lower error values and this model can be used for the development of energy efficient structural design which helps to optimize the energy consumption and policy making in smart cities.
Diverse neighborhoods. Energy policy. Institutions.
The popularity of Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment Tools (NSATs) has grown over the past decade, which has led to the replications of these tools in different regions but also their limitations. One of the most notable limitations is the inadequate recognition of the complexities of the institutional dimensions (i.e. policies, laws, and regulation) that contribute to mainstreaming and operationalizing sustainable neighborhood development. Although existing research on NSATs suggest lack of coverage of the institutional dimension of sustainability, there has been no consistent and explicit mention of the precise institutional indicators and criteria in literature. Also, there is a clear confusion regarding what are the institutional indicators, what characteristics they possess, and how best they can be identified. This study, via the lens of energy-based indicators, expands on the role and trends of the institutional indicator and its associated dimensions in 15 NSATs. The results show a limited view on the classification of institutional indicators. The study also demonstrates there are more institutional indicators than previously reported in prior studies. Finally, this study proceeds to define more appropriately what can be considered an institutional indicator. In conclusion, it is recommended that future development of NSATs should ensure a constant institutional link to indicators in order to enhance the performance of NSATs.
37-6720
Collective action. Dynamic planning. Energy planning. Learning. Local development.
This article investigates the potential impact of sustainable energy action plans (SEAPs) on local development through a two-step methodology involving participatory planning and quantitative analysis. The first phase relies on a participatory system mapping (PSM) approach and generates a causal structure at the basis of the urban model. In the second phase, we transform the qualitative map into a system dynamic model which evaluates the effect of the SEAP on social, economic and environmental indicators. This methodology was applied to the case of Cascina Municipality (Italy). Through scenario analysis, we show that some indirect feedback can harm the achievement of the 20% emission reduction target. This process allows the local authority and stakeholders to evaluate the impact of emission reduction policies on CO2 emissions and local development, thereby generating collective learning on the systemic implications of the plan. We show that this method can enhance the ambition of emission mitigation efforts by small towns.
31-3 ENERGY CONSERVATION
Air quality. Air quality management. Comfort. Consumption. Energy consumption.
The ‘Tiny House' is a class of residential construction with floor areas less than 400 ft2 (37.16 m2). The components of the Tiny House (TH) pose certain unique challenges in terms of maintaining appropriate indoor environmental quality and resultant energy consumption that have not been previously researched. Hence, the objectives of this research were to measure the impact of physical characteristics, such as building envelope and volume of a TH on the resultant indoor environmental quality and energy consumption. The intent is to identify the parameters responsible to ensure comfortable and healthy conditions in the TH. This paper presents an analysis of some of the first reported measurements of indoor environmental conditions and energy use in the TH in a cold climate. To accomplish this task, two THs built in Bozeman Montana were instrumented and monitored. Occupant logs were conducted to collect data for occupant related activities. The results obtained from this research contributed to the development of strategies for the construction and operation of building systems that are tailored to the unique configuration of the TH. In doing so, the study reassessed specifications that are currently available in building codes that may not be applicable to THs.
Buildings. Consumption. Energy consumption. Ground water. Models.
The development of policies promoting smart meter adoption is essential to guide the transition towards sustainable use of resources such as water, electricity and gas, as well as inform smart-city initiatives. This article explores household preferences in terms of different smart meters and identifies the amounts that households are willing to pay for different smart meter configurations to monitor electricity, water and gas based on the features of their home including dwelling type, size and property value. To this aim, we employ a mixed multinomial logit model that accounts for the heterogeneity in customers' preferences for different smart meters. As a proof of concept, the proposed model is applied to a survey incorporating a discrete choice experiment carried out with 232 respondents in the Florianopolis metropolitan region, located in the south of Brazil. Our approach offers a number of advantages to facilitate the broader implementation of smart grid systems that would otherwise be overlooked using traditional approaches that rely on aggregated estimates for demand and willingness to pay for proposed schemes.
31-5 ENERGY IMPACTS
Buildings. Employment. Energy efficiency. Input-output analysis.
The aim of this paper is to determine the socio-economic effects of investing in an energy-efficient renovation of public buildings in the Republic of Croatia. Valorization of economic effects is based on the gross value added and jobs that were induced by energy renovation. Analysis techniques of an open and closed input–output model were used for the quantification of multiplicative economic effects connected to the energy renovation. While the open input–output model quantifies indirect effects, the model closed by personal expenses quantifies induced effects which are the result of the income growth in the household sector induced by direct and indirect effects of investments in the renovation of public buildings. The results indicate positive economic effects of investing in the energy renovation of public building. Total effects include short-term effects, during the implementation period of the renovation project, as well as long-term effects related to the energy savings and redirecting the resources to another category of final expenses. Besides having a positive effect on the construction sector, energy renovation encourages the activity of other sectors involved in the value-added chain of the construction industry.
32. Environment
32-1 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
Capital. Environment. Environmental governance. Financing. Market analysis.
This article seeks to provide a critical perspective on the roles and effects of standards in governing new markets for sustainability. Departing from a narrow, technocratic interpretation of standards as tools to differentiate within existing markets, we examine the work of standards in configuring and enacting a specific type of environmental market, which we term growth-oriented. Through a case study of one such market for green bonds, the article shows how standards have been strategically enrolled to perform three key roles within an overall operative of growth: (1) codifying and solidifying a dominant conception of the product category, (2) protecting green bonds from stigmatizing iterations, and (3) constructing a lenient zone of qualification. Our work advances on the existing literature by offering a more power-sensitive and spatially explicit conceptualization of environmental standards. It also provides novel theorization of how growth-oriented articulations of the green economy are rendered economic by bringing “just about enough” information, assurance, and promises of green into the market frame. We conclude by reflecting on some of the tensions involved in market-based projects by revealing how the imperative for growth through categorical leniency runs the risk of environmental considerations being subordinated.
Cultural politics. Ecology. Environment. Environmental governance. Geopolitics.
Dam removal in the United States is an increasingly attractive option for advocates of river restoration. We argue that dam removal in New England (United States) is a useful lens for examining state actors' capabilities to govern environmental processes. Our analytical framework builds off and integrates strategic-relational approaches (SRAs) to state power and those approaches more concerned with “peopling” the state through state agents' everyday encounters with civil society. The complex suite of issues—ranging from safety and the environmental benefits of free-flowing rivers to historical preservation and cultural heritage—characterizing dam removal and similar restoration efforts challenge state agents to become more multidimensional in environmental governance. Our research reveals that some state agencies in New England have been more effective than others at adopting these novel roles and managing environmental conflicts. Our research also suggests we view the “state” as a complex collective of relations and actors that exerts power over nature–society relations in strategic and often contradictory ways. Our empirical findings, coupled to more nuanced theories of state–nature relations, direct attention to how state power is unevenly distributed within environmental governance arrangements. These findings also suggest that consideration of environmental interventions directed by state agents has the potential to contribute to a progressive and ecologically mindful set of political commitments.
37-6721
Environmental policy. Flooding. Hazards. Land use planning. Land use policies.
Planning for hazard mitigation is frequently detached from other planning activities that influence development patterns in hazardous areas. Consistent integration of mitigation reduces hazard vulnerability for people and the built environment. We apply a plan integration for resilience scorecard in six US coastal cities to evaluate the integration of local networks of plans and the degree to which they target areas most vulnerable to flooding hazards. We find that plan integration scores vary widely across the six cities, and that some plans actually increase vulnerability in hazard zones. Policies also frequently support mitigation in areas with low vulnerability, rather than in areas with high vulnerability. The plan integration for resilience scorecard can generate information to improve hazard planning by allowing planners to identify conflicts between plans, assess whether plans target areas that are most vulnerable, and better inform decision makers about opportunities to mainstream mitigation into multiple sectors of planning.
37-6722
Evaluation. Flooding. Hazards. Land use planning. Land use policies.
Planning for hazard mitigation is frequently detached from other planning activities that influence development patterns in hazardous areas. Consistent integration of mitigation reduces hazard vulnerability for people and the built environment. We apply a plan integration for resilience scorecard in six US coastal cities to evaluate the integration of local networks of plans and the degree to which they target areas most vulnerable to flooding hazards. We find that plan integration scores vary widely across the six cities, and that some plans actually increase vulnerability in hazard zones. Policies also frequently support mitigation in areas with low vulnerability, rather than in areas with high vulnerability. The plan integration for resilience scorecard can generate information to improve hazard planning by allowing planners to identify conflicts between plans, assess whether plans target areas that are most vulnerable, and better inform decision makers about opportunities to mainstream mitigation into multiple sectors of planning.
37-6723
Community transformation. Environmental policy. Government agencies.
Institutional work focuses on the role of actors in creating, maintaining, or disrupting institutional structures. The concept has its origin in organisational studies. In this paper, we rethink and redefine institutional work to make it fit for use in the multi-actor and multi-level context of environmental governance. We survey key approaches to institutional change in the literature, and argue that institutional work should have a central place within this theorising. Drawing on the insights from this literature, we argue that studying institutional work should involve a look at both the actions taken by actors, as well as the resulting effects. We identify a critical need for attention to the fundamentally political character of institutional work, the cumulative effects of action taken by multiple actors, and communicative and discursive dimensions. Overall, the concept of institutional work opens up new possibilities for unpacking the longstanding challenge of understanding institutional change in environmental governance.
37-6724
Adaptation. Adaptation strategies. Climate change. Climate policy. Community planning. Decision making.
Northern communities are experiencing greater climate variability, with extreme climate impacts occurring more frequently and with more intensity; with the need for adaptation to reduce the risk becoming more immediate. Specific stressors and decision dynamics surrounding the nature of local government policy and planning for climate adaptation are underrepresented in the scholarship. This paper seeks to contribute to the literature by exploring the case of Homer, Alaska. Through narratives of key informants connected to the community's climate change agenda, this research explores primary climate stressors and the nature of adaptation policy integration. Findings suggests that while Homer is experiencing a variety of climate change impacts, adaptation remains a low priority for city officials. This study sheds light on some of the challenges of integrating climate adaptation policy with strategic community planning, and in turn provides decision-makers with insight into considerations for mainstreaming resilience thinking at a local government scale.
37-6725
Case studies. Coastal management. Institutional analysis. Institutions. Narrative analysis.
Institutional work offers a promising lens for understanding institutional change, focusing on the efforts of actors in creating, maintaining or disrupting institutions. In this paper, we explore the capacity of a narrative approach to provide insights on institutional work, using a case study from the coast of Sweden. We identify four narratives that compete in the policy discourse regarding erosion and beach nourishment in the coastal province of Scania. The narratives reveal that actors hold different beliefs concerning the magnitude of the erosion problem, the division of responsibilities and the suitability of sand nourishment as a coastal protection measure. The narrative competition is considered reflective of past institutional discussions and ongoing institutional work in coastal management in Scania, confirming that narratives are used as sense-making and meaning-giving devices in institutional discussions.
37-6726
Ecological planning. Environment. Environmental governance. Environmental planning. Governance.
Ecological restoration projects may provide solutions for degraded ecosystems in estuaries, but are challenging due to complex governance processes. Scientific studies on the latter are limited. The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the governance process aiming at ecological restoration in estuaries. Based on a literature review, five success conditions for ecological restoration projects in estuaries were formulated. These conditions concern: (1) the presence of options for experimentation; (2) the use of the right communication strategies; (3) a pro-active role of key individuals; (4) sufficient project support; (5) active stakeholder and knowledge integration. These conditions were elaborated upon in a case study on the reopening of the sluices in the Dutch Haringvliet and by conducting seven expert interviews. The case study was a clear “example of failure” due to absence of several conditions. We conclude with some recommendations to enhance future ecological restoration projects.
37-6727
Carbon dioxide. Energy planning. Environmental management.
Energy planning tools can support transitions to low carbon energy by helping planners to identify technology options and scenarios. Exploring a case study of district heating development to support heat decarbonisation in the United Kingdom (UK), this article uses thematic analysis of qualitative semistructured interviews conducted between May 2013 and August 2015 with local and regional government officials, in order to consider how energy planning decision-making tools can be designed to support the early stages of low carbon transitions as a form of strategic niche management. The findings of this analysis are then tested through the development of a spatial heat planning tool covering England and Wales, designed to respond to the needs of niche actors seeking to facilitate early development of district heating projects. The tool is for use by local government actors as they seek to build social networks of stakeholders to support the technology change, to demonstrate its value and to support skills development. The research shows the importance of designing flexible tools which can go beyond techno-economic criteria and reflect the wider motivations and decision criteria of local actors, including social criteria.
37-6728
Disaster. Disaster paradigms. Environmental policy. Natural disasters.
Community recovery from disasters depends on how its subunits, such as households, fare. But the current knowledge on this topic is fragmented and undervalues a household's agency for action, which can result in narrowly designed, and sometimes counterproductive, recovery plans and aid policies. In this article, we examine various internal and contextual characteristics of households to answer the question, what factors influence household recovery the most and how? Using logistical regression analysis on random sample survey data collected from households affected by the 2012 Hurricane Sandy in New York City, NY, we discuss the influence of various socioeconomic factors, knowledge and availability of external aid, and neighborhood condition on a household's perception of their own recovery. We conclude with three lessons on community participation, recovery financing, and community restoration for recovery managers to ensure disaster recovery plans are comprehensive and build local capacity to recover.
37-6729
Climate change. Climate policy. Environmental policy.
Policymakers at different government levels develop integrated adaptation strategy processes (ASPs), which are supposed to prepare a particular region, country or municipality for the impacts of climate change. The adaptation literature suggests that coordination of these efforts promises comprehensive climate change adaptation, because it allows making use of synergies and avoiding maladaptation. Nonetheless, we lack evidence about the coordination of multiple levels and its potential to actually facilitate climate change adaptation. Based on an examination of 14 integrated ASPs, the author asks how they interact with each other, if they reconcile the priorities of other levels, and if they are an adequate tool for coordinating climate change adaptation. The study reveals a considerable gap between theory and practice. It demonstrates that the call for coordination is not reflected in current adaptation policy and questions whether (more) coordination is what we need to be better prepared for the impacts of climate change.
37-6730
Coastal environment. Coastal management. Discourse analysis. Environmental governance. Environmental justice. Governance.
Despite South Africa's transition to democracy and policy vocabularies of co-governance, inclusivity and fairness in decision making that underpin both the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and national coastal policy – the White Paper on Sustainable Coastal Development – these principles remain elusive in the day-to-day governance of coastal risk and vulnerability. A basic quantitative investigation into the representation of civil society on government-led ‘collaborative' forums and the application of an Argumentative Discourse Analysis (ADA) reveals that a state-centric mode of governance dominates. This mode of governance is being stimulated and reinforced by isolationistic provisions contained within South Africa's principal coastal legislation and policy instrument: the Integrated Coastal Management Act (No. 36 of 2014 as amended). This mode of governance is, in return, amplifying coastal risk and vulnerability in South Africa more broadly.
37-6731
Citizen participation. Deliberative planning. Environmental governance. Governance.
Policy scholars have indicated that the quality of the solution to a perceived social problem depends on the adequacy of its framing. This paper examines how policy stakeholders and local residents frame the issue of the radioactive waste storage facility in Taiwan, the limits of institutional mechanisms in decision-making processes, and the implications of the deliberative forums undertaken by the national Stop Nukes Now organisation. The controversy illustrates the problems of a knowledge gap and the top-down procedures as well as the challenges that Taiwan faces in becoming a nuclear-free country. This case demonstrates civic society organisations' efforts to challenge the ‘social–technical divide' and technical experts' prior definition of the ‘problems' and selection of a ‘solution'. Deliberative forums enable the participation of affected communities to shape public discourses, which helps to strengthen public communication, improves citizen consciousness of nuclear waste issues, and attempts to link wider communities and public interests.
37-6732
Energy efficiency. Environmental planning. Environmental policy.
In a case study that examines the outcomes of a flexible information-based policy, we observe how organizations obtain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. We use a regression discontinuity analysis to identify practices used to upgrade certification tiers. This analysis reveals preferences for green certification strategies and, we argue, intimates the perceived motivations for green certification. We distinguish practices that potentially confer private gains through returns to efficiency and productivity investments, from practices that only provide public benefits. Data show that organizations strategically certify to avoid high-cost resource use, appeal to key stakeholders, and communicate building and organization quality. Builders upgrading to the highest tiers are more likely to deploy practices with private gains. Results suggest a willingness to extend short time horizons associated with energy-efficiency investments in exchange for marketing benefits. Our discussion notes the capacity for certifications to mitigate market barriers associated with the energy-efficiency gap.
37-6733
Adaptation. Disaster. Disaster paradigms. Governance.
Cities have increasingly been confronted with disasters, ranging from earthquakes and storms to floods and landslides. Traditional technocratic top-down approaches have proved inadequate to face disaster risks in urban agglomerations. Thus, expectations have risen that through multi-level governance, metropolitan regions could become more resilient by joining forces across scales and sectors, enabling them to implement adaptation strategies collectively. Under the leadership of the city of Medellin and integrated within the national risk governance system of Colombia, such a governance arrangement has been established in the Metropolitan Area of the Aburra Valley. Applying social network analysis, this paper analyses the institutional relationships within the multi-level risk governance network Red Riesgos. It demonstrates that the effectiveness of multi-level disaster risk governance networks depends primarily on the protagonist role of local governments and on their abilities to involve local communities and citizens and to interact constantly with higher-level authorities in the implementation process.
37-6734
Adaptation. Climate change. Climate policy. Design review. Environmental governance.
The governance of adaptation to climate change is an emerging multi-level challenge, and learning is a central governance factor in such a new empirical field. We analyze, through a literature review, how learning is addressed in both the general multi-level governance literature and the governance of adaptation to climate change literature. We explore the main congruencies and divergences between these two literature strands and identify promising directions to conceptualize learning in multi-level governance of adaptation. The review summarizes the main approaches to learning in these two strands and outlines conceptualizations of learning, the methods suggested and applied to assess learning, the way learning processes and strategies are understood, and the critical factors identified and described. The review contrasts policy learning approaches frequently used in multi-level governance literature with social learning approaches that are more common in adaptation literature to explore common ground and differences in order to build a conceptual framework and provide directions for further research.
37-6735
China. Cultural politics. Environmental governance. Government. Mapping techniques.
Since 2011, Chinese environmental authorities have undertaken a project of “occupying” online spaces and social media such as Weibo. This has been analysed alternatively as an attempt to improve environmental governance, or as a new tool of control over online environmental discourses. This article investigates the use of microblogs by 172 local environmental authorities in Shandong province, whose multi-level microblogging system is seen as a model for other provinces, analysing whether this system improves environmental governance, and whether this objective is impeded by practices aimed at controlling online environmental discourse. We find limited evidence of improved environmental governance, as attested by enhanced information disclosure and citizen engagement. Instead, Environmental Protection Bureau communication appears obstructed by floods of diversionary content. We suggest that while these behaviours are likely driven by misaligned incentives and fears of triggering social unrest, they also support the goal of discursive control by occupation.
37-6736
Economics. Innovation. Learning. Learning environments.
Adverse environmental effects of intensive agriculture, together with scarcity in phosphates and water, urge farmers to find more sustainable practices. An example of such a sustainable practice is on-farm processing of organic waste. This paper explores three mechanisms that can lead to a widespread uptake of this technique: (1) economies of scale, (2) information sharing, and (3) adjustment of social norms. Although each of these mechanisms has been studied before, this paper provides new insights by considering the interactions that might exist between the different mechanisms when they are applied to real-life situations. Based on a pilot study, we developed a multi-criteria mathematical programming model at individual farm level. We used this model to simulate the uptake of on-farm processing of organic waste, as a result of the three mechanisms and their interactions. Our results show that each mechanism results in an increased uptake, but is not likely to cause a widespread uptake. Interaction between the mechanisms, will lead to a much higher uptake. This result suggests that simultaneous consideration of multiple mechanisms is essential to understand the behaviour of social–ecological systems.
37-6737
Africa. Collaborative planning. Development. Local governance. Mining. Mining industry.
The demands for mining companies to play a role in local governance overlook the implications of their participation. This article investigates how the presence and initiatives of mining companies affect the roles of district assemblies in Ghana using the case of the Newmont gold mining company and the Birim North district. Employing a qualitative-case-study approach, the article demonstrates that the company's initiatives enhance the plan implementation and the revenue mobilization roles of the district assembly. However, the presence and initiatives by the company undermine the management role of the district assembly in relation to its ability to pursue holistic development. The company's initiatives have mixed influences on the representative role of the district assembly. Optimizing local governance in mining communities requires district assemblies to proactively engage mining companies to avoid a derailment of their roles. More research is required to unearth appropriate local governance frameworks for optimizing mining outcomes.
37-6738
Energy policy. Energy policy. Environment. Environmental assessment. Environmental policy. Industry.
Voluntary environmental governance is a widely used policy approach that has been criticized for its lack of effectiveness. This raises fundamental questions about how to design processes that can advance voluntary programmes in a way that makes them more successful. In this paper, we analyse a government-initiated dialogue process to phase out hazardous chemicals through voluntary action by the Swedish textile industry. The analysis shows that information transfer primarily motivated business participation, while consumer pressure, regulatory threats and traditions of government–business cooperation played minor roles. The institutional design of the dialogue ensured close interaction within a homogeneous group, but collective actions were limited by disagreement about the problems to be addressed, prior unilateral environmental commitments by leading companies, and ambivalent engagement. This case provides valuable insights into the effect of institutional design on the actual interplay between business and government and its effects on voluntary governance.
37-6739
Environmental knowledge. Environmental planning. Environmental policy. Knowledge.
The government of the Netherlands actively promotes Dutch delta planning to other deltaic countries. This paper describes and analyzes the Dutch–Vietnamese interactions and relationships around the development of the Mekong Delta Plan as a case of policy transfer. The paper uses an approach that regards policy transfers as processes of translation. It draws attention to the work that goes into making Dutch delta expertise and knowledge useful elsewhere. The paper shows that the financial and political support for Dutch Delta Planning expertise in Vietnam needed to be actively and continuously wielded to keep the process going. We conclude that there is merit in understanding policy transfer as a process of translation between many actors, all of whom change, learn, and influence not just each other but also what is transferred. Such an understanding allows better acknowledgement of the deeply dialogic and relational character of policy transfer processes.
37-6740
Environment. Governance. Institutional change. Institutions. Learning.
Learning among actors engaged in environmental governance can be a critical pathway toward institutional change. Learning, however, is often unintentional or idiosyncratic in environmental governance. This paper considers how the rules structuring an environmental governance process can enable or constrain the institutional work of learning. We draw insights from theories of learning and from the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework’s rule typology to identify how particular types of rules matter in learning. We examine how these insights can help uncover lessons from five empirical studies of learning in the environmental governance literature. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our analysis for devising rules of environmental governance to intentionally foster learning.
37-6741
Climate. Climate policy. Local government. Municipal governments. Municipalities.
The 2011 Durban Adaptation Charter for Local Governments calls on local governments, worldwide, to institutionalise climate response, with the aim of minimising the impacts of climate change on local livelihoods and vulnerable communities. This paper, through the use of case studies, in-depth interviews and document review, assesses how three non-metropolitan municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, a district municipality, and two local municipalities under its jurisdiction, are responding to this call. The results suggest that while the municipalities have adopted measures to institutionalise climate responses, the responses are relatively new and implementation is slow, complex and fraught with limitations and competing demands. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of co-ordination of responses between the two levels of government, which has the potential to lead to duplication. Given the multi-scalar nature of climate change, emphasis on co-ordination and the inclusion of all municipal departments in the development and implementation of responses is necessary.
37-6742
Effectiveness. Environment. Environmental governance.
Environmental problems are often multi-faceted and complex by nature, consisting of diverse, intertwined dimensions. In this article, we argue that environmental problem characteristics have consequences for the selection of appropriate governance modes, and finally on policy effectiveness. We rely on an in-depth literature review to proceed in two steps. First, we outline three key environmental problem characteristics: uncertainties, cause–effect mismatches and norm plurality. We then outline six different governance modes capable of producing policies and solutions to tackle challenges arising from the three problem characteristics. Next, through empirical illustrations, we demonstrate the relevance of linking governance modes to these characteristics via the introduction and articulation of the concept of ‘connectivity', i.e., linking actors, issues, sectors and scale levels towards realizing effective policy solutions for complex environmental problems.
37-6743
Environmental policy. Ground water. Implementation. Infrastructure.
This paper presents findings from a study of policy implementation of green infrastructure and stormwater management in the City of Toronto – Canada's largest city. The analysis uses key informant interviews with public, private and non-profit sector actors to examine the challenges municipalities face in implementing green infrastructure policies. The article begins with a review of the literature related to green infrastructure policy implementation followed by the theoretical and methodological approach used in the paper. Findings are then presented outlining the significant barriers to green infrastructure and insights from participants who articulated that rather than a shift from grey to green, what is evident in terms of policy change is policy layering and very gradual conversion of well-established policies that support grey infrastructure. The paper concludes with a discussion of why the shift from grey to green will continue to be challenging unless significant policy and institutional changes are advanced.
37-6744
Actor-network theory. Asia. Environmental management. Environmental planning. Ground water. Implementation.
Strategic delta planning focuses on strategic, long-term choices to stimulate sustainable development in deltas. Strategic delta plans outline a long-term vision to be embedded into the plans and activities of government agencies and semi-public actors at multiple levels. This implies a form of coordinated, yet decentralized, implementation. Although, its importance is widely acknowledged, there are few analytical approaches to assess the feasibility and possible bottlenecks of such implementation processes. This article applies a motivation and ability (MOTA) framework to assess the implementation feasibility of the Mekong Delta Plan in Ben Tre province, Vietnam. The results reveal diverging motivations and a perceived lack of ability among government actors at local and regional level. When not well-managed, this could hamper the translation of the strategic goals and visions into local and regional actions. This suggests the usefulness of the MOTA framework as a tool to help manage implementation processes for strategic delta planning.
37-6745
Climate change. Climate policy. Europe.
By using a scale framework, we examine how cross-scale interactions influence the implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation actions in different urban sectors. Based on stakeholder interviews and content analysis of strategies and projects relevant to climate adaptation and mitigation in the cities of Copenhagen and Helsinki, we present empirical examples of synergies, conflicts and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation that are driven by the cross-scale interactions. These examples show that jurisdictional and institutional scales shape the implementation of adaptation and mitigation strategies, projects and tasks at the management scale, creating benefits of integrated solutions, but also challenges. Investigating the linkages between adaptation and mitigation through a scale framework provides new knowledge for urban climate change planning and decision-making. The results increase the understanding of why adaptation and mitigation are sometimes handled as two separate policy areas and also why attempts to integrate the two policies may fail.
37-6746
Development rights. Environmental policy. Growth. Growth management. Market analysis.
Transfer of development rights (TDR) programs are widely-used market-based tools for growth management efforts that seek to protect farmland, natural areas, and other open spaces threatened by development pressure. Yet, little is known about why local governments adopt, or do not adopt TDR. This study uses descriptive analysis and logistic regression modeling to identify local factors associated with the adoption of TDR by Florida counties from the 1970s to the 2010s. We find that counties that adopt TDR tend to be larger in size, with higher agricultural product sales, and voter-supported land conservation ballot measures. TDR adoption is also associated with home rule authority and a greater percentage of Republican voters, suggesting that market-based mechanisms are linked to both local ability to adopt innovative planning strategies, and to political conservatism. Overall, TDR appears to be a tool that developed counties use to rationalize growth across large areas.
37-6747
Ecosystem. Environmental assessment. Environmental governance. Governance. National parks.
This paper addresses the challenge of appropriate governance of complexity and diversity in the Dutch national park of Alde Feanen. The issue is how to enhance ecosystem resilience. Our focus relates to a navigable waterway within the park that affects the natural values of the area. The governance assessment tool is used to assess the governance context of the waterway and ecosystem resilience in the area. The study shows that a lack of a long-term integrated vision makes the governance context less supportive. Such a vision could maximize the focus on the resilience of the park’s nature and motivate actors to work towards a common future for a concerned area. However, institutional complexity, combined with institutional inertia, is revealed as a hindrance to the quality of governance and shapes a weak ability to adapt the current situation to move towards resilience.
37-6748
Choice model. Farmers. Farming.
Alpine livestock farms consist of pastures, buildings, people and animals, and are a key element for the economy in the Alps. Pastures and huts are often owned by the local municipalities, who lease them to private tenants. However, this activity is often no longer profitable, and thus pastures and huts remain unused and abandoned. This research provides an economic estimate of pastoral farming using the choice experiment (CE) method, also assessing the willingness to pay (WTP) for pastoral farming functions. The study examines different scenarios of upland farm management in order to provide recommendations for public owners on how to better manage these assets. The case study is located in an alpine area in northern Italy. Our results show a higher WTP for the attributes related to the traditional Alpine agricultural economy, with an emphasis on grazing. Several policy implications regarding agricultural renewal and support for mountain livelihoods are highlighted in the conclusions.
37-6749
Environmental regulation. Ground water. Management.
In the United States, new legislation has given regulatory authorities greater oversight of municipal stormwater management programs. However, estimating the impact of greater oversight on municipal actions is difficult due to the uncertainty in current compliance efforts and their associated costs. This paper seeks to fill this gap through a case study of NPDES stormwater runoff permit reports from municipalities in Southeast Wisconsin. Specifically, this study evaluates the reported actions and expenditures against socioeconomic variables to identify the relationships between cost, socioeconomics, and the best management practices (BMPs) used for compliance. Results indicate that there are distinct differences between municipalities with and without financial and personnel resources, clear high- and low-cost BMPs, and large variation in the practices municipalities implement to meet regulatory requirements. Furthermore, results suggest that regulators should take a flexible and pragmatic approach that considers individual municipal constraints and limitations when exercising greater regulatory authority.
37-6750
Environmental planning. Environmental policy. Geopolitics.
This article uses the lens of the Multiple Streams Approach to explore whether the agendas set by political actors in Vietnam converged with the agenda set in the Mekong Delta Plan (MDP). The MDP presents policy choices for the development of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The plan offers economically attractive, climate adaptive and environmentally sustainable paths forward in the face of climate change and economic uncertainties. We collected our data using qualitative techniques, including a literature review and interviews. We found convergence between the MDP's agenda and political actors' agendas, though divergences were also detected. Between the delivery of the MDP in 2013 and formal endorsement of its ideas in 2017, the problem stream, policy stream and politics stream were brought together by the actions of “policy entrepreneurs” (scientists and experts). Our findings suggest that agenda-setting and convergence were a crucial step towards endorsement of the strategic delta planning process for the Mekong Delta. Further research could explore issues of power mobilization in enabling or constraining decision-making.
37-6751
Convergence. Cultural politics. Environmental planning.
This article uses the lens of the Multiple Streams Approach to explore whether the agendas set by political actors in Vietnam converged with the agenda set in the Mekong Delta Plan (MDP). The MDP presents policy choices for the development of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The plan offers economically attractive, climate adaptive and environmentally sustainable paths forward in the face of climate change and economic uncertainties. We collected our data using qualitative techniques, including a literature review and interviews. We found convergence between the MDP's agenda and political actors' agendas, though divergences were also detected. Between the delivery of the MDP in 2013 and formal endorsement of its ideas in 2017, the problem stream, policy stream and politics stream were brought together by the actions of “policy entrepreneurs” (scientists and experts). Our findings suggest that agenda-setting and convergence were a crucial step towards endorsement of the strategic delta planning process for the Mekong Delta. Further research could explore issues of power mobilization in enabling or constraining decision-making.
37-6752
Environment. Environmental planning. Implementation. Livelihoods.
Sustainable livelihood development is an ongoing challenge worldwide, and has regained importance due to threats of water shortages and climate change. To cope with changing climatic, demographic and market conditions in Vietnam's Mekong Delta (VMD) an agricultural transformation process has been suggested in the recent Mekong Delta Plan. This agricultural transformation process requires the implementation of alternative livelihood models. The majority of current agricultural livelihood models in the VMD have been introduced by the government in a top-down manner. In this study, we applied a bottom-up approach to understand the motivations and abilities of local farmers to adopt alternative livelihood models. It is based on the MOTA methodological framework, which is further tested with the use of multivariate analyses. The study was conducted in Ben Tre coastal province. Results showed that farmers' motivations and abilities to apply alternative models vary substantially among different groups, driven by their perceptions on triggers and opportunities. Acknowledging this diversity is essential to the development of agricultural transformation plans. Furthermore, based on the analysis, a projection of the precise support that communities need to supplement their knowledge, skills and financial capacities, as well as interventions to reduce the risks of new livelihood models, is given.
37-6753
Attitude. Biodiversity. Economics. Environmental attitudes. Environmental management.
When ecosystem services value estimates are applied in the economic assessment of environmental policies, high accuracy of these estimates is required. One of the directions in the scientific discussion on biases in stated preference (SP) valuation surveys builds on dual-process theories of judgment. The paper contributes to this literature by presenting an experiment where two types of judgment were induced via separate versus joint valuation of environmental goods. The results demonstrated that policy relevance of environmental issues, e.g. the need for conservation measures increases emotional response, causing a larger bias in the separate design as it involves ‘valuation by feeling.' This finding suggests that the context of a specific policy, which is often the reason for conducting SP surveys, influences the answers, thereby making the results less reliable for use in cost–benefit analysis.
37-6754
Agency decision making. Discourse. Discourse analysis. Institutional networks. Institutions.
In this Special Issue, we interrogate and evaluate the concept of institutional work in the domain of environmental governance, by bringing together diverse papers spanning a range of substantive and theoretical approaches. The papers apply the concept of institutional work across fields of regional development, water governance, climate change adaptation, and urban planning, and disciplines of planning, sociology, political science, geography, and anthropology. As a whole, the Special Issue contributes to a growing body of literature exploring the role of agency in processes of institutional change. This has implications for environmental governance scholarship, which emphasises the role of institutions across all scales from local to global and to understanding transformations in governance systems within which institutional change plays a central role.
37-6755
Cities. Community transformation. Evaluation. Institutional change.
Urban governance systems need to be adaptive to deal with emerging uncertainties and pressures, including those related to climate change. Realising adaptive urban governance systems requires attention to institutions, and in particular, processes of institutional innovation. Interestingly, understanding of how institutional innovation and change occurs remains a key conceptual weakness in urban climate change governance. This paper explores how institutional innovation in urban climate change governance can be conceptualised and analysed. We develop a heuristic involving three levels: (1) “visible” changes in institutional arrangements, (2) changes in underlying “rules-in-use”, and (3) the relationship to broader “governance dilemmas”. We then explore the utility of this heuristic through an exploratory case study of urban water governance in Santiago, Chile. The approach presented opens up novel possibilities for studying institutional innovation and evaluating changes in governance systems. The paper contributes to debates on innovation and its effects in urban governance, particularly under climate change.
37-6756
Biodiversity. Canada. Conservation. Diversity. Institutional analysis. Institutions.
Institutional change is typically needed to address the suite of sustainability challenges currently facing rural areas. Institutional work is a potentially valuable lens to advance such change. By examining a case study of biodiversity conservation from the Canadian Prairies, this article illuminates the patterns and processes of institutional work apparent over time as local actors struggle to improve their autonomy in conservation governance - a feature thought to be particularly important to advance sustainability. The article finds that institutional work progressed through three phases of maintaining, disrupting and crafting at various levels of organization. Local actors became increasingly involved as the phases progressed; however, they continue to struggle for improved autonomy in decision making processes. The article demonstrates one pathway towards local autonomy in conservation governance, but also highlights the continued challenges faced by local actors in pursing such autonomy.
37-6757
Collective-risk situations. Disaster. Environmental governance. Food. Governance.
Severe weather events pose significant risks to food supply chains that are reliant upon critical infrastructures such as road and rail. Can local food procurement arrangements, and contingency plans based on those arrangements, help to ameliorate food shortage in times of crisis? This article explores how governments can empower communities to this end. A broader research project provides the basis of insights and recommendations to aid policy practitioners who seek to develop food-related disaster resilience at the community level. The findings call for the following: the adoption of policies that facilitate the procurement of local food; informing council planning; facilitating shared control with those who want these changes to occur; removing the barriers to change; and utilising a suite of consultation and engagement policies to these ends. It is argued that the Australian regional context of South-East Queensland, with its inherent issues of rapid population growth, has immediate relevance to international contexts.
37-6758
Discourse. Environmental governance. Governance. Institutions. Narrative analysis.
Effective environmental governance requires institutional change. While some actors work to change institutions, others resist change by defending and maintaining institutions. Much of this institutional work is ‘meaning work', which we define as the practice of crafting, adapting, connecting and performing meanings to purposively create, maintain or disrupt institutions. This paper constructs a concept of meaning work that highlights agency in carrying meanings across scales and between discursive layers, while noting the structuring role of prevailing discourses. It grounds the concept using two environmental governance cases at very different scales: a local democratic innovation employed by Noosa Council in Queensland, Australia; and the international campaign to divest from fossil fuels. The cases demonstrate the diversity of meaning work and the difficulty of achieving deep discursive change. They point to the need for environmental governance practitioners to rework existing meanings to construct compelling stories for change, taking advantage of narrative openings.
37-6759
Development. Environmental planning. Governance.
The old tension between planning and law is revived in current practices of sustainable development. Urban professionals often blame central regulation for frustrating an inventive integration of local initiatives and policies. Against this background, the authors focus on the potential of ‘legal contextualisation': the challenge of how to improve on regulation in such a way that it guides local practices in a normative sense but simultaneously enables optimal use of local – context bounded – option space. In order to make legal contextualisation researchable, the next four operational avenues of analysis are constructed in this paper: the normative dimension (requiring quality of legal norms); the relational dimension (studying the alignment of norms in different positions, such as the legislation, the court, and social compliance); the temporal dimension (searching the alignment of different moments of legal validation); and the functional dimension (making transparent the different roles that government agencies may take).
37-6760
Environmental planning. Environmental policy. Fragmentation. Habitat. Landscape. Natural habitat.
Fragmentation is a complex issue and the way it is framed will impact on policy decisions. The Czech Republic has adopted several strategic policy documents in spatial planning and environmental domains that address fragmentation. However, these documents differ in how they frame fragmentation. Our goal was to evaluate the differences in 1) framing the problem of fragmentation and 2) suggested solutions. We performed a content analysis of the strategic policy documents by coding text using the key fragmentation aspects - biological organization, land cover, and connectivity. Next, we categorized data either to species-oriented, pattern-oriented, or ecosystem service frames and suggested criteria to evaluate the quality of the framing. This method was useful to show the divergence in the framing of fragmentation as a problem between two policy domains. The results show that the pattern-oriented frame and mitigation solutions are the most prominent aspects, and also fragmentation is not well framed.
37-6761
City planning. Land use changes. Land use planning. Land-use change. Low-density sprawl.
Rapid urban expansion often has negative social, environmental, and ecological consequences. In China, urbanization rates have increased rapidly over the past decades, commensurate with economic growth. This article evaluates how Chinese urban planning was effective in containing urban expansion. To this end, we examined discrepancies between the Land Use Master Plan (LUMP) and the actual land use developments between the years 1996 and 2014, and analyzed them in relation to demographic and land-use change. Our findings reveal that the initial aim outlined in the LUMP proved, from the start, difficult to implement and that certain targets were either not met or surpassed. Remarkable is that the rates of land used for urbanization strongly exceed those of urban population growth. Explanations are sought in a combination of decentralization, marketization and globalization. We argue that urban growth management is challenged by the shift from the centrally planned system to a more market-oriented governance system, with the slowly increasing autonomy of local governments, which creates incentives for the latter to stimulate urbanization rather than to control it.
37-6762
Environmental management. Environmental policy. Environmental regulation. Land use. Land use policies.
On-site wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) are designed to treat wastewater on site, in a decentralized manner. If sited or managed poorly, OWTS can become significant sources of contamination to streams and marine waters. We conducted an assessment of Hawaii's legal, regulatory, and management provisions of OWTS in relation to the US EPA's recommended guidelines that are meant to reduce failures and protect human and environmental health. We assessed Hawaii's capacities to meet US EPA's recommendations and best management practices. We found that although the state implements some programs and regulations that meet the guidelines, many are missing. The analysis shows a deficiency in a number of areas, including alignment between land use and watershed-based planning, performance goals, inventory of systems, public outreach, homeowner education, and mechanisms that ensure regular upkeep and maintenance. Policy recommendations are provided to increase capacities to better plan for and manage OWTS in Hawaii.
37-6763
Decision making. Ecosystem. Ecosystem conservation. Land use planning.
Changes relating to the development of land use often negatively impact on ecosystem services (ES), which in turn impairs the ability of ecosystems to sustain such services. The assessment of land suitability is a critical step in land use planning, but it may have some shortcomings and may fail to represent the diversity of ES-related features of geographical places. To address this issue, this paper proposes a method that integrates the ES approach with contemporary land suitability evaluation. The study consists of three steps: (1) Land suitability analysis: represents the geology, morphology, land capability, hydrology, erosion and habitat vulnerability, (2) Integrated ES mapping: represents the integrated value of provisioning, regulating and cultural ES potential together and (3) Land suitability evaluation based on integrated ES mapping (ES-Integrated Suitability Map): represents ES-based land suitability. The results demonstrate that there is a significant difference between the conventional and ES-integrated land suitability evaluations. According to the results of the conventional land suitability analysis, while 29.8% of land has excellent and 23.6% good suitability conditions for new development, the ES-integrated land suitability evaluation reveals that only 0.18% and 5.35% of land has excellent and good suitability for new development, respectively, in Duzce. This study shows that the introduction of the ES approach can have an important contribution to spatial decision-making. In addition, this method provides an approach to represent the place-based attributes of space better through the integration of ES into land suitability and can thus help to make environmental concerns a priority in spatial decision-making.
37-6764
Environmental planning. Environmental quality. Environmental regulation. Infrastructure.
Permits are a critical tool for ensuring that infrastructure projects provide the benefits they promise without harming nearby people or the environment. However, the environmental permitting process is complex, often resulting in long review times and increased administrative costs. Identifying ways to hasten permitting processes without compromising environmental rigor is important for enabling efficient and effective infrastructure regulation. This paper evaluates the relationship between permitting duration and characteristics of the projects, applicant organizations, and regulatory regime, using a novel dataset of US Clean Water Act permits. Longer review time was associated with projects proposed by a business (rather than state or federal agencies); using an engineering consultant; requiring some combination of environmental impact analysis, historic preservation, and/or endangered species review; and located in Arizona. Project type, agency workload, and socioeconomic characteristics did not correlate with review time.
37-6765
Cities. Climate. Climate policy. Environmental governance.
This special issue contributes to scholarly debates about the role of cities in global climate governance, reflecting on the promise, limits, and politics of cities as agents of change. It takes an empirically-informed approach drawing on multiple diverse geographical and political contexts. Overall, the special issue aims to stimulate reflection and debate about where understanding and practice needs improvement to advance the role of cities in global climate governance. Key questions that are addressed in the special issue include: To what extent do real world experiences confirm or disconfirm the high expectations of cities as agents and sites of change in addressing global climate change as expressed in urban climate governance literature? In what ways do internal political dynamics of cities enable or constrain urban climate governance? How is climate governance in cities enabled and constrained by interactions with broader governance levels? In what ways can climate governance in cities be advanced through critical attention to the previous issues?
37-6766
Adaptation. Adaptation strategies. Advocacy coalition. Innovation.
This article describes and analyzes the reintroduction of the “wide green dike” in the Netherlands. It is a noteworthy example of implementation of an innovation in long-term strategic delta planning. The Dutch Delta Program was central herein. Pursuing its ambition to make the Netherlands climate-proof, the Delta Program invited a diverse set of actors to participate in developing a long-term adaptation plan, and also to propose innovative short-term measures to help realize that plan. The wide green dike was actively promoted by a local water board, with involvement of scientists and nature conservation organizations. A stepwise participatory process resulted in national-level recognition of the potential of the wide green dike, particularly due to its “green” and “adaptability” characteristics. Alignment of flood protection and climate adaptation goals with nature conservation objectives, as well as collaboration with new actors, were all crucial in the reintroduction of this innovation.
37-6767
Government. Institutions. Land use planning.
Statutory land-use planning allocates different uses of land resources. However, local governments may focus on economic development and financial revenue, leading to environmentally unfavourable outcomes, such as a shortage of public urban green space (UGS). Land resource allocation in planning is associated with institutional arrangements. This study aims to link the corresponding institutional factors under the themes of initial land ownership and governing instruments to the fiscal effect of UGS provision. A comparative study with different scenarios is conducted using land market data to demonstrate quantitatively the influence of such factors on government revenue. The results suggest that the situation with initial public land ownership status backed up by regulatory instruments is more advantageous for providing UGS than that with the initial private land ownership status relying on market-based instruments. The study identifies the characteristics of different institutional arrangements, outlining institutional changes and possible strategies for improving urban sustainability.
37-6768
Environmental regulation. Government performance. Innovation.
Using recent data on a cross-section of Swedish chemical and pulp and paper firms, this paper provides novel empirical insights into the Porter hypothesis. Well-designed environmental regulation can stimulate firms' innovative capabilities, while at the same time generating innovation offsets that may both offset net compliance costs and yield a competitive edge over those firms that are not affected by such regulations. In doing so, we also test the alleged effectiveness of regulatory time strategies in stimulating innovation activities of regulated firms. We find evidence for the effectiveness of such well-designed regulations: announced rather than existing regulation induces innovation and some innovation offsets. Our results imply that empirical tests of the Porter hypothesis that do not account for its dynamic nature, and that do not measure well-designed regulations, might provide misleading conclusions as to its validity.
37-6769
Dynamic traffic assignment. Environmental planning. Ground transportation systems.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the methods of reducing elevated-road traffic-noise levels in rural residential areas by controlling the relative locations and morphological parameters and to investigate the effect of noise barriers on noise attenuation along elevated roads and building facades in villages. This study selected six morphological parameters and used noise-mapping techniques to estimate the noise attenuation in 60 village sites. The results indicate that ‘quiet areas' increase by approximately 10% for each additional 100 m increase in the distance between the elevated road and the village. The best strategy for noise reduction is keeping the elevated road 1,000 m away from the village and raising the road height to 20 m. The building façade conditions only affect the traffic noise level attenuation when the buildings are within 100 m of the elevated road. It was found that the cost-effective length of the road noise barrier is 600 m on both sides of the village parallel to the road. The results highlight the importance of using morphology to improve the traffic noise resistance of villages. The landscape shape indices of buildings and roads are the most important parameters that affect the traffic noise attenuation of elevated roads.
32-2 ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING
Geographic information systems. Geographical models. Land use changes.
Despite the importance of land legacy effects on land use/land cover change (LULCC), historical data remain underutilized in analyses of social–environmental systems (SES). Drought, a slow-onset disaster, serves as an ideal case study to examine how multitemporal LULCC provides context for contemporary land use patterns. We use historical geographic information systems (HGIS) to analyze land ownership change, resource access, and land use in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, the epicenter of the Dust Bowl. We digitize archival county plats covering 1931 through 2014 into an HGIS. Through analysis of ownership information, we trace changes in familial and corporate landholdings during this period, exploring how different landowner types have changed over time. Aerial photography analysis helps to quantify the adoption of irrigation in relation to family survivability. Results show that families with larger landholdings in the 1930s were significantly more likely to persist through the Dust Bowl and continue owning land in the present. Access to the Ogallala Aquifer also increased the duration of land ownership. Corporate operators were most aggressive in adopting irrigation. Results raise questions of sustainability and uneven access to resources. We argue that land legacy has profound impacts nearly a century later. Further, SES studies can benefit from incorporating HGIS into their repertoire.
Agricultural science. China. Ecology. Information technology. Modernization.
Although the science of ecology is often understood in antimodernizing terms, this article shows how ecology in China has become a means to articulate green modernization and sustainable development. As scholars predominantly focus on the policy rhetoric surrounding China's national modernization and sustainable development program called “ecological civilization building,” the origins of how ecology came to take on developmental meanings remain obscure. This article highlights moments of global exchange and knowledge production by Chinese Marxists, earth systems scientists, and economists that produced eco-developmental logics. These logics define an interventionist role for the state, frame urbanization as moral progress, and refashion the role of the peasantry from the revolutionary vanguard to a backward social force impeding modernization. Ecological sciences in China, therefore, lay an epistemological foundation for legitimizing state-led technocratic practices of socioenvironmental engineering and naturalizing social inequalities between “urban” and “rural” people. In highlighting Chinese scientists' agency in producing knowledge, this article counters diffusionist accounts of science as singular systematically organized branches of knowledge that emanate from the West. Instead, I demonstrate how ecology is contingent on the historical and political conditions through which it takes on meaning. In the context of China, ecology has become integral to environmental governance, state formation, and uneven relations of power.
Droughts. Environmental planning. Human activity.
Hydrological droughts are important for agriculture and other human activities such as navigation and groundwater pumping, so it is necessary to understand their characteristics at various temporal and spatial scales. This study aims to examine the characteristics of hydrological droughts and their propagation from meteorological droughts across Wisconsin. Hydrological droughts were identified for twenty-four U.S. Geological Survey streamflow monitoring sites using the 20th percentile threshold level for each calendar day. Meteorological droughts were identified in the same way using daily precipitation data. Drought events of both types were identified for the period from 1980 to 2018, and the drought in 2012 was examined in detail. Our results indicate that (1) unlike meteorological droughts, hydrological droughts tend to occur more frequently in recent years; (2) characteristics of hydrological droughts are not correlated with those of meteorological droughts or annual precipitation; (3) there are generally three drought regions in Wisconsin showing different drought trends and propagation characteristics; and (4) groundwater withdrawal from unconfined aquifers has exacerbated hydrological droughts. In conclusion, hydrological droughts have become less synchronous with meteorological droughts, which will make drought early warning more challenging. The study sheds light on drought characteristics and propagation in relation to catchment characteristics and human activities.
Agglomeration. Agglomeration economies. Data. Database modeling.
An urban spatial cluster (USC) describes one or more geographic agglomerations and the linkages among cities. USCs are conventionally delineated based on predefined administrative boundaries of cities, without considering the dynamic and evolving nature of the spatial extent of USCs. This study uses Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime light (NTL) satellite images to quantitatively detect and characterize the evolution of USCs. We propose a dynamic minimum spanning tree (DMST) and a subgraph partitioning method to identify the evolving USCs over time, which considers both the spatial proximity of urban built-up areas and their affiliations with USCs at the previous snapshot. China is selected as a case study for its rapid urbanization process and the cluster-based economic development strategy. Four DMSTs are generated for China using the urban built-up areas extracted from DMSP/OLS NTL satellite images collected in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012. Each DMST is partitioned into various subtrees and the urban built-up areas connected by the same subtree are identified as a potential USC. By inspecting the evolution of USCs over time, three different types of USCs are obtained, including newly emerging, single-core, and multicore clusters. Using the rank-size distribution, we find that large-sized USCs have greater development than medium- and small-sized USCs. A clear directionality and heterogeneity are observed in the expansions of the ten largest USCs. Our study provides further insight for the understanding of urban system and its spatial structures, and assists policymakers in their planning practices at national and regional scales.
Ecology. Environmental governance. Governance.
Sand, the main ingredient of cement, glass, and asphalt, is being mined for urban development and global production at a pace that exceeds natural renewal. Yet research on the sustainability of sand mining has concentrated on extraction rates and socioecological impacts in rivers and coastlines. The potential of active volcanoes to generate a renewable supply of sand through cyclical or intermittent eruptions has been understudied, as have the asymmetrical power relations that animate around this dangerous but financially lucrative industry. This article uses a transboundary political ecology framework to examine the geographically dispersed development interests that drive volcanic sand mining on Mount Merapi, Indonesia's most active stratovolcano. I argue that to make Mount Merapi's volcanic sand trade more sustainable, collaborative forms of environmental governance are needed to bridge critical gaps in knowledge about industry practices that create environmental impacts extending well beyond the volcano's slopes. I develop this argument through three sets of transboundary political ecology themes centered on (1) knowledge boundaries that inform differentiated place-based practices; (2) the transboundary governance dilemma posed by disconnects between upstream mining practices and downstream environmental impacts; and (3) the potential of cross-border governance networks to collaboratively address these policy deficits.
Coastal environment. Coastal management. Coastal regions. Coasts. Evolution.
Progressing climate changes and declining ice cover (glacial) are accompanied by an increase in the length of paraglacial coasts. Therefore, issues related to the development and transformation of such areas attract increasing interest. No complex classification of paraglacial coasts has been presented so far. The main aim of this study was the determination of the mutual relations and evolution of paraglacial coasts in a systemic approach (paraglacial, proglacial, periglacial) based on the example of Recherchefjorden (Svalbard). Classification of coasts based on geomorphological mapping of the coasts of Recherchefjorden has been developed in terms of the lithology of sediments, genetic origins of hinterland, morphology, and morphodynamics. Analyses of field data and archival materials permitted the preparation of a model of the evolution of six main groups of coasts. Three groups were designated, characteristic of each of the glacial and paraglacial, and periglacial landscape and conditions causing transitions between particular types of coasts were determined. Due to the comprehensive and universal characteristics used in the development of the scheme and the representative landscapes of the Recherchefjorden region, the classification of High Arctic rock coasts presented here is readily transferable to other regions, potentially facilitating future research, management, and modeling of paraglacial areas.
37-6770
Efficiency. Emissions. Environmental assessment. Environmental governance. European Union.
Based on empirical data from 18 international airlines from 2008 to 2014, this article analyzes the impact of EU emission rights on airline environmental efficiency and calculates the airlines' emission allowances. Then, we propose a Network Environmental Slack-Based Measure model to discuss the change in efficiency when carbon prices are set at 10, 20 and 30 Euros. The main findings are as follows: (1) Eva Air is the airline with the highest average overall efficiency. (2) For most airlines, their efficiency shows little difference from the original situation, regardless of the carbon price. (3) For airlines with large changes in efficiency, the cost or income from emission rights not only affects the operating expenses but also the fleet size.
37-6771
Animals. Decision making. Environment. Environmental conflict. Ground transportation systems.
Wildlife-road conflict has profound negative impacts on both wildlife populations and society. Despite a long-held understanding of this problem, in most regions the wildlife-management strategies (WMS) available to mitigate this conflict are still relatively underutilized. This study examines the implementation of these strategies into road infrastructure, using Southern Ontario as a case study, in order to develop an understanding of what leads to successful WMS implementation. The project management concept of critical success factors was applied and interviews with project decision-makers and key stakeholders were conducted. Nine factors were identified and a comparison between a ‘smooth' and ‘rough' project is used to illustrate the cumulative effects that these factors, and their interrelationships, have on project implementation success. Practitioners can use these findings to evaluate WMS projects based on likelihood of success and allocate resources accordingly, ultimately leading to increased chances of implementation and overall benefit to conservation and society.
37-6772
Energy demand. Land use. Land use changes. Mass transportation.
In this paper, the consumption of various infrastructure systems in Calgary, Alberta by residential, commercial, and industrial sectors is considered. Statistical models are developed to quantify the influences of built form factors, in addition to traditional factors of sociodemography. Analyses are performed by census community for electricity, transportation by mode of travel, and demolition permits by their size and frequency. The employment of a common methodology in a single geography allows for comparison across infrastructure systems and determination of common patterns. Assessing total consumption does not necessarily lead to a consistent interpretation. By differentiating electricity consumption by sector and transportation by mode, consistent analysis can be conducted that identifies the correct relationships. We find a trend toward increasing consumption of electricity use moving out from the center of the city, but also an increasing reliance on the private automobile.
37-6773
Adaptive behavior. Adaptive management. Asia. Motivation.
Saltwater intrusion is one of the main problems in the coastal provinces in the Mekong Delta (including the Tra Vinh province), and it is becoming more severe with climate change and rising sea levels. In the face of this problem, a strategic plan has been developed for the Vietnamese Mekong Delta that suggests adapting to increasing salinity levels. However, the farmers' capacity to implement the changes is unclear. The objective of this study was to assess farmers' adaptive capacities towards saline intrusion in the Tra Vinh province in order to provide appropriate adaptation options, using the MOTA (Motivation-Ability) approach. This study surveyed 187 farmers regarding their perception, motivation, and ability in different saline environments in the study area, including three regions: seawater areas (region 1), brackish water areas (region 2), and freshwater areas (region 3). The results showed that farmers have quite high perceptions of salinity intrusion, especially farmers who live in areas affected by it. Regarding the level of saltwater intrusion, the farmers' motivation in all three regions had a negative score, which indicates their motivation for adapting to increased salinity was quite low. Additionally, the farmers' adaptive capacities in all three regions were moderate, with lowest capacities in educational level and rate of participation in non-agricultural organizations. The study results may be useful for managers and policy-makers in proposing appropriate and feasible options for implementing an adaptation plan to ensure sustainable livelihoods for local farmers.
37-6774
China. Data. Environmental management. Environmental pollution.
China is enlisting information communication technologies (ICTs) and citizens to address gaps in environmental management. In this paper, we empirically evaluate ICT-facilitated, citizen-generated data collection through China's “Black and Smelly Waters Program.” Utilizing the app's citizen reports and water quality data in Guangzhou, we assess whether the reports led to significant improvement in four common water quality indicators. We found water bodies that received citizen reports had poorer levels of water quality than those that did not receive complaints. Through a fixed effects regression model, we find that COD levels decreased by 36.3% and 38.9% five and six months after reports were made. We did not observe a significant effect on other water indicators considered. We conclude that China's preliminary experience suggests ICT-enabled citizen engagement, combined with strengthening governance through political avenues, may enable governments to overcome challenges related to implementing top-down policies and fostering civic participation.
37-6775
Environmental planning. Environmental policy. Higher education.
In the business context, many papers have examined whether certain variables can affect sustainability disclosure practices. However, research on universities has mainly been addressed to explore the extent of sustainability information reported with little focus on determining the factors that may affect it. This paper analyzes the influence exerted by some variables concerning the extent of information reported in the university sustainability reports included in this study. To accomplish this task, data were collected using a content analysis of the university sustainability reports extracted from the GRI sustainability disclosure database. The findings reveal that sustainability disclosure practices by universities are explained by different factors, among which are institutionalization, geographical region, external assurance and leadership. Such results are supported jointly by the underpinnings of the institutional and legitimacy theories in response to coercive and mimetic pressures and by the need to improve reputation in society.
37-6776
China. Environmental governance. Environmental regulation. Information costs.
Research on the relationship between information, technology, and environmental governance in the current Information Age has gained momentum in recent years. Nevertheless, much theoretical, empirical, and normative issues remain seriously under-explored. Existing studies also tend to be predominantly based on contexts, experiences, and lessons in advanced democratic societies. What the rapid developments in new information technologies, data, and information networks might mean for environmental politics and governance in non-democratic contexts remains even more elusive. This special issue brings together some of the latest research in the context of contemporary China to shed light on some of these fundamental issues. We argue that the role of information has evolved over time as dominant approaches to environmental regulation have shifted. Yet, findings in this special issue show that how it has manifested in China thus far has been anything but straightforward. While a few parallels can be drawn between advanced democratic countries and China, many of the predictions made about the effects of data and information technologies have not been borne out in China. We raise several questions as a fruitful avenue for further research.
37-6777
Competition. Competitiveness. Econometrics. Europe.
The paper complements the few regional studies on the sustainability–competitiveness nexus by providing a novel composite index of sustainable competitiveness for 272 European regions in 28 European countries. Principal component factor analysis is combined with a variance-based structural equation model to create a statistically reliable index, which overcomes the methodological issues of previous studies. Especially, the use of the latter also allows estimation of the cause–effect relationships between the different pillars of sustainable competitiveness, where empirical evidence is scarce. The paper shows that favorable ecological, social, and economic environments can jointly contribute to facilitating long-term sustainable competitiveness outcomes. Thereby, the progress in one dimension is not necessarily at the expense of another dimension of sustainable competitiveness. The proposed index reveals important insights for policymakers into the sustainable competitiveness trajectory of European regions. Region-specific plans for action can be derived and new policy conclusions can be drawn from the index.
37-6778
Environmental management. Forest management systems. Geographic information systems. National parks.
Academics have frequently used and endorsed the Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) approach for national park management. However, it is only minimally used by public agencies such as national park organisations. This study explores the potential that managers of Finnish national parks see in the PPGIS approach in the context of planning for the visitor use of parks. Ten semi-structured interviews with managers of Parks and Wildlife Finland were conducted. The managers perceived that PPGIS could help in optimising site management, and preferred PPGIS studies that are practical and clearly connected to planning site management actions. They envisioned a mobile phone application that would allow mapping visitor experiences on the spot. Overall, the managers were open to adopting place-based planning practices. The study increases the understanding of public agencies' views towards PPGIS. It also produces practical information for conducting PPGIS case studies as well as for integrating PPGIS tools into planning processes.
37-6779
Agricultural science. Decision making. Ecosystem. Ecosystem conservation. Land use planning. Mapping techniques. Maps.
Ecosystem Service assessment requires better integration of the information that supports land use decisions. Nevertheless, the interpretation of maps and their utilisation to address sustainability during the land use planning process remains critical, especially at a local scale. In this study, a Geographic Information System-Based approach is presented to transform an Ecosystem Service biophysical multipart analysis into a composite parcel-scale indicator, mainly using Esri ArcGIS (version 10.5) functions, and particularly: (i) the Weighted Overlay, (ii) Hotspot Analysis and (iii) Aggregation of Polygons. This methodology has been used experimentally in three municipalities of the metropolitan city of Turin (Italy) during the LIFE SAM4CP project. The study aims to demonstrate how the operationalisation of Ecosystem Service assessment in planning aided Local Administrations in defining land use planning priorities, such as the identification of land take control strategies and the definition of Urban Growth Boundaries.
37-6780
Economy. Environmental indicators. Environmental management. Environmental planning.
It has been argued that the circular economy (CE) represents an opportunity to achieve a paradigm shift in territory from the current linear model to a low-carbon, zero-waste economy. In this context, the implementation of the CE is holistically analysed to measure its impact and contribute to the debate about regional environmental management from the different perspectives of society, public administrations, and the private sector. Through a qualitative case study of a Spanish region, the main barriers of CE, such as the lack of funding for undertaking investments and the supply of recycled products, are identified, and the organisation of a waste-exchange system between companies or awareness campaigns concerning the CE are considered relevant incentives to be included in regional planning and management. This study confirms the economic and social win for CE that will be more effective as more CE activities are implemented at regional level.
37-6781
Cropping intensity. Environmental assessment. Geographic information systems.
The main objective of this research is to model the uncertainty associated with GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for crop suitability assessment. To achieve this goal, an integrated approach using GIS-MCDA in association with Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and global sensitivity analysis (GSA) were applied for Saffron suitability mapping in East-Azerbaijan Province in Iran. The results of this study indicated that integration of MCDA with MCS and GSA could improve modeling precision by reducing data variance. Results indicated that applying the MCS method using the local training data leads to computing the spatial correlation between criteria weights and characteristics of the study area. Results of the GSA method also allow us to obtain the priority of criteria and identify the most important criteria and the variability of outputs under uncertainty conditions for model inputs. The findings showed that, commonly used primary zoning methods, without considering the interaction effects of variables, had significant errors and uncertainty in the output of MCDA-based suitability models, which should be minimized by the advanced complementarity of sensitivity and uncertainty analysis.
37-6782
Environmental management. Market demand. Metropolitan standard areas. Models.
The diffusion of ISO 14001 has been modelling with logistic models to predict certifications. However, some alternatives for this model have been tested. Thus, this work tested an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model as an alternative to predict ISO 14001 certification in Europe. For this, the time series were constructed from the diffusion of the countries and the models were tested for the foremost fit and accuracy. Therefore, ARIMA models have adapted to the different states of diffusion of the countries in Europe, highlighting the countries with the highest number of certifications, such as Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. In addition, the model was able to adjust to the countries that presented decertification, such as Spain and Romania. The ARIMA model also showed an accuracy of 90% for some countries and can be used as an alternative to modelling diffusion data for ISO 14001 standards.
37-6783
China. Data. Environment.
This article examines the current trend toward solving issues of procurement and processing of publicly disclosed pollution source data in China, where this data is characterized by heterogeneity and lack of standardization. Through ethnography and software analysis, the article examines the hidden labor entailed in automation using the case study of a Chinese e-NGO. We identify the bulk of this labor in “datascape navigation”, or the practices needed to locate, acquire and process the desired information within the infrastructure enabling the circulation of the data. The aspects of this labor are examined in relation to two data flows: enterprise environmental supervision records and information about real-time emissions. We identify several forms of unpredicted human and non-human labor entailed by both unsuccessful and successful automation attempts. We conclude that the labor involved by software automation of environmental data procurement and processing can critically impact environmental disclosure timing and quality.
37-6784
Environmental assessment. Environmental indicators. Indicators.
The paper presents a multivariate measure useful for integrated environmental assessments. It is a weighted distance measure applied to metric data but based on nonparametric statistical procedures. The proposed measure allows all environmental indicators to be used directly without any reduction in dimension (e.g. as in principal component analysis) nor losing variance while being able to tolerate possible non-normality of the indicators, as well as non-linear relationships among them. Results of the hypothetical example and the Mid-Atlantic case study show that the proposed measure is suitable and valuable for integrating multiple indicators into a single index, an important task in integrated environmental assessment.
37-6785
Citizen involvement. Citizen participation. Environment. Environmental modeling. Environmental planning.
Recent research developments indicate that citizens' observatories, a novel approach for data collection, management and governance, can provide valuable contributions to strategic delta planning processes. Most citizen observatories are limited in spatial coverage during data collection, according to the citizens' availability and static locations. However, there are times in which citizens participate as trained volunteers during data collection field campaigns. In this later scenario, an important aspect in organising and maintaining citizen observatories is having a clear plan for data gathering activities, including determination of routes to be followed by these citizens. This article addresses the issue of determining such routes (called pathways) related to the specific problem of gathering data in deltaic areas, which are composed of intricate canals and wetlands. Data collection activities consist of citizens acquiring images and videos with mobile phones at predetermined locations (Points of Interest) that are only accessible by boats. A pathway selection approach is presented, supported by a hydrodynamic model, developed to capture the specific processes of the delta. The aim of the approach is to define: where to send the citizens to fulfil stakeholders' interest and planning goals, how to reach these points and which pathways should be selected (prioritised based on such interests), considering possible flood patterns. The developed methodology is part of an ongoing H2020 funded research. The proof of concept is carried out in the Sontea-Fortuna area, of the Danube Delta, which, similar to many wetlands, contains a large variety of unique, endemic species. With the developed approach, pathways to be followed by citizens during data collection campaigns were generated and scored considering local interests. Analysis of the boat's accessibility into the delta during different hydrological scenarios showed that the wetland is more accessible than expected, hence the proposed pathway approach was useful in prioritizing some canals over others. The determined pathways will be applied in field campaigns. The approach can be applied to other delta regions with different environmental problems, such as water quality or ecosystem assessment, contributing to the organisation of effective active citizen data collection.
37-6786
Climate. Climate change. Climate policy. Mapping techniques.
In this paper, we develop an approach for identifying the location of populations most vulnerable to extreme heat events and how those locations change over time. We scan the literature on measuring vulnerability, especially sensitivity and adaptive capacity of populations. We employ Census data for metropolitan Chicago for the years 1990, 2000, and 2010, and maximum likelihood factor analysis to derive an index and map the distribution of Census tracts where residents exhibit greater sensitivity and/or lower adaptive capacity to extreme heat. Our findings show a pattern of deconcentration and decentralization of these populations within the city and region over time, with gentrification and the suburbanization of poverty trends observed in many US metropolitan regions as possible contributing factors. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for planning efforts in the study area and offer suggestions for further research.
32-3 ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING
Actor-network theory. Environmental justice. Human activity.
Current environmental justice (EJ) research is moving beyond the distributional paradigm to embrace frameworks that emphasize the plurality of EJs. This study proposes that actor-network theory (ANT), which foregrounds nonhuman agency and heterogeneous associations, holds great potential for pushing forward this research agenda. It presents an ANT-informed analysis of the plural epistemologies of EJ by focusing on a global e-waste scalvaging hub—Guiyu in China. E-waste is considered a fluid and emergent material actant. The multiplicity of e-waste materialities coconstitutes the disparate worldings of EJ, with a wide range of actors involved in the knowledge-making practices. Disparate EJ realities concerning e-waste scalvaging have been worlded and enacted through the heterogeneous associations among numerous nonhuman actors, including discarded electronic devices, environmental conditions, pollutants, toxic substances, artifacts, discourses, tools and techniques, and a variety of human stakeholders, ranging from nongovernmental organizations, media, and academics to local scalvagers relying on e-waste for livelihood and wealth. In tracing these heterogeneous associations, this study juxtaposes two competing EJ worldings related to the ontological indeterminacy of e-waste. It first problematizes the worlding of North-to-South dumping that not only mispresents the complex geographies of e-waste, but also epitomizes a simplified distributional model of EJ.Then it ventures to theorize an often-neglected and underresearched dimension: EJ as situated capabilities and functionings concerned by the local community. This study thus adds to ongoing efforts to advance pluralist epistemologies of EJ.
Design policies. Environmental management. Ground water.
The initiative of Sponge City has been launched in China to manage stormwater in cities. This study aims to understand the motivation of professionals in advocating for sponge cities and their opinions on implementing sponge measures. This study surveyed 443 water and planning professionals who have been involved in sponge cities in South China, which is an area that is located in the subtropical climate zone with abundant rainfall and serious urban stormwater issues. A ‘crisis-action' model that was established in this study revealed that professionals' crisis awareness on urban flooding, water pollution and water scarcity would make them feel responsible for water protection, recycling and conservation, and the recognition of sponge cities as the advantageous solution would trigger their advocacy for the related policy. The professionals' opinions on the feasibility of the sponge measures that have been proposed at the national level pointed to complex factors such as precipitation, urban density and cost-effectiveness in implementing Sponge City at the local level. This study also found some demographic differences in the responsibility and support for the Sponge City initiative. The results call for a more collaborative work platform for engaging various professionals in urban stormwater management.
37-6787
Cooperative planning. Environmental quality. Ground water.
Decentralized approaches to environmental policy benefit from local input and knowledge, yet also place greater responsibility on local governments. Under the US Clean Water Act, thousands of municipalities are required to implement stormwater programs. Most research has focused on stormwater management strategies in large cities, but there are few studies of how smaller municipalities respond to federal mandates given their relatively limited fiscal and staffing capacities. Our work examines the prevalence of outsourcing strategies to administer stormwater programs among municipalities in Utah. We find that municipalities use a mix of in-house staffing, private consultant use, and cooperation with other municipalities to develop and administer their stormwater programs. The use of private consultants was most common among suburban cities, while all municipalities engaged in inter-municipal cooperation through county-level coalitions that take responsibility for public education programming. Reliance on the county-level coalition had the effect of distancing managers from public education activities.
37-6788
Climate. Climate change. Climate policy.
Climate change communication integrates climate education theory and practices. It indicates the public understanding of scientific knowledge on climate change, communicative context, public engagement, and adaption. It is important to communicate climate change messages successfully to various groups in society, including residents, environmental educators, policymakers, researchers, to increase public understanding of climate change. This study examines 454 journals, 1,408 articles and 51,786 references to explore the intellectual development and research fronts in the knowledge area of climate change communication.
37-6789
Biodiversity. Diversity. Environmental management. Human behavior.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the management of buffer zones around protected areas does not often take into serious account the needs of resource exploitation by the local populations or the conservation needs of these areas. We described the ecological characteristics and management issues affecting the buffer zone around the Fazao-Malfakassa National Park; a 192,000-ha protected area in central-western Togo of utmost conservation importance within the Dahomey Gap region. Within the buffer zone (10?km radius, 334,800?ha), we focussed on four high conservation value areas totalling 65,594?ha (20% of the total buffer zone area). Using 2015 sentinel-2 images we analyzed land cover patterns and described existing ecological zones. We complemented these with field surveys and interviews with 300 people living in 22 villages within the buffer zone to describe the conditions affecting the resident human population. Although over 60% of the total buffer zone area is degraded, we identified four areas of high conservation value (total area = 65,594?ha). Interviewees recognized that slash-and-burn was the most common form of land use, followed by agroforestry practices. Agriculture, charcoal, and firewood production were the main drivers affecting habitats, and land conflicts were recurrent due to the rise in human population. The decline in agriculture, reported by interviewees in some sectors, was attributable to ravages of crops by elephants. Three independent diversity indices showed that, in preserved zones, a greater diversity of animals (with similar utilization frequencies) were hunted than in degraded sites (where grasscutters were the dominant hunted species). There were also significant differences between degraded and preserved zones in terms of plants used for charcoal production and for non-timber forest products. We advocate the development of community-controlled hunting areas to enhance the conservation value of the four well-preserved zones. Instead, promoting sustainable agricultural production systems in the degraded areas can help to further stabilize the agricultural front and reduce land pressure on the park.
37-6790
Commodity. Environmental management. Municipalities.
We envisage the waste management strategy of the local bodies as one of sharing different responsibilities with households along different stages of the process viz., collection, processing and disposal. This difference arises in terms of the variants of Pay-as-You-Throw scheme, recycling arrangements for non-biodegradable waste and treatment options for organic waste. In this article, we account for this policy heterogeneity by locating the waste management practices adopted by different municipal authorities in an integrated strategic framework. We use information on waste management services from country case studies to identify the variations in the sharing arrangements between households and the municipalities in urban areas of low, middle and high-income countries. Our results suggest that an efficient market in waste management might be associated with the degree of apportionment of cost of waste processing by involving households in the primary disposal and private entities in final disposal in the presence of economic instruments.
37-6791
Agency decision making. Collective social memory. Infrastructure. Institutional analysis. Institutions.
The social and institutional context of infrastructure planning has shifted tremendously over recent decades. From top–down implementation, infrastructure planners are now forced to incorporate the demands and wishes of citizens and other external stakeholders. This paper adopts the analytical perspective of institutional work to analyse how a number of Dutch infrastructure planning organisations try to remain in control over these changes in their institutional context. Building on social systems thinking, this paper distinguishes three environments in which this control can play out: the internal environment over which an organisation has complete control, an external environment over which an organisation has little control and a transactional environment where the organisation, through its interactions with other actors, can influence institutional development. The paper concludes that while most forms of institutional work applied by the infrastructure planning organisations under study aim to change the organisations' interactions with stakeholders, the forms of institutional work are predominantly located within the internal environment of planning organisations.
37-6792
Built environment. Climate change. Climate policy. Environmental policy. Housing.
Climate vulnerabilities of the built environment are increasingly recognised. Mainstreaming adaptation concerns in urban development and redevelopment projects is commonly propagated as an effective policy strategy. Adaptation mainstreaming research often studies public actors. This article investigates the adaptation practices by housing associations, in the institutional and discursive developments of the social housing domain in which they are embedded. The analytical concepts of mainstreaming and adaptation barriers are combined with the discursive-institutional policy arrangement approach to answer the question: what factors influence the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation measures in development and renovation projects in the social housing domain in the Netherlands? We conclude that anticipatory and deliberate adaptation action to date was very scarce and attention limited in the social housing domain. On the project implementation level, factors that hampered adaptation mainstreaming in housing development were limited awareness, low priority in relation to other issues, financial constraints, regulatory constraints, lacking cooperation, and no materialisation of adaptation concerns in procedures and performance agreements. On the level of the policy arrangement, adaptation is weakly institutionalized in the Dutch social housing domain. The institutionalisation of a competing ‘core activities' discourse hampered the legality of climate adaptation measures and eroded financial resources, dispersing the power to mobilise them over the arrangement. Uncertainty over the meaning of the new regulations, in combination with the absence of a comprehensive regulatory framework for adaptation and the self-identified culture of risk aversion by housing associations, delimits adaptation action becoming a standard operating procedure of social housing associations.
37-6793
Diverse neighborhoods. Environment. Infrastructure.
Green Infrastructure (GI) evaluation is reported to improve the sustainability of neighbourhood masterplans, but there has been little research examining the links between GI evaluation and masterplan decision-making. A study of six English masterplanned sites was carried out, with paired case studies reflecting three types of neighbourhood development (estate regeneration, urban infill, and rural-urban extension) to examine whether the sustainable neighbourhood standard, BREEAM Communities (BC), affected GI evaluation and masterplan decisions. In each of three pairs, one site had adopted BC and one had not. Strategy-as-Practice provided a conceptual framework to analyse 13 evaluative episodes, based on 48 interviews and public documents. The analysis revealed that GI-related recommendations were typically deprioritised at later masterplan stages, despite earlier decisions or the application of BC. Potential ways to enhance the embeddedness of GI evaluative practice include improving practitioners' understanding of GI and increasing accountability at later masterplan stages, such as through sustainability reporting.
37-6794
Behavior. Change. Citizen participation. Environmental planning. Management networks.
Survey results of citizen science water data collection volunteers are presented, indicating personal benefits (e.g., being in nature, helping local water quality), and suggesting potential long-term benefits of improved watershed health (e.g., behavior change). These results can inform citizen science program development and contribute to watershed planners' understanding of the broad benefits of such programs. We suggest that respondents' positive feelings toward the watershed’s major river and desire to learn about science and nature are place-specific elements that watershed and citizen science program managers could utilize in program development. Moreover, we explore the potential of social diffusion and behavior change and suggest the need for further research in these areas. We conclude that citizen science has potential not just as a means to collect large amounts of data (cheaply), but as a means to engage citizens to make environmentally friendly decisions.
37-6795
Citizen participation. Community participation. Decentralization. Environmental management. Ground water.
A reduction in the legitimacy of top-down governance approaches has resulted in many government agencies using decentralised governance approaches, including localism. However, the effective implementation of localism is challenging. Localism aims to encourage innovative context-based solutions; however unanticipated implementation problems often constrain localism outcomes. There is a significant gap in our understanding of localism in practice, with a better understanding essential to improve localism design and implementation. This paper contributes to addressing this gap through an empirical examination of localism in action. Using the CLEAR framework, we evaluate the decentralised governance of environmental water in the Australian state of New South Wales, a contentious, uncertain and multi-level governance environment. Qualitative interviews with 58 Environmental Water Advisory Group members identified barriers to an effective localism approach, including issues of access and capacity development, transparency of decision-making outcomes and power inequities. This understanding enables the development of strategies for improved localism practice.
37-6796
Environmental management. Geographic information systems. Land use. Land use changes. Landscape ecology.
This article uses a multiscale approach for assessing landscape changes in one of the world's biodiversity hotspots in Brazil, the Rio Doce State Park (PERD). In this article, we assess land use changes over a 30?year period. Our results show that, while inside the park landscape changes were minimal, in the park buffer zone human induced changes are steadily rising due to an increase in eucalyptus plantations and urban sprawl that grew by 4% and 1.9%, respectively. Agricultural land has been reduced by 6.35%, but there are trends that a form of welcome forest transition has been occurring. We report an increase in native forests from 40,588?ha in 1985 to 45,690?ha in 2015. The analysis of human impacts in the study area delivers very different results when varying the pixel size from 25?ha to 900 m2. The former shows a very high level of human influence while the latter reveals small but vital patches of native forest offering hopeful opportunities for sustainable natural resource management in this critical biome. Our work stresses the importance of better targeted policy making and sympathetic land use management of buffer zones of protected areas. Currently, such zones suffer from many development pressures and often experience contradictory policy frameworks which encourage a clash between biodiversity conservation and intensive agro husbandry production.
37-6797
Europe. Heritage. Landscape.
The impact of globalised trends changing the rural environment is often thought to require environmental and ecology-focused policies and actions. But many of the problems have human (societal) causes, and solutions need also to be primarily culturally based. This essay, drawing on the ‘CHeriScape' network in western Europe, explores the advantage of seeking a more comprehensive, integrative response to rural change using the twinned concepts of landscape and heritage. It discusses recent developments in conceptualising landscape and heritage, and how these could support effective culturally based approaches that are participatively democratic and also take account of human behaviour. After brief summaries of evolving paradigms for landscape and heritage, and of global challenges, the paper suggests that a landscape–heritage nexus, familiar to the lay public but capable of nuanced and fluid application, offers an effective way ahead. It concludes by identifying some obstacles that hinder the effective implementation of such an approach.
37-6798
Decision making. Ecosystem. Ecosystem conservation. Land use planning. Land-use planning.
This research explores the use of an Ecosystem Services (ES) approach as a land-use planning tool, its perceived benefits and challenges, and opportunities for improvement. For this study, in-depth interviews were used with 21 professionals who had been involved in projects in which ecosystem services were valuated, quantified, and/ or described in Florida. Three categories of obstacles are identified that hinder the integration of an ES approach in land-use planning. These categories are 1) method complexity; 2) communication of results; and, 3) support for ES efforts. Based on the interviewees’ experiences, options to address these challenges are proposed.
37-6799
Administration. Environmental assessment. Europe. Management.
Strategic spatial planning has been suggested as a means for environmental sustainability. However, there are significant challenges with operationalising and integrating policy-driven strategic spatial planning within the standardised and process-oriented management systems of local authorities. This aspect has motivated discussions on how implementation of strategic spatial planning with a focus on environmental sustainability is conditioned by management systems. The empirical case is local planning and management practices in a local authority in Sweden. Interviews with planners, together with planning and policy documents, make up the empirical material. The analysis proposes that the integration of environmental perspectives into strategic spatial planning processes depends on (i) the overall concerns for environmental issues in local policy, and (ii) how administrative management systems can facilitate transformative practice in planning. In conclusion, this article illustrates how environmental sustainability in strategic spatial planning is formed and conditioned through interplay between local policy and administrative management procedures.
37-6800
Adaptation. Adaptation strategies. Decision making.
Handling uncertainties is a major challenge in climate change adaptation. A variety of robust decision support approaches that aim for better management of uncertainty have recently been emerging and are used in environmental planning. The present study examined to what extent existing processes of planning for future sea-level rise in Sweden utilised similar approaches. Three core principles of robust decision support approaches were identified and used as a tool for analyzing five cases of planning for future sea-level rise in companies and authorities at different levels in society. The results show that planning processes typically do not embrace uncertainties, do not use a bottom-up approach and do not specifically aim for robustness, which points to a discrepancy between current planning paradigms and the core principles of robust decision support approaches.
37-6801
Ecotourism. Environmental assessment. Environmental planning.
Planning for the future is uncertain, and scenario analysis is a method of coping with the uncertainties of future plans. This paper addresses how to deal with future uncertainties by using scenario analysis as a possible approach for conducting a strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Although scenario-based approaches have been linked to strategic planning and SEA, this paper for the first time proposes how a combined approach may be implemented using specific tools and methodologies and, further on, it also implements the first three stages of the six stages proposed for the ‘scenario-based strategic planning' approach. This work is an attempt to standardize SEA and scenario analysis as a combined approach. The three stages are tested within the Tourism Development Plan of the Iranian province of Gilan, which has been selected as a case study.
37-6802
Cities. City planning. Criteria and indicators. Ecosystem. Environmental indicators. Europe.
Almost three out of four EU citizens live in urban areas. Knowledge on the city's environmental structure and capabilities is needed as urbanization is expected to continue. In this study, eight indicators on urban ecosystems condition (ECIs) were quantified for 305 EU cities (>100.000 inhabitants). A composite indicator (CI), based on the ECIs, indicated differences between northern and southern EU countries, with Umeå having the highest CI value (1.56) and Napoli the lowest (-1.21). Positive effects of urban green infrastructure (GI) were found for NO2 removal, recreation opportunities and lowered urban heat island effect. The proportion of green and built infrastructure differs between city cores and larger urban zones, and the area outside the core hosts a considerable part of the overall GI. This zone is thus of importance for the provisioning of urban ecosystem services, to be considered when planning for urban growth and climate adaptation strategies.
37-6803
Adaptive management. Development strategies. Ecology.
In this article, we describe ecological recovery efforts – restoration – as a crucial component of strategic delta planning. We present restoration as a design process at once biogeophysical and territorial that entails socioecological uncertainties. Adaptive management is an approach to dealing with uncertainties through active monitoring and recalibration of actions taken. We have developed a ‘socioecological monitoring' program that uses existing biophysical monitoring protocols to collect data on human use. Beyond provisioning demographic and use data, this program also helps to change the relationship between the monitors and managers involved in adaptive management and diverse non-scientific publics, who have thus far been removed from the process. Our approach highlights the importance of user experiences and affective labor to bring people into the design of restoration areas, both as actors to be managed for, as well as agents whose values and desires can help guide landscape evolution.
37-6804
Choice model. Economic value. Environmental management. Forest management systems.
This study estimates the economic contribution of grazing management practices in pastoral systems by specifically undertaking an economic analysis of pastoralists' preferences for grazing management practices and the economic value pastoralists place on them. The study applied the discrete choice experiment technique using a D-optimal design, a multi-attribute preference elicitation method to evaluate the economic value of grazing management options practiced in pastoral areas of Kenya. The results show that pastoral communities derive positive utility in connected systems that enable reciprocal access to resources in both wet and dry seasons. Pastoralism adapts to spatial–temporal variability of pasture and water through herd mobility; hence the positive utility derived from practices that contribute to the availability of adequate water and pasture across the seasons. These findings provide empirical evidence on the social and economic net benefits of rangeland management practices that should be enhanced to promote sustainable management of rangeland resources.
37-6805
Administration. Cost-benefit analysis. Environment.
