Abstract

The scale of the affordable housing problem in Canada is enormous and the situation is worsening due to a number of recent social trends. Continued wealth inequality, an aging population, increased immigration, changing marriage and independence trends, and increased part-time employment, have all contributed to a growing affordable housing problem in Canada. Certain groups such as single parents, recent immigrants, seniors living alone and tourism/seasonal workers are particularly vulnerable. In Canada, cities and tourism-based communities have the most pronounced affordable housing shortages, and this is expected to continue in the future. New and innovative methods of public participation are needed in dealing with the challenges of affordable housing development. Spatial information technology such as Internet-based collaborative geospatial software aims to improve the public participation process. This technology is able to use the Internet, spatial data and carefully designed interfaces in order to engage citizens and increase community participation for difficult planning problems such as affordable housing development. This thesis focuses on three objectives. The first objective is to define a collaborative, spatially-aware approach to create and assess affordable housing options in Collingwood, Ontario. This approach will use existing spatial data, participants with a vested interest in affordable housing, and an open source geospatial software tool called MapChat. The second objective is to implement the defined approach in a real-world setting in order to generate participatory input. The third and final thesis objective is to examine the spatial patterns of existing affordable housing and the locations generated in the study to determine sites that are most suitable for future affordable housing development in Collingwood. The results of the thesis show that the approach used provides a proof of concept in the use of Internet-based collaborative geospatial software that can be applied to any town in Canada. Although the approach involved a modest study design, it was able to offer a number of potential advances in planning the locations of future affordable housing. The approach was successful in creating a set of potential affordable housing options, was effective in assessing those scenarios and was feasible to implement in a real-world setting. In addition, the approach had high potential in the generation and management of information and in supporting community participation and empowerment.

The scale of the affordable housing problem in Canada is enormous and the situation is worsening due to a number of recent social trends. Continued wealth inequality, an aging population, increased immigration, changing marriage and independence trends, and increased part-time employment, have all contributed to a growing affordable housing problem in Canada. Certain groups such as single parents, recent immigrants, seniors living alone and tourism/seasonal workers are particularly vulnerable. In Canada, cities and tourism-based communities have the most pronounced affordable housing shortages, and this is expected to continue in the future. New and innovative methods of public participation are needed in dealing with the challenges of affordable housing development. Spatial information technology such as Internet-based collaborative geospatial software aims to improve the public participation process. This technology is able to use the Internet, spatial data and carefully designed interfaces in order to engage citizens and increase community participation for difficult planning problems such as affordable housing development. This thesis focuses on three objectives. The first objective is to define a collaborative, spatially-aware approach to create and assess affordable housing options in Collingwood, Ontario. This approach will use existing spatial data, participants with a vested interest in affordable housing, and an open source geospatial software tool called MapChat. The second objective is to implement the defined approach in a real-world setting in order to generate participatory input. The third and final thesis objective is to examine the spatial patterns of existing affordable housing and the locations generated in the study to determine sites that are most suitable for future affordable housing development in Collingwood. The results of the thesis show that the approach used provides a proof of concept in the use of Internet-based collaborative geospatial software that can be applied to any town in Canada. Although the approach involved a modest study design, it was able to offer a number of potential advances in planning the locations of future affordable housing. The approach was successful in creating a set of potential affordable housing options, was effective in assessing those scenarios and was feasible to implement in a real-world setting. In addition, the approach had high potential in the generation and management of information and in supporting community participation and empowerment.

No description available.

No description available.

There is an urgent need for Bangladesh to identify the arsenic (As) contaminated tubewells (TWs) in order to assess the health risks and initiate appropriate mitigation measures. This involves testing water in millions of TWs and raising community awareness about the health problems related to chronic As exposure from drinking water, and providing alternative safe water option for the exposed population of the country. The use of spatial maps in a participatory context emerged as an important tool for an effective and rational distribution of alternative safe water options for the exposed population of the country. Field test kit offers the only practical tool available to screen all the TW water considering the time frame and financial resources of the country. A comparison of the field test kit results and laboratory measurements by atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) as “gold standard” for As in water of 12,532 TWs in Matlab upazila (sub-district) in Bangladesh, indicates that the field test kit correctly determined the status of 87% of the As levels compared to the Bangladesh Drinking Water Standard (BDWS) of 50 μg/L, and 91% of the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking water guideline value of 10 μg/L. In order to identify the sustainable alternative safe water options, different type of safe water options were distributed in Sonargaon and Jhikargachha upazilas (sub-district) in 2001 and later revisited the options in 2004 to identify the sustainable ones. It was observed that community acceptability of the distributed options was not encouraging; less than 2% of the provided options were found to be in use. However, two new approaches emerged from people’s initiatives, which were making rapid and positive contributions to safe water coverage: switching to the existing As-safe TWs and reinstalling TWs at 50-100 m depths by looking at particular type of sediment colours. A study was conducted in Matlab upazila to validate the concept of installation/reinstallation of TWs at certain depths, a new concept promoted by local drillers (masons). The study revealed that locally a thick layer of black to grey sediments overlies an oxidized unit of yellowish-grey to reddish-brown sediments. The correlation between the colour of both units and the groundwater redox conditions was investigated to provide an easy tool for targeting low-arsenic groundwater. The water abstracted from black sediments contained high amount of As concentration but the concentration decreased towards the yeallowish to red sediments. Three boreholes verified the driller's perception of the subsurface lithologic conditions. Discrepancies between the driller's and the research team description of the sediment colours were insignificant. This study shows that sediment colour is a reliable indicator of high and low As-concentrations in TW water and can be used by local drillers to install TW. Lack of financial resources and identification of an appropriate distribution tools are some of the major obstacles to provide sustainable solution to the exposed population of the country. Spatial mapping exercise along with community participation can help maximize the safe water coverage of different alternative safe water options by reducing financial involvement. Combining people’s voice with that of spatial information gave better results and the method is already been proved useful in targeting non-served areas. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods along with geographical information system (GIS) used in the study to obtain relevant information. Participants from different focus groups were asked to determine their ‘own priorities’ for spatial planning of alternative arsenic-safe water options. The study discusses community perspectives on demand-based safe water options and reveals the suitability of using participatory geographic information system (PGIS) technique to target non-served areas for rational distribution of safe water options. / QC 20100716

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal