Urban Sprawl and Rural Landscapes: perceptions of landscape as amenity in Portland, Oregon

In the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan region, an urban growth boundary (UGB) was established in 1979 to protect farm and forest lands from urban encroachment. Most of the literature on the impact of Oregon's land-use legislation has been on the urban side of the issue--primarily the relative success Portland has had in containing urban sprawl. The landscape component of this rural transformation is typically considered only as a passive backdrop to urban expansion. Portland provides an excellent site to examine the relationship city-dwellers have to nearby agricultural areas. Rapid urban growth in the 1990s pushed suburban development to the edge of the UGB creating stark contrasts between urban and rural land uses in parts of the metropolitan area. This study examines the impact of the UGB on rural landscape change in Portland. We combine findings from land-use analysis and surveys of urban and rural residents to suggest ways to merge the amenity values of landscape with planning policy regarding the UGB.     

The role of risk perceptions in the risk mitigation process: The case of wildfire in high risk communities

An important policy question receiving considerable attention concerns the risk perception–risk mitigation process that guides how individuals choose to address natural hazard risks. This question is considered in the context of wildfire. We analyze the factors that influence risk reduction behaviors by homeowners living in the wildland–urban interface. The factors considered are direct experience, knowledge of wildfire risk, locus of responsibility, fulltime/seasonal status, and self-efficacy. Survey data from three homeowner associations in the western U.S. are used to estimate the direct and indirect effects of this relationship. Our results indicate that the effects of knowledge and locus of responsibility are mediated by homeowners' risk perceptions. We also find that beliefs of self-efficacy and fulltime/seasonal status have a direct influence on risk reduction behaviors. Finally, we find, surprisingly, that direct experience with wildfire does not directly influence the risk perception–risk mitigation process.     

Elusive Partnerships: Gas extraction and CSR in Bangladesh

This paper examines Chevron's programme of CSR at a gas field in Bangladesh. Whilst apparently building partnerships in the villages that surround the Bibiyana Gas Field, we suggest that the corporation remains detached from the local population via their community development programmes and employment policies. This contradiction is submerged by ideas and practices within global development discourse which celebrate the disconnection and disengagement of donors via the rhetoric of sustainability. Chiming with development praxis and the neo-liberal values which underscore it by stressing self-reliance, entrepreneurship and ‘helping people to help themselves’, the corporation's Community Engagement Programme does little to meet the demands of local people who hoped for employment and long term investment, a form of connection that is discordant to discourses of self-reliance and sustainability.     

Building Co-Management as a Process: Problem Solving Through Partnerships in Aboriginal Country, Australia

Collaborative problem solving has increasingly become important in the face of the complexities in the management of resources, including protected areas. The strategy undertaken by Girringun Aboriginal Corporation in north tropical Queensland, Australia, for developing co-management demonstrates the potential for a problem solving approach involving sequential initiatives, as an alternative to the more familiar negotiated agreements for co-management. Our longitudinal case study focuses on the development of indigenous ranger units as a strategic mechanism for the involvement of traditional owners in managing their country in collaboration with government and other interested parties. This was followed by Australia's first traditional use of marine resources agreement, and development of a multi-jurisdictional, land to sea, indigenous protected area. In using a relationship building approach to develop regional scale co-management, Girringun has been strengthening its capabilities as collaborator and regional service provider, thus, bringing customary decision-making structures into play to 'care for country'. From this evolving process we have identified the key components of a relationship building strategy, 'the pillars of co-management'. This approach includes learning-by-doing, the building of respect and rapport, sorting out responsibilities, practical engagement, and capacity-building.     

Tourism Partnerships in Protected Areas: Exploring Contributions to Sustainability

Partnerships between natural-area managers and the tourism industry have been suggested to contribute to sustainability in protected areas. This article explores how important sustainability outcomes of partnerships are to their members, how well they are realised and the features of partnerships leading to their achievement. In 21 case studies in Australia, interviews (n = 97) and surveys (n = 100) showed that of 14 sustainability outcomes, improved understanding of protected areas values and improved biodiversity conservation were the most important. Other highly ranked outcomes were greater respect for culture, heritage, and/or traditions; improved quality of environmental conditions; social benefits to local communities; and improved economic viability of the protected area. Scores for satisfaction with outcomes were, like those for importance, all high but were less than those for importance for the majority, with improvement in quality of environmental conditions showing the largest gap. The satisfaction score exceeded that for importance only for increased competitiveness of the protected area as a tourist destination. “Brown” aspects of sustainability, i.e., decreased waste or energy use, were among the lowest-scoring outcomes for both importance and satisfaction. The most important factor enabling sustainability outcomes was provision of benefits to partnership members. Others were increased financial support, inclusiveness, supportive organisational and administrative arrangements, direct involvement of decision makers, partnership maturity, creation of new relationships, decreased conflict, and stimulation of innovation. Improving sustainability outcomes, therefore, requires maintaining these partnership attributes and also increasing emphasis on reducing waste and resource use.     

