A landscape approach to reserving farm ponds for wintering bird refuges in Taoyuan, Taiwan

Man-made farm ponds are unique geographic features of the Taoyuan Tableland. Besides irrigation, they provide refuges for wintering birds. The issue at hand is that these features are disappearing and bring with it the loss of this refuge function. It is ecologically significant because one fifth of all the bird species in Taiwan find a home on these ponds. This study aims at characterizing the diversity of bird species associated with these ponds whose likelihood of survival was assessed along the gradient of land development intensities. Such characterization helps establish decision criteria needed for designating certain ponds for habitat preservation and developing their protection strategies. A holistic model was developed by incorporating logistic regression with error back-propagation into the paradigm of artificial neural networks (ANN). The model considers pond shape, size, neighboring farmlands, and developed areas in calculating parameters pertaining to their respective and interactive influences on avian diversity, among them the Shannon-Wiener diversity index (HÂ). Results indicate that ponds with regular shape or the ones with larger size possess a strong positive correlation with HÂ. Farm ponds adjacent to farmland benefited waterside bird diversity. On the other hand, urban development was shown to cause the reduction of farmland and pond numbers, which in turn reduced waterside bird diversity. By running the ANN model with four neurons, the resulting HÂ index shows a good-fit prediction of bird diversity against pond size, shape, neighboring farmlands, and neighboring developed areas with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.72, in contrast to the results from a linear regression model (r < 0.28). Analysis of historical pond occurrence to the present showed that ponds with larger size and a long perimeter were less likely to disappear. Smaller (< 0.1 ha) and more curvilinear ponds had a more drastic rate of disappearance. Based on this finding, a logistic regression was constructed to predict pond-loss likelihood in the future and to help identify ponds that should be protected. Overlaying results from ANN and form logistic regression enabled the creation of pond-diversity maps for these simulated scenarios of development intensities with respective to pond-loss trends and the corresponding dynamics of bird diversity

Modeling Autoregressive Models in Cool Island Effects associated with Remote Telemeter Technology (ASTER) in Taiwan: A GIS Approach

AbstractA microclimate is the unique climate of a small-scale region, such as a field or parts of urban or rural areas. The weather variables in a microclimate include temperature, wind, humidity, land forms, and water regimes. In Northern Taiwan's Taoyuan County, irrigation ponds take a long time to heat up during the summer months, keeping these rural areas cooler than surrounding urbanized areas. Based on Geographic Information System (GIS) layers associated with Digital Terrain Modeling (DTM), along with Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) images, this paper examines temperature variables in four counties/cities in Taiwan for the past century. Urban development is found to have contributed to temperature increases, but an understanding of the cooling mechanism is still incomplete. Temperatures in the Taoyuan tableland have declined, at odds with trends in other areas in Taiwan as well as on a global scale. In Taoyuan, the Times-Series Regression Model was used to extrapolated a downward trend from a mean current temperature of 21.3°C currently down to 19.72°C in 2099, assuming the area of irrigation ponds remain unchanged

The Living Environmental Education

This open access book is designed and written to bridge the gap on the critical issues identified in environmental education programs in Asian countries. The world and its environments are changing rapidly, and the public may have difficulty keeping up and understanding how these changes will affect our way of life. The authors discuss various topics and case studies from an Asian perspective, but the content, messaging, and lessons learned need not be limited to Asian cultures. Each chapter provides a summary of the intensive research that has been performed on pro-environmental behaviors, the experience of people working in industry and at home, and their philosophies that guide them in their daily lives. We highlight humanity’s potential to contribute to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by understanding better the environmental psychology, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability and stewardship protection elements that contribute to responsible environmental citizenship. The content of the chapters in this book includes a discussion of the crucial issues, plans, and evaluations for sustainability theories, practices, and actions with a proposed management structure for maximizing the cultural, social, and ecological diversity of Asian experiences compared to other theories and cultures internationally. We intend that the data in this book will provide a comprehensive guide for students, professors, practitioners, and entrepreneurs of environmental education and its related disciplines using case studies that demonstrate the relationship between the social and behavioral sciences and environmental leadership and sustainability

Physical outdoor activity versus indoor activity: their influence on environmental behaviors

