Abstract In recent years (2011), whether atypicality and global warming affect seriously all species and living environment of mankind. It activated a trend of local caring and environment protection throughout the world, and advocating green living has been one of the fashion affairs. Nevertheless, how can we understand and quantify people¡¦s acceptance of green living? How to design a scale of green living, with which we can apply consumer behavior analysis and the research technique of market segmentation, so that for promoting green living styles to people of all ranks. The current research tried to building up a scale of green living style, with three constructs: green values, cognition of environment protection, and green behavior and habits, in addition to a brief test of knowledge over environment protection. The contents of the questionnaire cover such topics as water resources, global warming, renewable energy sources, international trend in sustainability and related industrial policy, warm chamber effect, carbon emission and the status and policy of environment protection in Taiwan. Office workers and current students in the Kaohsiung metropolitan area were the main participants undertaking the questionnaire survey of the research, with effective sample size of 603 subjects. The research tested the scale¡¦s reliability and validity through factor analysis and verified it¡¦s construct validity with local recognition. After those validation for the scale, the study conducted cluster analysis for market segmentation based on green lifestyle. The main works and findings of the current research including: (1) building a scale of green lifestyle with reliability and validity; (2) discovery of four segments of the green lifestyle in the market; (3) there are different approaches to evaluate the government¡¦s performance of environmental protection; (4) sustainability values and green cognition influence behavior of environmental protection; (5) local recognition positively affect the green index of people; and (6) youth in the society and college students are relatively lacking of sustainability conducts, although they presents in a higher level of the environmental protection knowledge.

abstract: This doctoral dissertation research aims to develop a comprehensive definition of urban open spaces and to determine the extent of environmental, social and economic impacts of open spaces on cities and the people living there. The approach I take to define urban open space is to apply fuzzy set theory to conceptualize the physical characteristics of open spaces. In addition, a 'W-green index' is developed to quantify the scope of greenness in urban open spaces. Finally, I characterize the environmental impact of open spaces' greenness on the surface temperature, explore the social benefits through observing recreation and relaxation, and identify the relationship between housing price and open space be creating a hedonic model on nearby housing to quantify the economic impact. Fuzzy open space mapping helps to investigate the landscape characteristics of existing-recognized open spaces as well as other areas that can serve as open spaces. Research findings indicated that two fuzzy open space values are effective to the variability in different land-use types and between arid and humid cities. W-Green index quantifies the greenness for various types of open spaces. Most parks in Tempe, Arizona are grass-dominant with higher W-Green index, while natural landscapes are shrub-dominant with lower index. W-Green index has the advantage to explain vegetation composition and structural characteristics in open spaces. The outputs of comprehensive analyses show that the different qualities and types of open spaces, including size, greenness, equipment (facility), and surrounding areas, have different patterns in the reduction of surface temperature and the number of physical activities. The variance in housing prices through the distance to park was, however, not clear in this research. This dissertation project provides better insight into how to describe, plan, and prioritize the functions and types of urban open spaces need for sustainable living. This project builds a comprehensive framework for analyzing urban open spaces in an arid city. This dissertation helps expand the view for urban environment and play a key role in establishing a strategy and finding decision-makings. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Geography 2011

Dans le but d’accompagner les décideurs libanais dans le choix de réformes des politiques publiques en matière d’environnement pour une prise en compte de la biodiversité dans les projets urbains, l’ambition de cette recherche est d’étudier l’opportunité de transposer des dispositifs existants en matière d’aménagement durable en France vers le Liban. Ainsi, l’objet de cette thèse est d’analyser l’intégration progressive de la biodiversité dans les documents de planification. Il s’agit d’identifier des pistes transférables au Liban avec la méthode du Benchmarking. Cette approche est complétée par l’observation des réformes institutionnelles et des modalités de mise en œuvre de l’action publique. Le développement des dispositifs transférables au Liban nécessite d’avoir un diagnostic partagé par tous les acteurs, car le contexte libanais est différent : plusieurs contraintes limitent l'élaboration d’une planification durable et efficiente. Néanmoins, définir un projet co-porté par tous requiert des décideurs l’adoption d’une vision stratégique du projet urbain. Ce processus passe par une phase concertée où une démocratie citoyenne participe et s’implique afin de mobiliser tous les acteurs. D’une part, on a introduit l’indice végétal permettant d'évaluer la qualité environnementale d’un projet urbain. D'autre part, on a modélisé le concept de la Soft city où la nature se trouve à toutes les échelles de la ville, en vue de l’appliquer à Beyrouth. Pour faciliter son expérimentation, on a élaboré des guides méthodologiques et des référentiels de suivi et d’évaluation à destination des acteurs concernés afin de saisir l’intérêt de la mise en œuvre des outils et des concepts innovants. / With the aim of supporting Lebanese decision makers in the choice of public environmental policy reforms to take into account biodiversity in urban projects, the ambition of this research is to study the opportunity of transferring existing mechanisms of sustainable development in France to Lebanon. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the progressive integration of biodiversity in the planning system. It is about identifying transferable actions to Lebanon with the Benchmarking method. This approach is complemented by an observation of institutional reforms and the implementation modalities of public action. The transposition of mechanisms to Lebanon requires the implementation of diagnosis shared by all stakeholders because the Lebanese context is different : many constraints limit the development of sustainable and efficient planning. Nevertheless, defining a co-led project requires decision makers to adopt a strategic vision of the urban project. This process goes through a concerted phase where a citizen participation involved. As for the mobilization of the stakeholders, it is based on the proposal of innovative approaches that were formulated theoretically and empirically. On the one hand, we introduced the concept of green index allowing stakeholders to assess the environmental quality of a project. On the other hand, we have modeled a city concept, called Soft City, where nature is everywhere in the city, with a view to applying it in Beirut. To facilitate its experimentation, methodological guides and monitoring and evaluation frameworks were developed for the concerned stakeholders in order to encourage them to implement the innovative tools and concepts.