ABSTRACT
Introduction: The present study reports findings from an interview study with 7 women and 7 men (age 61-91) living in ordinary housing during the summer of 2020 when the Covid 19 pandemic had an influence on society. We wanted to explore how people who recovered after a stroke experienced their everyday lives in their homes and close surroundings during the pandemic recommendations. The stay-at-home recommendations to reduce the spread of the virus had a major impact on people's everyday lives such as distress, anxiety, and fear. However, little is known about how persons living with complex health conditions such as after a stroke, have experienced and handled the situation. Method(s): Qualitative interviews and thematic analysis. Result(s): We constructed three themes from the narrative data and the thematic analysis;1) Places within and out of reach, 2) Upholding activities- strategies, and structures, and 3) Adapting to new circumstances. The findings showed that places within reach for the persons were important to maintain activities and provide structure in their daily life. The participants used their previous experiences of adjusting to new circumstances after stroke when they were forced to adapt to living under the stay-athome recommendations. The feeling that they shared the restrictions with other people in society relieves their situations. Access to nature and spaces in close surroundings was essential for staying socially connected and receiving support in daily life. Conclusion(s): The significance of the home and the neighborhood for health experiences among people who recently have had a stroke should inform rehabilitation interventions both during and after pandemics and environmental planning.
ABSTRACT
Wild cards are improbable, high impact events. Such events, like the COVID-19 pandemic, have the ability to shape policy by upending entire systems and paradigms. Unfortunately, long-term planning and policymaking rarely account for wild card events. Instead, planning and policymaking typically assume that existing trends will continue without major disruption. Moreover, adequately planning for potential wild card events is challenging because they are inherently difficult to predict. However, planning for wild card events in natural resources and environmental policymaking is vital as global developments, such as climate change, create more extreme conditions and challenges. This review, (1) defines and characterizes wild cards, (2) explains three distinct types of wild cards, (3) explores strategies to identify, assess, manage, and monitor wild cards, and (4) concludes by summarizes the importance of incorporating an analysis of wild cards in natural resource and environmental planning. © 2023, University of New Mexico. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Whale-watching vessels contribute to elevated ambient sound levels in marine habitats. The reduction in maritime tourism activities during the Covid-19 pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity to study the acoustic response of marine mammals to noise associated with whale-watching activities. In this study, we used acoustic recordings, visual observations, and Automatic Identification System data to determine the changes in humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae calling behavior associated with whale-watching vessels on a foraging ground in Skjálfandi Bay, Iceland. We compared pre-pandemic summer months (2018) with pandemic (2020) conditions to quantify reductions in vessel activity and determine changes in calling behavior. Broadband ambient sound pressure levels were low in both years (median ~90 dBRMS (25-1300 Hz) re 1 µPa). During the Covid-19 pandemic (2020), the number of whale-watching trips was reduced by 68.6%. The number of humpback whale call detections increased nearly 2-fold. Ambient sound pressure levels stayed the same. We found that humpback whales reduce their calling effort in the presence of vessel sound independent of the overall ambient sound. As whale-watching vessel traffic rebounds and continues to grow, demonstrating behavioral responses should inform management plans such as vessel codes of conduct and marine spatial planning.
ABSTRACT
We all aspire to urbanism that recognizes the social, economic, political, cultural, and physical-spatial dimensions of cities: urbanism, which, based on working tools (SDAU, planning regulations, etc.), based on a quality model, will allow good practice and good translation of these systems on the territory (neighborhood, city, rural environment, etc.). Due to that, the authors propose and develop an automated urban planning amenagement platform for the generation of updates proposed by urban planning experts in order to improve the quality of amenagement regulations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
During times of stress and social pressure, urban green space provides social, cultural, and economic resources that help individuals and communities cope. Green space accessibility is, therefore, an important indicator related to people’s health and welfare. However, green space accessibility is not even throughout urban areas, with some areas better served with green space than others. Green space patterning is, therefore, a major environmental justice challenge. This research uses GIS approaches to analyze and understand urban green space access of urban communities in the Australian metropolitan areas of Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. We calculate indicators to describe green space access in relation to different green space patterns within different metropolitan zones, including the inner urban, suburban, and peri urban. We use the best available open data from the Australian census of 2017 to calculate green space accessibility. Our results describe the relationship between population density and green space distribution and patterning in the four metropolitan areas. We find that even cities which are generally thought of as liveable have considerable environmental justice challenges and inequity and must improve green space access to address environmental inequity. We also find that a range type of measures can be used to better understand green space accessibility. Accessibility varies greatly both within metropolitan areas and also from city to city. Through improving our understanding of the green space accessibility characteristics of Australian metropolitan areas, the result of this study supports the future planning of more just and equal green cities.
