This study addresses the process of recent urban growth and change in the spatial structure of the City of Tabriz, Iran over the period 1966-1991. The main objectives are to see how the recent rapid urban development in Tabriz has changed its spatial form and activity patterns and what are the main social and environmental implications of these changes. The research is mainly based on data obtained from various Iranian government agencies combined with additional field work and interviews carried out for this research. Population density model and location quotients (LQ) method are used to analyze the recent change in the population density and land use pattern in Tabriz. An impact analysis is used to assess the social and environmental implications of these urban changes. ARC/INFO, a GIS software, is employed to illustrate the spatial structural changes and part of the spatial analysis in this study. The following results are obtained from this study: (1) Natural population growth and rural-urban migrations caused by land reform, mechanization of agriculture and inappropriate government policies are main factors of recent rapid growth in Tabriz. (2) A dramatic increase in the number of motor vehicles, the decline in the average household size and government interventions have been the major factors for the rapid physical expansion and the overall population density decline in Tabriz over recent decades. However, due to topographic reasons, orientation of main transportation network and zoning policy, the change in density pattern among different areas of the city varies substantially. Whereas the city centre and east-west peripheries, occupied mainly by middle or high income groups, have experienced population density decline, the northern and southern fringes, occupied mainly by low income groups and squatter settlements, have increased their density. (3) The examination of the spatial distribution of land uses reveals a higher degree of concentration and significant change in the geographical location of urban activities within the city. The comparison of the LQ among land uses between 1966 and 1991 shows that educational, industrial and health care land uses are becoming more polarized, whereas transportation and residential land uses, because of their higher proportions compared to the existing developed urban land, are relatively less concentrated. In terms of geographical location, there has been a strong tendency for shifting the industrial activity, public organizations, government and some commercial (especially services) activities from the city centre to the peripheries. (4) The recent urban growth in Tabriz has been associated with the loss of good agricultural lands around the city, residential expansion into hazardous geographical locations and the decay of buildings in the historical sector. Major social implications include more physical segregation among residential groups and the unequal distribution of public services among them.

Parks Canada uses park management planning to put into practice the dual mandate of protecting environmentally significant areas and providing for recreational activities within those areas. A park management plan lays out the objectives and strategies to indicate how each national park will protect and represent its natural and cultural heritages. A geographic information system (GIS) can support park management planning by providing the concepts of a data base management system and the capabilities of transforming spatial data into information through data integration, analysis-synthesis, and communication. Park management planning of a section of the Alsek River valley of Kluane National Park Reserve in the Yukon Territory requires the use of specific GIS concepts and capabilities. A three-phase GIS framework focusing on the pre-conditions to GIS application, the GIS application, and the GIS application evaluation is used to define the necessary concepts. The capabilities include acting as an inventory, analysis-synthesis or management tool to contribute to mapping, monitoring, and modelling the valley's resources and visitor activities.

A large database was produced from a survey held in the summer of 1991 on commuters who cycle to work in downtown Ottawa. Social reasons underly this type of commuting which a majority of cyclists practice seven months a year. Cyclists perceive acutely the dangers of sharing the road with motor vehicles therefore are pushed to demand more bike paths despite the fact that well-thought integration to the entire road system is preferable. The potential of the bicycle as a transportation means in an urban environment is demonstrated. However research should be initiated to design a bicycle better suited to the Canadian climate.

This study combines a literature search and review with a real-world survey to identify, compare, and contrast techniques of measuring accessibility in conceptual and operational terms. An hypothesis-based approach is employed to ascertain how these techniques are used in the public and private sectors. With emphasis on the spatial dimension of accessibility, the thesis examines the definition of accessibility, the relative use of different accessibility measurement techniques, and the units used to measure spatial separation. The thesis also explores barriers to accessibility, the criteria and relative importance of spatial and aspatial factors in making location, network and routing decisions, and the use of GIS to implement accessibility measurement techniques. Results suggest that, despite differences in goals and/or objectives, there are similarities between the public and private sectors in both the conceptual and operational aspects of accessibility measurement, the criteria used to make location and transportation network decisions, and the limited use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to implement accessibility measurement techniques.

China's economic reforms have been underway for 16 years. Among its effects, it has created a fast growing market economy in which rural industry is the most important sector. The spatial effects of China's market-oriented reform is analyzed in this research through the experience of rural industrial development. Rural industry has existed since the foundation of the People's Republic of China. Most recently, as the result of the economic reforms of 1978, rural industry, as represented by millions of individual entrepreneurs, has become the fastest growing industrial sector in China. There were 58 million labourers engaged in rural industries in 1991 which accounted for a 300% increase since 1980. The seven million rural industrial establishments in 1990 accounted for a tenfold increase since 1978. The spatial distribution of rural industry is very unbalanced in China. At the provincial level, the most highly developed area is concentrated on China's east coast. A factor analysis has been used to develop three overall indicators from twelve variables. The regional rural industrial development level is classified by those three indicators. Using multiple regression, this research has revealed the links between the degree of rural industrialization and a region's overall economic performance. The high correlation with household expenditure, transportation facilities, and the degree of rural industrial development identifies the market characteristics of rural industry, and illustrates how they reflect characteristics of China's region. At the regional level, Chinese rural industry is constrained by the relative closure of a rural region. Chinese rural entrepreneurs were only allowed to establish enterprises in nearby market towns but not in large metropolitan areas. The objective of the policy is to restrain population growth in the larger metropolitan regions. After twelve years' development, the distribution of rural industry in Beijing has shown a very clear bias to suburban areas and the existence of transportation facilities. A GIS map overlay analysis has been applied to identify the relationship between existing rural industrial location and location criteria. The result shows the high concentration of rural industry in the suburban area and the correlation between rural industrial development and regional market and transportation accessibility. Although government policy was obviously attempting to diffuse the process of rural industrialization as much as possible throughout the national territory, the Chinese economy did not escape the concentrating effects of market forces, even in the highly controlled national capital region. The spatial analysis of rural industrial development not only reveals the spatial behaviour of market economic development in China, but also provides a better understanding of the link between political shifts and industrial change in space in a reforming socialist country. This research also shows that a combination of GIS and statistical analysis methods can provide us with powerful tools for spatial analysis. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This study provides a framework and general guidelines for the development of an Incident Responsive Spatial Decision Support System (IRSDSS) using a geographic information system approval. The system designed is for disaster response operations of the Saudi Red Crescent Society during the Hajj season. In recent years, a number of serious disasters have occurred during the Hajj and the need for a superior response system to deal with such events and minimize their consequences is evident. Such a response system will rely on increased use of automation in the communications and in some way to include geography. The Hajj is a special religious gathering that takes place at the last month of the lunar calendar every year. The Hajj has particular settings and characteristics not the least of which is its magnitude in terms of number of pilgrims, physical settings, and length of time. During this period the Saudi Red Crescent Society has specific needs and requirements to manage emergency situations and incidents. The settings and needs of disasters are evaluated and analyzed when developing IRSDSS system and data models presented in this study. Structured analysis methodology is applied, and various modeling tools are used to satisfy the objectives of this research. The primary objective of this study is to examine the applicability of geographic information systems for dispatching resources in response to disasters. Two scenarios are developed to test who should respond first to an incident and what resources should be deployed to that incident. The system is tested under various incident magnitudes, using the Arafat Holy Site as a pilot area. The determinant factors used to answer the question posed by the scenarios are: the optimal path to the incident location, capacity of the Saudi Red Crescent Society stations, and the magnitude of the incident. The findings of this research indicate that the geographic information system technology, in its current state of vendor practices, does not provide complete facilities to support the objectives of the scenarios developed in this study. To demonstrate acceptable solutions to these issues, further data manipulation and analysis are undertaken and special additional C code programs are written for this purpose. When these programs are integrated with geographic information systems technology, they yield an effective spatial reference system that could be used by the Saudi Red Crescent Society for disaster response during the Hajj season.

Sustainable development is an emerging paradigm designed to strike a balance between the ecological health of the planet and human development in a manner which ensures that both meet the needs of the present without compromising the future. Sustainable development is looked to as an ethics guide from which better planning and management principles and practices can be developed. In this search for ways and means to work toward the basic goal of sustainability, attention has been directed to the linkage between heritage and sustainable development. Heritage is increasingly being understood as a source for meaning and as a basis for judgement amid the flow of global change. Heritage is the context in which people live their lives and it is therefore, considered the context in which decisions should be made. Heritage is most clearly understood at the local or community level and it is at this level where concrete solutions to environmental and economic problems must first be found. This research examines community-based programs which purport both a strong heritage orientation and a commitment to community sustainability. The purpose is to critically analyse the philosophical and decision-making tenets inherent in the programs and to identify the characteristics of the community development process which is the product of the union of forces sensitive to heritage and sustainable development. The Heritage Regions program in Canada, the Heritage Tourism Initiative program in the United States and the Groundwork program in the United Kingdom serve as case studies for the research. These programs and their respective community-based projects are analysed using a Management Assessment Model, a Sustainable Development Model and a Heritage Model as guides. The findings are analysed in terms of four central research questions which address program philosophies, program management structures and processes, consistency between the national program levels and the local project levels, and key program characteristics and attributes. Research results clearly indicate that the heritage and sustainable development principles are the foundation components for the programs. The heritage principles serve as the underlying philosophical tenets and the ethical and strategic principles of sustainable development serve as the general decision-making tenets to be used when relevant and necessary in program operation. This understanding of the principles and how they are operationalized at the community level reveals a blueprint for the construction of a different community development process. It is a process which enhances community capacity to respond to changing endogenous and exogenous forces through heritage and sustainable development sensitivities. Also emanating from the research are a series of observations and recommendations related to heritage based program structure and process and the transfer potential of program constructs. Specifically, the observations pertain to common denominators of successes and failures inherent in the programs and the recommendations relate to program replication in general, and to enrichment of the Canadian approach in particular. In this vein, emphasis is placed on institutional structures, management linkages, actor and agency relationships, methods to facilitate cooperation, and integration. Concluding comment prescribes future research avenues. Most notable are the need for a comprehensive examination of the heritage estate in Canada and an extensive assessment of community development as a product of the enriched process which emerges from the integration of heritage and sustainable development. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

For the past two decades, uneven development in general and the changing structure of the labour market in particular, have figured prominently in Canadian economic, social and political agendas. Indeed, one of the most dramatic trends in Canadian society has been the growth of labour force participation by women--this despite a seemingly unstable economic picture. While numerous studies exploring the national dimensions of a feminised work force have provided insight into the complex nature of female paid employment, less work has been done on the uneven, regional nature of restructuring and processes contributing to gendered employment patterns. Through a comparative spatial analysis of employment and occupational trends and regional functional specialisation, this research shows that: (a) regional space-economies exercise an important influence on the creation and reproduction of gendered divisions of labour, and; (b) integrative studies connecting 'global processes' to 'local experience' offer unique insight into the restructuring experience. In examining these themes, Cornwall in Eastern Ontario is used as an example of an 'old order' manufacturing centre undergoing profound industrial and community restructuring. Research focuses on the time period between 1986 (a time of relative prosperity) and 1991 (a recessionary time, immediately following the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States). Central to this study is the notion that including gender as a 'necessary' analytical category in deconstructing the social relations of production will help inform more comprehensive explanations of regional economic and social change. The design and implementation of the research programme follows the feminist principles of reflexivity, responsibilily to participants, and shared knowledge.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.