National Forest Visitation Preferences and Avenues to Participation for Urban Hispanic Recreationists in the Portland Metropolitan Area (USA)

Health benefits of outdoor recreation have been broadly demonstrated and land managers recognize the equity implications of providing safe and inclusive outdoor spaces. Data on public lands visitation and outdoor participation show that Hispanic recreationists are less likely to engage in outdoor leisure than White persons. Early studies of outdoor preferences of Hispanic persons identified a desire for large-group settings and social activities. To update our understanding of outdoor recreation needs, preferences, and constraints, we collaborated with a Latinx organization in Portland, Oregon (USA). We collaboratively designed three focus groups that combined structured engagement, cognitive sorting, and participatory mapping to elicit desired outdoor activities and settings and identify constraints and opportunities. Results suggest that urban Hispanic recreationists seek a variety of human-powered, motorized, and contemplative outdoor activities and gravitate toward familiar settings. Predominant barriers relate to a lack of experience with outdoor activities and gear and lack of exposure to public land settings. Study Implications: Early studies about Hispanic outdoor participation emphasized preferences for social activities in group settings. Urban Hispanic recreationists in our study sought a diversity of human-powered, motorized, and contemplative outdoor activities. Guided group outings and Spanish-language materials were identified as steps to increase participation. Barriers included a lack of awareness of prospective recreation sites, the absence of recreation partners, and unfamiliarity with outdoor gear. Agencies seeking to enhance access may gain the greatest efficiencies by enabling guided group events providing gear, instruction, and companionship. Outreach efforts in Spanish detailing information about setting and safety features would be well received

Values Mapping and Counter-Mapping in Contested Landscapes: an Olympic Peninsula (USA) Case Study

Indigenous peoples, local communities, and other groups can use counter-mapping to make land claims, identify areas of desired access, or convey cultural values that diverge from the dominant paradigm. While sometimes created independently, counter-maps also can be formulated during public participation mapping events sponsored by natural resource planning agencies. Public participation mapping elicits values, uses, and meanings of landscapes from diverse stakeholders, yet individuals and advocacy groups can use the mapping process as an opportunity to make visible strongly held values and viewpoints. We present three cases from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State to illustrate how stakeholders intentionally used landscape-values mapping workshops to amplify their perspectives in attempts to further political outcomes. We combine geospatial analysis with qualitative data to explore ways that landscape-values mapping were used as a political tool and how social scientists engaged in similar efforts can defend the scientific integrity of results

Where Do Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest Visitors Go and Which Roads Do They Use To Get There? An Analysis of the Spatial Data from the 2013 Sustainable Roads Workshops

This report provides an overview of the key patterns that emerged from the spatial analyses of the destination and route data collected during the 2013 Sustainable Roads workshops on the Mount Baker Snoqualmie (MBS) National Forest. We excluded the pilot workshop data from the analyses because a somewhat different process was used to collect the mapped data. The data used in the analysis was collected from 262 participants in eight workshops (Bellingham, Sedro-Woolley, Darrington, Monroe, Everett, Seattle, Issaquah, Enumclaw). During the workshops, participants mapped up to eight destinations of importance to them, and in most cases, also mapped the routes they took to each destination. For each destination and its associated route, participants also provided the following information. Name of the place Why the destination is especially important What activities or work the participant does there How often the participant visits the place in a typical year What type of transportation the participant uses to get there Of the 262 participants, 252 provided useable data for destinations and 246 provided useable data for roads. The dataset used in the spatial analysis contained 1733 records for destinations and 1609 records for roads. We entered the worksheet data for the destination and road mapping exercise into an Excel spreadsheet. The activities associated with each destination were grouped into eight categories (camping/relaxation, collecting/harvesting, hiking, motorized recreation, observation, sociocultural, strenuous recreation, and winter recreation). Although most people listed no more than two activities for a location, some people listed up to six different activities for certain destinations. The description of why a participant visited a particular location was similarly classified as a set of eight different values. Given the way the question was posed, many of the reasons workshop participants gave for visiting a particular place mirrored the activities in which they participated. The spatial analysis team created map data from a roads dataset provided by MBS National Forest. The routes in the dataset were converted to lines broken at all intersections. Since the lines marked on the maps did not necessary begin or end at intersections, the digitized lines were broken at the beginning and ending vertices for analysis. Segments of state highways (SR 542, 20, 2, etc.) that were marked by participants were removed from the dataset prior to analysis. Marked county roads were retained for analysis to provide context for routes taken to certain popular destinations (e.g., Cascade River Road). All data were checked for quality by someone who did not create the map data

Multiple Methods of Public Engagement: Disaggregating Socio-spatial Data for Environmental Planning in Western Washington, USA

Highlights • The effectiveness of participatory GIS approaches at engaging different publics was explored. • Online surveys engaged urbanites; community workshops engaged rural residents. • Urban and rural residents went to similar places but engaged in different activities. • Use of multiple data collection methods will broaden public engagement. • Mapping behavior studies are needed to improve understandings of PPGIS data quality

Urban Streetscape Changes in Portland, Oregon: A Longitudinal Virtual Audit

Streetscape imagery has considerable potential for observing urban change. The literature lacks sufficient longitudinal studies, however, on urban change considering human perception and activities. We conducted a longitudinal virtual audit to observe the change in urban liveliness, human activities, and built environment by examining streetscape imagery taken in the late 2000s and the late 2010s in Portland, Oregon. Eleven untrained crowd workers were recruited to provide liveliness ratings of 24,242 streetscape images for both periods. Tabulation, mapping, and multilevel regression analyses were conducted to observe the distribution, changes in liveliness, and the factors affecting these changes. The results confirmed that the city had become livelier during the ten-year study period, which was spatially associated with the increase in pedestrians and cyclists and particular elements of the built environment, such as mid- and high-rise buildings and sidewalk signs. Although these results were somewhat expected, this study’s value lies in confirming the potential of virtual audits conducted using Google Street View Time Machine for retrospectively examining subjective and objective urban change. Caution should be exercised, though, while interpreting urban change as temporal conditions (e.g., season, weather, and irregular events) can potentially bias the results in longitudinal studies

Street Trees in the Urban Forest Canopy: Portland, Oregon

Attempts to identify the contribution of street trees to the overall urban forest of a city have been rare and lack consensus on how to measure that contribution – percentage of trees, percentage of canopy cover, or percentage of leaf area. The actual numeric values presented in the literature also vary over a broad range and often are based on estimates, extrapolations from aggregated data, or simply stated with no empirical data referenced. This study was undertaken to evaluate the contribution of street trees to canopy in Portland, Oregon. The study involved both visual and digital analysis of multi-band aerial images, field observation, and GIS analysis involving several ancillary data themes. The strategy was to calculate the street tree component (STC) of the urban forest canopy within a sample of areas in the city and generalize that pattern to the whole city. The analysis indicates that street trees constitute 3.4% of the whole study area. In commercial / industrial areas the value drops to only 1.1% and in residential areas rises to 4.8%. For the overall study area the STC of the canopy is 17.2%, a value in the middle of the range of values found in the published literature. In commercial / industrial areas we found a value of 23.7% and a value of 16.6% for residential areas. Residential areas are overall better treed than commercial / industrial areas, but do not rely on street trees to contribute as large a percentage to overall canopy as do commercial / industrial areas. Available planting space in the right-of-way (ROW) is much more nearly constant (or independent of land cover) than the amount of planting space available inside a block. Therefore, the STC tends to vary inversely with the total amount of vegetated area. As the vegetated (read, plantable) area decreases, the ROW becomes a more significant space for planting and the STC increases. Conversely, as the vegetated area increases, the ROW becomes a less significant space for planting and the STC decreases. For both residential and commercial / industrial areas, the percentage of street tree area within the total canopy varies from locale to locale. The relatively small sampling used in this study suggests that neighborhood age and physical characteristics influence the STC in a given neighborhood, particularly for residential areas. Analysis allowed division of the study area into five residential neighborhood groups that attempt to reflect local differences. A larger / more detailed sampling would allow for improved delineation, perhaps below the level of neighborhood. Three generalized spatial patterns emerge for Portland. Street tree canopy as a percent of area seems to follow an east-west gradient, with lower values to the east and higher values to the west. Street trees as a component of the total canopy takes on an inverted-U shape, with higher values in the Inner Eastside and lower values to the east and to the west. The overall tree canopy category takes on just the opposite pattern – a standard-U – with lower values in the Inner Eastside and higher values to the east and west. This study represents a useful starting point for understanding the dynamics of an important and highly visible component of the urban forest

The Wilderness Problem: A Narrative of Contested Landscapes in San Juan County, Utah

Wilderness preservation has been at the center of debates about public land policy for almost half a century, and nowhere has the controversy been more intractable than in Utah. Despite its vast expanses of unsetded and undeveloped red rock desert, managed primarily by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Utah has less designated wilderness than in any other state in the West. In this study, I focus on San Juan County in southeast Utah to study the conflict over the designation of wilderness. The controversy pits local residents and state politicians against state and national environmental groups, with the BLM shifting positions in between. I analyze and interpret the wilderness debate from three different perspectives. The fIrst explores the history of the Utah wilderness debate from the first BLM wilderness inventory in the 1970\u27s through its re-inventory in the 1990\u27s. I examine the influence of national, regional, and local forces such as institutional change within the BLM, in-fIghting among Utah-based environmental interest groups, and the sagebrush rebellion and county supremacy movements. The second perspective incorporates the spatial analytical techniques of geographical information systems to provide a relatively objective view of landscape characteristics used to defIne wilderness. I interpret the landscape as a continuum of varying degrees of wildness, a product of inherent naturalness and the influences of human impacts. Lastly, I examine the personal views of the meaning of wilderness through the words of actual participants in the debate. In an analysis of the statements of both county residents as well as the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, I explore the mental images and ideas that influence the ways in which people value and understand the desert environment

A Geographic View of Expansion Choices by U.S. Firms in China

How does geography matter for explaining the location patterns of U.S. companies in China? We combine insights from the literature on economic geography and spatial interdependence in foreign direct investment (FDI) activity, to provide a comparative analysis using both sectoral regression results and maps that illustrate patterns in the data. We use a unique sample of publicly traded U.S. firms who announced expansion of operations into China between 1980 and 2005. Regression results show that relative to the tertiary sector, firm characteristics matter more for primary sector firms, whereas province characteristics matter more for secondary sector firms. Additionally, our GIS analysis reveals a high level of locational concentration and differences in provincial characteristics over time. Overall, we find that combining GIS with FDI data that contains geographic attributes can provide a richer picture of economic activity that is highly accessible to both academics and practitioners

A Geographic Assessment of the Risk Posed by Hazardous Materials in Oregon

The presentation looks at the risks posed by hazardous materials in Oregon. The purpose of this study is to (1) evaluate datasets that describe the storage, transport and accidental release of hazardous materials and (2) provide emergency planners a broad picture of locations, volumes and characteristics of hazardous material exposure

Portlandness: A Cultural Atlas

You can learn a lot about a city by mapping it – especially if the maps go beyond streets and delve into everything from the best way to avoid surveillance cameras to how distinct smells and car usage can be broken into districts. Shobe, a PSU geography professor, gives an entertaining look behind the new book, “Portlandness,” which he wrote with fellow PSU geographer David Banis. The maps – and Shobe’s talk -- offer insight into the history, culture and myths about the city.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/pdxtalks/1016/thumbnail.jp