Demographic and Demand Characteristics of Carsharing: A Case Study of Austin, Texas explores the use of geospatial analysis in order to understand the demand characteristics and market for carsharing services. A literature review was performed and the demographic characteristics of typical users of carsharing were established. A series of maps was created to geospatially identify concentrations of typical users and their location and access in reference to carsharing vehicle locations. The greater urbanized area of Austin, Texas located within Travis County was used as a case study for this analysis. The report demonstrates that geospatial analysis is a valuable tool to understand the spatial relationship between typical carshare users, nontypical carshare users and the placement of carshare vehicles. / text

Rock climbing is undergoing unexpectedly rapid growth across the United States and around the world. Industry estimations in the late 1990’s put the number of recreational rock climbers in the United States in the 400,000 range. In 2013, estimates placed the rock climbing population as larger than eleven million active climbers, an apparent expansion of two orders of magnitude in about twenty years. As the number of rock climbers utilizing protected areas to further their recreation goals increases, so goes the associated impacts those recreationists can have on the resources. From what is known about recreation impacts to soil and vegetative cover, these impacts grow non-linearly with the amount of use, but asymptotically compared to the number of users. In an era of difficult resource management budgeting and staffing, this use-impact dynamic can grow unchecked. Therefore, this thesis seeks to map existing climbs in a developed climbing area and combine those spatial data with user attribute data towards generating a predictive suitability map for climbs. As climbing grows in popularity, land managers and climbing advocacy organizations both stand to benefit from clearer understanding of the processes driving climb site location selection and ultimately the characteristics observed about the climbing routes created. Resource management is comparatively slow and hemmed in by regulation and planning requirements. What makes a particular area suitable for rock climbing route development is the end result of an extended career as a technical rock climber. A skilled rock climber would be able to explain why a particular site might be better or less suited for climbing development. However most land managers are not experienced rock climbers, requiring the investigation for indicators that would be discernable by a novice. Therefore, the need to link managers and activity participants is great, considering this knowledge gap we ask the question: “To what extent can onsite and user-defined climb characteristics be used to model location and extent of climbing routes’ development by climbers?” Distances (2-dimensional centroid-to-centroid) between climb sites’ areas of impact, associated approach trail, and ingress/egress points of the canyon area were computed to subsequently determine correlative relationships between number of bolts, as well as horizontal 2-dimensional linear distance between adjacent climbs. Non-spatial attributes of each climb were also assessed for correlations with the above spatial characteristics of each climb. There were statistical correlations found between the difference in climb quality ratings and the distance to nearest climbs as well as correlations between clustering of climbs and their quality rating. This combined with a willingness to travel the farthest distance possible in the area to reach high quality climbs has many resource management implications both for land managers and users.

Although challenges in water and sanitation access are often assumed to be issues of low- and middle-income nations, over 400,000 homes in the United States still lack access to complete indoor plumbing. Previous research has demonstrated that the remaining plumbing challenges are more prevalent in communities with high Black and brown populations. This study hypothesizes that the 1930s practice of redlining by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), which systematically denied loans to minority populations, is linked to present-day inadequate plumbing access (i.e. defined as incomplete plumbing above the national average). Digitized HOLC maps for 202 urban areas across the country and US Census data from the 2016-2020 American Community Survey were combined to interpolate the modern-day plumbing access for historic neighborhoods (n=8871 communities). Analysis via binomial logistic regression demonstrated that nationally, redlined communities (HOLC Grade "D") are significantly more likely to have a rate of incomplete plumbing above the national average as compared to greenlined communities (HOLC Grade "A") (0.1352; CI= +0.036). This finding was also observed for three of the nation's four census sub-regions (Northeast, Midwest, West). Slight differences by region in relationships between the proportion of specific racial/ethnic populations on rates of incomplete plumbing demonstrate the need for targeted place-based interdisciplinary examinations of exclusionary practices. The demonstration of the present-day impacts of redlining after nearly 90 years emphasizes the need to intentionally mitigate past injustices to ensure modern-day equity. / Master of Science / Access to water is a prevailing issue in underserved communities. Over 400,000 homes in the United States still lack access to complete indoor plumbing. This condition is called incomplete plumbing which is defined by the US Census Bureau as not being able to use running water, or flush a toilet, or bath. Redlining is the historical practice of denying loans to homeowners in a certain area based on their race or economic status. Our study sought to discover whether redlining has negatively affected the presence of plumbing in homes. To do this we examined whether incomplete plumbing in 2020 was above the national average in areas that were previously redlined. We found that redlined communities are significantly more likely to have a rate of incomplete plumbing above the national average as compared to greenlined communities. The same trend was found in three of the nation's four census sub-regions (Northeast, Midwest, and West). These findings show that racist practices such as redlining have had a lasting effect on modern-day infrastructure such as plumbing.

