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Forests are embedded in diverse forest governance, resource use, and resource user settings which are linked as components of social-ecological systems. This dissertation examines forest health at a landscape scale, governance at a community scale, and livelihoods at a household scale within a social ecological system; I develop a measure of forest health, the Bare Ground Index, derived from satellite imagery and combine this with socioeconomic data to examine relationships between forest health and forest governance and livelihoods across central India. This body of work has identified livelihood and governance approaches that provide social benefits and maintain healthy forests in central India, a landscape with globally important biodiversity and socially and historically marginalized people. This context is reflected in additional human-dominated landscapes where identifying sustainable development solutions that provide social and environmental benefits is a priority. As forests are lost, gained, and degraded around the world, satellite data has been a powerful tool in collecting estimates of forest cover change but less widely adopted to measure forest degradation, largely due to challenges in common interpretations of operational measures. In chapter 1, coauthors and I develop landscape-scale land cover and forest health datasets for central India. First, we identified land cover, including tree cover and bare ground, from Planet Labs Very High-Resolution satellite data using a Random Forest classifier, resulting in a 3-meter (m) thematic map with 83.00% overall accuracy. Second, we operationalize a measure of forest health and derived the Bare Ground Index (BGI), a normalized index that is a ratio of bare ground to tree cover at 90 m resolution. The BGI was mapped across forest (>10% tree cover). Although open areas occur naturally throughout the tropical dry forest of central India, results from field data indicated that the BGI served as a proxy for measuring the intensity of cattle presence in a landscape where grazing has changed forest composition. The BGI was developed as an indicator of forest health and now serves as a baseline to monitor future changes to a tropical dry forest landscape at an unprecedented spatial scale. In chapter 2, coauthors and I integrated the BGI with socioeconomic data from surveys to households and locally elected leaders to assess forest health and governance patterns across 238 villages at the community-scale. We experimentally selected 80 total villages as treatment and control groups and used this dataset in various statistical analyses to assess the extent of exposed bare ground within forests around villages with and without local institutions involved in making decisions about the forest. Forest had less bare ground within forest where there was a local institution compared to villages without an institution at 3 and 5 kilometers (kms), distances that households traveled from the village to graze cattle or collect Non-Timber Forest Products, firewood, and fodder. Having a local forest institution was more strongly associated with bare ground within forest at 3 and 5 kms than measures of local forest use. In villages with institutions, the authority to modify rules about forest use was relatively more important than the length of time the institution had been established for bare ground within forest. Establishing formal institutions with authority over forest management is important to promote forest cover around forest-dependent communities but it is necessary to ensure that forest governance does not worsen existing socioeconomic disparities. Bare ground within forests near and far (1 and 10 kms) villages was not different in places with and without formal local institutions and was most strongly associated with local forest uses. Both formal forest institutions and forest uses like collecting firewood for cooking or wood for construction material impact forests in central India. In my third and final chapter, coauthors and I examined firewood collection patterns and the adoption of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) using surveys from 4,994 households in central India. Firewood collection is pervasive across central India’s rural communities and mainly used for cooking or heating. We adopted an energy justice approach, which emphasizes questions about who does and does not have access to alternative cooking fuels, because historically marginalized groups comprise a significant portion of central India’s total population. It was important to integrate social justice issues in a system where resource users experience multiple disparities, such as high levels of poverty. We found that despite overall growth in LPG use, disparities in access to clean cooking fuels remained and the probability of cooking with LPG was lowest for socially and historically marginalized households (i.e., Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste, and Other Backward Caste). While 90% of LPG-using households continued to use firewood, households that have owned LPG for more years spent less time collecting firewood, indicating a waning reliance on firewood over time. This study found evidence that policies targeting communities with marginalized social groups living near forests can further accelerate LPG adoption and displace firewood use. My thesis examined components of a social ecological system at landscape, community, and household scales. I integrated insights from across social and ecological disciplines to identify strategies for sustainable development in central India. First, I developed an operational measure of forest health. Following chapters identified characteristics of governance and livelihood interventions that present potential pathways towards achieving benefits for conservation and people. Environmental and development goals should be harmonized so that the central Indian landscape can continue to support biodiversity and people. My approach can be replicated across additional social ecological systems by linking a landscape-scale resource condition to community governance and household socioeconomic patterns.

