Review of Global Ecology: Environmental Change and Social Flexibility and Environment and Resource Policies for the World Economy

Review of Global Ecology: Environmental Change and Social Flexibility by V. Smil and Environment and Resource Policies for the World Economy by R.N. Coope

Community-based Organizations and Neighborhood Environmental Problem-Solving: A Framework for Adoption of Information Technologies

Community-based organizations (CBOs) today seek improved capacity to address environmental problems in urban neighbourhoods. Many seek access to information technologies such as the Internet and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to expand information about their neighbourhood\u27s environmental quality to support their planning and service efforts. Experience with the Internet has been bolstered somewhat by programmes to create community networks. This experience and experience with GIS in planning at the municipal and state levels reveals a set of technical, organizational and personal prerequisites that bolster successful and effective adoption of information technologies. This paper reviews these prerequisites as they pertain to CBOs and makes recommendations for transactions that could enhance CBO adoption of the Internet and GIS to address environmental problems in urban neighbourhoods. The paper concludes that a constellation of prerequisite conditions, most predominantly data availability problems, staff skill acquisition and staff retention problems, offer the greatest challenges for CBOs seeking to adopt information technologies to manage environmental problems more effectively

From the Field: Observations on Using GIS to Develop a Neighborhood Environmental Information System for Community-Based Organizations

This paper describes and analyzes an application of a geographic information system (GIS) to create a profile of environmental hazards and resources in an older, inner-city neighborhood in Cleveland. The client, a community development organization, sought the profile as the basis of new organizing and community planning efforts concerning environmental quality and environmental health issues. The objective was to obtain and assemble spatially referenced environmental data existing in the public domain and map that data according to the service area of a neighborhood-based development organization. The study describes and analyzes the utility and data management capacity issues that would likely be experienced by community-based organizations using GIS in applications at the neighborhood level. This paper describes and analyzes the use of GIS to develop a profile of environmental conditions in an urban neighborhood. The project client was a community-based organization (CBO) seeking a baseline set of environmental information displayed spatially. This information would serve as a basis for community planning to develop strategies to address environmental quality concerns in the neighborhood. The author designed the project to result in a product useful for the client, to explore the issues raised in relevant literature, and to generate working hypotheses for a broader study of the use of GIS by CBOs to address environmental quality issues. The purpose of this paper is to examine the application of GIS at the neighborhood scale by and for a CBO. Through this examination one can understand better the obstacles and opportunities to make GIS a more relevant and effective technology for use by and for CBOs as GIS projects diffuse into broader society

Adopting an Ecosystem Approach: Local Variability in Remedial Action Planning

Provides information on a study that describes the adoption of an ecosystem approach by lead agencies in two remedial action plans (RAP) for Great Lakes basin. Guidelines on what an ecosystem approach is; Account on International Joint Commission (IJC); Congruency between RAP processes with IJC articulation; How variability in local conditions shaped the innovation adoption process

Review of Resolving Environmental Conflict: Towards Sustainable Community Development

Review of Resolving Environmental Conflict: Towards Sustainable Community Development by Chris Mase

Metropolitan Growth and the Local Role in Surface Water Resource Protection in the Lake Erie Basin

Local governments can play an important role in protecting surface water resources through their compliance with federal and state regulations and through their own land use planning and management practices. Despite 30 years of water quality initiatives in the Lake Erie basin, nonpoint source runoff from urban and urbanizing lands remains a problem. Loss of riparian corridor integrity is increasing as urban areas in the Lake Erie basin experience areal growth. The use and management of land, predominantly a local responsibility, directly affects surface water resources. The role that local governments play in protecting surface water resources was studied in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the core of the greater Cleveland area. Zoning, building, subdivision, and health ordinances of local governments were reviewed and analyzed. Local governments were then asked to indicate their current planning and management techniques for surface water protection. Overall, protection of surface water resources in the county is inadequate. Local jurisdictions infrequently use the innovative planning mechanisms and water resource management practices suggested by state and federal water resource agencies and organizations. The uneven and fragmented land management system, if replicated in adjacent counties that are now urbanizing, bodes ill for Lake Erie’s near-shore water quality

Ohio\u27s Balanced Growth Program: a Case Study of Collaboration for Planning and Policy Design

This paper describes the collaborative planning process for a new landscape planning programme in Ohio that seeks to influence land urbanisation patterns through joint local land use decision making on a watershed basis. The programme was developed through a collaborative process by a state agency-appointed task force that included agency staff and a wide range of stakeholders. The paper describes the process in terms of the collaborative mechanisms, the participants, the programmatic outputs, and the social and organisational outcomes that set the foundation for enhanced watershed quality through better land use decision-making practices. Key collaborations formed during the process were inter-agency collaborations, a non-profit organisation that partnered with the agencies, and that of state agencies with local governments to develop watershed-based land use plans. A most critical outcome was creation of a learning community, through an exploratory research process that used multiple methods of data gathering and consensus-building deliberation. The paper is based on a review of published documents and plans, meeting minutes, participant observation of committee and workgroup meetings and interactive research