587 research outputs found

    Landslide riskscapes in the Colorado Front Range: a quantitative geospatial approach for modeling human-environment interactions

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    2021 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.This research investigated the application of riskscapes to landslides in the context of geospatial inquiry. Riskscapes are framed as a landscape of risk to represent risk spatially. Geospatial models for landslide riskscapes were developed to improve our understanding of the spatial context for landslides and their risks as part of the system of human-environment interactions. Spatial analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) leveraged modeling methods and the distributed properties of riskscapes to identify and preserve these spatial relationships. This dissertation is comprised of four separate manuscripts. These projects defined riskscapes in the context of landslides, applied geospatial analyses to create a novel riskscape model to introduce spatial autocorrelation methods to the riskscape framework, compared geostatistical analysis methods in these landslide riskscape assessments, and described limitations of spatial science identified in the riskscape development process. The first project addressed the current literature for riskscapes and introduced landslides as a measurable feature for riskscapes. Riskscapes are founded in social constructivist theory and landslide studies are frequently based on quantitative risk assessment practices. The uniqueness of a riskscape is the inclusion of human geography and environmental factors, which are not consistently incorporated in geologic or natural hazard studies. I proposed the addition of spatial theory constructs and methods to create spatially measurable products. I developed a conceptual framework for a landslide riskscape by describing the current riskscape applications as compared to existing landslide and GIS risk model processes. A spatial modeling formula to create a weighted sum landslide riskscape was presented as a modification to a natural hazard risk equation to incorporate the spatial dimension of risk factors. The second project created a novel method for three geospatial riskscapes as an approach to model landslide susceptibility areas in Boulder and Larimer Counties, Colorado. This study synthesized physical and human geography to create multiple landslide riskscape models using GIS methods. These analysis methods used a process model interface in GIS. Binary, ranked, and human factor weighted sum riskscapes were created, using frequency ratio as the basis for developing a weighting scheme. Further, spatial autocorrelation was introduced as a recommended practice to quantify the spatial relationships in landslide riskscape development. Results demonstrated that riskscapes, particularly those for ranked and human factor riskscapes, were highly autocorrelated, non-random, and exhibited clustering. These findings indicated that a riskscape model can support improvements to response modeling, based on the identification of spatially significant clustering of hazardous areas. The third project extended landslide riskscapes to measurable geostatistical comparisons using geostatistical tools within a GIS platform. Logistic regression, weights of evidence, and probabilistic neural networks methods were used to analyze the weighted sum landslide riskscape models using ArcGIS and Spatial Data Modeler (ArcSDM). Results showed weights of evidence models performed better than both logistic regression and neural networks methods. Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curves and Area Under the Curve validation tests were performed and found the weights of evidence model performed best in both posterior probability prediction and AUC validation. A fourth project was developed based on the limitations discovered during the analytical process evaluations from the riskscape model development and geostatistical analysis. This project reviewed the issues with data quality, the variations in results predicated on the input parameters within the analytical toolsets, and the issues surrounding open-source application tools. These limitations stress the importance of parameter selection in a geospatial analytical environment. These projects collectively determined methods for riskscape development related to landslide features. The models presented demonstrate the importance and influence of spatial distributions on landslide riskscapes. Based on the proposed conceptual framework of a spatial riskscape for landslides, weighted sum riskscapes can provide a basis for prioritization of resources for landslides. Ranked and human factor riskscapes indicate the need to provide planning and protection for areas at increased risk for landslides. These studies provide a context for riskscapes to further our understanding of the benefits and limitations of a quantitative riskscape approach. The development of a methodological framework for quantitative riskscape models provides an approach that can be applied to other hazards or study areas to identify areas of increased human-environment interaction. Riskscape models can then be evaluated to inform mitigation and land-use planning activities to reduce impacts of natural hazards in the anthropogenic environment