Thesis advisor: Shanta Pandey / Thesis advisor: Samantha Teixeira / Anthropogenic climate change will push 100 million of the world’s population into poverty in the next decade, and worsen economic, food, and housing insecurity. Natural disasters are some of the most manifest markers of climate change impacts, set to become more intense and frequent as a result of the climate crisis. The brunt of these stressors falls disproportionately on the most marginalized populations across the world - women, children, people with disabilities, and older adults, among other disadvantaged groups. Despite a surge of interest in scholarship on disasters and their unequal impacts, studies on preventative strategies and action have been relatively fewer even though it is widely agreed that post-disaster recovery is enhanced when coupled with pre-disaster readiness and planning. There are multiple empirical and theoretical unknowns around factors promoting or hindering preparedness at micro, mezzo, and macro levels, which are all critical avenues for interventions. This three-paper dissertation addresses this gap in the context of the United States to understand individual and household capacities in dealing with natural disasters. The human capabilities approach helps to frame the overall dissertation examining the associations of social and structural vulnerabilities, self-efficacy, disaster experience, disaster-related information, and participation in social welfare policy with household disaster readiness. The individual papers are further informed by self-efficacy theory and concepts spanning Vulnerability, Absorptive Capacity, and Resilience. Three aims guide this research resulting in three separate papers: Paper 1 examined associations between social vulnerabilities, disaster self-efficacy, and preparedness using nationally representative data from Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Household Surveys 2018. Disaster preparedness was found to vary across self-efficacy and social vulnerability. The confidence in one’s abilities to carry out necessary preparatory action and socioeconomic status were consistently associated with higher preparedness controlling for social vulnerability indicators. Paper 2 assessed the role of social and structural (housing and neighborhood) vulnerabilities in disaster risk reduction employing household-level data from nationally representative American Housing Survey (AHS) 2017. Results suggested that housing insecurity and social vulnerability concurrently were associated with disaster readiness. Further, this paper examined if the association of social vulnerability with disaster preparedness varied by housing insecurity among households in the U.S. Results suggested that housing insecurity moderated the association between minimal preparedness and socioeconomic status, sex of the householder, marital status, and presence of older adults in the house. Paper 3 probed the effects of social vulnerability and welfare policy participation on disaster readiness in U.S. households using the AHS 2017 data. Further, the paper examined the direct and indirect effects of household demographics and participation in social safety net programs (TANF, SSI, SNAP, Housing Vouchers) on household disaster preparedness and found that income, education, race, and having a person with disability at home were statistically mediated at least partially by welfare recipiency. This dissertation examined fissures between intent, capacities, and disaster preparedness with implications for vulnerable communities in the U.S. Results from this three-paper dissertation offer multiple takeaways and intervention points at individual and household levels for social work scholarship, education, and policy. In probing factors that enable or prevent households from taking steps to safeguard themselves against future threats, this dissertation helps inform and affirm values of human dignity and human rights, particularly among vulnerable groups. Overall, the dissertation extends the conversations around individual, contextual, and policy interventions needed to assist vulnerable populations in absorbing and overcoming the multitude of shocks they face. Social and structural barriers to improved household capacities to deal with disasters and other shocks can be addressed through effective policy interventions and a robust safety net. This dissertation examines these elements separately and offers key considerations for research, practice, and policy. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

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In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the grassroots environmental movement brought national attention to the issues related to inequities in environmental quality. Previous research addressing these environmental inequities has progressively increased and advanced methodologically. However, the arguments and focus have been primarily limited to examining the socio-demographics in an ongoing debate of race and class. This thesis extends past the methodological stalemate focusing on the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) using survey data in an environmental justice case study of a community in south Florida. This approach examines the social, health and environmental impacts of a Superfund site on a low income, minority community. Using geo-coded survey (N=223) and environmental data (ash deposition patterns), this thesis employs path analysis to test the hypothesis that exposure matters. The exposure matters hypothesis suggests exposure (perceived, self-reported and actual) is a significant predictor of physical and psychological health. Results discuss significant findings, and then compare them with previous disaster and trauma-related research and present directions for future research.