A role for technical environmental assessment in perceptions of environmental quality and well-being

There is growing interest in including measures of external reality in models of person-environment transactions. That step is necessary to avoid circularity in reasoning and to change environments in desired ways. This study tests the utility of technical assessments of environmental quality, derived independently of the judgements of respondents or observers. Nine components based on objective facts about the residential environment, nine components based on person charactertistics, plus age and sex were used to predict 13 criteria which reflect the residents' perceptions of various aspects of their environment and of its impact on their well-being. The technical environmental assessment indices made statistically significant independent contributions which cross-validated with all of the 13 criteria. The person components plus age and sex also made independent contributions which cross-validated with 12 of the 13 criteria. The results support the idea that technical environmental assessments can play a constructive role in clarifying person-environment transactions, and that they are complementary to rather than redundant with personal characteristics of respondents in affecting environmental perceptions.     

Restoration,stewardship, environmental health,and policy: understanding stakeholders' perceptions

In recent years there has been considerable interest in the health of humans and the environment, restoration of contaminated or otherwise degraded lands, and in long-term stewardship of public lands. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether governmental agencies and the public hold similar views about the meanings of these concepts, making policy decisions about restoration and stewardship difficult. In this paper, I explore how the public conceptualizes restoration and stewardship by examining the relative rating of several attributes of restoration, stewardship, environmental health, ecological health, environmental restoration, and ecological restoration. People were interviewed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, near the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. The ratings of attributes of environmental health and ecological health reported in this paper can be used to understand how the public understands these concepts. The attributes rated most highly by the subjects were more similar to definitions in the scientific literature for these terms than they were to those used by the Department of Energy. For environmental health, the highest rating related to human sanitation, while for ecological health the highest rating was for maintaining functioning ecosystems. Reduction of exposure to hazardous substances was rated the second highest for both environmental and ecological health. The wise use of natural resources, preservation of natural resources, and hazardous waste site cleanup were rated the highest attributes of stewardship. These data suggest that both expert and nonexpert perceptions about restoration and stewardship should be incorporated into environmental management decisions.     

Urban deprivation: the case of Ondo Town, Nigeria

The city environments of tropical underdeveloped countries are frequently inadequate. Poor road systems, water supplies and health facilities, together with unhealthy housing conditions and inadequate social amenities, characterize many Nigerian cities. Ondo, a Yoruba city of moderate population, is a typical example. Rapid urbanization and population growth have resulted in an underprivileged populace living in an unsatisfactory environment.     

Visitor perceptions of rural landscapes: a case study in the Peak District National Park, England

Maintaining national parks is an integral policy tool to conserve rare habitats. However, because national parks are funded by taxpayers, they must also serve the needs of the general public. Increasingly, and thanks to today's diverse society, there is evidence that this creates challenges for park managers who are pulled in two opposing directions: to conserve nature on the one hand and to meet different visitor expectations on the other. This tension was explored in the Peak District National Park, a rural landscape dominated by heather moorland and sheep farming in Northern England where research was conducted to determine how social class and ethnicity shaped perceptions of the park. Results uncovered that social class played a very strong role in shaping perceptions of this region with 'middle class' respondents reacting far more favourably to the park than people from more working class backgrounds. We observed ethnicity playing a similar role, though our results are less significantly different.     

城市绿化对改善西宁城市生态系统的影响

文章简要介绍城市生态系统的特点和功能以及城市绿化在城市生态系统中的地位和作用,通过探讨西宁市城市绿化的现状,提出了建设西宁生态园林城市的思路。     

Living with nuclear power: Sense of place,proximity, and risk perceptions in local host communities

Previous research notes that sense of place may intensify, and that levels of public risk perception may decrease with proximity to an established hazardous or stigmatised site. In addition, the literature suggests that sense of place may act either to mediate or moderate community perceptions of risk in such localities. This study comprised a major household survey (n = 1326) and an interview study (n = 39) and was conducted close to the nuclear power stations at Oldbury and Hinkley Point, both in the UK. It investigated the roles of perceptions of place and hazard proximity in considering (a) perceptions of risk and (b) public attitudes towards the building of a new nuclear power station in the nearby area. In addition, a novel scale was developed to measure the perceived contribution of the nearby nuclear power station to sense of place. The results suggest first, that sense of place mediates (but does not moderate) perceptions of risk in very proximate communities, and second, that public attitudes to new build in communities situated very close to established nuclear sites may be largely dependent on the extent to which the existing facility is perceived to contribute towards sense of place. The implications of these results for existing theory are discussed.     

Urban Environmental Management in Shanghai: Achievements, Problems, and Prospects

This article critically reviews the evolution of urban environmental management in Shanghai since 1978. Established in a transitional postsocialist economy and shaped by a spectacular urban redevelopment process, the current environmental management framework of Shanghai has succeeded in mitigating major industrial pollution and improving urban amenities with unprecedented pace and magnitude. However, it generally failed to take social equity and environmental justice issues into consideration. Based on Haughton’s models of sustainable urban development, this article proposes four priorities and five principles within the framework of a fair shares cities model for the future environmental management of Shanghai and briefly discusses their policy implications and implementation issues. The authors argue that Haughton’s approach is relevant to Shanghai’s case because the essence of his argument—the multidimensional equity principles—is the core of the concept of sustainable development.     