    Negotiating the riskscapes of convenience food

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    Summary: Addressing the spatial dimensions of risk, this paper examines the multiple ways that consumers negotiate the ëriskscapesí associated with the consumption of convenience food. It explores how convenience food poses a range of risks and potential ways of mitigating those risks. Drawing on empirical research from Germany and the UK, the paper demonstrates how food risks should be contextualized within the practices of everyday life and how consumer understandings of risk differ from expert risk assessments. The paper locates a number of different sites within the riskscape associated with convenience food, going beyond the focus on food safety and security that are the main concerns of health authorities and government advisors. Deicit models of food risk are criticised and alternatives are proposed that emphasise the socially embedded nature of risk within the practices of everyday life

    Gentrified Sustainability: Inequitable Development and Seattle’s Skewed Riskscape

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    This paper examines the tensions of sustainable development in Seattle, Washington, a commonly recognised urban environmental leader. Drawing on the perspective of sustainability as a conflicted process, this research expected a negative relationship between gentrification and environmental justice when affluent residents outcompete less affluent ones for neighbourhoods with fewer environmental hazards. The methods combine geographic cluster analysis and longitudinal air toxic emission comparisons to analyse socioeconomic changes in Seattle Census block-groups between 1990, 2000, and 2009 coupled with measures of relative potential risk and pollution volume. The property and development conflicts embedded within sustainability lead to pollution exposure risk and socioeconomic vulnerability converging in the same areas and reveal one of the ‘Emerald City’s’ significant environmental challenges. Inequitable development and environmental injustice remain overlooked dimensions of sustainability that interdisciplinary research should address

    Home as riskscape : exploring technology enabled care

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    Funding: Royal Society of Edinburgh (Grant Number(s): 62651); Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (Grant Number(s): RIG008250).The growth and spread of ubiquitous smart technology to deliver public health outcomes at home, and its relationship with risk, urgently requires greater scholarly attention, not least given COVID‐19. Theoretically informed by both critical geographies of home and risk scholarship, this paper uses data from interviews with professionals in Scotland designing and implementing technology enabled care (TEC) for current and future homes. It explores the organisation of risk in the context of TEC, and the importance of this in relation to home. Drawing on geographical writing on home, and the riskscape, I argue that the smart home is a contemporary manifestation of the riskscape with implications for ideas of intrusion and inequality, and the experience of home.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

    Risky Business: Sustainability and Industrial Land Use across Seattle’s Gentrifying Riskscape

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    This paper examines the spatial and temporal trajectories of Seattle’s industrial land use restructuring and the shifting riskscape in Seattle, WA, a commonly recognized urban model of sustainability. Drawing on the perspective of sustainability as a conflicted process, this research explored the intersections of urban industrial and nonindustrial land use planning, gentrification, and environmental injustice. In the first part of our research, we combine geographic cluster analysis and longitudinal air toxic emission comparisons to quantitatively investigate socioeconomic changes in Seattle Census block-groups between 1990, 2000, and 2009 coupled with measures of pollution volume and its relative potential risk. Second, we qualitatively examine Seattle’s historical land use policies and planning and the growing tension between industrial and nonindustrial land use. The gentrification, green cities, and growth management conflicts embedded within sustainability/livability lead to pollution exposure risk and socioeconomic vulnerability converging in the same areas and reveal one of Seattle’s significant environmental challenges. Our mixed-method approach can guide future urban sustainability studies to more effectively examine the connections between land use planning, industrial displacement, and environmental injustice. Our results also help sustainable development practitioners recognize that a more just sustainability in Seattle and beyond will require more planning and policy attention to mitigate obscured industrial land use conflicts