Background: Burnout is significantly high among helping professionals and poses serious risks to one’s mental and physical health. Despite the high stress of environmental activists’ work and the importance of their role, there is little research on their mental health. Environmental activists protect the mental and physical health of the general population by advocating for environmental justice, pushing for large-scale changes to impede climate change, and providing education and resources for communities to navigate climate change-related events. This preliminary study aimed to contribute to the literature by gathering more information about burnout among environmental activists. Methods: A mixed methods framework employed a quantitative survey and qualitative individual interviews to ascertain the rates and experience of burnout from the point of view of the activists themselves. Activists were recruited from organizations throughout New York State that focus on climate change, climate justice, and environmental justice in community settings. Burnout, the main dependent variable, was measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Independent variables included psychological distress, climate change-related anxiety, perceived organizational support, a variety of psychosocial workplace factors, and styles of coping. Correlation analyses were used to assess the relationship between burnout mean scores and mean scores on each of the independent variables. Qualitative interview data were analyzed by inductive Thematic Analysis and findings were organized and presented with the additional use of Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) frequency methods. Results: Thirty-two participants completed the survey and eight activists agreed to subsequently complete the qualitative interview. Quantitative scales showed moderate burnout comprised of high emotional exhaustion and decreased feelings of accomplishment, and low depersonalization. Psychological distress was generally mild and climate change anxiety was high, but not impairing. Activists rated perceived organizational support as high and workplace factors as satisfactory. Emotional exhaustion was positively correlated with psychological distress and demands at work, and negatively correlated with perceived organizational support, interpersonal relationships and leadership, social capital, and health and wellbeing. Feelings of personal accomplishment were positively correlated with work organization and job contents, interpersonal relationships and leadership, and adaptive coping styles, specifically the use of emotional support, use of institutional support, and planning. Depersonalization was positively correlated with maladaptive coping styles involving denial, behavioral disengagement, and self-blame. The qualitative study interviews identified eight thematic areas associated with the experience of burnout, risk and protective factors, and factors unique to activism, activism and personal identity, and activism and current events. Qualitative outcomes aligned with quantitative outcomes, clarifying motivations for engaging in activism and experience of activism. Conclusions: This exploratory study helps illuminate important factors relevant to environmental activists’ mental health and offers recommendations for future research and mental health organizational policies. Future studies are needed with greater sample size, systematic sampling, and multiple assessment points, to better determine predictive relationships between these variables and burnout.

The extraction of lithium, a crucial mineral for the production of batteries in the rapidlyexpanding electric vehicle and renewable energy sectors, has gained significant attention due toits environmental and social implications. This thesis provides a comprehensive literature reviewon the environmental and social challenges associated with lithium extraction from the LithiumTriangle countries, namely Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, through the lens of political ecology.Drawing upon a wide range of scholarly articles, reports, and case studies, this research examinesthe complex interplay between ecological dynamics and sociopolitical factors in the context oflithium extraction. The literature review explores key themes including land use conflicts, waterscarcity and pollution, indigenous rights and participation, governance and regulation, and globalmarket dynamics. The literature review reveals that lithium extraction in the Lithium Trianglecountries presents various environmental challenges. These include the large-scale use of waterresources, potential water contamination from mining activities, and the disruption of fragileecosystems. From a political ecology perspective, the