There are strong evidences linking physical outdoor activity and health benefits; however, little is known about the impact on environmental behaviors. Thus, this study aims to close this gap by investigating the influence of physical outdoor activity on environmental behaviors. A total of 416 surveys were distributed to students in eight public primary schools located near the Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park in Taiwan. Findings from the analysis revealed that subjective norms had a more influential effect on environmental behaviors for participants who engaged in physical activity at outdoor parks. In contrast, descriptive norms had a direct predictive impact on environmental behaviors for participants whose main physical activity venue was at the indoor after-school centers. Research results also highlighted attitude as the strongest predictive variable influence on environmental behaviors for children who engaged in physical indoor and outdoor activities

The Living Environmental Education

This open access book is designed and written to bridge the gap on the critical issues identified in environmental education programs in Asian countries. The world and its environments are changing rapidly, and the public may have difficulty keeping up and understanding how these changes will affect our way of life. The authors discuss various topics and case studies from an Asian perspective, but the content, messaging, and lessons learned need not be limited to Asian cultures. Each chapter provides a summary of the intensive research that has been performed on pro-environmental behaviors, the experience of people working in industry and at home, and their philosophies that guide them in their daily lives. We highlight humanity’s potential to contribute to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by understanding better the environmental psychology, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability and stewardship protection elements that contribute to responsible environmental citizenship. The content of the chapters in this book includes a discussion of the crucial issues, plans, and evaluations for sustainability theories, practices, and actions with a proposed management structure for maximizing the cultural, social, and ecological diversity of Asian experiences compared to other theories and cultures internationally. We intend that the data in this book will provide a comprehensive guide for students, professors, practitioners, and entrepreneurs of environmental education and its related disciplines using case studies that demonstrate the relationship between the social and behavioral sciences and environmental leadership and sustainability

A self-evaluation system of quality planning for tourist attractions in Taiwan: an integrated AHP-Delphi approach from career professionals

This study seeks to identify a set of key indicators along with weightings for tourist attractions in Taiwan, and develop a quality management self-evaluation mechanism for tourism businesses, using an advanced integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process and Delphi (AHP-Delphi) approach derived from the supply side perspective. This research study comprises two phases: (1) Delphi method analysis that involves 17 experts, providing confirmation about the evaluation criteria; and (2) Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) method which aims to allocate weightings to the evaluation criteria from the experts. Findings from the Delphi method analysis revealed the acceptance of two dimensions, six sub-dimensions and 17 indicators as key evaluation criteria. The AHP method analysis indicated that the most significant dimension was managing quality, with tourism services and public sector facilities being the most important sub-dimension and indicator respectively. The self-evaluation mechanism proposed in this planning perspectives can assist tourism businesses and national/regional Destination Management Organization to identify quality management problems and possible ways of enhancing quality tourism, so that tourism experience, and tourist’s satisfaction can be further improved effectively between the conflicting views by career professionals

Assessing the Effectiveness of Environmental Training for Diving Tourists Using the DEA Model

This study proposes an approach based on data envelopment analysis to assess the effectiveness of environmental training for tourists. Most studies have considered only outcomes (i.e., the continuance or halting of improper behavior towards the environment) to represent the effectiveness of environmental training but this approach does not consider the amount of resources that have been applied in the process. The model utilizes input and output factors to estimate the index of effectiveness. We used a survey of underwater tourist activity to test the proposed model in the empirical evaluation and explored both the internal and external influences on the effectiveness

Determinants of pro-environmental behaviour among young and older farmers in Taiwan

The aim of this study was to explore the determinants of farmers’ pro-environmental behaviors in Taiwan. A total of 526 valid questionnaires were received from a randomly stratified sample of young (below 40 years old) and older (above 40 years old) farmers located in Central Taiwan. The findings revealed that young farmers’ pro-environmental behaviors were directly affected by personal norms, and also indirectly from personal and social norms through perceived behavioural control. In contrast, older farmers’ pro-environmental behaviors were directly affected by social norms, whereas personal norms also had an indirect impact via perceived behavioral control. Results from this study could contribute towards the development of appropriate strategies for the two age groups of farmers who respond to the different determinants of their pro-environmental behaviors