published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

The thesis addresses the introduction of a supra-national instrument; a European directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) into national contexts of land-use planning in three countries; Sweden, Iceland and England. The directive ”On the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment” was agreed upon by the European Commission on the 21st of June 2001 and was to be transposed to national legislation by 21st of June 2004. The introduction of these requirements meant that the countries needed to make legal adjustments and implement it at the different levels of planning. Many EU member countries, including those studied in the thesis, had some experience of environmental assessment of plans and programmes prior to the introduction of the SEA directive. SEA has as a concept and a tool in planning in national and international debate on Environmental Assessment and planning for the last two decades. Hence, the SEA directive was introduced to an existing context of environmental assessment in planning and the preparation of the directive has drawn on substantial conceptual development and practical experience of strategic environmental assessment in various forms. The aim of this research is to shed a light on the transposition of the SEA directive into a national legal framework and how the introduction relates to the countries’ planning contexts and previous application of SEA-like instruments. In the thesis an overview is given of the way the directive is transposed to the national legal system of the three countries and the existing planning framework is described. The results from the national reviews are analysed in relation to the contents of the directive and the international and Nordic academic debate regarding the purpose and role of SEA, related to the characteristics of the planning system. The research shows differences in the legal and planning contexts to which the SEA requirements have been introduced in the three countries. Despite of those, the legal requirements follow closely the contents of the directive. However, the expectations towards the directive expressed by national officials and politicians, the recommendations in the way the legal SEA requirements shall be implemented, differ between the countries as well as references to other processes; land-use planning and the practices of Environmental Impact Assessment and Sustainability Appraisal. The thesis is the result of a project within the interdisciplinary research programme MiSt, “Tools for environmental assessment in strategic decision making” at BTH funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The project has been carried out at Nordregio, the Nordic Centre for Spatial Development, Stockholm. / MiSt Report 6

Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) have become increasingly interested in incorporating land use patterns and design ideas into transportation problems. Many design ideas under the umbrella of the New Urbanism; yet in practice they hardly get fully implemented in the standard transportation planning procedures. This research intends to contribute to the continuing debate on land use pattern-travel connection by adding further empirical evidence from the Austin, TX region. Also, it demonstrates ways to integrate land use patterns in transportation demand analysis. The study identifies 42 mixed use districts (MXD) in the Austin region and analyzes the following aspects of travel behavior in MXDs and non-MXDs: production trip rates, frequency of produced trips, network trip length, internal rate of capture, and person-miles of travel (PMT). The study contributes to transportation planning and policy making in Central Texas by providing local empirical evidence on urban form-travel connection. The study’s method and process can be of interest to a broad audience in academia and practice. / text

A number of research projects on migration flows between Scotland and Ireland during the Plantation era have been conducted by social and religious historians. By providing an examination of the diffusion of Presbyterianism across the Irish Sea, this thesis addresses some of the dearth of work on cultural diffusion during the Plantation by geographers. To accomplish this goal, the thesis asked seven questions. In answering these questions, a dissenting Irish Sea culture area is described. The economic and political contexts in which the Plantation occurred are also delineated. The thesis then provides empirical analyses on the social and institutional networking patterns of the ministers who served in Irish Presbyterian churches. The last two empirical chapters concentrate on questions about deposition patterns and the trans-Channel nature of seventeenth-century Scottish geotheology. The final chapter provides a summary of the findings.

Current global population growth and economic development accelerates the land cover conversion in many parts of the world and compromises the natural environment. However, the impacts of this land cover change on the hydrologic cycle at local to regional scales are poorly understood. The thesis presented here investigates the hydrologic implications of land use conversion in two different settings using two different approaches. The first study focuses in Southeast Asia and the expansion of rubber monocultures in a middle-sized basin. Field measurements suggest rubber has distinct dynamics compared to the area's native vegetation, depleting and exhausting the local water balance more than native vegetation. A phenology based evapotranspiration function is developed and used in a hillslope based hydrologic model to predict the implications of rubber expansion at a basin scale. The second study is centered in the semi-arid southwestern United States. This study challenges the traditional assumption that deforestation increases water yield at regional scales. Observations of water yield in basins affected by a regional piñon pine die-off show a decline in water yield during several years after die-off. These results suggest an increase in landscape sensitivity to vegetation disruption in semi-arid ecosystems as scale increases. Consequences of both studies have important implications for land and water managers in these different ecosystems.

Frankincense, a much revered non-timber forest product (NTFP) known as luban in Oman, is a gum-resin extracted from Boswellia sacra (meqerot). In Oman, B.sacra is endemic to ecological zones in and around Dhofar's southern mountain ranges of Jabal Samhan, Jabal Qamar and Jabal Qara. Hojar (Samhan Nejd), Nejd (Qara Nejd), Shazr (Qamar Nejd) and Sha'b are the four B.sacra ecological zones. A suffix (i) after the name (i.e. Hojari or Samhan Nejdi) is indicative of the luban produced in or associated with the respective zone. Traditional Omani B.sacra ownership, management, organization, and frankincense extraction are based on a land parcel system known as menzela. The 1970's oil boom attracted rural labor to urban and oil operation centers in Dhofar and other provinces, thus creating a labor shortage that had a profound transformative impact on frankincense production. This transformation caused frankincense extraction to evolve from an Omani-controlled system to a Somali-dominated hybrid system. Migrant Somali harvesters predominantly control the production and processing of frankincense in the field. Similarly, wholesalers occupy the next rung up the production ladder are the most powerful players in the frankincense industry.Dhofar has a long history of non-timber forest product (NTFP) extraction. From April to mid-June 1999, luban production in the Hojari/Nejdi zone of the study area was estimated at 8,710 kg with a seasonal projection of 24,840kg-30,360kg. B.sacra, a single or multiple stem shrub restricted to wadis in arid environments in or around the Dhofar Mountains, can be found at elevations from 60m above sea level in Wadi Adonib on the coastal plains to 1,770m above sea level in Wadi Kharish (a branch of Wadi Qobyr) in jabal Samhan). Land-use and landcover changes in Dhofar are threatening the fragile stability of B.sacra habitats. Frankincense trees on easily accessible flat or gently sloping terrain are susceptible to stress and mortality from harvesting, grazing and mining, while trees on cliffs and steep slopes are less vulnerable to the effects of these land-use activities.

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This thesis examines the group known as the `tobacco lords' of Glasgow who made up the inner circle or elite of merchants trading to the American colonies in tobacco during the greater part of the eighteenth century, c. 1700 - 1780. As much work has already been done in the past to explain these merchants' activities and successes in the economic sphere, this thesis focuses instead on the social and ideological history of this group as related to their particular eighteenth-century environment in the city of Glasgow. This examination starts with an attempt to establish the criteria under which the personnel can be justifiably viewed as forming this inner circle; and thus establishes their numbers and origins and examines the process of their growth and expansion as they absorb new members in successive waves, as the importance and size of this elite develops throughout the eighteenth century with the expansion of the tobacco trade. The thesis then examines their business policies and the qualities which arose from this to give them success in their commercial ventures. Next, having established their place in the expanding commercial life of the city, the thesis turns to the less measurable aspects of their influence and examines first their political effects. It establishes the dominant ideological outlook as shown by their activities as leading members of the Town Council. As their wealth increased, giving them an opportunity to consolidate their social position through the acquisition of property in land, their political outlooks and views can be established also to some extent by examining the sides they took in electorial activity at the county level.