review highlights the power dynamics andpolitical-economic structures that shape the governance of lithium extraction. It criticallyanalyzes the role of multinational corporations, government policies, and international marketforces in influencing the environmental and social outcomes of lithium mining operations.Furthermore, the review emphasizes the importance of recognizing and incorporating theperspectives and rights of local communities and indigenous groups in decision-makingprocesses. By adopting a political ecology perspective, it underscores the need for sustainable andsocially just approaches to lithium mining that prioritize environmental conservation, communityengagement, and equitable distribution of benefits. The findings of this literature review caninform future research, policy development, and advocacy efforts aimed at promoting responsibleand inclusive practices in the lithium industry. / Lithium utvinning, en nyckelkomponent i elbils- och förnybar energisektorns framväxt, haruppmärksammats för dess påverkan på miljö och samhälle. Denna avhandling utför enomfattande litteraturgenomgång om miljö- och samhällsutmaningar vid litiumutvinning i LitiumTriangel-länderna: Argentina, Bolivia och Chile. Genom att analysera en bred samlingvetenskapliga artiklar, rapporter och fallstudier utforskar studien det komplexa samspelet mellanekologi och sociopolitisk vid litiumutvinning. Litteraturgenomgången utforskar centrala ämnensom markkonflikter, vattenbrist och föroreningar, ursprungsbefolkningars rättigheter ochdeltagande, styrning och globala marknadskrafter. Resultaten avslöjar miljöutmaningar vidlitiumutvinning i Triangel-länderna, inklusive vattenanvändning, förorening ochekosystemstörningar. Genom ett politiskt ekologiskt perspektiv belyser översikten maktstruktureroch påverkan från multinationella företag, regeringspolitik och internationella marknadskrafter.Översikten understryker även vikten av att inkludera lokalbefolkningens ochursprungsbefolkningars perspektiv och rättigheter i beslutsprocesser. Studien främjar hållbara ochrättvisa tillvägagångssätt för litiumutvinning och visar att resultaten kan påverka framtidaforskning, policyutveckling och påverkansarbete för ansvarsfulla och inkluderande metoder inomlitiumindustrin.

Electric power system (EPS) is an integral part of infrastructure systems. Ensuring its resiliency to extreme weather events and natural hazards is crucial to protect the safety, economy and public health. Recorded and projected data show an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events and natural hazards attributed to a changing climate. It is critical to ensure the integrity of the aging infrastructure systems and to promote environmental justice by shrinking the energy-equity gap to lower power outages in disadvantaged communities. An important aspect is the resiliency interdependency of EPS to other critical infrastructure systems, an aspect that has been escalating due to rapid urbanization and technological developments. The main objective of this research is to quantitatively evaluate the resilience of levee-protected power grid to flooding in a changing climate and adapting a strategy to enhance the resilience of power grid. Thus, this study first establishes a methodological and multi-disciplinary framework by integrating climate science, hydrology, and EPS analysis to study (I) how climate change affects recurrence intervals of flooding, (II) how the integrity of levees will be affected by changes in flooding patterns, (III) how these changes affect the resilience of an EPS located in levee-protected areas, and (IV) how to improve the resilience of the EPS while reducing the energy-equity gap. The proposed framework is applied to some IEEE standard test systems overlaid on a levee-protected area in Northern California. First, a link-based resiliency analysis is performed using the direct current optimal power flow (dc-OPF) method applied to the IEEE-24 standard test system. Then, a node-based resiliency analysis is carried out employing the IEEE 118-bus test system. The system resiliency is assessed for pre-flooding, historic flooding, and projected future flooding scenarios using two representative climate pathways (RCP). Finally, an optimal adaptation strategy using the placement of distributed energy resources (DERs) is delineated using a modified IEEE 30-bus test system to reduce flooding-induced power outages, prioritizing disadvantaged communities by minimizing energy inequity among the communities. Results of this study reveal that the adaptation plan can reduce the risk of power outages, improve environmental justice and the resilience of power networks. The findings of this study can contribute towards more resilient EPS under a changing climate.

