Canadian economic development is heavily reliant on natural resources in the north, which is home to many indigenous communities. Canada is facing increasing pressure to accommodate the cultural distinctiveness of indigenous peoples, and recognize their rights to self-determination within the boundaries of the state. This thesis investigates the customary land use system of Pikangikum First Nation in northwestern Ontario in the context of a community-led land use planning and resource management process, and explores the legacy and contemporary relevance of the Ontario trapline system which was introduced in 1947. Traplines represent the first intervention by the modern state in spatial organization of resource management by First Nations people outside reserves in northern Ontario. For this study, mixed methods were employed, including mapping, life history interviewing, observation in the field, and archival research. Results indicate that Pikangikum's access to resources and decision-making authority has continued to operate according to customary institutions that pre-date the traplines. While traplines were found to reduce flexibility of movement which characterized the customary system, they secured fur harvesting rights for First Nation groups, buffering Euro-Canadian encroachment on Pikangikum's traditional harvesting areas. Recent forestry activity on traplines held by Pikangikum residents indicated that traplines were no longer a sufficient buffer to intrusions. The planning initiative mandated the creation of novel community-level institutions. This process has in turn created new community-level management dilemmas, yet has had important consequences in terms of planning and management authority for Pikangikum vis-à-vis state resource management. The main theoretical contributions of this thesis relate to the commons literature, and pertain both to strategic territorial robustness to interventions of the state and outside intruders, and to moral economic dimensions of community-managed commons undergoing rapid change.

Aboriginal communities in Canada are increasingly involved in land use planning initiatives to promote community-led economic renewal and advance self-determination. As analyzed by political ecologists elsewhere, international and national civil society organizations are also increasingly important actors in environmental governance in Canada. However, nascent conflicts due to the role of civil society organizations in influencing planning policy development, and its effects on Aboriginal–state relationships, have not yet been explored. Through community-based fieldwork with Pikangikum First Nation, interviews with Provincial Ministries and conservation organizations, and in-depth document analysis, this thesis analyzes the roots of contentious politics for land use planning in the Far North Region of Ontario. Specifically, it analyzes 1) the evolution of land use planning policy development between 1975 and 2010 in the region; 2) the role and strategies of civil society organizations in influencing planning policy development, and 3) the impacts that different planning approaches have for enabling Aboriginal decision-making authority in their territories. Results show that during four different planning processes held between 1975 and 2010, Aboriginal communities and organizations in the Far North actively resisted state-led land use planning and resource allocation, and developed partnerships with the Ontario Government to enable community-led planning in their traditional territories. Since 2008, Aboriginal organizations have condemned new comprehensive legislation for opening the Far North Region to development and setting a restrictive conservation target, without clarifying substantive issues of jurisdictional authority, sharing of resources, and consultation protocols. These changes were the result of international and national civil society organizations's actions to strategically mobilize public and political support. The planning approaches that emerged from different planning policies were found to directly influence how Aboriginal–state relations are developed; who sits at the decision-making table; how resources are distributed; and how knowledge systems are balanced. Without careful attention to how power is distributed across levels of governance and where accountability lies, multi-level governance—and the bridging role that is promoted for civil society organizations—may lead to patterns of scale dominance, and become a way to justify continued control by the state, corporations, and international civil society organizations on Aboriginal territories.

This creative project has provided an example of a community participatory planning process in a small town setting. In this study the process specified by The Small Town Planning Handbook by Daniels, Keller And Lapping (1988) was compared to and supplemented by other contemporary small town and general planning literature. The specified process was designed to be a self help means for a small town to plan and subsequently compile an abbreviated town plan ("Miniplan"). The process was then applied to the Town of Lynn, Indiana as a case study. This study includes discussion and analysis of the study process as it occurred and resulted in several lessons learned. The most significant conclusion is that small towns cannot entirely plan on a self help basis. A visiting planner (eg. circuit rider or consultant) or a trained facilitator is necessary to guide the process. The resulting town planning study document (plan) is appended to this study for reference. / Department of Urban Planning