Farmers' subjectively perceived that administrative transaction costs are of high importance for the uptake of agri-environmental programs with direct effects on the effectiveness and efficiency of these programs and the well-being of farmers. This paper empirically estimates private administrative transaction costs resulting from an uptake of the newly introduced grassland-based milk and meat program in Switzerland, based on farmers' perceived administrative workload. Using ordered logit models, we analyze how the administrative tasks and farm and farmer characteristics influence the perceived administrative workload. We find that the time spent on monitoring or inspection tasks has no effect. In contrast, an outsourcing of program-related administrative tasks significantly reduces the perceived administrative workload. We also find that a better understanding of agricultural policy regulations significantly reduces the farmers' perceived administrative workload. We recommend that public administration improve the communication of agricultural policy regulations, rather than investing in the simplification of administrative forms.
37-6806
Community. Conservation. Conservation planning. Environmental management.
Decentralized environmental management is a widespread conservation strategy in Africa, yet a better understanding of how community-based programs evolve is critical to success. We conducted 10 focus groups to assess how stakeholder groups in community-based conservancies mature with time, comparing two older, more established conservancies with three younger ones. We tested a Group Maturity Model to determine how conservancy age relates to group characteristics, including worldview, internal processes, external links, and lifespan. Conservancies changed over time, with older programs having higher maturity scores than younger programs. Stakeholder maturity scores within groups did not differ, yet qualitative differences among conservancies revealed important developmental elements for community-based programs. Our results suggest ways to use the Group Maturity Model to facilitate environmental management evaluation. Community-based environmental management projects can use group maturity evaluation to identify potential interventions for enhancing program efficacy.
37-6807
Contingent valuation. Mass transportation. Models.
There are ambitious plans to construct an extensive network of off-road walking and cycling routes, known as greenways, across Ireland. However, land acquisition has proven challenging in some rural areas. This paper uses a contingent valuation study, based on the Teagasc National Farm Survey (NFS) of Ireland, to explore farmers' willingness to participate in greenway development. The results reveal that farmers are split on the issue of greenway land acquisition: approximately half would not allow a route to run through their farm, irrespective of compensation. Farmers' main concerns in this regard are: insurance, impact on farming operations and nuisance/crime. Of the farmers willing to participate in greenway development, the mean (once-off) payment required is €56,000 per kilometre of greenway length. These findings suggest that Irish Government agencies and local authorities must work to alleviate farmers' concerns and undertake extensive consultation to yield acceptable route options.
37-6808
Community participation. Conservation. Environmental protection.
Previous studies attempting to explain the factors that determine local participation in conservation initiatives have concluded that socio-political exclusion is the main barrier to being involved in such initiatives. Such studies have not differentiated between different types of conservation initiatives. In this paper, we contribute to the literature analyzing the socio-cultural correlates of participation, by differentiating between participation in three types of conservation schemes: protected areas, payment for environmental services, and community conservation. We use data obtained from six rural communities in Mexico, where different combinations of conservation schemes are found. Through linear regression analysis, we explore the relationship between participation and (1) the community of residence; (2) demographics; and (3) socioeconomic characteristics of individuals. Our results suggest that local participation in conservation strategies depends, to a large extent, on the socio-political context in which they are embedded and that the exclusion of women and young adults is clearly consistent.
37-6809
Environmental management. Environmental planning. Environmental policy.
This study takes the stagnation in the transfer of knowledge about strategic delta planning as a starting point and identifies the interplay of constraining factors. We conclude that the way the process of policy transfer is executed is crucial. The Dutch government aims to transfer the Dutch approach to delta planning (labelled ‘the Dutch Delta Approach') to other – often developing – countries. However, policy transfer is a complex process that depends on a variety of factors. Deadlocks can occur when the transferred knowledge and the corresponding policy ideas are neither adopted nor rejected. Taking the impasse in the transfer process in the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development project in Jakarta as a case study, we demonstrate that fundamental policy change is needed to adopt strategic delta planning in Jakarta and present three interrelated explanations, related to the policy transfer process, that illustrate why this change is not yet observed.
37-6810
Choice model. Contingent valuation. Means of payment.
We directly compare trip willingness to pay (WTP) values between dichotomous choice contingent valuation (DCCV) and discrete choice experiment (DCE) stated preference surveys of private party Grand Canyon whitewater boaters. The consistency of DCCV and DCE estimates is debated in the literature, and this study contributes to the body of work comparing the methods. Comparisons were made of mean WTP estimates for four hypothetical Colorado River flow-level scenarios. Boaters were found to most highly value mid-range flows, with very low and very high flows eliciting lower WTP estimates across both DCE and DCCV surveys. Mean WTP precision was estimated through simulation. No statistically significant differences were detected between the two methods at three of the four hypothetical flow levels.
37-6811
Coastal environment. Coastal management. Coastal regions. Developing countries. Flooding.
Flooding is a major environmental problem around the world. The problem is expected to worsen with climate change, particularly in coastal megacities of developing nations (CMDN), where vulnerability to extreme weather events is high and flood management capacity is weak. This systematic literature review focuses on structural approaches to flood management in CMDN as most of these cities rely heavily on them. The review covers the last two decades, being the period 1998–2018. Results reveal key areas of research, which are discussed within two broad categories of focus (1) establishment of new flood control projects and (2) management of existing flood control infrastructure. Several directions are suggested to guide future research efforts.
37-6812
Consolidation. Drinking water. Environmental planning. Ground water. Low-density sprawl.
Across the United States, poorly-performing, small drinking water systems operate under nominal public oversight in spatial patterns that neither cohere with other administrative jurisdictions nor conform to environmental, efficiency, or equity criteria. This study lays out the case for planning intervention to address the over-dispersion of drinking water systems, or water system sprawl. An analysis of data collected on every publicly-regulated drinking water system in Los Angeles County serves as a case study to illustrate the extent of sprawl and its consequences. To inform an understanding of feasible interventions to address sprawl, this study reviews development approval regulations and general plans, and conducts interviews with state and regional officials in California. Findings suggest that planning authorities that provide nominal safeguards against sprawl are not actively used to influence drinking water system boundaries, but both the tools of LAFCOs and novel governance authorities hold more promise for reform.
37-6813
Environmental indicators. Environmental management. Environmental planning. Landscape planning.
Work on landscape diversification resulting from the European Landscape Convention obliges European countries to identify and assess the state of their landscapes. The aim of this article is to test a new method of landscape profiling, enabling measurement of the extent of anthropogenic transformation of a landscape and indication of zones of landscape disturbance. The method is based on an interdisciplinary analysis of various aspects of the landscape, consisting of an assessment of the degree of overlap between natural and non-natural boundaries. Three types of relationships were identified: landscape convergence (LC), landscape divergence (LD), and zone of landscape disturbance (ZLD). This analysis makes it easier for urban planners to change their existing land development plans. The method can be used universally to detect inappropriate land development, which is important in diagnosing the condition of landscapes and can be used in the spatial planning of cities and suburban zones.
37-6814
Adaptive management. Community transformation. Development strategies. Environmental policy.
In this review, we take stock of 10 research articles that cover strategic delta planning processes in Asia, Europe, and the US. We test working hypotheses about consent, innovations, actor coalitions, and planning tools in different phases. We posit that strategic delta planning is a deliberate effort to influence delta developments, wherein wishful thinking on how a delta could develop is repeatedly confronted with vested practices and interests. These confrontations produce expected (e.g., institutional embedment, changing people's minds) and unexpected changes (e.g., actors suddenly consenting or stepping out). Strategic delta planning is therefore not only an ambitious planning process, it is also highly uncertain, as consent on strategic directions has to be renegotiated across phases and arenas. Recommendations for practice are therefore highlighted that cover vocabulary, persuasiveness and tools. Further research is proposed to study the vagaries of strategic delta plans in urbanising deltas.
37-6815
Corporate responsibility. Development. Environmental responsibility. Knowledge.
Considering the growing awareness about sustainable development among various stakeholders, the present study aims to examine the impact of employees' knowledge absorptive capacity (KAC) on firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices for accomplishing corporate sustainability performance (CSP) goals by following the absorptive capacity and green theory. Data were collected using a convenience sampling technique from 587 ISO-certified manufacturing Multinational Corporations (MNCs) from the Asia Pacific region, including those from China, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Middle East, and Taiwan. It was analysed using partial least squares structural equation modeling and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). As per the results, KAC is positively correlated with CSR activities and significantly impacts CSP. Second, CSR was found to have a considerable mediating impact. Third, importance-performance map analysis indicated that the performance of KAC is relatively higher than CSR for CSP. Furthermore, fsQCA results validate the robustness of constructs towards CSP.
37-6816
Environmental governance. Land use planning. Landscape planning.
Rural land-use planning should handle land-use interests, such as nature-based tourism, biodiversity preservation and industrial resource extraction, on an appropriate level of scale. Management for multifunctionality represents an option in factually multifunctional landscapes. The Swedish policy of national interests, as applied in the context of the three northernmost municipalities' statutory comprehensive plan-making, provides an attempt in this direction. Based on mapping and practitioner interviews, the study reveals that the vague ‘practical' implications of the omnipresent land-use designations under the policy complicate the task of local-level spatial planning. Integrated consideration of multiple uses (or use options), implicated by policy principles, was found to fall back into case-by-case assessments. Land-use designation can be worked into a tool for the governance of multifunctional landscapes when care is taken to manage the aspects outlined in the study, among others interagency orchestration and explicit regulation of co-existence.
37-6817
Economic analysis. Environmental management. Europe. Growth.
This work aimed to analyse the diffusion of ISO 14001 certifications in Europe and among economic sectors and the use of the relative growth rate (RGR) as an alternative to evaluate the diffusion of certificates. It has been observed that the RGR of the diffusion of certification in Europe starts very high (0.41) and has narrowed to close to 0 in recent years. Thus, the shape of the diffusion curve for Europe shows that the region presents mature behaviour, where it has already reached a maximum level of ISO 14001 certificates. Among the countries, Italy obtained an RGR of 0.91 in 2001; for France and Romania, diffusion takes an S-shape. ISO 14001 certifications by economic sector showed that in Italy, only basic metal fabricated metal product sectors presented RGR < 0.15. Therefore, most of the economic sectors are expanding their certifications. Furthermore, RGR is useful in classification of the diffusive state.
37-6818
Climate. Climate change. Climate policy. Environmental governance. Governance.
While strengthening public–private interplay is expected to improve the climate profile of urban planning in terms of mitigation and adaptation, less is known about the practice of such new interactive modes of governing. The paper critically examines the role, benefits and limitations of extended public–private interplay in developing a new housing district in Sweden. The developer dialogue between municipal officials and property developers confirms mutual interests, shared understandings and the added value of interacting. However, the closer the dialogue comes to settling agreements, the more difficult it gets for municipal officials to steer the process and its outcomes in favor of climate proofing. Complications with adapting to the new interactive setting means that municipal officials balance between acting as facilitators and/or regulators and property developers between acting as partners, competitors and/or defenders. Refining steering-strategies for sustaining commitments and securing formal agreements are pertinent for using public–private interplay to climate-proof urban planning.
37-6819
Biotechnology industry. Europe. Ground water. Market transition.
Urban rainwater management is the terrain of varied initiatives that challenge existing drainage systems. The initiatives that this article refers to as Urban Rainwater Harvesting (URH), promise a more sustainable urban water approach; however, they remain isolated “niche” projects. The article aims to investigate challenges and opportunities for mainstreaming alternative URHs as sociotechnical systems (STS). It identifies six analytical categories: context, actors, instruments, processes/dynamics, outputs and impacts as a framework for the analyses of URH projects in Stockholm, Berlin and Barcelona. Despite the diversity of socio-spatial contexts, driving forces, purposes, instruments used, technical designs and scale of URH projects, relevant factors for a breakthrough of these systems are discussed. Even though URHs have not yet become a common component of rainwater management in any of the cities, context-specific combinations of these factors are found to be essential if these systems are to become complementary options for the sustainable management of rainwater in cities.
37-6820
Ecosystem. Ecosystem conservation. Environmental management. Environmental value. Landscape.
Undermined by the increasing urban sprawl as well as intensification of agricultural production, the urban–rural fringe agricultural landscapes face challenges of ensuring viable food production, reducing environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, as well as sustaining rural development. Policies and strategies such as the Common Agricultural Policy, the European Landscape Convention and Biodiversity Strategy address these problems in their objectives, but they are based on different concepts regarding landscape functions and ecosystem services. To provide planners with a comprehensive landscape valuation framework, we refer to the policy objectives by assessing three rural landscape functions: environmental balance, food production and providing vital space to live, and tourist businesses with the use of landscape indicators and ecosystem services. We introduce the criteria of vulnerability to landscape changes, legal environmental protection, cultural heritage, scenic variety, and clarity to assess landscape values and water purification and retention, food production and recreational potential to assess ecosystem services. The results encourage the combination of the two approaches, since in a well-structured framework they complement each other in terms of covering different aspects of landscape value. An integrated approach to landscape assessment enables the picturing of more diverse values, and can better inform landscape and spatial planners. The novelty of this research is the use of landscape units as the basis for the application of ecosystem service and landscape valuation integrated assessment at the level that matches the scale of land use policy on the municipality level.
37-6821
Adaptation. Adaptation strategies. Adaptive management. Cities. Coastal environment. Coastal management.
Port cities are on the frontline of emerging coastal risks related to climate change, sea-level rise, and human impacts on coastal zones. This article addresses the need for adaptation in port cities. It reviews key meanings of coastal climate adaptation, and its inherent complexity and uncertainties. It then provides an overview of the current status of coastal climate adaptation, discusses ‘adaptation deficits' in port cities, and describes barriers to adaptation. Subsequently, it highlights the need for adaptive (coastal) planning and management in the face of changing and uncertain future conditions. Finally, it points out research needs and challenges regarding adaptation in port cities, namely the need for localized risk assessments, the need to reduce adaptation deficits, the need to mainstream adaptation into spatial planning, the need for advanced studies on adaptation measures, the need for integrated efforts, the need for adaptive planning approaches for dealing with changing risks over time, under uncertainty in highly dynamic environments.
37-6822
Canada. Institutional analysis. Institutions. Local development.
We investigate the potential of mapping institutional work in communities as a method for both analyzing and formulating local development strategy. Twelve Canadian case communities experiencing dramatic ups and downs (‘boom and bust towns') serve as the empirical base. Analytically, we find that institutional work for strategy takes on very diverse forms, some of them not described in the literature, and further identify a special class of institutional work associated with leadership. Normatively, we demonstrate that mapping institutional work can be a structured process of self-reflection underpinning strategy. For the Canadian case study, we find that lack of local autonomy is often a stumbling block for strategy. More broadly, we conclude that mapping institutional work for strategy works best when governance evolutions are grasped as context, and when strategy itself is understood in its complex, multifaceted nature: a narrative, a way of linking institutions, and an institution in itself.
37-6823
Cultures of resistance. Emotions. Environmental governance. Forest planning. Forest regions.
Using the case of forest and pasture commons in the Carpathian Mountains, this paper examines the emotional work carried out in institutions, in creating and changing rules, accessing resources, in leadership and contestation processes. The recent restitution of land commons in Romania has created possibilities for participation in the field of relations that shape environments and governance. This paper brings empirical research, based on extensive fieldwork, to showcase disputes over grazing areas, allegations of deforestation and ecological neglect. The ethnographic approach helps reveal the intricate processes by which actors create, experience and rework institutions bottom-up. This paper argues for an enlivened approach to institutions as complex, emergent and relational entities. Using the lens of a relational-vitalist ontology, it emphasizes the depth and subtlety of activities carried out by people that bring forth institutions, and draws attention to the interconnectedness of productive, political and emotional labour.
37-6824
City planning. Environmental management. Infrastructure. Natural environment.
Green infrastructure (GI) has been identified as a promising approach to help cities adapt to climate change through the provision of multiple ecosystem services. However, GI contributions to urban resilience will not be realized until it is more fully mainstreamed in the built environment and design professions. Here, we interrogate five key challenges for the effective implementation of GI: (1) design standards; (2) regulatory pathways; (3) socio-economic considerations; (4) financeability; and (5) innovation. Methods include a literature review, case studies, and interviews with resilience managers. We propose a people-centred and context-dependent approach to advance effective implementation of GI in urban planning. We highlight two underlying currents that run across all of the challenges – (1) the role of political will as a pre-condition for tackling all challenges holistically; and (2) the role of stakeholder engagement in achieving public support, harnessing funding, and maintaining and monitoring GI in the long term.
32-4 RISK MANAGEMENT/IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Climate. Climate policy. Landscape planning.
In 1900 the present Hambergbukta fjord did not exist and its basin was filled with the huge Hambergbreen glacier. The glacier then experienced progressive recession during a period of climate warming. The retreat of its front was perhaps the most spectacular expression of this recession. Eventually, a small bay named Hambergbukta appeared in 1936. By the 1950s the bay had become transformed into a new fjord 6 to 7?km long and 3 to 4?km wide. Its basin was progressively abandoned by the glacier and flooded by the sea. After 1961, the glacier surged and refilled the fjord basin with a fissured glacier tongue, and the fjord coastline became occupied by lateral ice-moraine ridges. Since 1970, the Hambergbreen glacier has undergone progressive recession again, resulting in the formation of the present-day Hambergbukta fjord. There exist significant differences in the landforms found between the northern and southern fjord coastlines: The former consists mainly of preserved lateral ice moraine ridges, whereas in the latter the ice cores have melted and low coastal plains have formed. This transformation continues to the present day. The Hamberbukta fjord has currently achieved its largest dimensions (including length), while being closed off from more inland areas by two tidewater glaciers: remnants of the Hambergbreen and Sykorabreen glaciers, the latter being a tributary glacier of the former in the 1980s.
37-6825
Analysis. Brush fires. Forest management systems. Forest planning. Geographic information systems. Management networks.
This research investigates the efficiency of combining the Analytical Network Process (ANP) and fuzzy logic for developing a fire risk map. Major factors influencing the occurrence of forest fires were identified from the literature. The importance of each factor was determined by an ANP ranking procedure, which yielded the criteria weights, while fuzzy logic was employed for assessing the weights of the subcriteria. Then, GIS-based aggregation functions were employed to produce a fire risk map. In order to validate the results, forest fire locations were identified using field data, satellite images, and national reports. This validation revealed a very high accuracy of 0.819 for the fuzzy ANP model. The results will serve as guidelines for researchers and scientists by introducing new and robust MCDA methods. In general, the mentioned Hybrid method can be applied to early warning, fire suppression resources planning, and allocation work in the study area.
37-6826
Adaptive behavior. Adaptive management. Motivation.
Saltwater intrusion is one of the main problems in the coastal provinces in the Mekong Delta (including the Tra Vinh province), and it is becoming more severe with climate change and rising sea levels. In the face of this problem, a strategic plan has been developed for the Vietnamese Mekong Delta that suggests adapting to increasing salinity levels. However, the farmers' capacity to implement the changes is unclear. The objective of this study was to assess farmers' adaptive capacities towards saline intrusion in the Tra Vinh province in order to provide appropriate adaptation options, using the MOTA (Motivation-Ability) approach. This study surveyed 187 farmers regarding their perception, motivation, and ability in different saline environments in the study area, including three regions: seawater areas (region 1), brackish water areas (region 2), and freshwater areas (region 3). The results showed that farmers have quite high perceptions of salinity intrusion, especially farmers who live in areas affected by it. Regarding the level of saltwater intrusion, the farmers' motivation in all three regions had a negative score, which indicates their motivation for adapting to increased salinity was quite low. Additionally, the farmers' adaptive capacities in all three regions were moderate, with lowest capacities in educational level and rate of participation in non-agricultural organizations. The study results may be useful for managers and policy-makers in proposing appropriate and feasible options for implementing an adaptation plan to ensure sustainable livelihoods for local farmers.
37-6827
Coastal environment. Coastal management. Collective-risk situations. Environmental governance. Flooding.
Over recent decades, the number of people and the capital invested in flood-prone areas has undergone a significant increase worldwide, particularly in coastal areas. There are several studies that show how the influence of socio-economic factors over local planning authorities seems to be the main reason for exposure increase. This paper explores the causes and consequences of inefficient flood risk governance along the Spanish Mediterranean coastal municipalities. For that purpose, national and regional flood management policies were contrasted with the outcomes of a spatial intersection between cadastral data at local level and floodable areas, for different return periods (10, 50, 100 and 500?years). The results demonstrate a significant growth in exposure due to inefficient spatial planning and flood reduction strategies.
37-6828
City planning. Climate change. Development. Ecological planning. Ecology. Mitigation.
Environmental sustainability is a major focal point of urban planning, yet scholarly discourse often fails to grapple with the environmental contradictions inherent in the reliance on economic growth found within the prevailing sustainable development paradigm. This paper develops an ecological-sociological framework for analyzing sustainable planning best practices, which shape local sustainable planning implementation. A key argument of ecological-sociological scholarship is that sustainable development is an expression of ecological modernization, which erroneously tries to solve environmental problems through economic growth-based strategies. The authors use content analysis to examine the American Planning Association's 2015 Sustaining Places: Best Practices for Comprehensive Plans and find that its principles and environmental harm mitigation strategies incorporate an ecological modernizationist approach to sustainable planning. The authors argue that embrace of economic growth and underspecification of ecological standards hinder the field of sustainable planning from promoting best practices that mitigate environmental harm in the long term.
37-6829
Environmental assessment. Environmental policy. Environmental quality.
The quality of science for policy depends as much on the robustness of available scientific knowledge as it does on the procedural settings and working procedures in safety agencies. Using a report on Bisphenol A as a case study, and a set of original criteria, we provide an understanding of procedural influences on the results of scientific advisory committees and about literature reviews for chemical hazard characterization. Expert elicitation revealed that three aspects are critically important for the results of the advisory activity and for the selected case study: the method used to combine different studies, the interpretation of the review results in terms of level of evidence and conclusiveness, and the choice of uncertainty factors. Our results also show how procedural settings and working procedures can promote the invisible influence of values and policy on scientific advisory activities.
37-6830
Adaptation. Adaptation strategies. Climate change. Climate policy. Environmental governance. Governance. Institutions.
This paper performs an institutional analysis of the adaptation to climate change by ports, through a case study of the port of Vancouver, Canada. While previous literature has demonstrated the value of informal institutions for filling gaps left by formal institutions, the role of failed informal institutions has received less attention. Our analysis reveals how, in the case of an unprecedented challenge like climate adaptation, relying on informal institutions with less agency can actually erode the strength of existing institutions in a form of negative institutional plasticity. In this case, emerging polycentric governance was unsuccessful, unable to construct clearly demarcated responsibilities due to impedance by the path dependence of the current federalist system. The latter works well for traditional infrastructure investments with a closed pool of stakeholders, but not for ports where multiple scales of embeddedness, both horizontally and vertically, produce a collective action problem with no mechanism for resolution.
37-6831
Adaptation strategies. Climate change. Climate policy. Environmental management. Environmental protection. Flooding. Floods.
This paper analyses the future orientation of flood risk management in Austria. Framed by a systematic review of risk reduction measures, we assess the extent to which Austrian policies are characteristic of an anticipatory, forward-looking flood management approach to cope with expected future stresses on the flood risk, such as climate change and land development. The analysis shows that risk reduction measures build on status quo assessments and do not explicitly consider future changes in the flood hazard or vulnerability. However, new design standards for extreme events, the proliferation of large-scale flood retention, tightened land development and building restrictions, and novel planning instruments indicate that Austrian policies are increasingly forward-looking to more effectively mitigate future increases in the flood risk. This temporal reorientation is a consequence of a wider policy shift from flood control to integrated flood risk management. Faced with the increasing spatial interplay of risk reduction measures (e.g. securing land for flood runoff and flood retention), our analysis shows that inter-sectoral cooperation between water management and spatial planning can support long-term flood management decisions and maintain the ability to adapt to changing future conditions.
37-6832
Environmental assessment. Environmental impact analysis. Management.
This study analyzes the adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) strategies and the impact of adoption on yields and farm net returns of vegetable farmers in Southern Ghana. We employ a two-step multinomial logit model to account for selection bias that occurs when unobservable factors influence adoption of IPM and impacts on outcomes. The empirical results show that the number of years of schooling and extension contacts of farmers adopting pesticides application only have positive effects on yields, whereas credit constraints and farm size exert negative effects. Farmers adopting pest monitoring only and employing more hired labor are associated with lower yields, whereas farmer-based organizations and lettuce cultivation are associated with higher yields. Increasing the number of years of schooling of farmers adopting pesticides application only tends to increase farm net returns. Farmers with unobserved characteristics linked to lowering yields or farm net returns tend to shift to an alternative IPM component.
37-6833
Contingent valuation. Flooding. Floods. Landscape perception.
Obtaining the support of affected stakeholders is a crucial first step to successful implementation of any public policy, including flood mitigation policies. Public support for flood mitigation policies is largely influenced by flood risk perceptions and flood risk perceptions are, in turn, shaped by a multitude of factors. This paper explores the impact of the determinants of risk perception on willingness to pay for flood risk prevention in Dunkerque (France) using a contingent valuation survey. We find that whether or not respondents include their home within their perceived flood risk areas, trust in flood mitigation measures, environmental beliefs and socio-economic factors are strong predictors of public support for flood risk prevention, whereas actual distance of a respondent's home to the flood source, knowledge of flood risk, prior experience and trust in local authorities have a limited influence. Policy implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
32-5 ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY/POLLUTION
Environment. Environmental assessment. Environmental modeling. Environmental quality.
This study was carried out to determine whether the changes in dust concentration (DC) in Iran were attributed to changes in aridity index (AI) from 1990 to 2018. Long-term precipitation and potential evapotranspiration were used to compute the United Nations Environment Program AI and horizontal visibility data were used to calculate the DC in the study area. The DC spatial distribution maps were prepared to better identify areas affected by sand-dust events. Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to explore the association between DC and AI in Iran and study stations during the monitoring period. Spatiotemporal variations in DC showed that more than 60 percent of Iran's area experienced severe wind erosion events in 2001, 2008, and 1990 when AI was less than 0.2. The results also showed that approximately 45 percent of Iran's area has suffered from the average DC over the study period (565?μg/m3). The incremental changes in DC were observed in almost half of the entire area of Iran during the second period (2000–2008) and one third of this area during the third period (2009–2018). Areas affected by decreasing changes in AI during the second and third periods were 90 percent and 73 percent of the area affected during the previous period, respectively. Overall, there was a significant negative correlation between AI and DC in Iran over the monitoring period (r = -0.51, p value < 0.01). Insignificant positive correlations were observed in humid regions, whereas negative correlations were mostly detected in arid and semiarid regions of Iran.
37-6834
Air pollution. Cost-benefit analysis. Emissions. Environment. Environmental assessment. Environmental pollution. Environmental regulation.
Residential biomass burning is estimated to cause 29,000 premature deaths in Europe and North America annually. A number of studies show that existing regulations, primarily affecting new stoves, in the European Union and North America are effective in reducing emissions. However, it is not clear from these studies if there is a net welfare gain from regulation, nor how regulations should be designed in order to maximise the net welfare gain. We use an integrated assessment model to compare the net welfare gains of different schemes for regulating existing wood-burning stoves in Denmark. Most schemes we asses generate a net welfare gain, but a geographically differentiated tax on stove use generates the largest net gain. The results for Denmark suggest that there could be substantial welfare gains from imposing geographically differentiated regulation of existing residential wood-burning stoves in parts of North America and the EU.
37-6835
Awareness. Behavior. Consumers. Electronics.
Sustainable management of Electronic waste (E-waste) is a major challenge for contemporary India, an emerging economy burdened with both the domestic generation and illegal import of E-waste. Considering the ever-increasing complexities of E-waste in Indian cities, this paper aims to evaluate the current trends, opportunities and challenges associated with consumption of electronic items (with respect to computers and mobile phones) and disposal of E-waste in urban India. Bangalore, a city popularly known as the ‘Silicon Valley of India', is considered as a case study in order to evaluate public awareness, household consumption and E-waste disposal behaviours. The city profile of Bangalore indicates that it has a rapidly emerging market for electronics and thus, has the potential to act as a ‘model' for evaluating the issues concerning E-waste in metropolitan India. Questionnaires were distributed originally among 300 households with an effective response rate of 63.3%. The results indicate that the majority of households (59.3%) still retain their obsolete electronics due to lack of knowledge about proper E-waste management. High awareness about E-waste and high willingness to recycle/repair their E-waste (above 80% in both cases) are yet to be translated into responsible disposal/recycling behaviour as 95.8% of households have no knowledge about the presence of any formal recycling centre. Income, education, age and gender dimensions associated with E-waste disposal behaviour and awareness were also evaluated. Although we found no gender differences for most of the parameters, there have been some interesting correlations in age and income-wise segregation of disposal behaviour. We noted that the city of Bangalore still possesses some typical Indian socio-cultural characteristics, such as considering E-waste as ‘valuables', changing several hands before final disposal, defying ‘brand' or ‘looks' consciousness, etc., which could be directed towards responsible E-waste disposal behaviours. We suggest that establishing appropriate and convenient E-waste collection/recycling facilities, ensuring responsible household disposal behaviour, implementing effective laws and legislation, and organizing mass E-waste awareness campaigns would aid in addressing the current E-waste concerns in the city.
