Mapeamento participativo e cartografia social: aspectos conceituais e trajetórias de pesquisa

Unavailable.O mapeamento participativo tem sido utilizado em diversos âmbitos e para distintas finalidades, na defesa de direitos adquiridos por populações tradicionais, no planejamento e gestão ambientais, na redução de riscos de desastres, na recuperação urbana de áreas que sofreram com desastres naturais, na educação ambiental, entre outras. Como parte do processo da Cartografia Social, o mapeamento participativo contribui para dar visibilidade às comunidades e para empoderá-las na arena da resolução de conflitos socioambientais, que surgem decorrentes dos avanços desenvolvimentistas de setores econômicos preponderantes, como os de energia, turismo, imobiliário ou agrícola. Este livro destina-se a mostrar as potencialidades e desafios encontrados nos mapeamentos participativos ou colaborativos, seus aspectos conceituais definidores e as experiências de pesquisa nessa temática, relatadas por pesquisadores brasileiros

GIS in Healthcare

The landscape of healthcare is dynamic, gradually becoming more complicated with factors beyond simple supply and demand. Similar to the diversity of social, political and economic contexts, the practical utilization of healthcare resources also varies around the world. However, the spatial components of these contexts, along with aspects of supply and demand, can reveal a common theme among these factors. This book presents advancements in GIS applications that reveal the complexity of and solutions for a dynamic healthcare landscape

Public participation in the Geoweb era: Geosocial media use in local government

Advances in spatially enabled information and communication technologies (ICTs) have provided governments with the potential to enhance public participation and to collaborate with citizens. This dissertation critically assesses this potential and identifies the opportunities and challenges for local governments to embark on emerging geo-enabled practices. This dissertation first proposes a new typology for classifying geo-enabled practices related to public participation (termed here as geo-participation) and demonstrates the emerging opportunities presented by geo-participation to improve government-citizen collaboration and government operations. This dissertation then provides in-depth examinations of geosocial media as an exemplar geo-participation practice. The first empirical study assesses the potential of repurposing geosocial media data to gauge public opinions. The study suggests that geosocial media can help identify geographies of public perceptions concerning public facilities and services and have the potential to complement other methods of gauging public sentiment. The second empirical study assesses the usefulness of geosocial media for sharing non-emergency issues and identifies an important opportunity of enabling citizen collaboration for reporting and sharing non-emergency issues. Altogether, this dissertation makes several conceptual, empirical, and practical contributions to local government adoption of geo-participation. Conceptually, the proposed typology lays the foundation for researching and implementing geo-participation practices. Empirically, this dissertation tells a story of opportunities and challenges that sheds light on how local governments may adopt geosocial media to solicit citizen input and enable new forms of government-citizen interaction. Practically, this dissertation develops a tool for processing text-based citizen input and models of implementing geosocial media reporting that can help local government develop proper strategies of adopting geosocial media

Using social media data to understand the urban green space use before and after a pandemic

Urban green spaces (UGSs) are essential components of urban ecosystems that provide considerable benefits to residents, including recreational opportunities, improved air and water quality, and mental and physical health benefits. The COVID-19 pandemic and related restriction measures have affected people's daily lives in numerous ways, such as remote working and learning, online shopping, social distancing, travel restrictions, and outdoor activities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, UGSs have become the main places for outdoor activities. Understanding human-environment interactions in UGSs is an important research field that has broad implications for improving policies in response to a social crisis and informing urban planning strategies. The main challenges of investigating human-environment interactions lie in effectively collecting research datasets that can reflect or reveal human behaviour patterns within UGSs. Volunteered Geographical Information (VGI) and social media can provide better information about real-time perceptions, attitudes and behaviours than traditional datasets such as surveys and questionnaires. This provides great opportunities to investigate human-environment interactions in UGS in real-time. Additionally, Twitter is one of the most popular social networks, and it can provide more comprehensive and unbiased datasets through a new academic research Application Programming Interface (API). The overall aim of this thesis is to evaluate the contributions of UGS to human well-being, during a time of crisis, by investigating the characteristics and spatial-temporal patterns of UGS use across three periods: pre-, during- and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The thesis will document the process of examining spatial-temporal changes in UGS use associated with COVID-19 related pandemic, by using Twitter datasets incorporating approaches including text mining, topic modelling and spatial-temporal analysis. This is the first study to examine social media data over consistent time period before, during and after the lockdown in relation to UGS. The results show that the findings and method can potentially inform policy makers in their management and planning of UGS, especially in a period of social crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. This research has great potential to help improve urban green space planning and management in urban areas

Forests, health and inequalities in Scotland: a longitudinal approach

Increasing international evidence shows that forests may enhance mental and physical health by providing opportunities for relaxation, physical activity, social interaction and through reducing air pollution. Studies also suggest that forests may have a role in reducing socioeconomic health inequalities by weakening the links between poverty, deprivation and poor health. Knowledge surrounding the relationship between forests, health and inequalities is limited as no national studies have been carried out, and findings to date are based on cross-sectional data. This thesis addresses these research gaps by examining associations between forests, health and inequalities for the whole of Scotland over a 20-year period. Firstly, changes in the socio-spatial distribution of forests in Scotland between 1991, 2001 and 2011 were assessed. Following this, relationships between different long-term patterns of individuals’ forest access and subsequent health outcomes were examined. The influence of cumulative forest access throughout life and levels of forest access at particular life stages on later mental health were also studied. Lastly, investigations into whether changes in forest access were associated with changes in general health were carried out. In order to understand whether forests might reduce socioeconomic health inequalities, each of the empirical analyses considered differences between sociodemographic groups. Measures of forest access in 1991, 2001 and 2011 were created in ArcGIS for all postcodes in Scotland and linked to a sample of individuals in the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS). The SLS contains linked census records collected in 1991, 2001 and 2011 for approximately 274,000 people (5.3% of the population). The study sample included those who had: complete data; were present in all three censuses; were aged 18+ in 1991; and lived in private residences on the Scottish mainland (n=97,658). Administrative health records from 2011 to 2016, including the prescribing of antidepressants and hospital admission data were linked to the sample members. A synthetic estimation of forest use based on SLS members’ characteristics and forest user information in the Scottish People and Nature Survey (SPANS) was also used to examine whether visiting forests explained the associations between forests and general health. Statistical techniques included Latent Class Growth Modelling (LCGM), hybrid effects models and tests for mediation. Over the study period, geographical access to forests improved throughout Scotland. However, there was evidence that individuals with low socioeconomic status in 1991 were more likely to have worse long-term patterns of forest access than those with higher socioeconomic status. There was evidence that these worse trajectories of forest access had implications for later health; individuals with better forest access trajectories had reduced risk of having worse health at the end of the study period. Women with a greater accumulation of forest access were less likely to attend a mental health outpatient clinic or be prescribed antidepressants during 2011-2016. For men and those without qualifications who had improved forest access between time points, the risk of having a long-term illness reduced, compared to those whose forest access did not change. Findings also suggested that better forest access across the life course and at particular stages in adulthood may be linked to reduced inequalities in mental health between men and women and between those with higher and lower socioeconomic status. Forest use partially explained the association between forest access and general health but there was also evidence of a direct effect of forest access on mental health. The key contribution of this thesis was the linkage of spatial environmental data to census and administrative health records for individuals and the application of a longitudinal approach. The thesis also contributes to the international literature by providing new insights into the causal mechanisms though which forests may influence health across the life course and how these may vary between social groups. The research has provided important evidence for policy makers such as Forestry Commission Scotland, about the social value of forestry in Scotland (and potentially elsewhere) and the opportunities that maintaining and enhancing forest access could have for improving population-level mental health and reducing health inequalities. In particular, those designing interventions to encourage forest use among disadvantaged groups should consider how interventions could be targeted at those with low individual-level socioeconomic status as well as deprived areas. Future research should use life course approaches to better specify the ways in which forests may support health for those with specific mental illnesses, and where possible consider the effect of forest access in childhood as well as adulthood on later life health outcomes

An interdisciplinary approach to mapping soil carbon

At the global scale, soils are the primary terrestrial reservoir of carbon and therefore have a major influence on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Soil organic carbon stocks are estimated to have decreased by an average of fifty two percent in temperate regions since 1850. Land use change and management practices are the primary drivers of this decrease. Temperate upland regions have been identified as important for climate regulation, both in terms of current stocks of soil carbon and future sequestration potential. Therefore, appropriate on-farm management of soil carbon stocks in these regions has the potential to contribute to climate change mitigation goals. This thesis is a contribution to ongoing efforts to improve on–farm soil carbon management. It does so through the development of mapping practices that incorporate both ecological and social data. The ecological aspect of the research identified a role for existing farm survey data in accurately predicting soil carbon distribution without the need for time and labour-intensive field work. The engagement with social science methods acknowledges a societal bias towards scientific ways of representing soil carbon and the marginalisation of alternative, often experiential, knowledge. The research demonstrated a way for different knowledges to be incorporated into soil carbon mapping practices and identified a role for under-utilised scientific and non-scientific knowledge of soil carbon for improving spatially-explicit management plans. The mapping methods were developed around three case study farms in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria. This region is an upland landscape which has been identified as an important space for carbon management in the UK. The research offers a distinct and timely approach to assessing the potential of interdisciplinary mapping to improve the management of soil carbon at the farm scale and has wider implications for the management of ecological systems

Maatschappelijke initiatieven voor natuur en biodiversiteit : een schets van de reikwijdte en ecologische effecten en potenties van maatschappelijke initiatieven voor natuur in feiten en cijfers

Voor de Balans van de Leefomgeving willen we weten welke feiten en cijfers bekend zijn over maatschappelijke activiteiten, initiatieven en functiecombinaties voor natuur en biodiversiteit en wat de bijdrage hiervan is om de biodiversiteit te verbeteren. In dit onderzoek hebben we gegevens verzameld in de beschikbare literatuur en online bronnen. Uit de verzamelde feiten en cijfers blijkt dat het merendeel van de burgers betrokken zijn bij natuur en dat op onderdelen de betrokkenheid van burgers maar ook van bedrijven toeneemt. De meeste groene burgerinitiatieven zijn gericht op beleefbaar groen maar soms worden ook belangrijke natuurwaarden gerealiseerd die aansluiten bij internationale biodiversiteitsdoelstellingen. Burgers spelen daarnaast een zeer belangrijke rol bij het in kaart brengen van gegevens over planten- en diersoorten. Uit de verzamelde feiten en cijfers blijkt ook dat bij alle huidige vormen van bodemgebruik er mogelijkheden en initiatieven zijn voor natuurcombinaties of voor het vergroten van de biodiversiteit.---For the Assessment of the Dutch Human Environment we want to review what is known about social activities, initiatives and combination of functions for nature and biodiversity and what they contribute to enhancing biodiversity. In this study we collected data from the available literature and websites. These facts and figures show that most people are involved with nature in one way or another and that the involvement of individuals and businesses in some activities is even increasing. Most green citizens' initiatives are focused on amenity green space, but sometimes important natural values that support international biodiversity targets are also created. In addition, citizens play a vital role in monitoring plant and animal species. These facts and figures show also that in all current forms of land use there are possibilities and initiatives for nature combinations or for increasing biodiversity