This study observes how the size and type of land development can often be limited by the supply of fresh groundwater sources. Multiple-use recharge basins were found to be effective in diverting pollutants around a potable source of groundwater, thus reducing the chances of that source becoming contaminated. A computer-aided numerical model was used to simulate groundwater flow and its responses to recharge basins in a hypothetical situation.Through a series of trials, artifical recharge was able to abate the problem of groundwater contamination in certain geohydrologic conditions. Optimum rates of recharge and discharge were determined to effectively divert contaminated groundwater around several types of developments. From these findings, land use options and development intensities can be safely recommended for areas which otherwise may have been nearly undevelopable. / Department of Landscape Architecture

Efforts by designers to produce solutions to environmental problems has become increasingly sophisticated. Inter-disciplinary teams of designers, engineers and scientists have proposed new and dynamic resolutions to environmental disturbances. There is a problem, however, in the ability of such proposals to be accepted and implemented.This study investigated the possibility that communication of these plans has been responsible for the lack of acceptance. Citizens and governmental officials must adequately comprehend the proposed solutions before they can gain confidence and judge them worthy of implementation. This study searched for aspects of communication necessary to successfully promote pre-planning and reclamation for correcting and preventing environmental problems in sanitary landfills.A random survey of Delaware County, Indiana established base means for concerns (aesthetic, pollution, property value, safety, etc.) in a typical population cross-section. The net effectiveness of the landfill presentation (communication) effort was to be inferred through noted changes in the level of concern between the typical population and the test group who witnessed the educational presentation.The comparative test could not proceed. The focus of this study was then directed towards more intimate analysis of the attitudinal data provided in the cross-sectional survey. A number of obvious and obvious characteristics were revealed.In the end, this study has provided significant insight into the "posture" of the most important link in convincing that planning and design solutions can mitigate environmental problems. That link is at the receiving end of such communication efforts... the "public" with its constructs of fears and biases. / Department of Landscape Architecture

Source water protection (SWP) refers to the pressing global need to address the combination of issues affecting water supply and treatment: water quality, water quantity and timing of availability. Although SWP has been increasingly advocated by drinking water professionals, tools to relate upstream land-use impacts to downstream water treatability are lacking. Treatment water quality metrics can seldom be used to decouple the cumulative water quality impacts of natural and anthropogenic land-use disturbances; moreover, some changes in source water quality that potentially compromise the effectiveness of treatment are not reflected by changes in magnitude of these treatment water quality metrics. This underscores the need for an effective vulnerability indicator: a metric for monitoring and assessing the susceptibility of a system to harm arising from source water quality changes. In this research, a proof-of-concept approach was used to evaluate phosphorus as an indicator for linking source water and treatment vulnerabilities in a forested watershed in Alberta, Canada. Relationships between phosphorus and various water quality parameters were assessed using historical Elbow River discharge and Glenmore Reservoir water quality data from 2000 to 2010 to elucidate source water vulnerabilities. The results showed that allochthonous inputs from the Elbow River were the primary drivers of source water quality in the reservoir during significant hydrological events. Autochthonous processes such as dilution and deposition of allochthonous inputs in reservoir bottom sediments buffered water quality changes within the reservoir. Carbon:nitrogen:phosphorus (C:N:P) nutrient ratios observed in the reservoir were indicative of severe-to-moderate phosphorus-limitation for primary production. Although total phosphorus (TP) concentrations reached threshold levels for supporting mesotrophic to eutrophic conditions, primary production was limited. Consistently low reservoir chlorophyll-a levels and low dissolved phosphorus concentrations suggest that drinking water treatment impacts are unlikely to be confounded by the presence of algal matter. The impacts of source water quality changes to drinking water treatability were inferred using historical source water quality data and treatment performance metrics at the Glenmore Water Treatment Plant (WTP) using forward-stepwise multiple linear regression. Raw water TP and total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations explained 78.8% of the coagulant dose variation used in coagulation and flocculation processes (n = 22). Additional plant water quality data and treatment performance metrics were collected in 2012 to confirm these observations. Plant raw water UV-absorbance at 254 nm (UVA254) and TP concentrations described 98.3% of the alum coagulant dose variation used in the newly-installed Actiflo© ballasted-sand flocculation process (n = 26). SUVA and TP together explained 91.2% of the polymer dose variation (n = 26). The inclusion of TP as a significant predictor of coagulant and polymer doses, coupled with a review of literature, suggest that TP is a more sensitive indicator of waterborne particle concentrations present in the raw water than turbidity. Accordingly, TP may play a role in the critical drinking water treatment processes of coagulation, flocculation and clarification which has direct implications for process optimization, chemical coagulant costs, sludge production and impacts to subsequent treatment processes. Scenario building based on anticipated land-uses and impacts from catastrophic landscape disturbances using the coagulant regression models was used to explicitly link potential source water quality impacts to drinking water treatability. The innovative approach of estimating land-use TP loading, steady state reservoir TP concentrations and coagulant dosing requirements at the WTP provides a framework that enables the development and coordination of land-use planning, reservoir management and drinking water treatment operations strategies respectively. Total phosphorus provides a common vulnerability metric relevant to both land-use and water managers for developing and assessing integrated land-use management and SWP strategies.