Nigeria is at a crossroad - how to balance developmental needs with environmental protection. The challenge is exacerbated because Nigeria operates a mono-economy which overwhelmingly depends on the crude oil resources from the Niger Delta for its economic survival. As a result, the protection of the Niger Delta environment has not been accorded the priority it deserves. The thesis aims to investigate the potentials of Constitutional Environmental Rights (CERs) to assist in resolving the environmental sustainability crisis in the Niger Delta. The thesis will utilize insights developed by environmental justice scholarship as the theoretical framework to investigate the main causes of the sustainability crisis in the Niger Delta and to propose ways to tackle these environmental challenges. The thesis draws inspiration from the research carried out by David Boyd on the efficacy of CERs for environmental sustainability for its analytical framework. Although Trans-National Corporations (TNCs) and international trade contribute to the sustainability crisis in the Niger Delta, the thesis will not focus on these. Instead, it will focus on the internal legal causes of the sustainability crisis in the Niger Delta, because the external causes of the sustainability crisis have been addressed at length by other researchers. Moreover, addressing the internal causes of the sustainability crisis could also address some of the impacts of the external causes of the sustainability crisis in the Niger Delta. As such, the thesis uses 3 of Boyd's CERs performance indices in analyzing the suitability of CERs to tackle the 3 identified major internal causes of the sustainability crisis in the Niger Delta. Specifically, Boyd's index 1 (impetus for the enactment of stronger environmental laws) could address gaps in Nigeria's environmental regulatory framework. Index 4 (improvement in the implementation and enforcement of environmental laws) could address the non-implementation and non-enforcement problems with the existing environmental regulatory framework in Nigeria. Lastly, index 6 (increased public participation in environmental governance) could address the marginalization of the Niger Delta in resource governance in Nigeria. These indices will not only help to uncover the weaknesses in Nigerian laws and their enforcement but will also identify potential barriers to CERs within the current legal and policy architecture and suggest solutions on how CERs would be implemented if recognized in Nigeria to avoid these barriers. The main contribution of the thesis is a detailed case study of how CERs may work in Nigeria to tackle the environmental crisis in the Niger Delta, and a detailed and specific analysis of what would be required in terms of domestic political, structural and legal change to ensure that CERs could contribute to the sustainability of the Niger Delta as much as they have in other countries. The research makes specific recommendations for changes to Nigerian law, policy and institutions, such as adoption of CERs in the enforceable part of the Constitution, ownership and control by federating units of natural resources found in their territories, and elimination of barriers to access to justice. This would come about through strategically crafted constitutional provisions and laws to address the underlying factors that would limit the effectiveness of CERs in Nigeria. The thesis argues that addressing these fundamentals and constitutionalizing environmental rights will lead to improved environmental outcomes for the Niger Delta.

Over the past several decades, flooding events in the United States have become the most frequent and costliest natural disaster. In the US, city and regional leaders are planning new water and flood mitigation infrastructure in response to the challenges of flooding, uneven urbanization, and racialized exclusion. Historically, projects to keep water out have never been universal or evenly applied. Yet, ‘learning to live’ with water, a key tagline in current sustainable development paradigms, masks how histories of racialized land development are entangled with contemporary water infrastructure projects and are productive of regional planning power. This dissertation centers racial capitalism in analysis of how contemporary water infrastructure projects are entangled with, and informed by, histories of racialized land development in the mid-Mississippi River Region. Through two case studies on flood mitigation infrastructure in eastern Missouri, I trace the historic development of infrastructures that shape the ongoing racialization of space, infrastructure (re)development and community vulnerability to flooding today. The case studies draw from a range of data, including archival research on histories of land and infrastructure development, participant observation of planning meetings, professional conferences, and local neighborhood initiatives, and field observations of the built environment. I argue that 1) scholarship concerned with social-environmental inequities should engage racial capitalism as a framework to “provincialize” urban theory and environmental racism as a means to theorize uneven infrastructural provisioning as a mode of urbanization that (re)produces social difference and value creation under racial capitalism, 2) the historical development of flood control in the Mississippi region was fundamental to the development of racial capitalism because it consolidated regional planning power through methods of social and environmental domination, and 3) contemporary infrastructural redevelopment and flood mitigation projects must contend with the path dependencies of structural racism to disrupt existing cycles of marginalization across social differences to deliver meaningfully on equity goals. Ultimately, this study finds that flood-mitigation infrastructures, including levees, floodways, and dams, on the Missouri River and gray and green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) in the City of St. Louis are embedded in broader social-environmental networks and regional power blocs, whose regional history and dynamics have created distinct patterns of uneven urbanization and vulnerability to flooding disasters. Because infrastructure projects are embedded in the built environment for decades, the social relations comprising their implementation, or lack thereof, reach into present and future development considerations. Thus, when planning projects fail to grapple with path dependencies of past infrastructure projects, they may reproduce structural racism and re-create patterns of uneven urbanization and vulnerability to flooding disasters. / Geography