Flooding inundation during hurricanes has been very costly and dangerous. However, the impact of climate change on hurricane flooding is not well understood at present. As sea surface temperatures increase, it is expected that hurricane intensity will increase and sea levels will rise. It is further hypothesized that climate change will increase hurricane flooding inundation, which would increase property damages and adversely affect a greater number of people. This thesis presents a case study of Corpus Christi, Texas, which analyzes the impact of climate change on hurricane flooding. Sea level rise projections and intensification of historical hurricanes were considered in this study. Storm surges were determined with the ADCIRC numerical model, while GIS was used to estimate area flooded, property damages, and population affected. Flooding inundation, property damages, and number of people affected by flooding increases as the intensity of the hurricane increases. As hurricane intensity increases and sea levels rise, the depth of flooding also increases dramatically. Based on two historical hurricanes and one shifted historical hurricane, on average the inundated area increases about 11 km2 per degree Celsius of sea surface temperature rise, the property damages increase by about $110 million per degree Celsius of sea surface temperature rise, and the number of people affected by flooding inundation increases by about 4,900 per degree Celsius of sea surface temperature rise. These results indicate that it may become necessary to consider the effects of climate change when building future coastal communities and adapting the protection of existing communities.

In Canada, as in many other affluent nations, private well water consumers remain at risk for gastrointestinal (GI) illness due to fecal contamination of groundwater. There have been numerous documented outbreaks of GI illness related to contaminated drinking water. While the general risk to well water consumers has been established, the risk in southern Ontario is poorly understood. As a preliminary step towards understanding this risk, a study of Escherichia coli (E. coli) contamination in private well water was undertaken. Spatial scan statistics were employed to determine the extent of contamination for over 30,000 private wells in southeastern Ontario between 2008 and 2012, inclusive. This analysis revealed one large, temporally stable elevated risk region, and three significant smaller regions within it. The methodology utilized in the primary investigation was then applied to a 2012 dataset for all of southern Ontario, resulting in the identification of three regions of elevated risk. The presence of E. coli, a traditional fecal indicator organism, indicates lack of water potability. To provide knowledge regarding the origins of fecal contamination in southeastern Ontario, a molecular microbial source tracking (MST) study was undertaken. A quantitative real-time Bacteroidales PCR assay specifically targeting human, bovine, and general (specific to 10 hosts) was optimized and applied to 716 private well water samples. Almost half of the samples showed evidence of human fecal contamination, whereas only 13% contained evidence of bovine fecal contamination. Approximately one quarter of well samples tested positive for the general host Bacteroidales assay, with an additional one quarter testing negative for all MST assays. Additionally, spatial scan statistics revealed a region of human-sourced contamination, which geographically corresponded with the E. coli contamination cluster for the same study year. The presence of E. coli contamination clusters among private wells reveals an at-risk group of well water consumers. As such, public health practitioners may use this information to target well stewardship programs in higher risk regions. Humans were the predominant contributors of fecal contamination to private wells within the primary study region. These findings may enable future preventative measures by providing insight into the true origins of groundwater fecal pollution. / Thesis (Master, Pathology & Molecular Medicine) -- Queen's University, 2014-06-02 14:50:16.685

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Architecture / Brent C. Chamberlain / As urban development continues, it is imperative we understand how infrastructural policies impact well-being in order to design functional and healthy cities. The growth in wearable sensors and real-time data offer a way to assess the day-to-day influence of built infrastructure on health. The aim of this research is to determine if and how much characteristics of the built environment affect individual physiological responses. The purpose of this research is two-fold: 1) quantify and understand the linkages between form and function of the built environment on human affect and 2) identify practices for collecting and mining sensor data that can be used by planners. Subjects (n = 24) were sent on a walk through downtown Manhattan, Kansas. The route was carefully designated to expose individuals to different architectural and environmental features such as: vegetation, infrastructure (broadly), building height and area, land use, trees and street conditions. The study explores the associations of nearly a dozen environmental characteristics with the real-time feedback from sensor data. The sensors used in this study measure electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR) which were linked spatially using GPS. The results enable a spatio-temporal analysis to identify correlations between environmental characteristics and spatial representations of urban form. Differences of stress-related responses are identified through statistical analysis. The data and spatial analyses were also used by colleagues to develop a machine learning approach to explore methods for estimating stress. In addition to quantifying urban form additional subject information was collected, such as demographic information, fitness level, sense of place, feeling of community, and feeling of exposure in the built environment. This work builds upon a previous study by Parker Ruskamp (MLA 2016). His qualitative results indicate that areas with lower lighting (at night) and higher-density infrastructure caused increased stress reactions. The efforts in this report, added additional participants and worked to spatially quantify urban form in order to conduct quantitative assessments to characterize the influence of environmental features against stress. Through the analysis it was discovered there is a relationship to biophysical measures and relationship to vegetation presence, building façades, building area or envelope, zoning and parking lots. In particular, the most influential characteristics were the amount of parking in close proximity to participants at night and the quality of the sidewalks during the day. While effects were discovered, further work should be done to confirm and generalize these findings. These initial results demonstrate how using biophysical measures can help planners evaluate the effectiveness of policies and built-environments toward improving the well-being of citizens. Further, this study provides a basis on how designs can be better informed by geospatial analysis, enhanced through an extensive environmental characteristic literature review, and statistical analysis to promote health and well-being through urban design.

Background: The incidence and prevalence of chronic disease (CD) has increased in recent decades due to the advent of CD management and life-extending technologies. To address this burden on the population and healthcare system, evidence-based CD prevention programs have been developed to reduce the incidence and therefore the prevalence of these diseases. Despite the development and dissemination of effective interventions, African-Americans and Hispanics have disproportionately higher prevalence of CD and associated risk factors and disproportionately lower participation in CD prevention programs. Overweight/obesity and CDs may have intergenerational effects, with overweight adults being more likely to have overweight children who are in turn more likely to become overweight adults with CDs. These dissertative projects sought to disrupt this intergenerational cycle of CD by exploring how to engage people of minority background in CD prevention programs, to determine the acceptability and feasibility of a CD prevention program adapted to social media, the preferred method of health education for women of childbearing age, and to identify areas in Florida that would benefit from a CD prevention program such as this. Methods: Four focus groups of residents of disadvantaged and medically underserved areas and nine key informant interviews with local business owners were conducted using a standardized questionnaire to asses health beliefs, barriers to healthy behaviors, and preferred methods of health communication among the target population. These data were thematically analyzed in Atlas.ti version 8.0. Results of this analysis informed the adaptation of an existing CD prevention program, the national Diabetes Prevention Program (nDPP), to a social media platform, Facebook, to address the needs of the community. The first four weeks of the nDPP were adapted to Facebook using Powtoon and Canva software, were assessed for fidelity by a certified nDPP Lifestyle Coach, and underwent an iterative editing process in collaboration with a community partner, REACHUP, Inc., to ensure cultural appropriateness. Height, weight, and waist circumference were measured pre- and post-intervention via a standardized protocol. Perceived stress, social support, depressive symptoms, and health-related quality of life were also assessed pre- and post-intervention. The final dissertative project utilized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s 500 Cities Data in conjunction with USDHHS locations of existing federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) to identify urban census tracts in Florida with high prevalence of CD and associated risk factors and inadequate access to FQHCs. Results: Overall, residents and business owners in medically underserved areas of west central Florida identified distrust of medical professionals and pharmaceuticals as a barrier to receiving health care. Lack of transportation and safe recreational areas, were barriers to participating in health behaviors, though participants were concerned about how to prevent and manage diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The preferred identified method of health communication for women of childbearing was social media, with Facebook being the most used social medium. The nDPP was chosen for adaptation to Facebook because it addressed most of the concerns of the target community. This Facebook-based adaptation of the nDPP, called HealthyLIFE, had no statistically significant results, though there were encouraging reductions in depressive symptom, perceived stress, and health-related quality of life. Tampa, St. Petersburg, Lakeland, and Jacksonville were the urban areas of Florida with the greatest prevalence of CD and associated risk factors, with areas with low insurance, low physical activity, poor physical health, high levels of poverty, high concentration of people of minority background, and high prevalence of stroke and diabetes were statistically significantly more likely to be within 0.5 miles of an FQHC. Discussion: The results of this dissertation demonstrate the need for qualitative research to inform interventions to disrupt the etiology of chronic disease at the population level, particularly for people of minority background and low socioeconomic status who may experience greater barriers to participating in healthy behaviors and accessing preventive healthcare services. Integrating this type of data into the design and implementation of chronic disease prevention programs and targeting these programs to geographic areas with high prevalence of CD and associated risk factors can increase uptake by populations with historically low participation in these programs. With FQHCs serving less than 25% of urban census tracts with high prevalence of chronic disease and associated risk factors, there is a need for cost-efficient, effective, scalable, and accessible chronic disease prevention programs like HealthyLIFE to improve population health and reduce health disparities between racial and socioeconomic groups.

In Ontario, supporting "a system of care that provides women and their families with equitable choice in birth environment and provider," (PCMCH & MOHLTC, 2017, p.33) has been identified as one of the central objectives of the Provincial Council for Maternal and Child Health's Low Risk Maternal Newborn Strategy. In theory, pregnant people in Ontario can choose to seek maternity care from a midwife, a family physician, or an obstetrician; however, in practice, pregnant people's choice of provider remains constrained. Extant literature suggests that in order to afford pregnant people the opportunity to exercise autonomous choice of provider, health systems must ensure that an acceptable range of provider options is available and accessible within the local organization of maternity care, that pregnant people are made aware of and knowledgeable about the available provider options, and that pregnant people have the ability and resources to navigate access to their provider of choice (Mackenzie, 2014; Sutherns, 2004). As a result, I designed this thesis to fill a gap in the evidence base to determine whether or not provincial policies had translated into the levels of access, awareness, and resourcing required to afford pregnant people the opportunity, ability and propensity to exercise autonomous choice of provider within the local maternity care system in Ontario's Champlain Region. I sought to elicit the structural conditions that would be necessary to equitably support pregnant people's access to and choice of a maternity care provider. In the pursuit of these objectives, I adopted an integrated knowledge translation approach (Bowen & Graham, 2013), using an explanatory sequential mixed methods design (Creswell, 2014), which encompassed two complementary stages: (1) quantitative geospatial mapping to assess pregnant people's access to the full range of maternity care providers across the Champlain Region; and (2) qualitative focus groups and individual interviews with parents, providers, and policy-makers to explore the individual, organizational, and system-level factors that are enabling or restricting access and autonomy. Using a systems approach to the investigation of this locally-identified issue, I demonstrate in this thesis that pregnant people within the Champlain Region have inequitable opportunities to exercise autonomous choice of maternity care provider due to (1) system and organizational-level factors that are creating imbalances in the supply, distribution and mix of maternity care provider options, and (2) pregnant people's differential access to the enabling information and resources required to exercise autonomous choice of provider and to navigate access to their services.

This dissertation is an inquiry into two disciplines: recreation ecology and geospatial analysis. The dissertation consists of three journal article manuscripts focusing on the sustainability of recreational infrastructure components in backcountry and wilderness settings. Two articles focus on campsite conditions, nodal areas of visitor use and impact. The third article focuses on trail conditions, linear corridors of visitor use and impact. Campsites and trails comprise the most visited and impacted components of recreation infrastructure; locations where protected natural area visitors spend the majority of their time and where the majority of resource impacts occur. Resource conditions at these locations affect the quality of recreational experiences and are the focus of management and scientific efforts to measure and manage visitation-related resource impacts. The articles provide a strong scientific background to understanding ecological processes and better preparing recreation planners and managers for sustainable infrastructure management decision-making. The first article assesses the sustainability of campsites over thirty-two years of use in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in northern Minnesota. Differences in vegetation composition, tree cover and groundcover from 1982 to 2014 were measured. Paired t-tests analyzed significant ecological differences on campsites and paired controls over time. Best management practices for managing campsites for the long-term are suggested. The second article analyzes the extent of non-native plants on campsites over thirty-two years. Paired t-tests were used to look at cover and abundance on campsites and control areas between 1982 and 2014. This paper explores ecological benefits and degradation incurred by non-native plants on campsites over time and discusses implications for wilderness character at BWCAW. The third article is interdisciplinary, incorporating ground-based recreation ecology measurements with technical spatial analyses and modeling to improve understanding of erosional processes on trails. Fine resolution terrain data was used to examine terrain metrics as they relate to amount of soil loss. Multiple Linear Regression was used to test a number of variables taken from the field and derived from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software using a 1m Digital Elevation Model. This paper explores relationships between different terrain variables and soil loss observed on the Appalachian Trail. It provides insights on which terrain features influence erosion and provides recommendations to trail managers to design more sustainable trails. / Ph. D.

Using data collected from 2 archaeological surveys of the Upper Cumberland Plateau (UCP), Pogue Creek Gorge and East Obey, a site location model was developed for prehistoric rock shelter occupation in the region. Further, the UCP model was used to explore factors related to differential site selection of rock shelters. Different from traditional approaches such as those that use (aspatial) logistic regression, the UCP model was developed using spatial logistic regression. However, models were also generated using other regression-based approaches in an effort to demonstrate the need for a spatial approach to archaeological site location modeling. Based on the UCP model, proximity to the vegetation zones of Southern Red Oak and Hickory were the most influential factors in prehistoric site selection of rock shelters on the UCP.