37-6836
Air pollution. Air quality. Air quality management. China. Natural disasters.
This paper estimates air pollution spillover effects in Chinese cities. Estimation of this spillover effect is complicated because neighboring cities share similar business/pollution cycles, and changes in wind direction can be frequent. To circumvent these empirical challenges, we propose a new approach exploiting spatial and temporal variations in PM2.5 concentrations for major cities in China's Eastern Monsoon Region during the monsoon season. We find large pollution spillover effects. Estimates based on our preferred model specification suggest that a city's average PM2.5 concentration increases by 0.33 (or 0.26) units during the winter (or summer) monsoon season, if PM2.5 concentrations in cities upwind of this city increase by one unit. Estimated spillover effects in plain and non-plain regions are 14%–16% larger and 45%–71% smaller, respectively, than the baseline estimates. The percentage contributions of PM2.5 pollution from upwind cities to local PM2.5 levels vary by region and can be as large as 50%.
37-6837
Environmental quality. Forest management systems. Forest planning.
Rewilding, though a young term, already has numerous meanings. We use Q-methodology to investigate understandings and practices of rewilding amongst managers of wildland on 17 estates in the Scottish uplands. The estates, covering 207,200 ha, include all the main land ownership types in Scotland. All respondents value wildness and biodiversity highly, but the Q-study reveals significant divergence in the interpretations and practices of rewilding, especially concerning (i) the value of naturalness, (ii) the use of management interventions, (iii) the value of cultural heritage and traditional land uses, and (iv) the place of people within wildland. A tripartite taxonomy of wildland management approaches is developed, identifying three ‘centres of gravity' along the continuum of viewpoints, emphasising, respectively, nature’s autonomy, active restoration, and the maintenance of wildness within cultural landscapes. The taxonomy provides an analytic framework for evaluating the diverse and often conflicting aspirations for the management of wild places.
37-6838
Air pollution. Awareness. China. Environmental planning. Environmental policy.
In 2014, Chinese leaders declared “war against pollution,” leaving local governments with considerable anti-pollution mandates – and, often, with the blame for insufficient implementation. There is a lack of large-scale systematic analyses of citizens' preferences for environmental protection by relevant government levels and the social structuration of such attitudes. This article aims first to assess associations between desire for local government to improve environmental protection, and socioeconomic status and air pollution; second, to identify indirect associations mediated by citizens' awareness of pollution. The research was based on nationally representative survey data from 2014. Results show the lowest occupational class as less likely than higher classes to mention environmental protection when asked which local government services should increase, but as likely to express environmental risk awareness. Policymakers should consider mechanisms such as social protection, inclusion and environmental justice to enhance local environmental policy desire among lower classes and facilitate effective environmental governance.
37-6839
Biodiversity. Climate change. Climate policy. Conservation planning. Environmental protection. Land protection.
Protected areas are the primary strategy for maintaining natural landscapes and separating biodiversity features from preventable anthropogenic threats. The Convention on Biological Diversity calls for the coverage of at least 17% of land by protected areas, and the strategic prioritization of important biodiversity areas. Using the spatially explicit reserve design software, Marxan, this study combines climate refugia modelled under future climates in the year 2070 and bioregions to identify priority sites for protected area expansion under climate change in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Priority sites for new protected areas that meet bioregion and climate refugia targets were identified in central-western, northeast and patches of southeast NSW. Seven existing parks, including Kosciuszko National Park, overlapped with regions identified repeatedly as climate refugia under 12 future climate scenarios. The recommendations from this study support policy-makers in prioritizing the protection of biodiversity under a changing and uncertain climate.
37-6840
Cropping intensity. Emission control. Environmental management. Environmental quality.
Soil resources play a role in food security and climate change mitigation. Through their practices, farmers impact the physical, biological and chemical quality of their soil. However, farmers face a trade-off between the short-term objectives of production and profitability and the long-term objective of soil resource conservation. In this article, we investigate the conditions under which farmers have a private interest in preserving their soil quality. We use a simplified theoretical soil quality investment model, where farmers maximize their revenues under a soil quality dynamic constraint. Here, soil quality is an endogenous production factor of the crop production function. We show that the existence of an equilibrium depends on the cooperation between soil quality and productive inputs. The results are confronted to a statistical illustration in France. In this case, nitrogen fertilizers are not cooperating with soil organic carbon. Incentives to reduce nitrogen fertilizers would not trigger a negative feedback effect.
37-6841
Environmental management. Landfills. Mapping techniques.
The existence of illegal dumping continues to be a worldwide problem, even in nature protected areas, and its distribution is not random. An understanding of the distribution of illegal dumping sites is crucial for the enhancement of effective waste management systems. Therefore, this study aims at a better understanding of spatial and temporal changes to illegal dumping sites in a nature protected area (the Ojców National Park) from 1994 to 2016. The most important spatial factors that control the distribution of illegal dumping sites were the distance from roads and from the field-forest edge. In the last two decades, the number of small dumping sites has increased, whereas the number of large illegal dumping sites has decreased. Moreover, this study presents a model of the potential occurrence of illegal dumping sites, which indicates places that should be under the control of the national park and of local authorities.
37-6842
Carbon dioxide. China. Climate. Climate change. Climate policy. Environmental governance. Governance.
The Low-Carbon Pilot (LCP) program in China is an important national initiative aiming to facilitate climate experimentation. Thus far, 87 local governments have become climate pilots and are tasked with developing innovative climate solutions with the hope that these innovations can be applied nationally. The LCP adopts a uniquely Chinese approach to policymaking that is characterized by both bottom-up experimentation and top-down control and has been described as a success in the official discourse. However, using two case studies from Guangdong and Jilin, we show that there could be significant variation in performance and willingness to conduct experimentation among the climate pilots. The presence of variation suggests that the top-down steering mechanisms of the LCP are not conducive to climate experimentation and have the unintended consequences of encouraging risk-averse behaviors. We further show that local factors – leadership support, communities of practice, and alignment of interests – are important factors enabling success.
37-6843
Air pollution. China. Environmental justice. Environmental pollution.
Whilst air pollution is a major problem in China, little is known about how it is distributed socially and how such distributions are changing over time. We use a fine-grained population census and air quality data for 2000 and 2010 to explore socio-spatial and temporal inequalities in air pollution for Beijing, using distributional analyses and spatial regression models. We find that environmental inequalities exist with respect to measures of social disadvantage, such as hukou migrant status, very young children (0–4?years), and the elderly (=65?years). Our temporal analysis reveals that environmental inequality increases for migrants and the elderly, who bear a disproportionate and increasing share of declining air quality from 2000 to 2010. Regression results emphasise the spatial and temporal variations in environmental inequality, as the associations between air pollution and social demographics differ between different urban zones of Beijing; and their geographic patterns change significantly over time.
37-6844
Accountability. Adaptation strategies. Climate change. Environmental accounting. Environmental assessment. Environmental governance.
Accountability has hardly been studied in the governance of climate change adaptation. This paper develops a framework for assessing the accountability of interactive governance arrangements for local adaptation. This framework is based on five important accountability mechanisms: Clear responsibilities and mandates, Transparency, Political oversight, Citizen control and Checks and sanctions. For illustration purposes, the proposed framework is applied to the case of a Dutch local adaptation governance arrangement. The application shows that the five proposed mechanisms and their operationalizations offer a valid assessment of the accountability of such arrangements. It also raises some challenges, such as the tensions between accountability and flexibility, legitimacy and effectiveness; the potentially important roles of trust and of the political skills of central actor(s) in the arrangement in raising accountability, and the potential need to distinguish between arrangements for policy planning and for service delivery.
37-6845
Ecosystem. Ecosystem conservation. Environmental planning. Land.
Scarcity of mineral supplies globally means that there is an international effort to examine the potential to extract resources from mine waste. Such sites are often perceived as degraded and of little value. However, many sites are protected for their ecological, geological or historical significance. This article examines the scale of the association between these designations and former mineral extraction sites in England and Wales. Around 69,000 mines (44%) are co-located with some form of designation; ranging from 27% of sand and gravel quarries in Wales to 84% of metal mines in England. Some designations are coincidental to mining and may benefit from resource recovery combined with remediation activities, others exist due to previous mining activities and may be adversely affected. This creates a tension in the long-term management of former mineral extraction, which should be considered when assessing the potential for, and desirability of, resource recovery.
37-6846
Biodiversity. Cultural landscapes. Ecological planning. Landscape.
A global crisis for production landscapes has shed light on the importance of sustainable management of these landscapes in an integrated manner at local and national levels. However, there is a lack of quantitative research on the integration of relevant concepts into national-level policies and planning. Thus, we analyzed the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) of 133 Convention on Biological Diversity parties using a text mining method to determine the current global situation regarding production landscape policies. The statistical results showed that (1) about half of parties mentioned integrated approaches in production landscapes (e.g., cultural landscapes, socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes), (2) there were some regional differences in the number of references, (3) the introduction of these concepts has been increasing worldwide, and (4) these concepts have been accorded higher priority in national policy and planning.
37-6847
Built environment. Climate. Climate change. Comparative analysis. Environmental governance. Governance.
It has been proposed that voluntary urban climate programmes overcome shortfalls in mandatory, top-down, state-led government interventions to address climate change risks. Such programmes seek commitments from households and firms to improve their environmental sustainability, but do not have the force of law. City governments are actively developing and implementing such programmes, seeking improved and accelerated urban climate action. There is little evidence, however, of whether their involvement positively affects voluntary programme performance. This article presents qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of 26 voluntary programmes from Australia, the Netherlands and the US, seeking to understand whether, and if so how, city governments affect the performance of voluntary urban climate programmes. The results will help to inform city governments about the roles they may play in urban climate governance.
37-6848
Adaptation. Adaptation strategies. Climate change. Development. Environmental planning. Environmental policy.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing society and the spatial planning system plays a crucial role in ensuring that important adaptations to the built environment are evaluated. Drawing upon a mixed-methods research approach, this paper explores the progress that has been made by the planning system in England in addressing the challenge of climate change adaptation in coastal urban areas. The results indicate that the adaptation produced through the planning system remains incremental rather than transformative. It is focused on experienced hazards, especially flooding, and there is a lack of attention being paid to wider impacts of climate change, such as rising average temperatures. Furthermore, it was found that the contemporary contribution of planning to climate change adaptation is seriously limited by the government's emphasis on housing and economic growth and by the development industry's emphasis on economic viability.
37-6849
Air quality. Air quality management. Assessment. Emission control. Emissions. Environmental assessment. Environmental protection.
The fundamental tactics employed by the EU against air contamination, which are intended to maintain concentrations at a level that does not exceed the permissible values, usually entail considerable expense. To reduce this to a minimum, the procedure of economic optimization of air quality can be applied. When performed for a heavily polluted industrial city, it shows that it is possible to maintain concentrations below the threshold of air quality standards with relatively moderate expenditure. These evaluations also reveal that variations in population density distribution call into question the conventional wisdom that uniform air quality standards provide the best protection against air contamination for a whole region. On the contrary, an optimization that forces a drop in concentration to be evenly spread over the population, without reference to air quality standards, may lead to more efficient protection of human health and make no difference to overall expenditure.
32-6 CATASTROPHES/DISASTERS/EMERGENCIES
37-6850
Disaster. Flooding. Floods. Local networks. Natural disasters.
Vulnerable areas of the world, including many developing countries, are increasingly exposed to natural disasters. New technologies, such as geospatial technologies, could help them manage the risks of extreme events and cope with disaster aftershock. However, new technologies are often disseminated slowly among the relevant stakeholders. Assuming that knowledge exchange through stakeholder networks can effectively enhance the uptake of innovation, this research applied a social network approach focussing on the structural patterns of communication and collaboration networks regarding landslide-related disasters in Nepal and floods in Kenya. Using methods of formal social network analysis, we reveal centrally positioned stakeholders and discuss their actual and potential roles in outscaling innovations between the different sectors and upscaling them to different levels within the disaster management communities under study. In doing so, this case study demonstrates the potential of social network analysis for improving the dissemination of innovations for disaster risk management.
37-6851
Community. Disaster. Environmental governance. Gender. Governance. Institutions. Learning. Management.
Disaster management and resilience-building initiatives have been hypothesized as more effective when integrated with local governance structures. However, factors shaping the institutionalization of disaster management remain poorly understood. We argue that success in such initiatives cannot be achieved without compliance with good governance criteria. We applied a qualitative research methodology following a Case Study approach, and data were collected using techniques from the Participatory Rural Appraisal toolbox from the field, and government and non-government organizational sources. We found that compliance with good governance criteria, financial and technical capacity (technology, tools and know-how skills) and autonomy and cross-scale institutional linkages are necessary conditions for successful local-level disaster management. Further policy and research attention require a closer examination of the dynamics of local-level institutions, which are on the front lines of disaster management and resilience building. In particular, special attention should be given to the integration of ‘governance' and ‘resilience' research streams.
32-7 SUSTAINABILITY
37-6852
Ecological planning. Environmental protection. Innovation.
Protected areas (PAs) are social-ecological systems (SES) and are contested spaces. The challenges in governing PAs call for a governance system that works with human-nature relations and is capable of adapting to each PA. This necessitates innovative processes and adaptive governance. This paper contributes to the discussion on adaptive governance in SES by offering empirical evidence from Costa Rica on how the processes of social innovation occur in practice. We discuss the evolving governance of the Juan Castro Blanco National Water Park, particularly the contribution of a local association that drives conservation and management of the park. We show that social mobilisation caused social innovation, which was revealed by the achievement of three interconnected process outcomes: satisfaction of interests; effective socio-political arrangements; and empowerment. The socially-innovative governance of the park has contributed to sustainability and to social-ecological change at many levels.
37-6853
Decision support. Development. Environmental planning.
Researchers have increasingly acknowledged the relative strength of ‘hybrid' approaches to scenario analysis for exploring the futures of coupled human-nature systems. In this paper, we explain, demonstrate, and provisionally evaluate the usefulness of a simple analytical framework, based on five categories of capital assets, as part of a protocol for overcoming the conversion problem in hybrid scenario analysis. Based on a preliminary application of the framework to a case study in South Africa, we suggest that the five capitals framework has the potential to improve expedience and counter the bias against ‘soft' drivers in hybrid approaches to scenario analysis. However, in light of the methodological trade-off between rigour and expedience, we suggest that future research needs to compare the available protocols for hybrid scenario analysis by weighing up the relative gain in scenario quality versus the relative cost of scenario construction.
37-6854
Ecosystem. Ecosystem conservation. Environment. Habitat. Habitat modeling.
Human impacts on deltas often involve reclamation of coastal wetlands, causing a dramatic loss of ecological functions. We propose an Ecosystem Services (ES) approach to promote coordinated governance of aquaculture and environmental conservation in a brackish lagoon of the Po River delta (Italy). Spatiotemporal changes of aquatic vegetated habitats and clam production were evaluated, and experimentally related to ESs: climate regulation, habitat provision for birdlife, and potential for birdwatching. Almost all emergent vegetation was lost during past decades, while aquaculture production increased rapidly. Vegetated habitats sequestered significant amounts of carbon and supported more diverse bird communities than non-vegetated wetlands, including protected species of interest for birdwatching. We demonstrated that sectoral management was ineffective in maintaining ESs, promoting the exploitation of few provisioning services while decreasing many others. We propose an innovative, integrated management that focuses on restoring aquatic vegetation to offset anthropic impacts for the future sustainable governance of deltas.
37-6855
Conservation planning. Ecosystem. Ecosystem conservation. Environmental planning.
Zoning is one approach to managing human occurrence and reducing deleterious interactions between humans and wildlife. We investigated the occurrence of humans, and the responses of eight waterbird species to humans, at a major wetland/treatment plant/birdwatching destination. Human occurrence in three zones (‘open birdwatching', ‘limited birdwatching' and ‘restricted access') was monitored using GPS tracking of visitor vehicles, surveys, geotagged social media uploads and remotely triggered cameras (on primary and secondary roadways). A higher diversity (but not frequency) of vehicle types and more walkers, more social media uploads, and greater usage occurred in zones in which birdwatching was permitted. Vehicles were less common and diverse on secondary roads, suggesting accessibility influenced human occurrence. Bird responsiveness to humans was similar across zones, perhaps because people were ubiquitous or because birds were mobile. Wildlife disturbance studies which use space-experience substitution designs are cautioned to test their assumptions regarding patterns of human visitation.
37-6856
Environmental management. Ground water. Health. Health care.
Expanded use of recycled water has potential to improve the sustainability of water systems in areas with high water insecurity. Despite this, rates of recycled water use in California remain low. To identify barriers to expansion of recycled water use in California, we conducted open-ended interviews with a targeted sample of 12 stakeholders representing a range of viewpoints among individuals familiar with urban water management operations in California, including experts from government regulatory and public health agencies, wastewater suppliers, independent consultants, and engineers. Barriers identified by respondents related to regulations, infrastructure, funding, technology, health risks, and public perceptions. Respondents provided concrete suggestions for how to lower these barriers and insights into the roles that public health professionals could play in this effort. This work suggests that public health professionals can play a critical role in facilitating the expanded use of recycled water and improving water security and sustainability worldwide.
37-6857
Conservation. Ecosystem conservation. Environmental value. Landscape planning. Narrative analysis.
Landscapes on the rural–urban fringe are experiencing rapid change. Along with agriculture, additional fronts of landscape change are related to suburbanization, conservation, and tourism. Building a framework related to heritage narratives, this study analyzes stories told by stakeholders to make sense of landscape change and influence their perspectives about growth. Drawing on focus groups of community and development leaders at two sites in the Midwestern United States – Jasper County, Iowa and Will County, Illinois – this study explores sense of place and shared values in the context of landscape change. From 76 heritage narratives, five thematic areas were identified: (1) agriculture, (2) tourism, (3) industry, (4) grassland conservation, and (5) housing. Participants expressed needs to find compatibility across multiple narratives and develop coherent visions for future growth. A “planning for place” meta-narrative was explored to integrate diverse perspectives and stimulate dialog about shared values with potential to unite landscapes and communities.
37-6858
Cities. City planning. Ecological planning.
Researchers and policy makers have proposed “smart cities” as one approach to an evolutionary transformation in urban infrastructure and management, focusing on optimizing planning and coordination through information technology systems and real-time data. How does the smart city approach compare with a potentially competing approach-ecological wisdom (EW), which is defined as a property of good design requiring minimal ecological and social intervention? Do the two approaches offer potential for productive synthesis for planning practice? We analyze academic, corporate, public intellectual, and public policy sources to present a comparative review of smart cities with “wise cities,” based on an EW framework. Through our analysis, we derive basic definitions of these two planning approaches, outline the general goals and objectives of each, and develop an overall multi-tiered framework of analysis for both approaches. We conclude by proposing potential areas of synthesis, applications for planning practice, and areas of future research.
37-6859
Complexity in planning. Diverse neighborhoods. Effectiveness. Environmental assessment.
The preparation of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) inclusive sustainability appraisals (SAs) for neighbourhood plans (NPs) in England may be required when significant environmental effects are expected to arise from an NP. In this paper, we report on the result of a Ph.D. project, conducted between 2012 and 2015, in which all 15 NP SEA inclusive SAs that had been completed at the time were evaluated. In this context, the quality of SA practice was found to differ substantially. SAs were prepared either ‘in-house' (i.e. by neighbourhood planning steering groups) or by consultants. The quality of SAs was found to be associated with their overall perceived degree of influence on the underlying NPs. Whilst the focus of this paper is on practice in England, findings are expected to be of interest to a wider international audience, in particular to those experimenting with voluntary neighbourhood/local level plan SA/SEA.
33. Physical Elements of Planning
33-4 GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Geographical models. Learning. Learning environments. Models.
Recent interest in geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) has fostered a wide range of applications using artificial intelligence (AI), especially deep learning for geospatial problem solving. Major challenges, however, such as a lack of training data and ignorance of spatial principles and spatial effects in AI model design remain, significantly hindering the in-depth integration of AI with geospatial research. This article reports our work in developing a cutting-edge deep learning model that enables object detection, especially of natural features, in a weakly supervised manner. Our work has made three innovative contributions: First, we present a novel method of object detection using only weak labels. This is achieved by developing a spatially explicit model according to Tobler's first law of geography to enable weakly supervised object detection. Second, we integrate the idea of an attention map into the deep learning–based object detection pipeline and develop a multistage training strategy to further boost detection performance. Third, we have successfully applied this model for the automated detection of Mars impact craters, the inspection of which often involved tremendous manual work prior to our solution. Our model is generalizable for detecting both natural and man-made features on the surface of the Earth and other planets. This research has made a major contribution to the enrichment of the theoretical and methodological body of knowledge of GeoAI.
Colonialism. Community participation. Indigenous organizations. Indigenous people. Knowledge systems.
Community-based monitoring (CBM) programs are increasingly popular models of environmental governance around the world. Accordingly, a handful of review papers have highlighted the various benefits, challenges, and governance models associated with their uptake. These reviews have been pragmatic in their recommendations and have supported CBM scholars and practitioners in implementing and understanding the various possible forms of CBM, but they have largely been silent on issues around the power dynamics implicit in CBM. Structured around explorations of the colonial politics of knowledge, funding, and finance, this article argues that dominant knowledge systems—specifically those that underpin Western, colonial governments and liberal, capitalist economies—shape the provisioning of funding for local programs and determine the significance of different types of community observations in shaping management decisions. To make this argument, we situate our work at the intersection of political economy and knowledge systems, using theoretical insights and empirical examples to show that funding and finance are key sources of power in shaping CBM programs. These are important insights because CBM is often framed as a purely scientific—and therefore politically neutral—activity. Through this work, we explore questions of intellectual property, histories of institutional exclusion and the privileging of certain knowledge systems, and the relationships of trust and mistrust across different groups and authorities, with the aim of stimulating critical discussions on the power relationships in CBM that will be useful to scholars and practitioners.
Consumer behavior. Consumerism. Discretionary time. Food retailing.
This article discusses the enactment of conflicting time regimes in contemporary urban retail and consumer services. We draw on the theories of time–space compression, social acceleration, and the fast–slow dichotomy to argue that retail and consumer services act on urban life by enacting two apparently conflicting time regimes: fast time and slow time. Although retail and consumer services are not able to establish urban time regimes by themselves, they enact time regimes in their stores by offering the temporal resources that consumers need to perform their preferred timestyles. These temporal resources stem from the store's concepts, sales model and management strategies, and ambiances. We draw on our ongoing field research in Colinas do Cruzeiro, an upper middle-class suburban neighborhood in greater Lisbon, Portugal, which has included field surveys, nonparticipant observation, and semistructured interviews. Our findings identify three time regimes that retail and consumer services in Colinas do Cruzeiro enact in their stores. This finding allows us to understand the processes through which retail, consumer services, and urban rhythms tend to synchronize. We discuss the geographical implications of understanding the processes that underpin the enactment of time regimes in contemporary urban retail and consumer services.
Cultural politics. Environmental racism. Geography. Geopolitics.
This article synthesizes contributions of a growing body of geographic scholarship on marronage and presents a framework of maroon geographies to guide scholarship and political organizing centered on Black place- making and racial justice. I situate marronage-focused geographic scholarship within Black geographies literature that highlights the reverberations of transatlantic slavery in our current world order and historical and ongoing Black spatial acts of struggle and survival. Based on this scholarship and my own empirical research in Montgomery County, Maryland, I construct a framework of maroon geographies that encompasses physical sites of past flight from slavery as well as spaces produced through contemporary Black struggles. This framework comprises four main features: reworking geographic refuse, Black cooperative place- making, fugitive infrastructure, and a spatial strategy of entanglement. Maroon geographies offer a framework to explicitly address legacies of Black spatial epistemologies and practices that made possible freedom from slavery and that continue to shape sites of radical transformation and possibility. I conclude with a discussion of how the framework can inform scholarship and Black organizing.
Elected regional assemblies. Health. Management networks.
The ubiquity of chemicals demands new ways of thinking about human–nature assemblages. This article develops a dialogue between agrarian political economy, critical commodity chains research, and chemical geographies through a case study of the world's most widely used agrochemical: glyphosate, commonly known as Monsanto's Roundup. In the 1980s, glyphosate triumphed as a benign biocide that promised both safety and effectiveness. This construct made possible a capitalist agricultural assemblage characterized by chemical pervasiveness, first as a chemical replacement for mechanical tillage and since the 1990s as the chemical input for genetically modified seed packages. The ubiquity that characterizes the glyphosate assemblage is also a geography of uneven development comprising shifting firm networks, policies, and trade. Central to this assemblage since 2000, yet largely ignored, is the outsized expansion of second- and third-tier generic pesticide producers, especially in China, for whom glyphosate is part of a network entry and upgrading development strategy. Today, the glyphosate assemblage faces unprecedented challenges from weed resistance and health controversies. Whether and how the herbicide assemblage restabilizes will be determined by the complex environmental and developmental challenges of chemical agriculture and pervasive chemicals broadly, which highlights the need for a transdisciplinary dialogue that cuts across these domains.
37-6860
Decision making. Decision models. Geographic information systems.
In efficiently supporting planning decisions, decision makers often handle complex and multifaceted decisions. The combined use of geographic information systems (GIS)-based tools and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods has emerged as a sophisticated process that provides significant advantages in overcoming decision-making difficulties. Multicriteria raster-based suitability analyses are dominated by the performance of weighted linear combination approaches. This is principally due to technical limitations that arise since pairwise comparisons among candidate alternatives are needed to perform outranking relations. To overcome these limitations, a combination of GIS and a Fuzzy extension of the PROMETHEE method is proposed to reduce the complexity of the calculations. The efficiency of the proposed decision-making model is discussed through a case study, by comparing the derived alternative location rankings with those obtained by other well-established approaches. The framework provides a flexible way to overcome PROMETHEE computational limitations while the performed results validation analysis reveals that the framework produces coherent results.
34. Transportation and Communication
34-2 TRANSPORTATION MODELING
Activity. Geographical analysis. Geographical models. Mobility.
People's daily activities in the urban environment are complex and vary by individual. Existing studies using mobile phone data revealed distinct and recurrent transitional activity patterns, known as mobility motifs, in people's daily lives. The limitation in using only a few inferred activity types hinders our ability to examine general patterns in detail. We proposed a mobility network approach with geographic context-aware Twitter data to investigate granular daily activity patterns in the urban environment. We first used publicly accessible geolocated tweets to track the movements of individuals in two major U.S. cities, Chicago and Greater Boston, where each recorded location is associated with its closest land use parcel to enrich its geographic context. A direct mobility network represents the daily location history of the selected active users, where the nodes are physical places with semantically labeled activity types and the edges represent the transitions. Analyzing the isomorphic structure of the mobility networks uncovered sixteen types of location-based motifs, which describe over 83 percent of the networks in both cities and are comparable to those from previous studies. With detailed and semantically labeled transitions between every two activities, we further dissected the general location-based motifs into activity-based motifs, where sixteen common activity-based motifs describe more than 57 percent of transitional behaviors in the daily activities in the two cities. The integration of geographic context from the synthesis of geolocated Twitter data with land use parcels enables us to reveal unique activity motifs that form the fundamental elements embedded in complex urban activities.
Data. Fare-free transit. Gentrification.
This article proposes an inverted U-curve theory to represent the changes in transit-induced gentrification with increases in mass rapid transit (MRT) station density over time. A forty-year experience on the associations of proximity to MRT stations with college graduate ratios in Tokyo, Japan, was applied to test this theory using the spatial data of MRT stations and population censuses from 1970 to 2010. The college graduate ratio in a neighborhood was adopted to measure gentrification outcome and denoted a phenomenon of early-stage gentrification. Applying a geographic information system and regression methods, empirical results provide long-term evidence of transit-induced gentrification, indicate the critical role of MRT station density in gentrification, and support the inverted U-curve theory. The transit-induced gentrification levels initially increase and then decrease as MRT station densities increase over time. This trend is affected by the MRT station density, macroeconomic environment, and state policy. This research helps to further the understanding of temporal changes in transit-induced gentrification. The inverted U-curve theory needs further tests in cities operating historical MRT systems to verify its global applicability.
34-3 TRANSPORTATION PLANNING
37-6861
Bus transportation. Criteria and indicators. Mass transportation.