Many cities today are contemplating major investments in rail transit systems, especially Light Rail Transit (LRT), to address two significant planning issues which have characterized North American metropolitan growth patterns: increasing automobile use and decentralizing population and employment. Proponents of these systems argue that by building rail transit, travel behaviour and land use patterns can be changed. The experience in cities which have built these systems is mixed, but transportation and land use outcomes typically go hand-in-hand: San Diego, Denver, and Portland have increased transit ridership and intensification in station areas, whereas Buffalo and Cleveland have had minimal change occur as a result of investments in LRT. Calgary, Alberta presents an interesting case as its LRT system, first opened in 1981, generates tremendous ridership but has had relatively modest land use change in station areas. This thesis aims to understand why intensification has been so marginal at many stations, and to uncover what are the unique facets of Calgary???s experience which shaped this outcome. The approach taken is to examine the evolution of the City of Calgary???s planning philosophy towards transportation and land use since the need for rapid transit was first identified in 1966. This evolution is also placed within the context of the particularly severe cyclical economic forces that influenced both the city???s growth and policy planning approaches taken to manage this growth. The research finds that the combination of transportation and land use policy, in conjunction with market forces, which existed during the design, construction and operation of the first three LRT lines favoured intensification in Calgary???s downtown and low-density decentralization in suburban areas. However, the evolution of planning policy and market forces indicate that this less likely to be true in the future, both in the near and long term. The City is transitioning from a highly centralized mono-centric city to a poly-centric and increasingly multi-modal metropolitan region. The LRT, and other transit service, will be a key means of facilitating and managing this transformation.

Canadian economic development is heavily reliant on natural resources in the north, which is home to many indigenous communities. Canada is facing increasing pressure to accommodate the cultural distinctiveness of indigenous peoples, and recognize their rights to self-determination within the boundaries of the state. This thesis investigates the customary land use system of Pikangikum First Nation in northwestern Ontario in the context of a community-led land use planning and resource management process, and explores the legacy and contemporary relevance of the Ontario trapline system which was introduced in 1947. Traplines represent the first intervention by the modern state in spatial organization of resource management by First Nations people outside reserves in northern Ontario. For this study, mixed methods were employed, including mapping, life history interviewing, observation in the field, and archival research. Results indicate that Pikangikum's access to resources and decision-making authority has continued to operate according to customary institutions that pre-date the traplines. While traplines were found to reduce flexibility of movement which characterized the customary system, they secured fur harvesting rights for First Nation groups, buffering Euro-Canadian encroachment on Pikangikum's traditional harvesting areas. Recent forestry activity on traplines held by Pikangikum residents indicated that traplines were no longer a sufficient buffer to intrusions. The planning initiative mandated the creation of novel community-level institutions. This process has in turn created new community-level management dilemmas, yet has had important consequences in terms of planning and management authority for Pikangikum \emph{vis-à-vis} state resource management. The main theoretical contributions of this thesis relate to the commons literature, and pertain both to strategic territorial robustness to interventions of the state and outside intruders, and to moral economic dimensions of community-managed commons undergoing rapid change.