Local and Regional Partnerships in Natural Resource Management: The Challenge of Bridging Institutional Levels

Although collaboration and multi-stakeholder partnerships have become a common feature in natural resource management throughout the world, various problems are associated with attempts to up-scale community-based natural resource management from the local to the regional level. To analyze the reasons behind these problems, this article reports on two examples of collaboratives in Australia: local Landcare groups, and regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies. Recent government-induced changes have shifted the focus from local Landcare group action to strategic planning and implementation by regional NRM bodies. Two typologies of collaboratives are applied to analyze the characteristics of both these groups. The study uses data from 52 qualitative interviews with key informants at the local and regional level in Victoria and Tasmania, participant observation, as well as literature and document analysis. The article illustrates how the groups’ distinct characteristics can cause conflicts when the different types of collaboratives operate in parallel. In addition, the article reports how stakeholders perceive the level of community participation in decision-making processes. The key message is that the benefits of community participation and collaboration that arise at the local level can be lost when these approaches are up-scaled to the regional level unless there is an intermediary or ‘mediating structure’ to facilitate communication and create the link between different types of collaboratives.     

Putting the 'E' into LSPs: Representing the Environment within Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) in the UK

This article reports the findings of a qualitative study with residents living in six deprived neighbourhoods in the UK and the front-line workers and local policymakers responsible for the renewal of these areas. The study was an attempt to raise awareness of local environmental concerns in the context of a national and local policy agenda, which has, until recently, largely overlooked the impacts of degraded environments on the lives and activities of the people who live in them. A key aim for the study was to raise people's concerns with local decision-makers and examine how far these might be addressed through the existing financial, administrative and legislative arrangements for neighbourhood renewal in the UK, namely Local Strategic Partnerships. The research was designed to provide practical lessons and policy recommendations for others wishing to raise the profile of environmental justice in the context of neighbourhood level regeneration projects, in both the UK and elsewhere in the 'developed' world.     

Informal settlers' perceptions of environmental quality: A case study of the Mizamoyethu Community, South Africa

Informal settlements are an integral part of the urban environment in South Africa. People living in these settlements exist at a close interface with the environment, constantly having to adjust to environmental changes. Urban managers and planners need to find ways of developing informal settlements that enhance residents' quality of life while reducing the settlement's impact on the environment. Central to addressing these issues is the adoption of a participatory planning approach, which recognises and acts upon knowledge of community values, perceptions and needs. This paper reports the results of a case study of informal settlers' perceptions of environmental quality. Fifteen residents of an informal settlement were interviewed regarding their perceptions of their living environment, with the aim of alerting planners to ways in which environmental quality might be improved. Four major themes were identified: aspects of the natural environment; services and facilities; personal and community security; and employment opportunities. The need to unite the community to work together to achieve its own goals was a common thread in all these aspects. The findings indicate that informal settlers have a developed appreciation of local environmental quality which should be investigated and incorporated in the planning and development process.     

Urban Waste Pollution in the Korle Lagoon, Accra, Ghana

The Korle Lagoon in Accra, Ghana, has become one of the most polluted water bodies on earth. It is the principal outlet through which all major drainage channels in the city empty their wastes into the sea. Large amounts of untreated industrial waste emptied into surface drains has led to severe pollution in the lagoon and disrupted its natural ecology. The increased levels of industrial activity and consumption by the urban population lead to the generation of copious quantities of waste. Managing the volume of wastes poses a major challenge for the city authorities, particularly, ensuring that all the waste generated is collected for disposal. In Accra, the Waste Management Department is currently capable of collecting only 60 percent of the waste generated daily. The rest is dumped in open spaces, in surface drains, and into water bodies which end up in the Korle Lagoon. High eutrophication levels have developed in the shallow water body. The net effect is that, at the slightest downpour, the lagoon overflows its banks causing regular flooding in parts of the city.The Government of Ghana, having realized the adverse impacts of pollution in the lagoon on the physical and economic environment of Accra, with the support of donor agencies, is implementing measures to restore the lagoon to its natural ecology. Attempts are also being made to get the communities in the catchment area to become involved in managing their environment through environmental education and awareness programes.     

Partnerships for Local Environmental Action: Observations on the First Two Years of Rural Action for the Environment

Rural Action for the Environment is a key element of the UK Government's 'Action for the Countryside' initiative. It has two main elements: the provision of advice, training, information and grants to local communities; and the formation of county based networks of environmental organizations to provide the necessary support infrastructure to local projects. This paper suggests that Rural Action is a laudable attempt to move towards a more 'enabling' style of operation which may ultimately result in a significant increase in the level of interest and involvement in environmental action. However, it has also highlighted a number of important problems which are likely to afflict all future attempts to encourage local communities to formulate and carry out sustainable environmental improvements in their areas. Particular difficulties result from the need to reconcile the multiple and possibly contradictory objectives of different agencies, the problems of engaging the interest of local people, the time and other resource constraints faced by those who seek to implement such initiatives and the political imperative to achieve action on the ground as rapidly as possible. Each of these issues will need to be addressed by future schemes if widespread involvement in locally determined environmental action is to be secured.