Transportation has significant economic, social and environmental impacts and is an important dimension of urban sustainability. Public transportation is recognisably a smart, efficient and sustainable mode of transportation. This paper describes a multi-criteria analysis to assess the sustainable performance of a bus transportation system in a Portuguese mid-sized municipality. The assessment is based on a list of 18 environmental, social, economic and institutional indicators. A group of specialists and political stakeholders defined the relative importance of these indicators. Results showed significant disparities in the sustainable performance of the analysed bus system. Political stakeholders were more sensitive to institutional indicators while specialists were more concerned with operational issues. The research also indicates that the institutional dimension is important for assessing the sustainability of a bus transportation system. The method proves to be useful for identifying the main problems of a bus transportation system and for supporting policies to mitigate these problems.
37-6862
Bus scheduling. Bus transportation. Criteria and indicators. Indicators.
Transportation has significant economic, social and environmental impacts and is an important dimension of urban sustainability. Public transportation is recognisably a smart, efficient and sustainable mode of transportation. This paper describes a multi-criteria analysis to assess the sustainable performance of a bus transportation system in a Portuguese mid-sized municipality. The assessment is based on a list of 18 environmental, social, economic and institutional indicators. A group of specialists and political stakeholders defined the relative importance of these indicators. Results showed significant disparities in the sustainable performance of the analysed bus system. Political stakeholders were more sensitive to institutional indicators while specialists were more concerned with operational issues. The research also indicates that the institutional dimension is important for assessing the sustainability of a bus transportation system. The method proves to be useful for identifying the main problems of a bus transportation system and for supporting policies to mitigate these problems.
35. Architecture and Urban Design
35-1 URBAN DESIGN
Behavior. Building design. Building performance.
In this paper, we define the hygrothermal properties of a rammed earth wall through experimental analysis, relating thermal parameters to moisture content. These tests were conducted in Campo de Criptana (Ciudad Real, Spain), and the wall examined in this study is a 70-cm-thick north-facing rammed earth wall that is part of an occupied traditional dwelling Ambient and surface temperature and humidity values were monitored, along with the temperature and humidity at several points inside the wall and the heat flux on both sides of the wall. We recorded the wall's behaviour regarding ambient comfort conditions for one year and obtained transmittance and conductivity values. Results show that it is quite difficult to analyse the hygrothermal behaviour of a rammed earth wall throughout the year, since the properties of the wall vary enormously. We found that, to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the wall, it was not appropriate to consider the same conductivity value for whole sections of the wall, as this value varies according to moisture content (generally between 0.39 and 0.55 Wm-1 K-1): we propose seasonal values for conductivity. Finally, the hygrothermal stability that these structures provide to the spaces they enclose has been shown, especially during hot and dry periods.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Database modeling. Infrastructure.
It is very important to improve the operation and management efficiency of data and network for the construction of smart cities. The current trust infrastructure in smart cities shows obvious shortcomings, accordingly, this paper proposed the idea of applying blockchain to smart city systems and as their trust infrastructure. The research method is: firstly, the network architecture and data architecture of smart cities were proposed, and the database was classified as a shared database, authorized access database or private database. Secondly, the overall architecture model of the blockchain in a smart city system was constructed, and the blockchain was classified as a public blockchain, consortium blockchain or private blockchain. Thirdly, the realization principle of the cross-blockchain interoperability of different blockchains, the construction principle of dynamic smart blockchains, and the selection method of blockchain authentication nodes were designed, and the supervision method and supervision content of blockchain system operation were discussed. The research result is: took the smart transportation subsystem as an object, through algorithms, the operation principle of the blockchain was constructed. This research can provide a reference for the construction of trust infrastructure in smart cities and can promote the application research progress of blockchain technology.
35-2 HISTORIC PRESERVATION
Assessment. Building performance. Buildings. Carbon dioxide. Climate change. Energy efficiency.
The aim of this study is to estimate the environmental impacts associated with modernization measures that improve the energy efficiency of an office building listed as of cultural interest and located in northern Spain, a region with an Atlantic climate. European Climate Action for 2020-2030 sets a long-term goal of achieving neutrality of greenhouse gas emissions and towards the end of 2019 the Spanish Government presented its Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan. It is of interest to the international audience to know how energy policies can affect decisions on building retrofitting to improve sustainability: reduction in energy consumption, climate change and other environmental impacts. A life cycle assessment was carried out for the retrofitting of the building envelope and different energy supply scenarios: only electricity from the electricity mix (scenario of reference that of 2018, and decarbonisation scenarios proposed for 2020 and 2030), and the installation of heat pump and photovoltaic panels. The impacts will decrease 40% for Global Warming Potential and 15% for Cumulative Energy Demand in 2030 with respect to the reference scenario. These reductions will further increase up to 54 and 61%, respectively, if photovoltaic panels and a heat pump are implemented.
Buildings. Heritage. Historic preservation. Management.
In the protection of heritage buildings, computational models are an innovative technology for the implementation of effective preservation strategies. These models can manage both data obtained from the buildings and data from the knowledge base of professional experts. The preventive conservation of heritage buildings requires cooperative efforts, where the professional experts' opinions are paramount, to analyse multidisciplinary knowledge. In this respect, the incorporation of new protocols, which can help decision makers prioritize interventions and avoid restoration actions that are unnecessarily invasive or might cause irreparable loss of the properties, is urgently needed. The aim of this study is to establish a new approach concerning a digital management system that is based on artificial intelligence (fuzzy logic). Application of the model reveals that the sample (42 buildings) was classified into two vulnerability conditions: (i) medium-level affections and (ii) high-level vulnerability affections. The results obtained in this study will be useful to stakeholders who are responsible for the maintenance of heritage buildings, since this methodology allows reducing their probability of failure. This new digital management tool will help in the establishment of possible mitigation strategies that are focused on preventive future maintenance programmes of a set of heritage buildings in South Chile.
37-6863
Conservation planning. Historic districts. Historic preservation.
The colonial hill station of Darjeeling, in the post-independence scenario, has experienced immense urban transformation due to explosive population growth and increased tourism activities, damaging the urban character and built heritage of the town. Adaptation and implementation of the Heritage Urban Landscape approach are hindered by the town's peculiar socio-political complications and economic limitations. The paper examines the case by analysing the narratives of 50 residents. The findings emphasize the need to manage urban development through a Master Plan, highlight the socio-cultural and economic significance of built heritage and suggests a coordinated approach to capitalize heritage for its sustained protection.
35-4 HISTORY AND DESIGN
Building performance. Buildings. Collaboration. Empirical research.
This paper presents a methodological approach for the study of the early historical buildings constructed in reinforced concrete at the beginning of the 20th century. These buildings were conceived following different patents that, already in origin, made them unique and diverse. Also, the structures had to be adapted to their constructive context. Nowadays, aiming to evaluate and recuperate these buildings is necessary to develop a sequence of systematic study, which combines a historical review of the construction, its architectural characterization, its geometrical definition and its geological context. In this transdisciplinary approach, the geophysical studies based on ground-penetrating radar, as a non-destructive technique, facilitate the recognition of building structural details. The proposed working-approach attends to understand the construction (WHAT?) from its first designs to its final execution, including the characterization of current alterations. This requires the symbiosis of different disciplines (HOW?) that will be the basis for new projects aimed at the re-functionalization of buildings (WHAT FOR?), respecting their original values. The application of the methodology in Punta Begoña Galleries (Getxo, Basque Country, Spain) allows validating this approach, which can be extrapolated to other contemporary constructions.
35-5 DESIGN METHODS
Construction. Construction industry. Construction techniques. Design.
Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) is known as both a philosophy and a methodology whereby products are designed in a way that is as amenable as possible for downstream manufacturing and assembly. As construction is moving towards a combination of offsite prefabrication and onsite assembly, DfMA is gaining momentum in this heterogeneous industry. Nevertheless, a comprehensive review of DfMA in construction, its prospects and challenges in particular, seems absent from the literature. This study reviews the processes and principles of DfMA and explores the possible perspectives of DfMA with a view to providing implications to the construction industry. It was found that DfMA in construction has been interpreted from three perspectives: (1) a holistic design process that encompasses how structure or object will be manufactured, assembled and guided with DfMA principles; (2) an evaluation system that can work with virtual design and construction (VDC) to evaluate the efficiency of manufacturing and assembly; and (3) a game-changing philosophy that embraces the ever-changing prefabrication and modular construction technologies. This study suggests that development of design guidelines, forming multidisciplinary team, use of VDC systems and understanding the lean principles are factors that could further enhance the successful application of DfMA in construction.
Building design. Cost-effectiveness. Design. Effectiveness.
It is important for organizations to support employees with suitable workspaces during different activities. Increasingly the activity-based office is seen as the optimal solution, as it provides people with choice between different types of workspaces to perform specific activities. This study addresses the trade-offs knowledge workers make when choosing a workspace for performing three different categories of activities (individual concentration work, informal interactions, and formal interactions). A stated choice experiment was performed through a questionnaire among 251 Dutch knowledge workers in 14 organizations, measuring preferences for hypothetical workspaces described by their six most relevant aspects. Multinomial logit models were estimated to identify the workspace preferences during each activity. Additionally, Latent class models were estimated to find possible segments of workers with specific preferences that need to be supported differently by workplace managers. Findings showed that preferences for psychosocial design aspects (noise, workspace enclosure and control) were more important for workspace selection than indoor environmental quality aspects. They also show more differences between specific activities. Also, not everybody finds full enclosure important for individual concentrated work, and relatively older employees appear to be more critical about workspace suitability to support both formal and informal interaction.
Construction. Flow networks. Media. Models.
This paper introduces a new framework for understanding, modelling and software engineering in construction information activities. The current framework is based on understanding that products are the results of processes, which are performed by actors. Such frameworks are influenced by the available technology. The Internet of today is supporting also other kinds of human activities: communication and social interactions among humans. The construction industry uses them as well but without having a proper understanding of their role. There is a gap in the current framework. In this paper, the relevant theories to specify this gap in terms of what could exist in theory and what is offered by technology are analysed. As a result, a new framework of construction information activities that fills the gap is proposed. The key concepts and relations among them are identified and elaborated within the existing framework. The framework introduces the third major integrative element of the otherwise fragmented construction information activities – the social network – the existing two being the physical building and its digital twin. The framework provides a theoretical and conceptual basis for designing, planning, creating, monitoring and evaluating construction-related online services that include a strong social component and use social media services.
Construction. Construction industry. Electoral success. Implementation.
Modular integrated construction (MiC) is an innovative construction approach which transforms the fragmented linear site-based construction of buildings into an integrated production and assembly of value-added prefabricated prefinished modules. As MiC has gained attention in the construction industry, more in-depth knowledge of the critical success factors (CSFs) for implementing MiC projects is imperative. This research reviewed studies on the CSFs for implementing MiC projects during the period 1993–2019. Analysis showed that the US, UK, Malaysia, Australia, and Hong Kong are the largest contributors to the MiC CSFs studies. Further analysis generated 35 CSFs for implementing MiC projects. Of these, the six most cited CSFs shared between countries and MiC projects include good working collaboration and effective communication among project participants; effective supply chain management; accurate design and early design freeze; involvement of key project participants throughout the project; suitable procurement strategy and contracting; and standardization & benchmarking of best practices. These shared CSFs can be used to develop decision support systems, enabling the prediction of project success. The developed checklists and conceptual model of the CSFs could help to guide and improve the successful implementation of MiC projects and may form a useful basis for future empirical studies.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings.
Many buildings suitable as bat roosts contain synthetic roofing materials, hereafter referred to as Non-Bitumen Coated Roofing Membranes (NBCRMs) – this includes Breathable Roofing Membranes (BRMs) and non-Permeable Roofing Membranes (nPRMs), rather than 1F felts. Building regulations require all construction materials to be fit for purpose, but some BRMs (although appropriate for their intended purpose) can potentially threaten the viability of existing, legally protected roosts because of the way bats physically interact with their surface. With the assistance of the Isle of Wight Bat Hospital and real-world observations of how bats physically interact with NBCRMs within a roof void, we present a new laboratory test method capable of reproducing the progressive disintegration of NBCRM surfaces due to the plucking effect of bat claws. The resistance to NBCRM disintegration was characterized using a modified laboratory fabric pilling box test method. The method reproduced the ‘fluffing' effects and projections of loops of filaments on the surface of BRMs that have been observed within bat roosts. It was established that spunbond nonwoven BRMs, can be highly susceptible to surface disintegration. The newly developed method is intended to aid selection of NBCRMs that reduce the risk to bats in their roosts, promoting bat conservation.
Collective organization. Construction. Construction techniques. Information technology.
Architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) research often engages linear approaches for embedding/implementing/diffusing new technology into existing business systems and processes. However, developments in information and communication technology (ICT) often fail to deliver their full potential for a number of reasons. This paper presents these challenges and highlights the need to embrace equifinality as part of a structured approach for improving impact diffusion. The central tenet and foci of this work rests with the optimization of AEC business agility. Given this, a multiple case study approach using three large construction organizations (in Turkey) was used to capture primary data from 30 respondents – representing viewpoints from three management levels: top management, middle management and first line management. Findings are presented in the form of a conceptual framework, the details of which highlight the constructs needed (inter alia ICT adoption/diffusion) to develop organizational: (i) responsiveness, (ii) flexibility and (iii) corporate competence.
Building design. Building elements. Building performance. Buildings. Learning.
The integrated pipe gallery, also known as urban lifeline, is a significant content of the smart city. While the video surveillance system is a crucial part of the integrated pipe gallery, which provides a basis for the construction of smart city. Due to the large amount of video data, manual monitoring is a time-consuming and laborious task. To address the above problems, we propose a neural network-based method that incorporates the concept of area under curve (AUC) with the multiple-instance learning (MIL) approach. We formulate the multiple-instance AUC (MIAUC) model that predicts high anomaly scores for anomalous segments. Furthermore, sparsity and temporal smoothness constraints are utilized in the loss function to better detect anomaly. To verify the effectiveness of our proposed method, a new database is established based on the video surveillance system, which consists of 110 real-world surveillance videos with a total length of 24 h. The experimental results on the real-world database show that our method achieves better performance as compared to the baselines methods. Moreover, we design a MIAUC-based video surveillance system and the practical effect reveals the prospect of utilizing the MIL method for person anomaly detection in the integrated pipe gallery.
Architecture. Behavior. Building design. Design. Information technology.
In order to meet increasing social demand for atypical buildings and spaces, architects must be able to design an atypically shaped building. However, such design outcomes and processes often ignore the central element of architecture—namely, the human factor. In this context, virtual users (VUsers) are regarded as a suitable solution to this problem. In the previous field research, we investigated users’ behaviors in atypical architectural spaces and the psychological reasons of behaviors. In this study, we focused on the computerization and systematic integration of the results of the previous research in order to develop a technology that automatically creates a space where user behavior can be expressed in atypical architectural designs and where VUsers can exhibit psychologically appropriate behaviors. This study suggests how to create the appropriate trigger spots, trigger viewpoints, and behavioral areas which guide VUsers’ autonomous behavior in the virtual environment. We also integrated the results of this study into ActoViz, a user-behavior simulation system. Based on this study, further research will advance ActoViz, a human behavior simulation system based on intelligent agents which can behave freely within the designed atypical architectural geometry.
Building design. Design factors. Design methods. Environmental quality. Human activity. Human behavior.
Smart buildings are complex systems, yet architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals often perform their work without considering the human factors of building occupants. Traditionally, the AEC industry has employed a linear design and delivery approach. As buildings become smarter, the AEC industry must adapt. To maximize human well-being and the operational performance of smart buildings, an iterative, human-centred approach must be employed. The omission of human factors in the design and delivery of smart building systems risks misalignment between occupant-user needs and the AEC industry's perception of occupant-user needs. This research proposes a human-centred approach to smart housing. The study employed a multi-phase, mixed-methods research design. Data were collected from 309 high performance housing units in the United States. Longitudinal energy use data, occupant surveys, and semi-structured interviews are the primary data inputs. Affinity diagramming was leveraged to categorize the qualitative data. The output of the affinity diagramming analysis and energy analysis led to the development of data-driven Personas that communicate smart housing user needs. While these data were gathered in the United States, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers can leverage the human-centred approach presented in this paper toward the design of other human-centred buildings and infrastructure.
Building design. Buildings. Design methods. Methodology.
Terrestrial laser scanning is a simple and nondestructive method for the high-accuracy, three-dimensional mapping of buildings and structures. It yields a high-resolution point cloud, allowing for comprehensive and reliable diagnosis of the target building. However, there are difficulties in processing such large datasets. Commercial software typically reduces the datasets using random methods, resulting in the loss of useful information. Herein, we propose a modified optimum dataset (OptD) method for performing diagnostic measurements on buildings. The modified OptD method allows the retention of more points corresponding to areas of interest, such as those with cracks, cavities, and other surface imperfections, and removal of redundant information related to flat and homogeneous surface walls. We propose two approaches for reducing the size of the datasets while simultaneously detecting the imperfections in building walls. The first is to down-sample the datasets in the OXYZ coordinate system to improve the detection of defects corresponding to geometric changes (e.g. cracks and cavities). The second is to down-sample the datasets in the OXYI coordinate system (where I is the laser intensity) to improve the detection accuracy for defects corresponding to changes in the physicochemical properties of the surface (e.g. moisture content, weathering, salt blooming, and biodeterioration).
Citizen participation. Community participation. Design methods.
Shelters for the displaced can suffer from socio-cultural incompatibility and significant levels of occupant dissatisfaction. Participatory design (PD) is known to help reduce such issues. This is the first study to investigate the effectiveness of different PD methods at engaging and capturing users' needs for shelter design in refugee camps. It also aimed to identify which visualization tools are best at: engaging participants; communicating designs (e.g. concept, size and materials); and facilitating proposing modifications. This is a particularly large study with 16 workshops and 161 participants. Two PD methods were deployed: (i) design-your-own (where refugees proposed their ideal shelter); (ii) adapt-a-design (where refugees evaluated and modified pre-existing shelter designs). The shelters in (ii) were presented using three visualization tools: computer models, physical prototypes and virtual reality. Design-your-own proved less engaging and led participants to produce designs similar to their existing shelters. Adapt-a-design stimulated more dialogue and was more informative. Physical prototypes facilitated engagement in shelter modifications, computer models proved least able to communicate concepts, while virtual reality was best at communicating scale and size.
Building design. Buildings. Climate. Climate policy. Historic preservation. Monitoring.
The preservation of historic churches and their most precious artefacts usually includes a monitoring campaign of the indoor microclimate conditions. This research presents the information that can be obtained through the application of a novel set of risk indices to the monitored data acquired in a Baroque church of the 18th century in Italy. The main risks found with this comprehensive methodology, i.e. the biological risk that induces the growth of mould and the chemical and mechanical risks due to unsuitable indoor parameters, would not have been identifiable using the traditional approach based on the National UNI 10829 Standard. Indeed, such an approach only shows that indoor air temperature (below 15°C for 71% of the time) and relative humidity (over 85% for 73% of the time) are outside the range suggested for the conservation of the frescoes. On the other hand, the indications provided through risk indices can be used for more detailed information on the nature of the risks to assess, also in the case of a low-resolution monitoring campaign, so as to benefit the conservation of the widespread heritage inventory, for which funding is usually scarce.
37-6864
Business services. Commercial sector. Food retailing.
This paper surveys dynamics and trends that have influenced and continue to influence the three key tenants of American urban storefronts: retailers, food services, and personal services. By connecting academic literature, economic statistics, and real estate and marketing industry reports, the article outlines what these three street-level industries can expect in the foreseeable future. E-commerce, the experience economy, the Maker Economy, and regulatory, cultural and demographic shifts will have a profound impact on American urban storefronts – but certainly not always a negative one. Urban designers have a key role in ensuring vibrant, inclusive and resilient commercial streets.
35-6 PROGRAMMING/FACILITY PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
Building performance. Buildings. Environment. Methodology.
Current debates about building performance evaluation often emphasize the ‘performance gap' between how buildings perform in practice and how performance was envisaged during the design stage. While such debates continue to be dominated by energy considerations, increasing attention is directed towards the subjective experiences of building users in terms of thermal comfort and wellbeing. The latter trends are undoubtedly to be welcomed, but buildings continue to be conceptualized as fixed physical objects rather than entities that are enacted in practice. With the aim of challenging current assumptions, research is described which sought to reclaim the concept of building appraisal as practised by the pioneering architectural practice DEGW. The concept of building appraisal differs from current notions of building performance evaluation in that the point of departure is not the supposedly fixed entity of the building, but the essential fluidity of the occupying organization and their aspirations in terms of space. Empirical data are derived from archival sources and through extensive interaction with the DEGW diaspora, many of whom remain active at the leading edge of international practice. It is concluded that the continued fixation with the ‘performance gap' reinforces long-since discredited assumptions of environmental determinism.
Behavior. Building performance. Buildings. Human behavior. Learning.
An intelligent building has to know the specificities of the occupants and determine their drivers to perform actions so that it can optimize the building operation. Five windows of different rooms of the same dwelling were analysed in-depth to understand the specificities and variations of occupants' behaviour. Logistic regressions were used as a machine learning method to predict occupants' actions. The windows opening prediction models were formulated by taking into account continuous and categorical variables. An evaluation of the required data length that allows obtaining the prediction models with results identical to those obtained with the complete year was performed. It was concluded that the best option was to use at least 15 days in summer and 15 days in winter to have a reliable prediction for the full year. The model constructed for each window did not show good prediction success when applied in another room of the same dwelling. This study shows that the specificity of humans needs do not allow a generalization of their behaviours in the built environment. Thus, it is necessary to adapt the algorithms of the building automation systems through data-driven machine learning techniques.
Building performance. Environmental indicators. Housing maintenance. Maintenance.
The efficiency and sustainability of maintenance is an added value in any building, although critical in hospitals, as it may alter the health of patients and workers. The objective of this paper is to analyse the efficiency of maintenance in hospitals with less than 200 beds. Eight Spanish hospitals with similar construction characteristics and identical maintenance strategies were analysed between 2012 and 2018. The number of maintenance incidents, operation times, costs generated, number of user complaints and other variables were studied and quantified. The results reveal that in hospitals with more than 25,000 annual stays, there are fewer maintenance costs and reports per surface and fewer reports per bed. It was found that hospitals larger than 10,000 m2 generate lower maintenance costs and fewer reports per useful area and maintenance reports per bed. Moreover, equations to estimate the annual average maintenance costs in hospitals based on its annual number of patient stays and useful floor area were found. A hospital with 164 beds was analysed as a case study. A series of maintenance indicators that allow comparing the efficiency and sustainability of a hospital is proposed, for example, annual maintenance operations and average time spent on preventive and corrective operations.
Building design. Building performance. Energy efficiency.
The present study has focused on the impact of location and deadband (range of thermostat setpoints for cooling and heating) on the energy performance and economics of nano granular silica aerogel (nanogel) glazing in a multi-storey office building, by considering 26 climatic locations of Saudi Arabia. The selected cities were classified according to the cooling degree days (CDD) and outdoor dry bulb temperature (DBT), as warm, moderately hot, hot, and very hot, and the results were generalized with respect to these climatic zones. The building model was built in Autodesk Revit (2015), and the energy simulation was performed by Ecotect (2011) in two cases: (i) insulated wall and roof, and DG window and (ii) insulated wall and roof, and nanogel glazing. The results show that the location and deadband have crucial impact on the energy performance and economic viability of nanogel glazing. The energy-saving potential and payback period of replacing DG window by nanogel glazing are attractive for cities with higher DBTs and CDD, compared to those with lower DBT and CDD. For all the climatic zones studied, the benefit of replacing DG window by nanogel glazing could be achieved for a specific deadband of 20–24°C.
Assessment. Energy efficiency. Environment. Environmental impact analysis.
The aim of this study is to determine the life-cycle environmental impacts associated with energy-retrofit strategies on an urban scale. A prototype campus model that includes deep retrofit clusters, moderate retrofit clusters, and baseline retrofit clusters is used as a case study. The retrofit strategies included major changes to the building envelope with additional insulation, replacement of exterior windows and doors, shading, primary mechanical system replacement, and lighting system replacement. The study aims to (1) compare the three levels of energy retrofit against the existing condition to determine potential reductions in environmental impact, (2) identify the life-cycle hotspots of the energy-retrofit strategies and possible mitigation methods, (3) calculate the payback time for each energy-retrofit level, and (4) demonstrate an example of how life-cycle assessment (LCA) could be used as a quantitative assessment method for energy retrofits done on a large scale. The life-cycle environmental impact is calculated for five categories. The results indicate that energy retrofits overall have a positive effect in terms of reducing life-cycle environmental impacts in all environmental categories except ozone-depletion potential. The deep energy retrofit has a much shorter payback time for its environmental-impact reduction than the other energy-retrofit levels.
Building design. Buildings. Health.
In recent years, multiple historic and contemporary timber buildings have been instrumented with sensors to monitor the performance of wood products and novel engineering systems. This paper presents the results of a literature survey focused on timber structural health monitoring (SHM) projects. This survey was aimed at investigating how the scopes of monitoring projects reported in the literature are technically addressed and who are the primary users of these data. The main contribution of this study is the definition of a general taxonomy to describe timber SHM projects, their scope, approaches and potential outcomes. This taxonomy aids readers in identifying ways of using information from SHM data. The results of this survey can be used to develop strategies allowing for data-supported decision-making for the preservation of historic buildings, the design of new structures and the service life management of built facilities.
Assessment. Building performance. Buildings. Environmental assessment.
The conservation state of buildings is of increasing interest due to the need to renovate aging building stock and provide a safe and healthy place for end users. Numerous uncertain factors have an impact on building condition, including environmental agents, building age, type of assets and maintenance. Previous studies have focused on identifying these factors, but the relationships among them remain unclear. This paper proposes a Bayesian network (BN) approach to develop a model for assessing a building's condition. The BN model is based on an extensive review and evaluation of degradation causal factors supported by an analysis of 1974 defects and 5373 maintenance requests in forty buildings. The model was verified by sensitivity analysis, and the proposed approach was tested on an existing building. The model could be used as a supporting tool to identify renovation strategies that can enhance the conservation state of buildings and constructed assets.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings.
Biofilms developed on historical heritage buildings are made of various microbial communities settled and anchored in a substrate. They provide a good medium to the development of macroscopic vegetation which causes irreversible and physical damage to stone structure. Infrared thermography (IRT) measurements have been performed in laboratory scale to investigate the applicability of this non-destructive technique to an early detection of microbial biofilms on stone surface. Detecting biofilms before stone soiling is important in Cultural Heritage conservation to avoid both irreversible damage and building restoration costs. Active IRT was set up on a French limestone used in many French buildings and monuments. Samples were collected after six-months of exposure in an outdoor biofouling test during which they were colonized by microbial biofilms. They have been compared with controls with no biofilm. Experimental set-up has been carried out in dry and damp conditions to simulate different climatic conditions. First results displayed a different thermal response: stone surfaces with biofilm reached higher temperatures and they cooled down faster than row stones. Biofilm entailed a change of the stone thermal behaviour similar to a monolayer. IRT detected biofilm with a better efficiency in dry than in damp condition.
Assessment. Building performance. Buildings.
ISO/NP TS 19488 constitutes a basis for classifying residential buildings according to their acoustic performance. The new Turkish Regulation defines the minimum requirements for all building types and introduces a similar classification scheme. This paper aims to contribute to the applicability discussions by clarifying and testing the methodology that is to be pursued in order to verify the acoustic performance of a building or a dwelling unit, and to reveal possible questions. In order to test the enforcements, some field studies were conducted. Acoustical measurements were performed in 6 selected residential buildings and 136 occupants' were interviewed with a questionnaire. The acoustic performance was evaluated based on the noise levels, sound insulation and reverberation time. The occupants' data were gathered in face-to-face meetings and the responses were analysed to reveal annoyance issues and the overall satisfaction with the acoustical environment. The results showed that the verification processes described in the ISO/NP TS 19488 and the Regulation could be easily applied. However, some issues regarding the applicability and interpretations were discovered and presented in the discussion. The measurement results were consistent with the subjective evaluation in most cases. The overall satisfaction with the acoustical environment depended on more aspects than examined annoyances.
Building performance. Energy planning. Energy resources.
Evolution of energy standards led to high-performance buildings requiring very low energy for their operation. Occupancy is the variable with the greatest impact on nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) energy performance because both constructive and technical characteristics have been improved over time. Occupants influence energy use in buildings as they contribute to internal gains, interact with systems and modify indoor conditions with their behaviour. Assumptions about occupancy schedules are usually adopted in energy models for compliance calculation and when experimental data are not available. These theoretical profiles might be far from real conditions and frequently generate a mismatch between expected and actual performance. The present work analyses six months of monitored data from an nZEB in Denmark. A simulation model is used to analyse the effect of three different occupancy profiles on the final energy use: the ‘Compliance profile', defined on the basis of regulations, the ‘Standard profile', built on average data obtained from surveys, and the ‘Actual profile', customized on measured data from the actual building case. Significant differences are detected in the three different occupancy profiles as well as in the results achieved by applying the three occupancy models in performance prediction.