A cultural studies approach is applied to an analysis of land-use planning theory and practice to seek a holistic understanding of events struggling in praxis to construct ideologies and paradigms about the supermarket phenomenon, in a post- Fordist age. This links interests shared and contested by Govemment and key parties as agents of social change, including Sainsbury's as a typification of the supermarket business and the planners' professional body. The thesis challenges positivist assumptions embodying tenets of classical economic theory and rationalist, empirical methodology. It focuses on attempts to achieve ideological hegemony by the re-articulation of common sense explanations through everyday events mediated by late industrial capitalism's commodification process. The nature of the post-modernist dialectic centred on Capital's modernisation project favouring a new service economy is explored in relation to an organic interplay between ideas and action, and the linking of planning theory to reification. The nature of ideological code systems in relation to retail land-use planning, as a feature of culture and their discursive role in an ongoing struggle for power and dominance, is evaluated in the deconstruction of historical and contemporary texts. A new concept of dialectical pluralism is offered which acknowledges the dynamic construction of ideologies and paradigms between parties in everyday relational experience. The methodology offers a wide, topic-based inductive research focus taking the four poles of Government, the planning profession, academia and the business sector at points of apparent harmony and disjuncture, to review the means by which events in time and space are struggled for to establish ideological hegemony. A priority is to compare and contrast assumptions underpinning the training of land-use planners that reward or inhibit vested and less defined interests, including those legitimising and funding professional research projects.

Land use planning tools have been extensively applied in the U.S. to achieve sustainability and resiliency for local communities. These include development regulations, building standards, property acquisition, incentive tools, information dissemination, critical and public facilities policies, financial tools, and private-sector initiatives. An important issue related to land use planning tools is to assess planners’ beliefs about the ways in which these tools differ from each other and, thus, how planners choose among these tools in the plan making process. To address this issue, the present study addressed three basic research objectives: 1) determine if planners agree in their perceptions of the attributes of land use planning tools, including efficacy, cost, and implementation barriers; 2) determine if personal characteristics affect planners’ perceptions of land use planning tools; and 3) determine if work environment characteristics affect planners’ perceptions of land use planning tools. A web-based survey collected data from urban planners in coastal and inland counties (or boroughs) in the five Pacific states. Interrater agreement was assessed to determine if planners had similar perceptions of the attributes of eight types of land use planning tools. In addition, an intercorrelation matrix was examined to identify any important relationships among three perceptual attributes of planning tools (effectiveness, cost, and implementation barriers) and contextual variables such as planners’ personal characteristics and those of their jurisdictions. The results indicate that 1) planners substantively, but not completely, agreed in their perceptions of the land use planning tools; 2) planners’ perceptions of planning tools are minimally related to their personal characteristics and those of their jurisdictions; and 3) planners’ perceptions of planning tools are significantly correlated with the capacity of their planning agencies. The high level of agreement among practicing planners suggests that planners have similar “mental models” about these planning tools. Moreover, these planners viewed effectiveness as negatively correlated with cost and implementation barriers so they must make tradeoffs among those attributes because there is no “dominant” tool that will be appropriate for all situations. These experienced planners’ views should be conveyed to planning students and novice planners so the latter can better understand the tradeoffs among these tools’ effectiveness, cost, and implementation barriers and choose the most appropriate tool when formulating a growth management strategy.