    Confined to space : Perspectives on carceral geograph

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    The recent discussions about mistreatment in elderly care and psychiatric care have increased the importance of expanding our knowledge about these spaces in order to ensure that these institutions provide a good quality of care and proper living conditions. In this thesis, I study spaces of confinement, particularly from the perspective of carceral geography. This subdiscipline of human geography is relatively new and has been rarely used in the Nordic context. Here it is used for the first time as concerning Finnish institutions of care. Thus, the thesis provides a novel viewpoint from which to understand spatiality in spaces of confinement and carceral spaces in a Nordic context. In the thesis, I explore spaces of confinement through different environments: an alternative community, nursing homes and a geropsychiatric ward. The questions I ask are: What kind of carceral practices and processes can be identified in spaces of confinement? What kinds of carceral spaces do these practices and processes produce? How can carceral spaces be conceptualised further in human geography? The findings suggest that peoples’ lives are controlled for various reasons. The spatiotemporal control emphasises the meaning of space and spatial solutions, especially in institutions, by defining who can be where and when. The control and confinement may be implemented by the regime and the law or through individuals and social groups. In addition, control can appear in a form of exclusion: confined people tend to be excluded from society, and, furthermore, exclusion can be used to adjust the behaviour of the people. Confinement is strongly linked to power relations, whether it is the power of the state, the power of authorities or the power of individuals over others. The thesis suggests, that spaces of confinement are heterogeneous, and they appear in different forms and levels. For example, carceral and quasi-carceral spaces can be identified in this research. Moreover, the findings suggest that these spaces are unequal. Thus, some groups are more vulnerable than others to mistreatment and carceral practices. Physical immobility may expose people to spatial mistreatment, for example being left alone for protracted periods of time. For cognitively impaired individuals, limitations and restrictions might seem illogical and thus cause anxiety. Cognitively impaired individuals are especially vulnerable since a lack of short-term memory exposes them to mistreatment. Furthermore, the experiences of carceral spaces may remain with people after the actual confinement and continue to have an influence on their perceptions of risks and their ability to cope in mundane life. In the study, the significance of the working community is recognised in relation to the production of carceral spaces. The findings indicate that morally grey areas emerge in situations where people are oppressed and they are forced to make decisions against their ethical principles. In addition, mistreatment cases may not be reported due to the employee experiencing the risk of either being excluded from the working community or losing their job entirely. In the thesis, I have provided two concepts to be used in carceral geography and with which to explore the essence and production of carceral spaces. Carceral layers describe the layered features and overlapping elements of carceral spaces. The layers suggest that carceralities may accumulate spatiotemporally and create spaces that are more carceral than others. Risk has a significance on establishing and maintaining carceral spaces. Carceral riskscape elaborates the relationship between risk and carceral space and how perceptions of risk may produce carceral practices and spaces. The approach of carceral geography is useful in understanding the complex spatialities of spaces of confinement. Thus, I find considering this approach worthwhile when institutions and new care forms are developed.Viime vuosien väärinkäytökset vanhusten hoivassa ja psykiatrisessa hoidossa ovat kasvattaneet tarvetta tuottaa tietoa rajoitetuista tiloista. Rajoitettujen tilojen tutkiminen on tärkeää, jotta hyvän elämänlaadun ylläpitäminen ja laadukas hoito voidaan taata laitoksissa. Käsittelen väitöskirjassani rajoitettuja tiloja erityisesti vankeusmaantieteen (carceral geography) näkökulmasta. Ihmismaantieteeseen kuuluva vankeusmaantiede on verrattain uusi tutkimussuuntaus Pohjoismaissa, eikä sitä ole aiemmin käytetty suomalaisia hoivainstituutioita koskevassa tutkimuksessa. Väitöskirjani tarjoaakin uudenlaisen näkökulman rajoitettujen tilojen tutkimukseen pohjoismaisessa kontekstissa. Väitöskirjassani tarkastelen rajoitettuja tiloja vaihtoehtoisessa yhteisössä, vanhainkodissa ja vanhuspsykiatrisella osastolla. Kysyn: Millaisia vankeuskäytäntöjä ja prosesseja rajoitetuista tiloista voidaan tunnistaa? Millaisia vankeustiloja nämä käytännöt ja prosessit muodostavat? Kysyn myös, miten vankeustiloja voidaan edelleen määritellä ihmismaantieteessä. Väitöskirjatutkimukseni osoittaa, että ihmisten elämää rajoitetaan moninaisista syistä. Ajallinen ja tilallinen kontrolli määrittelee kuka voi olla missä ja milloin, mikä korostaa erityisesti instituutioissa tilan ja tilallisten ratkaisujen merkitystä. Kontrolli ja rajoittaminen voivat toteutua hallinnon tai lakien, mutta myös sosiaalisten ryhmien tai yksilöiden toimesta. Lisäksi kontrollia voidaan toteuttaa ulossulkemisen kautta. Rajoitetuissa tiloissa olevat ihmiset saattavat olla tarkoituksellisesti suljettuja muusta yhteiskunnasta. Ulossulkemisella voidaan myös pyrkiä sääntelemään ihmisen käyttäytymistä. Rajoittaminen liittyy vahvasti valtasuhteisiin, joihin liittyvät valtiovalta ja auktoriteetit, mutta myös yksilön vallankäyttö. Tutkimus osoittaa, että rajoitetut tilat ovat heterogeenisiä ja voivat ilmetä eritasoisina ja erilaisissa muodoissa. Tutkimuksen löydökset osoittavat, että rajoitetut tilat ovat epätasa-arvoisia. Tietyt ihmisryhmät joutuvat alttiimmin vankeuskäytäntöjen kohteiksi ja kaltoin kohdelluiksi. Erityisesti liikuntarajoitteiset voivat joutua hoivalaitoksissa olemaan pitkiä aikoja yksin. Myös muistisairaat ovat haavoittuvassa asemassa, sillä lyhytkestoisen muistin puute voi altistaa heidät kaltoinkohtelulle. Lisäksi kokemukset vankeustiloista saattavat vaikuttaa ihmisen elämään varsinaisen rajoittamisen jälkeenkin. Nämä kokemukset vaikuttavat sekä yksilön näkemyksiin riskeistä, että mahdollisuuksiin selvitä arkielämässä. Tutkimuksessa on huomioitu myös työyhteisön merkitys vankeustilojen tuottamisessa. Tulosten mukaan moraalisesti harmaita alueita esiintyy tilanteissa, joissa ihmisiä painostetaan ja joissa heidät pakotetaan tekemään päätöksiä eettisten näkemystensä vastaisesti. Kaltoinkohtelusta ei myöskään välttämättä raportoida eteenpäin, jos se aiheuttaa riskin työpaikan menetyksestä. Väitöskirjani tarjoaa kaksi uutta näkökulmaa rajoitettujen tilojen tarkasteluun. Ensinnäkin vankeustilojen kerroksellisuuden (carceral layers) tarkastelu osoittaa, että vankeuselementit voivat kasaantua ajallis-tilallisesti ja synnyttää tiloja, jotka ovat enemmän vankeustilojen kaltaisia kuin toiset. Toiseksi riskien ja vankeustilojen välisen suhteen (carceral riskscape) tutkiminen paljastaa, miten näkemykset riskeistä saattavat tuottaa vankeuskäytäntöjä ja -tiloja. Nämä näkökulmat auttavat ymmärtämään rajoitettujen tilojen monimutkaisia tilallisia ominaisuuksia sekä ovat hyödyksi uusia hoitomuotoja ja –tiloja suunnitellessa