Assessment. Building performance. Energy policy. Environmental policy. Information technology. Learning.
In addition to the scalability of new computation technologies considering their potentials and limitations, recent applications of embedded computation ensure its possible uses in the scope of urban computing and policymaking strategies. This study examines methods of crowdsourcing with the aim of incremental transformation of the built environment through the experimental exploration of the traditional infrastructure of the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul using a bottom-up research approach. Thus, this study can be an overarching source of specifications and policymaking for the incremental transformation of the built environment. Accordingly, the agencies of participation and policymaking, the concern of usage and economics as well as technological potentials and limitations are considered as generative parameters. Smart grids and embedded computation in built environments are examined in addition to the utilization of traditional infrastructures for data acquisition and assessment. Under the scope of urban computing, this study evaluates associative learning and prediction models, as well as other sensorial technologies, connected devices, and new methods of computation.
Air quality. Air quality management. Building design. Building performance. Buildings.
Air cleanliness is of particular importance in clean environments, as a small source of contamination can highly disturb the true function of space. One common-place approach is to establish a positive pressure relative to adjacent areas that would avoid unwanted airborne particles. However, door operation and the movement of traffic may result in air mixing across the cleanroom door. This paper presents the results of a series of experiments to characterize the effect of pressure difference, traffic flow and door opening on cross-contamination and air quality inside the cleanroom. The experiments were conducted in an actual cleanroom where an oil-based substance was aerosolized in neighbouring areas, and its path inside the cleanroom was studied. Results suggested that the higher-pressure differentials were more effective to prevent aerosols to enter the cleanroom. Door operation can eliminate, and even reverse the pressurization across the door. Under a higher-pressure difference, however, it took a much shorter time for positive pressure to recover. The results of this work will be useful in determining the optimal settings of cleanroom operation, where the probabilities of contamination from an outside source are minimized.
Building design. Building performance. Energy conservation. Health. Health care. Health services.
Hospitals are highly energy-demanding buildings, where simple actuations can involve large savings. However, energy efficiency actions must comply with the high safety standards. Operating rooms demand continuous ventilation despite the short activity periods. Setback during non-occupation of the operating rooms can reduce ventilation loads but must not hinder indoor overpressure to avoid infiltrations. Besides, it prevents any existing heat recovery system from operation. This work evaluates setback ventilation in operating rooms at a case study in Spain, from two approaches: its effect on indoor overpressure and its preference to an existing coil heat recovery (runaround) loop. It based on monitored data of two operating rooms under setback and normal ventilation with operation of the heat recovery system. Seven tests are performed throughout the year, whose comparison to estimated results enables extrapolation to yearly operation. Results show that indoor overpressure maintains at 15 Pa under setback, thus meeting current and coming standards. Setback turned to be always preferable to hear recovery under cooling needs. Estimated heating and electric yearly supply energy savings reach 29 MWht and 262 MWhe, the latter accounting for 2% of the total electric energy consumption of the hospital during 2019.
Assessment. Decision making. Decision support. Design. Design process. Environmental assessment. Environmental quality.
Research and practice agree that decisions taken early in a project have a higher impact and are less costly. Current building performance assessment methods are not suited to accommodate the responsiveness required for early design processes and are often used for validation in the later stages where the feedback has little design impact. Tools developed specifically for early-stage Design Decision Support (DDS) are either too simplistic, provide no solution to addressing combined indoor environmental quality (IEQ), or risk worsening the overall IEQ by optimizing performance indicators in isolation. Most comprehensive building assessment methods evaluate several topics but follow a linear approach which fails to support holistic performance feedback and fails to meet the demand for assessment speed. This paper presents application examples of a holistic IEQ assessment tool (IEQCompass) in design processes. Design experiments demonstrate that the applied approach can meet the challenges of early-stage DDS pointed out in existing literature. Findings from the experiments indicate that the IEQCompass can provide: (1) seamless early-stage assessments through rapid-feedback on changing designs, (2) timely decision support by guiding design teams with criteria overviews, design comparisons and holistic assessment results and (3) dialogue and communication support between architects, engineers and clients.
Building design. Building performance. Construction. Cost-benefit analysis.
Construction practitioners have adopted the green building (GB) concept to restore environmental damage caused by the built environment over the last decade. However, there is inconclusive debate regarding GB savings' potential to recover the cost of construction, maintenance, and renewals. This paper evaluates the feasibility of green-certified office buildings in Indonesia by comparing the life cycle cost and presents the cost–benefit ratio. Data were obtained from primary data and combined with reliable secondary sources for analysis. The result shows that GB requires an additional cost of 9.22% but offers energy and water savings over the building's life cycle accounted for 58.65%. Research has shown that GB adoption reduces the cost per square metre by 41.74% over the traditional one. The cost–benefit ratio of energy, water, and carbon emissions was 2.35 and thus, justified the increased costs of investment, maintenance, and renewals of GB. This research's findings can assist policymakers, practitioners, developers, and other interested parties in the construction sector in bringing forward regulatory changes, collaboration initiatives, capital investment, or other decision-making support.
Environment. Environmental quality. Gender differences. Gender gap.
Post-occupancy evaluation is a well-known research method documenting occupants' satisfaction with indoor environmental quality (IEQ) factors. Despite potentially significant roles of gender differences in IEQ satisfaction, it has not always been acknowledged by researchers and findings are debated. Through a self-administered questionnaire over nine years, students (n?=?3140) in 11 different higher education classroom buildings in Minnesota, USA rated their satisfaction with 23 IEQ factors. They were most satisfied with overall cleaning and maintenance followed by overall indoor air quality and amount of electric lighting. Students were least satisfied with access to electric outlets followed by daylighting IEQ factors. Mann–Whitney U tests showed that female students were statistically less satisfied with overall thermal conditions and temperature, while male students were statistically less satisfied with daylighting, electric lighting, and view conditions. Subsequent logistic regression analyses indicated the most significant impact of amount of electric lighting. The results imply that once students were dissatisfied with amount of electric lighting, they were more likely to be dissatisfied with the classroom. Despite the significant impacts of all IEQ factors, the different degree of the likelihoods indicates that some IEQ factors may impact classroom satisfaction more than other IEQ factors as indicated by this benchmark study.
Built environment. Citizen perceptions. Data. Environmental quality.
The analysis of occupants' perception can improve building indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Going beyond conventional surveys, this study presents an innovative analysis of occupants' feedback about the IEQ of different workplaces based on web-scraping and text-mining of online job reviews. A total of 1,158,706 job reviews posted on Glassdoor about 257 large organizations (with more than 10,000 employees) are scraped and analyzed. Within these reviews, 10,593 include complaints about at least one IEQ aspect. The analysis of this large number of feedbacks referring to several workplaces is the first of its kind and leads to two main results: (1) IEQ complaints mostly arise in workplaces that are not office buildings, especially regarding poor thermal and indoor air quality conditions in warehouses, stores, kitchens, and trucks; (2) reviews containing IEQ complaints are more negative than reviews without IEQ complaints. The first result highlights the need for IEQ investigations beyond office buildings. The second result strengthens the potential detrimental effect that uncomfortable IEQ conditions can have on job satisfaction. This study demonstrates the potential of User-Generated Content and text-mining techniques to analyze the IEQ of workplaces as an alternative to conventional surveys, for scientific and practical purposes.
Age differences. Communication technology. Cost-benefit analysis. Data.
Smart cities are spurred by rapid development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Cost justification has been a challenging but essential decision-making aspect for smart city projects. Whilst market costs are measurable, non-market costs are often obscure and even intangible. The adverse effects on individuals arising from ICT services are usually underestimated due to the exclusion of intangible elements. This study is devoted to the non-market costs of ICT to users (i.e. Privacy leak, Cyber-attack, Non-availability, and Impediment) and non-users (due to Digital divide) in smart cities. Contingent Valuation is conducted on representative ICT services in Hong Kong which is an emerging smart city. Ordinal regression is adopted to calculate Willingness-to-Pay (WTP) for avoiding detriments as the proxy of non-market cost. The results indicate that the WTPs increase with data input needs. Information overload is remarkable in smart cities. Age is identified as a significant determinant through a discussion of influential factors of WTP. The impacts of Age on digital divide are studied with further insights through supplementary interviews. The estimated non-market costs should be incorporated into the Cost–Benefit Analysis of smart city projects for decision-making. Accordingly, policy recommendations on ICT use and security are provided for smart city managers.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings.
This research aims to estimate the operational energy (OE) savings of a full-scale building, made of lime hemp concrete (LHC) with alternative binders partly replacing lime, compared to buildings made of conventional materials, e.g. Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC), Hollow Concrete Blocks (HCB), and Expanded Polystyrene (ESP). The thermal performance of small size (1 m x 1 m) different materials test cells was experimentally studied. Experimental results were compared to simulated values obtained by EnergyPlus. Monitored and simulated indoor temperatures were found to be in good agreement. Subsequently, the thermal performance and energy consumption of full-scale buildings (10 m x 10 m x 2.9 m) were simulated by EnergyPlus with a great degree of confidence. In up-scaled building simulations, LHC presented the best thermal performance and consequently the lowest energy consumption, reaching ∼7 kWh/m2/year, nearly Zero Energy Building standards, 90% lower as compared to HCB which obtained the highest energy consumption. Dynamic external window shading was shown to have a significant impact on cooling energy savings. This research clearly shows the high potential of using LHC with alternative binders as a partial replacement for lime, as it has advantages in terms of energy savings, and their equivalent CO2 emissions.
Building performance. Buildings. Environmental quality.
This paper reports the results of a comprehensive indoor environmental quality (IEQ) evaluation conducted in seven office buildings at an Australian university. A mix of objective and subjective assessments was carried out and a total of 519 staff participated in the survey from various non-academic departments. Three types of buildings were included in this study: ‘Heritage listed' (c.1880–1890s), ‘Conventional' (c.1960–1980s) and ‘Modern' (post 2000) office buildings. Although the measured IEQ conditions were relatively good with no significant fluctuation across the selected buildings, the discrepancy between objective IEQ data and subjective occupant evaluations was noted. The Modern building type designed with fully double-glazed façades showed the highest levels of overall comfort and satisfaction and perceived productivity, whereas the Conventional building type constructed during the late 20th-century period, notable for deep floor plates, had the lowest. The heritage listed type buildings had lower window to wall ratios, yet displayed improved occupant satisfaction across all IEQ areas over the conventional type buildings. The results support that building renovation and regular maintenance can improve occupant comfort and satisfaction within offices. The findings could be useful for property managers looking for strategies to improve the performance of their building stock.
Environmental modeling. Health. Health care. Information and communication technology.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has introduced critical challenges in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry; to address these challenges, building information modelling (BIM) can be applied as a project management tool to help enhance collaboration among stakeholders and improve business performance. Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, there is a greater need to explore and implement effective strategies to promote a wider adoption of BIM. However, increasing the willingness of project participants to adopt BIM through event management has not received much attention. Therefore, based on event system theory and innovation diffusion theory, we developed a model to explore the influence of the COVID-19 crisis on the willingness of AEC participants to adopt BIM. Structural equation modelling was performed to test the hypotheses. The results demonstrate that the intention of the AEC project participants to adopt BIM is directly driven by the COVID-19 event criticality and perceived usefulness of BIM. Moreover, the event criticality and BIM technical features (relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity) can indirectly affect this intention, through the perceived usefulness. However, the impact of event disruption and novelty on the BIM adoption intention is not significant. Several recommendations are provided to improve the BIM adoption intention of AEC participants during and after the pandemic.
35-7 ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL SYSTEMS
Analysis. Buildings. Market analysis.
The effect of humidity on the climatic conditions and the turbulence around an isolated building has not been yet investigated in literature. This paper analyses the simultaneous effect of architectural and environmental parameters on the vortex creation around a building, focusing on the impact of relative humidity. Sixty-four 3D computational fluid dynamics simulations have been performed, coupling 4 values of inlet velocity, air temperature, solar radiation and building height with 4 values of relative humidity. Results demonstrated that the inclusion of humidity in the simulations has an impact on the vortex creation. Differences in values and trends of the vortex dimensions (Hc, Xc, and Lc) were obtained compared to previous studies where relative humidity was not considered. The highest percentage difference between the two studies regards the building height, where the addition of relative humidity made the Xc value decrease by up to 56%. Among the analysed environmental parameters, building height has the higher impact on the characteristics of the vortex, followed by air velocity. The results have been compared with the analytic formula of the ASHRAE Handbook. Cubic mathematical equations have been developed correlating the vortex dimensions with building height, air velocity and relative humidity.
Building design. Building performance. Environmental conditions.
It is estimated that around 80% of UK dwellings have uninsulated ground floors, representing a significant heat loss mechanism in these buildings. In this research, an aggregated assessment of dwelling heat loss was made using the electric coheating test before and after a ground floor retrofit took place. Heat loss was reduced by 24% (43?±?18 W/K) indicating that suspended timber ground floor retrofits could improve thermal comfort for occupants and contribute to government domestic energy efficiency policy targets. The findings indicate that disaggregated evaluation methods, such as spot heat flux density measurements, may overestimate the benefits of fabric retrofits. Aggregate methods may therefore be more appropriate tools with which to evaluate retrofits. The U-value improvement resulting from the suspended timber ground floor insulation retrofit, derived via aggregate measurement, was 0.55 W/m2K. Disaggregated spot heat flux density measurements indicated the improvement was 0.89 W/m2K. This research also indicates that Energy Performance Certificates, are unlikely to provide a reliable estimate of energy savings, because they rely on default assumptions for fabric U-Values and ventilation rates. This has implications for policy evaluations as well as householders, who may be excluded from financial support for retrofits.
Climate change. Climate policy. Energy conservation. Energy efficiency.
Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) simulations are crucial in balancing a reduced space heat demand and reduced overheating in Passivhaus dwellings. This paper identifies the PHPP simulated overheating frequency (OF) for a dwelling in Douglas, Cork, Ireland, constructed in 2015. The measured indoor temperature is also recorded over a 12-month period. A comparative analysis of measured and simulated overheating is carried out, with two overheating thresholds of 25°C and 24°C. The simulation estimates an OF of 0.00%, for a typical year (at 25°C). The simulation relies on a dwelling average temperature, where the equivalent measured OF for the test year is 2.64%, derived from a volume-weighted mean indoor temperature (Tvm). At a reduced threshold of 24°C, the measured OF is 4.67%. Measurements within 6 independent zones identify 52.61% of readings above 25°C are eliminated by using Tvm. The representation of overheating as a percentage of the year is shown to distort the effect of overheating, while the Tvm value overlooks variations in zonal temperature. This paper recommends that a more robust assessment tool is developed within PHPP, to predict OF for passive house dwellings, while adopting this methodology for dwellings of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) standard.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Comfort.
Evaporative air coolers are widely accepted for outdoor use in the tropical climates of Thailand. However, their contribution to achieving indoor thermal comfort is still undetermined. The purposes of this study are to determine the thermal comfort level achieved by evaporative air coolers and identify variables affecting thermal comfort when using an evaporative air cooler indoors in the tropical climate of Thailand. The results of a questionnaire that asked subjects about thermal comfort when exposed to evaporative cooled air were compared with the results of participants exposed to natural air. A multiple regression model identified variables affecting thermal comfort. This research successfully determined the thermal comfort level achieved by evaporative air coolers of -0.6 (slightly cool) on the thermal sensation scale, which is lower than the level of 0.0 (neutral feeling) achieved by fans. The recommendation is that evaporative air coolers with a high velocity of 1.4 m/s be used indoors to avoid discomfort from the too damp air. The results of the regression analysis demonstrate that air temperature and velocity are the two most influential variables affecting thermal sensation in the application of evaporative air cooling in Thailand.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Comfort.
A frequently stated hallmark of certified green homes is that they are ‘healthier' and provide superior thermal comfort. This usually requires increasing insulation levels from code requirements on the understanding that this will provide a warmer, drier internal environment. However this solution to ‘cold and damp' housing may have unintended consequences; while highly insulated dwellings may be warm over the winter, are they still comfortable during warmest months? This study analyses 29 dwellings in Auckland, New Zealand to determine if there is any difference in the temperature and thermal comfort between three types of dwellings: newly built green certified (6-Homestar), newly built non-certified and old dwellings (pre-1978). The results show large differences between dwelling categories with the certified 6-Homestar dwellings exceeding the World Health Organisation (WHO) healthy temperature threshold 75% of the time during the warmest months of the year, resulting in predicted occupant discomfort 16% of the time. These results have significant policy implications with it apparent that not only under-heating but also overheating require specific attention in government legislation, green building rating tools and building codes.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Comfort.
Natural ventilation can be incorporated into buildings to decrease energy use and the associated greenhouse gas emissions of buildings. However, mechanical cooling has largely replaced natural ventilation in commercial buildings in Canada and the US. This study evaluates the potential for natural ventilation under climate change. To this end, a typical office space in a mixed-mode building in 14 cities representing the major climate zones in Canada and the US was simulated to assess the usability of natural ventilation under the predicted climatic data for the years 2050 and 2080. A rule-based model for change-over between natural and mechanical ventilation modes was developed on the basis of the adaptive thermal comfort model. The potential impact of occupants was also simulated using an existing stochastic occupants' window use model. The simulation results show that the natural ventilation usability with rule-based control generally decreases under climate change. The stochastic model indicated the risk of overheating resulted from inefficient window use. Climate change leads to higher cooling energy use, which can be reduced considerably, especially in temperate climates, using natural ventilation with rule-based control. However, the stochastic model yielded to the reduction in the energy saving rates.
Design management. Environmental quality. Housing facilities. Information technology.
At present, workplace researchers lack a suitable methodology for combining objective indoor environmental quality (IEQ) data with repeated subjective assessments of comfort in real offices. To address this gap, we conducted a study at two office sites. Four IEQ parameters (carbon dioxide, temperature, humidity, and illuminance) were continuously monitored at each site, and brief environmental comfort surveys were sent to employees' smartphones four times per day across the study period. In total, 45 employees across the two sites completed 536 surveys. The findings confirm that the repeated sampling approach is a more appropriate method for measuring comfort than a questionnaire delivered at one time only. Adherence to recommended temperatures reduced the risk of thermal discomfort, however this effect was weak and other predicted associations between the physical environment and environmental comfort were not supported. The results also showed a strong association between environmental comfort and self-rated productivity, such that employees rated themselves as most productive when they were satisfied with noise levels, temperature, air quality, and lighting within the office. Overall, the results highlight that it is critically important to consider strategies for optimising occupant comfort, although this is unlikely to be achieved through adherence to environmental comfort boundaries alone.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Environmental quality.
Post-occupancy evaluations (POE) have been often used to study user satisfaction with office environments. More recently, POEs have been recognized for documenting occupant well-being and responses to 26 indoor environmental quality (IEQ) factors that incorporate sustainable design guidelines such as thermal, lighting, and acoustic conditions. The Sustainable Post-Occupancy Evaluation Surveys (SPOES) have measured occupants' (n?=?2836) satisfaction with IEQ factors for 11 years. This paper presents findings from this 11-year-benchmark study. It suggests a lower satisfaction rating for adjustability than other IEQ factors. Based on further logistic regression analyses of the IEQ factors, occupants tended to be dissatisfied with their primary workspace when they were dissatisfied with acoustic conditions, furnishings, and privacy. The results imply that improving acoustic and privacy conditions, especially, would bring the most significant impact on the positive experience in built environments, whereas improving thermal conditions would impact relatively less significant on the positive experience. Acknowledging how differently each IEQ factor can affect building occupants' satisfaction and perception is important for determining benchmarks that support occupants' health and well-being in the workplace environment, where they spend much of their time.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Comfort.
This research proposes the use of membrane-assisted radiant panels to improve the thermal comfort of naturally ventilated spaces in hot and humid climates. These radiant panels are capable of conditioning naturally ventilated spaces, which is impractical with conventional mechanical cooling systems. For conventional systems, a permeable envelope will result in energy wastage from conditioned air escaping or condensation occurring on the radiant surfaces. In our system, there is no air-conditioning and we avoid condensation by separating the radiant surfaces from humid air using a membrane transparent to thermal radiation. The membrane-assisted radiant panels are an unutilized technology for architects to design comfortable naturally ventilated spaces. We propose a cooling system based on the technology and discuss the architectural implications, particularly the permeability of the building envelope and requirements for mechanical spaces, of employing this system in a case study that is a naturally ventilated classroom. Our system is compared to conventional cooling systems. Although our system requires a ceiling space reconfiguration, it does not require duct works and envelope retrofits. The comparative case study shows a potential 52% reduction in cooling energy demand from initial estimation. Considering the trade-offs, our system can be a good alternative for retrofit projects.
Building design. Buildings. Comfort. Information and communication technology. Information technology and communication.
As one of the representative parameters for human energy metabolism, the metabolic rate has been considered as the significant factor for occupants' thermal comfort analyses. Despite the importance of metabolic rate as a predictor of thermal comfort modelling, prior works rely on uncertain metabolic rate estimation without considering actual activity variations while occupying a building. This study aims at identifying the effect of metabolic rate on the thermal comfort models by proposing a robust data-driven personalized model in consideration of human activity variations. To investigate heterogeneous thermal state of occupants, wearable sensors and machine learning algorithms were used to continuously monitor and analyse individual physiological signals, activity-based metabolic rates and environmental indices. Field experiments were conducted with 10 subjects in a campus building in the US, and the results showed that predictive models considering metabolic rate yield advanced performance of up to 8.5%, implying that activity-based metabolic rates provide better understanding of personal thermal comfort. This paper quantitatively validates the effectiveness of reflecting metabolic rate based on human activity variations into personal thermal comfort modelling, which provides an insight into how to better model personal thermal comfort of occupants in real-life settings.
Construction. Construction industry. House design.
This study simulates various residential housing construction scenarios, including improved and standard fibro, brick veneer, double brick and fibro with improved flooring. The total heating and cooling energy requirements for each scenario are simulated with a computer program to determine which one is most energy efficient. In the simulation models, construction types and passive solar and energy efficient design strategies (PSEEDS) were varied while other parameters such as wall and roof thickness, windows sizes and general layout were kept constant. The study shows that a standard fibro house had the highest cooling and heating energy requirements (30,721 kWh/yr). The improved reverse brick veneer house had the lowest energy requirement of 9,628 kWh/yr. Amongst all the construction scenarios, the total energy required for cooling was higher than that required for heating. The results show that improved brick veneer, reverse brick veneer and double brick houses have the lowest net energy requirements for heating and cooling compared to the corresponding standard houses. The results indicate that the thermal mass (measured by R value) and PSEEDS incorporated in the construction have significant impact on the energy consumption. Incorporating these design features in the construction of a house can reduce the heating and cooling energy requirements by as much as 69%.
Adaptive behavior. Comfort. Efficiency. Energy efficiency. Evaluation.
This study proposes a novel 10-point numerical scale to evaluate long-term thermal comfort satisfaction. The available scale that verbally evaluates the short-term thermal comfort is thermal sensation vote (TSV) and this has substituted for the long-term thermal comfort assessment. However, the TSV has been questioned by many studies due to the ambiguous, widely different interpretation of each score and unequal perceived gaps between the scores. The paper argues the biological similarities between pain and temperature perceptions and proposes a numerical thermal comfort scale like that of long-term pain perception. Participants in a survey rated their long-term summer thermal comfort in the natural ventilation mode through the numerical and TSV scales. Ratings were compared after converting to degree hours based on monitoring temperature data for the same summer. The results show that the numerical scale provides an opportunity for respondents to express their long-term thermal comfort satisfaction level. Scoring by the numerical scale was convenient and clear to the respondents. The verbal scores of TSV, had different interpretations for individuals as each point was attributed to more than two values of degree hours. The score ‘Neutral' was significantly ambiguous for assessing thermal comfort.
Building performance. Buildings. Design methods.
Although several field studies have indicated that water penetration can be expected through face-sealed joints over the lifespan of buildings, in particular, when sealed by means of construction sealant, face-sealed systems are still being applied by industry, e.g. precast concrete panels. Laboratory studies evaluating the concept of face-sealed joints are, however, limited. This study assesses and compares the initial performance of four sealing systems, tapes, silicone strips, silicone-based coating and foam sealing strips, applied to seal building joints in a face-sealed manner and subjected to simulated wind pressures and driving rain loads. The results give insight into the initial watertightness of the sealing materials and the sensitivity of the performance of the materials to different installation methods. The results indicate that water leakage can be expected through unperceivable openings in the face-sealed joints and that great care should be taken to install the sealing materials in the correct manner. The findings also suggest that closed-cell foam strips might be considered as an alternative to construction sealant to face-seal joints. Further research should evaluate the performance of these foam sealing strips after natural weathering and exposure to cyclic building movements.
Alternative fuels. Comfort. Energy efficiency.
Controlled non-uniform indoor thermal environments have the potential to evoke thermal pleasure in occupants as explained by the psychophysiological framework of alliesthesia. In this study, the authors aimed to explore thermal pleasure inside solar screen shaded, single-occupancy, perimeter office set-ups that are within a 4.5 m distance from a building facade. Two solar screens, static (stationary) and dynamic (movable), were designed to differently control the thermal environments inside the single-occupancy, perimeter office set-ups. A within-subject experiment was designed in which 27 human participants were exposed to both set-ups. Subjective responses on thermal pleasure as well as objective data including the participants' physiological responses and indoor environmental data were collected during these exposures. Correlations between the subjective responses and objective data were analysed. Ramps in operative temperatures and skin temperature contrasts were found to have a significant influence (p < 0.05) on evoking thermal pleasure in ambient thermal environments of the solar-screened, perimeter offices that remained in the upper fringes of the thermoneutrality limits. The findings provide experimental evidence that expands the application of the thermal alliesthesia framework to building perimeter offices. This work contributes to occupant-centric building research by describing an approach to design shading systems that cater to occupant's thermal pleasure.
35-8 UNIVERSAL DESIGN
Assessment. Buildings. Comfort. Environmental assessment.
Large grandstands provide areas for human activities and leisure pursuits. The degree of vibration comfort for people has an important effect on the functionality of grandstands. In this paper, the changes of the dynamic properties of the stand owing to different human postures are demonstrated. The comfort degree for human vibration in the large stand is also examined by full-scale measurements and questionnaire surveys. In addition, the analysis of the influence of different parameters on acceleration responses of the stand is presented via numerical simulation. Thereafter, it has been observed that ISO10137-2007 and BS6472 are more suitable than GB10070 and AISC-11 for evaluating vibration serviceability owing to crowd jumping loads during football matches in the large grandstand environment. Moreover, it has been observed that females and the staff are more likely to feel uncomfortable during matches, whilst students younger than 30 years old are the least sensitive group to vibrations of large stands. When the frequency of the jumping loads is close to the fundamental frequency of the stand or the synergy rate is high, the resonance is more likely to occur, which should be avoided by designers and users.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Commercial real estate. Decision making.
At universities worldwide, creating a ‘smart campus' is gaining significance. This is a response to the increasingly dynamic use of the campus and the pressure on resources: energy, financial and human resources. The university community has become more mobile, student numbers more unpredictable and funding more uncertain. Consequently, campus strategies focus on resource efficiency and sharing space, requiring investment in management information to improve decision making. The Internet of Things (IoT) can help to provide big data about use patterns: by collecting real-time data on space utilization, users can make better use of current spaces and real estate managers can make better decisions about long-term demand. Furthermore, space utilisation data can be complemented with user feedback data and environmental variables, e.g. noise levels, luminance. In this research we identify the capabilities of existing IoT applications through a literature study. Literature also suggests that information from IoT applications is not utilized in organisational decision-making processes. Through four case studies we analyse these decision-making processes and identify the process-level requirements to make strategic decisions in campus management. Then we show how information from the IoT can be directly connected to these processes, thus providing a valuable addition of real-time data as input.
Community organizing. Construction. Information technology.
The current proliferation of custom information exchange initiatives in projects disrupts information exchange routines of design and construction firms. This paper investigates how firms perceive, interpret, and act upon information exchange requirements that do not align with their existing routines. This case study examines a construction project for which the owner specified highly custom requirements for digital production and delivery of project submittals. Using ethnographic methods, the project parties' existing routines and their patterns of perceiving and responding to the requirements were identified. These patterns showed that the parties perceived disruptions to the existing dispositions and rules that guided their routines and shaped their performance across projects. The project parties used a combination of deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning mechanisms to interpret the requirements, expose the inefficiencies associated with their workflows, and set new ground rules for action. The grounded propositions in this study hold that the limited opportunities for inductive reasoning and reflective assessment of workflows in projects can press project parties into identifying alternative workflows through cognitive search and abductive reasoning. This, in turn, results in highly situated, temporary, and fragmented workflows that are not durable and effective to contribute to refinement of existing information exchange routines.
Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Geographic information systems.
Evacuation navigation in emergencies such as fires is one of the most important operational considerations for a building. The large and complicated interior spaces, as well as the intensive population significantly increase the difficulty of fire evacuation in large-scale buildings. The environmental changes such as the spread of a fire and the flow of evacuees exacerbate the difficulties of fire evacuation. Therefore, this research aims to develop an adaptive approach for path planning against the rapid environmental changes in fires. In this paper, a graph-based network is formed by integrating MAT with VG, with the addition of a buffer zone. The network uses real-time videos from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras facilitated by deep learning algorithms to detect and tally the number of people in a target area. According to the tally of people and a proposed walkability model, the congestion conditions of an area can be analysed so that evacuees can avoid any areas that are congested. An Internet of things sensor network is also established to detect the presence of hazardous areas. The proposed solution allows evacuation navigation to be done in real time. An illustrative example is provided to demonstrate the functionality and features of this proposed methodology.
Carbon dioxide. Collaboration. Design. Development. Knowledge. Market transition.
The integration of transformative pedagogies into curricula is recognized as a strategy to deal with the new demands of complexity in learning, which include equipping future professionals with the necessary knowledge and skills to transition to a low carbon built environment. It requires a dedicated interdisciplinary learning environment. Creating this environment remains a challenge due to the lack of a learning tool to facilitate an interdisciplinary approach. Perhaps due to this challenge, interdisciplinarity within the context of low carbon transition (LCT) in the built environment has not been sufficiently explored. This study deals with this gap in the literature by developing a pedagogical approach founded on the combined use of Grounded Theory Method, Cognitive Mapping Technique and Meaningful Learning Activities. This paper focuses on the testing phase of this approach, which engaged researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students. The findings promote a transformative pedagogy to explore the socio-technical dimension of the LCT. They point out the type of interdisciplinarity, which we need to integrate into traditional curricula, moving from vocabulary construction at the undergraduate level to exploration of different perspectives at the postgraduate level. Recommendations on the ways in which this approach could become common practice are also made.
Building design. Buildings. Design innovation. Design research. Innovation.
Despite the undeniable need for enhancements in hospital building design, there remain issues in the transition of and translation from research to innovation. While the literature highlights the Research/Practice gap as the prime obstacle, the interplay between research and other variables impacting design innovation remains unclear. This paper aims to understand the innovation system in hospital building design by considering the wider context of design. In seventy-seven highly cited papers, the Integral Design Framework was adopted to examine interactions between research and innovation. This was then used to map variables impacting two innovative moments in hospital building design. The analyses suggest innovation occurs at the intersections of different knowledge domains and point to an oversimplified picture of innovation. It is shown innovations have been generated in relation to new knowledge that is influenced by several critical variables: social shifts, political decisions, architectural design trends, and medical and technological advancements. Analyses utilizing the Integral Design Framework indicates that research informing hospital building design has lacked holistic perspective, thus hampering design innovation. This points to the necessity of re-formulating research questions holistically to drive innovation and the narrowing of the Research/Practice gap.
Design. Health. Health care. Knowledge exchange.
Architects and healthcare organizations involved in designing healthcare environments highly value insights gained through research to inform their practice. Obtaining research funding increasingly presupposes economic and/or societal value of research outcomes. Our study aims to gain a nuanced understanding of what knowledge transfer in an inter- and transdisciplinary context, like healthcare building design, means for various actors involved. Based on the notion of productive interactions, we reflect on a knowledge-transfer project seeking solutions for real-world problems in the design of healthcare buildings with a focus on patient experience. We analyze how different actors involved in the project –including researchers, healthcare organizations, and designers – view and value the knowledge provided and transferred, and the (pathways towards) impact. In doing so, we illustrate how productive interactions can take place in real-life situations. We conclude that the roles of researchers and practitioners in knowledge exchange processes should be understood to be fluid. Future realizations of productive interactions could be supported by evaluating knowledge-transfer projects in terms of process and outcomes, thus acknowledging the shifting roles of researchers and practitioners, and the potential to improve well-being and social relations through research.
Building design. Design. Health. Health and well-being. Health care. Health services.
Health is a trending topic in the office market, yet scientific research on healthy offices is scattered. This study undertakes a systematic literature review on the relationship between the interior space of offices and physical, psychological and social well-being. The review identifies the characteristics of interior office space that have been studied in relation to employee health, and outlines the empirical evidence. Of 2816 papers in the database, 50 addressed the relationship between interior office space and health and did so based on six features: layout, furniture, light, greenery, controls and noise. Evidence on the relationship between interior space and health has accumulated only within a few topics. On the one hand, open-plan offices, shared rooms and higher background noise are negatively related to health. On the other hand, positive relationships are found between physical well-being and aspects that encourage physical activity; between physical/psychological well-being and (day)light, individual control and real/artificial greenery; and between social well-being and small shared rooms. In measuring health, physical well-being is predominant. Similarly, studies have predominantly aimed to prevent health problems rather than enhance health. Overall, the related research is in a nascent stage. Further research is required to verify claims about healthy offices.
Building design. Building performance. Design. Environmental quality. Health and well-being.
While there is broad evidence of the impact of tangible factors (i.e. room temperature, indoor air quality) on work well-being and productivity, the objective measurement of intangible factors (i.e. ergonomics and privacy) is still an under-researched subject. A holistic approach to indoor environmental quality (IEQ) has been developed in this study by combining the research dimensions of IEQ factors (tangible vs. intangible), outcome (workplace satisfaction, health, productivity), method (subjective vs. objective assessment) and impact (direct vs. indirect effects), and it has been tested in a laboratory (n?=?180). The main findings are that (i) workplace satisfaction, health and productivity are more strongly affected by intangible factors than by tangible ones, (ii) impaired privacy leads to sick building symptoms and less creativity, (iii) negative self-assessment impairs objective performance in the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy, while (iv) personality traits correlate differently with ergonomics and privacy. Hence, a holistic IEQ approach that also considers interrelations between the research dimensions is beneficial for creating supportive workplace designs.
Economic conditions. Energy regulation. Environment. Information technology.
Despite the increased awareness of benefits and opportunities resulting from energy retrofits, there is a lack of information regarding the factors influencing the success of energy retrofits – especially deep energy retrofits – aiming to achieve a net zero energy goal. The aim of this study is to identify factors and variables that could contribute to the successful implementation of energy retrofit measures in buildings with the goal of achieving net zero energy. A database of 34 small- and medium-sized commercial building retrofit projects was developed for this analysis, which was derived from the New Buildings Institute's Net Zero Energy Building Database. Five factor categories were investigated: physical, technical, environmental, economic, and policy. A total of 11 variables from the 5 categories were analysed. The results show that success stems from a combination of certain variables: the number of floors, the climate zone, and the building cost. In general, the results indicate a trend: compact buildings with a construction cost range between $19/m2 and $42/m2 in a mild climate have a higher likelihood of achieving a net zero energy goal. Also, the analysis provides new evidence toward the importance of understanding a building's physical characteristics in an existing building energy retrofit.
Architecture. Building materials. Design. Efficiency. Energy efficiency. Energy resources.
Buildings are considered major drivers of resource use and climate change. This has initiated the development of design tools that could better reflect the environmental performance of buildings. This article describes the extension of building information modelling (BIM) through the development of the sustainable resource application (SURAP) that can be used to determine the material, water, and climate footprints of buildings at the design stage. The Python application programming interface (API) of openLCA software was used with the GaBi construction materials database for the preparation of footprint data. Footprints of construction materials were determined through life cycle assessments (LCA) on a cradle-to-gate basis, and the application was developed as a new tab in the Autodesk Revit software. The Revit API was used for data exchange between the Revit core system and the developed plug-in. The application prototype was tested for the design of a multifamily building. The results show that the developed tool can support building designers in quantifying and visualizing cradle-to-gate material, water, and the climate footprints of buildings within the BIM environment. The promotion of sustainability in the building industry and its current limitations are discussed.
Building design. Buildings. Comfort. Multifamily housing.
Airtightness refers to the amount of air leakage through a building's envelope. This uncontrolled exchange of air between inside and outside, either infiltration or exfiltration, may lead to thermal discomfort. Nevertheless, little or no attention has been given to airtightness in some countries including Brazil. In Brazil, a range of different strategies are suitable to achieve thermal comfort depending on the several climatic regions. In those regions where winter conditions are noticeable, such as in São Paulo, airtightness is a key parameter, but it has been historically overlooked. In this work, the authors deployed the innovative Pulse test methodology to determine airtightness levels for the first time in Brazil, in the city of São Paulo. Three representative multifamily residential buildings dating from the 1970s, 1980s and 2000s were measured, and the results' values widely ranged from 1 to 5.7 h-1, at 4 Pa. Next, dynamic building simulations were conducted using measured and representative airtightness values (converted to infiltration) to understand the contribution of this variable on the thermal comfort. The results suggested that up to 9% improvement in the thermal comfort levels could be achieved by adopting 1 h-1 as maximum infiltration, and up to 14% by adopting 0.5 h-1.
Building performance. Energy efficiency. Information and communication technology.
Ambitious and innovative refurbishment measures will be required to meet the European Union's goals for limiting building energy consumption. Envelope efficiency can be enhanced, for instance, with new materials and improved passive techniques. Trombe walls (TWs), one such technique, reduce heating demand in winter, although they cause overheating in warm climates. That drawback may be corrected with thermal-optically reversible materials. In this study, a thermochromic mortar was applied to a prototype TW to reduce solar absorption in summer without affecting its wintertime efficacy. Further to field measurements, the maximum surface temperature reached on the wall's thermochromic cladding (TCC) was 32°C in winter and 44.7°C in summer. The indoor cold weather temperature in the module ranged from 7.9°C to 16.5°C for a mean of 11°C, compared to 25.1°C to 32.2°C with a mean of 28.9°C in warm weather. Ventilating the air gap at 60–200 ach prevented the cladding from fading to nearly colourless in winter. In light of the improved thermal transfer performance delivered, the TTW proposed can profitably be used for energy refurbishment in existing buildings.
Housing facilities. Maintenance. Management. Mining.
Facility managers can significantly benefit from operational data, such as maintenance requests, stored in computerized maintenance management systems (CMMSs). This data is a valuable means to assess building performance and gain insights for preventive maintenance actions. However, databases are not always organized in such a way that allow undertaking analytics, therefore resulting in troubles when trying to generate useful information from raw data. This paper presents two methods based on a text-mining approach to extract valuable information from textual maintenance requests. The first method aims to extract the room identifier (ID) numbers where faults mainly occur, while the second one aims to identify the most problematic building elements and systems. The text-mining-based methods were tested by using a data set which contains 12,655 maintenance requests derived from a cluster of 33 buildings managed by the local administration of the Municipality of Trieste (Italy).
37-6865
Automatic vehicle location. Commercial vehicles. Design.
The widespread deployment of autonomous vehicles over the coming decades will create challenges and opportunities for the urban design profession. The secondary impacts of this disruptive new technology will be positive, negative, or both, depending upon variables such as power source (electric vs. fossil fuel), ownership (fleet vs. private), and ridership (shared vs. individual). Urban design practitioners should develop and test new approaches and prototypes to address effects on the physical environment, work with allied professionals and decision-makers to advance policies that will produce better built form outcomes, and consider the impacts of urban design decisions on larger societal issues.
36. Environmenal Psychology/Environment, Behavior, and Society
36-1 ENVIRONMENTAL PERCEPTION/COGNITION
Information technology. Knowledge. Living environment.
Finding one's way is a fundamental daily activity and has been widely studied in the field of geospatial cognition. Immersive virtual reality (iVR) techniques provide new approaches for investigating wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge acquisition. It is currently unclear, however, how wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge acquisition in iVR differ from those in real-world environments (REs). We conducted an RE wayfinding experiment with twenty-five participants who performed a series of tasks. We then conducted an iVR experiment using the same experimental design with forty participants who completed the same tasks. Participants' eye movements were recorded in both experiments. In addition, verbal reports and postexperiment questionnaires were collected as supplementary data. The results revealed that individuals' wayfinding performance is largely the same between the two environments, whereas their visual attention exhibited significant differences. Participants processed visual information more efficiently in RE but searched visual information more efficiently in iVR. For spatial knowledge acquisition, participants' distance estimation was more accurate in iVR compared with RE. Participants' direction estimation and sketch map results were not significantly different, however. This empirical evidence regarding the ecological validity of iVR might encourage further studies of the benefits of VR techniques in geospatial cognition research.
37-6866
Citizen perceptions. Collective-risk situations. Management.
The study used the hypothetical lottery-choice questions to measure risk aversion and a detailed survey collected data on input use, farm production and non-farm activities to specifically assess whether risk aversion, risk perceptions, and socioeconomic factors affect the risk management strategies of farm households in Northern Ghana. Risk aversion significantly increases crop diversification strategies of households but marginally reduces herbicide use by households. Market risk significantly increases the use of improved seed varieties and the application of inorganic fertiliser but reduces diversification into livestock production. Production risk largely increases diversification into livestock production. Farmers' risk management strategies are affected by socioeconomic variables such as access to extension services, area cultivated, age and gender. Policy effort focused on building pliable on-farm crop related risk management strategies should aim at considering the risk aversion and the perception of market risk whilst those focused on livestock should focus on production risk.
37-6867
Agricultural science. China. Community transformation. Environment.
The practice of citizen science (CS) is emerging in China as an apparatus for environmental monitoring (EM). It complements the State's EM system by ameliorating its coverage, continuity, and accuracy. It has achieved remarkable results in fostering public participation, information transparency, and accountability of State authorities. While acknowledging these achievements, we contend that such an instrumental use of CS cannot deliver the innovative solutions needed to cope with China's socio-ecological crisis. In fact, it may reinforce the anthropocentric and technocratic vision of progress that lies at the roots of China's – and the World's – dramatic environmental emergency. We therefore propose a framework for transforming the practice of China's CS beyond its current patterns. The framework is structured along three pathways: ecological awareness, emotional responsiveness, and institutional engagement. Emerging trends consistent with these pathways are introduced in the paper, and their scientific and institutional relevance discussed.
37-6868
Citizen perceptions. Development. Ground water. National urbanization.
As concerns about urban stormwater runoff become more acute and decentralized management gains popularity, there is a need to better understand public attitudes about stormwater management. We surveyed residents in Appalachia to assess knowledge about stormwater runoff, concerns about impacts, efforts to abate runoff on private property, and attitudes towards who should manage and pay for management. The survey also employed a split sample technique to assess how detailed, science-based information documenting negative impacts influences public concern and attitudes toward stormwater management. The results show the majority of respondents know what stormwater runoff is, but they know less about what its impacts are. About a third of respondents have implemented stormwater abatement measures on their property. There is no consensus on who should manage or pay for stormwater management. Providing more detailed science-based information had no influence on respondents' general concern about stormwater runoff or their attitudes about its management.
37-6869
Citizen perceptions. City planning. Diverse neighborhoods. Environmental quality.
The provision of green and open space in the face of wider development pressure is a key urban challenge. Despite this, few studies have critically investigated the quality of life implications of such provision. This paper focuses on perceptions of built environment factors and their influence on neighbourhood quality of life. Data are drawn from a household survey questionnaire completed by 483 residents living in three neighbourhoods in Dublin, Ireland – an inner city neighbourhood, a suburb and a peri-urban settlement. Positive perceptions of green and open space were identified as important predictors of high levels of neighbourhood satisfaction, surpassed only by dwelling characteristics. This suggests that development strategies which fail to provide for properly planned green and open spaces may be detrimental to neighbourhood quality of life. Furthermore, the results suggest a need for design solutions which consider neighbourhood typology in achieving improved neighbourhood quality of life.
37-6870
City planning. Ecology. Experimental research. Geographical models.
The main objective of this study is to examine local communities' perceptions and use of green infrastructure (GI) in two case study cities: Bahir Dar and Hawassa in Ethiopia. The study employed a binary logistic regression model to identify factors that affect perceptions of GI. The result shows that people have distinct patterns of usage and positive perceptions towards GI in their respective cities. The regression results show that gender, age, accessibility, safety, education level, type of green infrastructure, level of awareness, location and opportunities for social activities are statistically significant predictors of perception. It is evident that urban GI development that addresses local communities' perceptions needs to be sensitive to these variables.
37-6871
Citizen involvement. Citizen perceptions. Environmental health.
Can grassroots-driven citizen sensing initiatives triggered by distrust contribute to risk problem-solving? The article inspects such a potential in the field of risks to public health represented by noise pollution. After a conceptual reflection, the Amsterdam Schiphol and the London Heathrow airports' noise monitoring cases are compared. We inquire: How did lay people use citizen sensing to find solutions to the increase in noise? Which perceptions/actions influence and facilitate the problem-solving potential of citizen sensing? We found that the main citizens' actions leading to solutions are an adequate contesting of information monopoly through the production of valid data, as well as the challenging of institutional strategies to improve risk-related problem-solving. Accordingly, the citizen sensing initiative may generate mutual understanding and stimulate the institutional recognition of the problem and urgency for solving it. The article provides a novel exploration of evidence on performance of actors showing the problem-solving potential of citizen sensing through a preliminary performance matrix.
37-6872
Citizen perceptions. Energy sector. Environmental attitudes.
This article estimates the impact of residential risk perception on the willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid having waste-to-energy (WTE) power plants in the neighborhood. The filed survey shows that 63.4% of the respondents protested for various reasons. It is noteworthy that house owners indicate a greater willingness for resettlement than house renters. However, residents who take WTE incineration facilities into consideration before settlement are more inclined to oppose the payment for facility relocation. Determinants of protest and supportive responses are evaluated by the sample selection method (SSM). Empirical results show that the average WTP for avoiding WTE facilities being sited in the neighborhood is 2,160 CNY, which is reliable because we include protest responses in the estimation process. Housing price, gender, and living area are decisive factors for the WTP value; in particular, the marginal effect of exaggerated risk perception on WTP amounts to 1,074 CNY.
36-3 ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDE/AWARENESS/VALUES
Community transformation. Cultural politics. Geopolitics.
The recent surge in populist politics in Europe and North America has challenged many of the policies aimed at advancing sustainable shifts. In this article we argue that this surge necessitates a rethinking of transition and transformation. The mainstream perspective on transitions understands it largely as the proliferation and upscaling of innovative technologies and policy frameworks. We recast sustainability transitions and transformations as continuous processes of assembly and disassembly, driven by rupture and instability. Rather than seeing populist resurgence as a “barrier” to change toward sustainability, we argue that these ruptures and instabilities should be considered inherent to the transformation process itself. The recent local election in Bergen, Norway, witnessed the surge of a new “anti-elite” political party dedicated to protesting road tolls that finance public transport. We hold that although such movements certainly pose challenges to sustainable transitions, they also provide opportunities for revitalizing democratic politics—moving beyond postpolitical managerial governance and inviting new concerns into local and urban transformation processes.
37-6873
Behavior. Environmental attitudes. Human behavior.
Investigations on state-dependent and endogenous preferences have gained momentum. There is now abundant empirical literature on whether, and how, external stimuli influence or predict people's behavior and appraisals. In recent decades, attempts have been made to enlarge this strand of research to determine whether “nudging” may help in managing environmental problems and boosting social preferences. Following this line of investigation, we describe a web experiment to analyze the impact of priming on environmental and ethical attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental protection. We found that while priming does make pro-environmental attitudes more salient, its frame affects the probability of WTP a premium for environment-friendly goods and the size of the premium. Unlike other authors, we used a visual priming technique based on a short video cartoon about a smartphone lifecycle.
37-6874
Activism. Community transformation. Crime. Criminal justice.
Land grabbing results in social impacts, injustice, conflict and displacement of smallholders. We use an environmental justice framework to analyse land grabbing and actions taken by local communities (resistance, protest, and proactive organisation). Qualitative research investigating land grabbing for tree plantations and agriculture (primarily soy) was undertaken in Argentina. We found that pre-existing local vulnerabilities tended to result in people acquiescing rather than resisting land grabs. Local people considered existing injustices to be more pressing than land grabbing. Locals tacitly accepted injustice resulting in communities becoming displaced, fenced-in, or evicted. Consequently, already-vulnerable people continue to live in unhealthy conditions, insecure tenure situations, and bear a disproportionate social and environmental burden. More attention should be given to pre-existing vulnerabilities and to improving the wellbeing of people affected by land grabs. Analysing land grabbing from an environmental justice perspective contributes to understanding the deeper reasons about why, where and how land grabbing occurs.
37-6875
Citizen participation. Collective social memory. Collective-risk situations. Ethnic socialization.
An environmental improvement program was implemented to reduce population exposure to manganese in the manganese mining district of Molango, in Mexico. This paper analyzes whether social representations about mining activity changed after the program and examines their implications for risk management. We used a qualitative design to compare prior with current social representations. Region residents insist that contamination affects their environment and health. In contrast, public officials and mining company staff find no evidence of harm; they regard mining as a source of regional and community development. Our findings indicate that residents know little about the environmental program. These representations hinder the achievement of cooperation agreements and risk management. We recommend that manganese risk management implements a comprehensive environmental recovery program that includes the perspectives of all the social actors. Social representation theory served to understand the discourses of social actors on manganese mining, taking into account their social context.
37-6876
Environmental planning. Environmental quality. Ground water.
In this study, we examine key liveability aspects, viz., ecosystem services (ES), urban services (US), peri-urban services (PS) and human services (HS). Further, disparity in the liveability of urban and peri-urban areas that could hamper sustainability was investigated. The Cirebon Metropolitan Region in Indonesia frequently experiences water security issues. The perceived liveability of this region was assessed using survey data collected in 65 villages within 25 sub-districts. The study demonstrates that ES, US, PS and HS in the analytical framework of importance–performance analysis (IPA) can identify the main areas needing intervention to improve urban and peri-urban socio-ecohydrological systems and liveability. The method of combining qualitative and quantitative IPA schemes developed in this study is novel and is able to support a demand-based approach and comprehensive understanding of place-based needs for long-term liveability in a developing country situation.
37-6877
Activity. Choice model. Human activity.
Wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout are in danger in several fisheries of the northern hemisphere due to anthropic activities. The pressures on fish stocks include excessive commercial and recreational harvests, as well as habitat depletion. In this paper, we present a choice experiment assessment of recreational anglers' preferences for conservation options, aiming to reduce harvest and improve ecosystem quality of salmon fisheries using Ireland as a case study. Data were collected by online survey and analysed with a latent class logit model. Results indicate two groups of anglers with diverging opinions and preferences on salmon conservation priorities, which will likely be reflected in different levels of acceptance of conservation initiatives.
37-6878
Air pollution. Environmental pollution. Government.
Chinese governments play a key role in providing environmental public goods. Urban air quality is a significant indicator with which people evaluate the effects of governments' environmental regulations and investments. This study aims to investigate how people’s impression of government varies with air pollution in Chinese cities. Using the Baidu online search index on the specific keyword ‘corruption' to represent public attitude toward the government, our estimations show that an increase in air pollution level yields a significant increase in online searches on this word. Such an effect is more significant on heavily polluted or severely polluted days. In further estimations, we find that people will not pay more attention to the polluters themselves on polluted days. These results are consistent with previous studies that air pollution causes people to be more depressed, selfish and sensitive to fairness. We conclude that efforts on air quality improvement will create a positive impression of government.
36-4 SOCIO-SPATIAL FACTORS
Architecture. Community psychology. Design quality. Environment.
This study focused on ambient temperature and investigated how it affects architectural liking. In total, 180 volunteers participated in the study. Participants travelled in a virtual reality environment at three different temperatures (15°C, 22°C, 30°C). All other physical interior features (such as moisture, sound, and odour) were eliminated for the study; the main objective was to test the effect of ambient temperature on the architectural liking An EEG device was used to determine the cognitive activities of the participants during space navigation. In addition, an eye-tracking device was used in virtual reality goggles to identify the areas that participants were looking at. It was determined that the architectural preferences of the people changed depending on the temperature of the space. It is thought that this finding will inspire different disciplines dealing with architectural design and thermal comfort. This is the first study to investigate how the architectural spaces are perceived by people and whether this depends on the ambient temperature. The findings also show that each cognitive process differs in varying degrees relative to subjective thermal sensations; therefore, it may be suggested that each thermal sensation should be proposed for each cognitive process and ‘indoor temperature changed people's cognitive perception'.
Adaptive behavior. Building design. Building performance. Buildings. Comfort.
This paper aims to understand and characterize occupant behaviour from a perspective of air conditioner (AC) usage. Therefore, it analyses data collected via a questionnaire applied throughout the Brazilian territory, which resulted in 3,259 valid answers explored by non-parametric statistical methods. The main results obtained were: (i) 89% of interviewed occupants prefer naturally ventilated environments at home; (ii) their preference impacts their behaviour, as those who prefer naturally ventilated environments tend to ventilate their house instead of turning on the air conditioner; (iii) climate and family income influence the availability of appliances, i.e. 93.2% of the high-income groups have at least one AC at home in extremely hot climates; (iv) there are groups with a tendency of high AC use, especially those who use AC often, also use it for a longer period of time; and (v) there is a significant difference between the setpoint temperature used in different climates; for instance, the lowest setpoint temperature is used in the hottest climate. This paper intends to contribute to a better understanding of occupants' preferences and behavioural tendencies, especially in Brazilian residences and hot climates, while showing the influence of variables like family income and climate on such issues.
Architecture. Attention. Class.
Classroom design influences the cognitive processes that determine learning. However, the effects of classroom geometry have been little studied, in part due to the difficulty of modifying physical spaces for experimental purposes. Today, virtual reality allows researchers to very closely control many environmental conditions while collecting psychological and neurophysiological metrics of the user experience. The objective of the present study is to analyse the influence of classroom width on the attention and memory performance of university students. The performance of 90 subjects in three classroom width settings (8.80, 8.20, and 7.60 m), implemented in virtual reality, was evaluated through measures of their attention- and memory-related psychological and neurophysiological responses. The results showed that wider classrooms are associated with poorer performance and lower emotional arousal. This demonstrates a link between the geometric variables of classrooms and the cognitive and physiological responses of students. In general, the present study and its methodology can help architects and researchers develop design guidelines that can improve students' cognitive processes.
Architecture. Design. Health care. Higher education. Human behavior.
The emerging trend dynamic work approaches is resulting in more open space designs at workplaces – a trend that is now being accelerated by the pandemic. This requires an objective understanding of how shared spaces are actually used, both in normal times and in response to a public health situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this research was therefore to collect and analyse real- time occupancy patterns in open learning spaces before and after building policy restrictions were implemented due to the COVID pandemic. Based on three distinct spaces in a university building in Cincinnati, USA, time-simultaneous occupant counts were supplemented with position data from computer-vision cameras used to analyse occupancy patterns, physical distances between occupants, group formations, and occupancy duration. We found significant changes in occupant counts and spatial distribution between the two time periods. We analysed how architectural design elements influenced social behaviour, i.e. in this context the physical distances, group formations, and occupancy duration assigned to individual occupants within different physical contexts of the building. While the primary purpose was to study the impact of the pandemic on social behaviour within buildings, we noted essential design challenges for promoting human well-being within higher education facilities.
37-6879
Boundaries. Collective social memory. History of planning.
The dilemma of openness reflects a long-standing ontological debate about public space. The dilemma is between creating boundless spaces that allow for an infinite diversity of uses but lack coherence, and bounding spaces to secure coherence at the cost of diversity. The implications for the theory and practice of public space planning, regulation, management and design are fundamentally different. By analyzing movement, occupation and identity in public spaces in the context of protest, I explore the concept of spaces of becoming: a fluid approach to public space interpretation and an alternative to the ‘dilemma of openness.'
37-6880
Design. Design methods. Interurban communities. Mobility.
This paper advances the understanding of peer-to-peer (P2P) carsharing within the broader context of shared mobility and its connection to the built environment in the US through a survey conducted in 2014 (n = 1,151). Eleven per cent of respondents used carpooling/ridesharing more, and 19% avoided a vehicle purchase due to P2P vehicle access in urban areas. Nevertheless, P2P carsharing has the potential to operate in a range of land-use environments and could be an important strategy to further deemphasize car ownership. Additionally, as the deployment of automated vehicles (AVs) is examined, sharing of privately owned AVs could mirror current P2P carsharing dynamics in important ways.