ABSTRACT
With the development of urbanization and the ageing population, the improvement of the urban environment and the quality of life (QOL) of the elderly in cities with a cold climate have become critical issues to be addressed. However, only a few studies have focused on this aspect. According to a review of the literature, the contents of the built environment (BE) in severe cold regions are defined as thirteen key factors of four categories (density, environmental aesthetics, outdoor environment, and accessibility) and the QOL of old people consists of three aspects (residential, health, and social satisfaction). This study explores how BE variables are associated with the QOL of older adults by using ordered logit and gologit2 models. The data consist of the results of 1945 questionnaires from field surveys in 11 different residential areas, across two cities in northeastern China. The results show: (1) Walkability in winter, distance to a public park of 400–1000 m, outdoor shelters and seating, less than five buses available, and a mixture of evergreen and deciduous trees are five of the most important variables of BE that have a significant positive impact on QOL compared with other climatic regions;(2) “Pocket parks” and pedestrian walkway safety are appropriate approaches to improve wellbeing under local economic conditions. For public transportation, metro and rail transit systems are encouraged, and some rules are needed to reduce the number of buses in harsh weather conditions;(3) Compared with spatial distribution in other climates, the scope of a 15 min city should be less than 1km in severe cold areas. From the findings, we conclude that there are six possible pattern languages to improve the urban environment, and they can provide information for further study on environmental planning in severe cold regions.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines “e-planning,” or the use of computer-based systems to conduct planning and decision-making, in the context of community forest management. E-planning is growing in the field of environmental planning, as it promises greater equity in terms of public participation. However, a lack of scholarly work exists on the applicability for forest planning. During the COVID-19 pandemic, county foresters and other natural resource professionals in Vermont turned to e-planning when safety restrictions limited their ability to engage in face-to-face efforts. This provided an opportunity to collect empirical data about the potential for e-planning to support the public engagement process in the context of forest planning. We provide an overview of e-planning theory and examine data from Vermont to explore the promise of e-planning for forest management. We make recommendations about the applicability of e-planning in the context of forest planning, and highlight areas for future research to investigate.
ABSTRACT
Although coworking is commonly associated with the concept of community, few studies have explored whether and how coworking empowers social network formations among the members. The primary goal of this dissertation is to explore how coworking members are socially connected and what environmental factors are related to their social networks formation. This dissertation is composed of two studies. Study #1 is an exploratory study that investigates coworking space characteristics and the members' social connectivity. Mixed methods were applied to study coworking spaces in New York City. A total of 12 coworking managers were interviewed, and this qualitative data was complemented by 160 hours of participant observation and surveys finished by 42 coworking members from 7 coworking spaces. The results suggest that social connectivity between the members was low even before the Covid-19 pandemic. Three major reasons were identified: lack of opportunity, lack of motivation, and a behavioral norm of minimizing interaction in the open-plan environment. Both the type of membership plan and space access time were found to be significantly associated with the members' social connectivity.These findings led me to explore the nature of flexibility in coworking. I propose that flexibility is about the spatial-temporal relationship between the space and the occupants, which can be described as how much visibility and mobility the space offers, and how much time the occupants are physically present in the space. A follow-up question was raised: are there potential conflicts between flexibility and the members' social network formation?A 2x2 online survey experiment (Study #2) was conducted to examine whether increased spatial-temporal flexibility negatively affects an individual's attitudes toward social interaction in the work settings. Based on data collected from a sample of 315 participants recruited using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, results suggested supportive evidence for my hypotheses. Increased flexibility in space and time negatively affected an individual's attitude toward social interaction. Increased time flexibility was also negatively associated with social connectivity according to the participants' previous coworking experience.These results suggest that the nature of coworking may embody a conflicting relationship between the two concepts: "flexibility" and "community." Overall, this dissertation offers a critical understanding of the coworking environment, the member's social connectivity, and the relationships between the two. What these findings imply for understanding coworking's future, and how environment and behavior research could be applied to study emerging design concepts are also addressed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)