    Community-Based Health and Exposure Study around Urban Oil Developments in South Los Angeles.

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    Oilfield-adjacent communities often report symptoms such as headaches and/or asthma. Yet, little data exists on health experiences and exposures in urban environments with oil and gas development. In partnership with Promotoras de Salud (community health workers), we gathered household surveys nearby two oil production sites in Los Angeles. We tested the capacity of low-cost sensors for localized exposure estimates. Bilingual surveys of 205 randomly sampled residences were collected within two 1500 ft. buffer areas (West Adams and University Park) surrounding oil development sites. We used a one-sample proportion test, comparing overall rates from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) of Service Planning Area 6 (SPA6) and Los Angeles County for variables of interest such as asthma. Field calibrated low-cost sensors recorded methane emissions. Physician diagnosed asthma rates were reported to be higher within both buffers than in SPA6 or LA County. Asthma prevalence in West Adams but not University Park was significantly higher than in Los Angeles County. Respondents with diagnosed asthma reported rates of emergency room visits in the previous 12 months similar to SPA6. 45% of respondents were unaware of oil development; 63% of residents would not know how to contact local regulatory authorities. Residents often seek information about their health and site-related activities. Low-cost sensors may be useful in highlighting differences between sites or recording larger emission events and can provide localized data alongside resident-reported symptoms. Regulatory officials should help clarify information to the community on methods for reporting health symptoms. Our community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership supports efforts to answer community questions as residents seek a safety buffer between sensitive land uses and active oil development
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