This dissertation expands upon the definition of eco-visualization artwork. EV was originally defined in 2006 by Tiffany Holmes as a way to display the real time consumption statistics of key environmental resources for the goal of promoting ecological literacy. I assert that the final forms of EV artworks are not necessarily dependent on technology, and can differ in terms of media used, in that they can be sculptural, video-based, or static two-dimensional forms that communicate interpreted environmental information. There are two main categories of EV: one that is predominantly screen-based and another that employs a variety of modes of representation to visualize environmental information. EVs are political acts, situated in a charged climate of rising awareness, operating within the context of environmentalism and sustainability. I discuss a variety of EV works within the frame of ecopsychology, including EcoArtTech’s Eclipse and Keith Deverell’s Building Run; Andrea Polli’s Cloud Car and Particle Falls; Nathalie Miebach’s series, The Sandy Rides; and Natalie Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir. The range of EV works provided models for my creative project, Sculpting Corn Production, and a foundation from which I developed a creative methodology. Working to defeat my experience of solastalgia, Sculpting Corn Production is a series of discrete paper sculptures focusing on American industrial corn farming. This EV also functions as a way for me to understand our devastated monoculture landscapes and the politics, economics, and related areas of ecology of our food production.

<p>Commercial and regional brewers are increasingly investing in sustainability equipment that reduces input use, operating costs, and environmental impact. These technologies often require significant upfront costs that can limit market access to microbreweries. One potential solution for these brewers is to market their product as sustainable and charge a premium for their product to offset some of the costs. A stated preference choice experiment of a nationally-representative sample is undertaken to elicit consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for sustainability attributes in beer, thus determining whether a market for sustainably-made beer exists. The facets of sustainability, including water reduction, energy reduction, and landfill diversion, are portrayed through eco-labels affixed the front of the primary packaging (aluminum can or glass bottle). Multiple specifications are employed to handle model shortcomings and incorporate discrete heterogeneity. Across all model specifications, <a>consumers show a positive and statistically significant marginal WTP for landfill diversion practices and carbon reduction practices, ranging from $0.40 to $1.37 per six-pack and $0.67 to $1.21 per six-pack, respectively. </a>These results indicate consumers do in fact place value on beer produced using sustainable practices, and the demographics of consumers with the greatest WTP are similar to that of craft beer consumer.</p>

The effects of the colonial project in Kenya created multi-faceted damages to the land and indigenous people-groups. Using the lens of ecofeminism, this study examines the undergirding structures that produce systems such as colonization that oppress and destroy land, people, and other beings. By highlighting the experience of the Kikuyu people within the Kenyan colonial program, the innovative and ingenious response of Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement proves to be a relevant and effective counter to women's disempowerment and environmental devastation in a post-colonial nation. The approach of the Green Belt Movement offers a unique and accessible method for empowering women, restoring the land, and addressing loss of cultural identity, while also contributing a theoretical template for addressing climate change.

This research project examines resources and services to prevent families and children from entering the child welfare system in a rural town in Southern California. There is constant struggle to get the adequate services, resources and trained staff in this rural area because it is isolated and it takes about two hours’ travel time to get to the metropolitan cities. The literature review discusses child welfare services challenges, strengths and social capital to support families and children as well as the child welfare system itself in rural areas. Constructivism is the appropriate framework for this research project, because the goal of this study will be based on an exchange of understanding and ideas; therefore, the nature of the study is subjective. The engagement stage was an important stage for the constructivist approach. The researcher analyzed transcripts from the interviews and group meetings using thematic analysis to examine participants’ concerns and their perceptions of the community’s resources. Further, the participants, guided by the researcher, worked together to develop a strategic action plan to address child abuse and neglect in this community. This project encouraged community leaders to discuss the community’s strengths and main concerns related to child abuse and neglect. Interestingly, these strengths and concerns often mirror one another. Participants’ perceptions and recommendation are about safety, connectedness, human services access and child welfare of the focused rural town.

The local food movement in the Portland Metro Region of Oregon is as prevalent as anywhere in the Country. To a large degree this is driven by the Portland Metro area food culture and the diverse agricultural landscape present in the Willamette Valley and throughout the State. Portlanders demand local food and thus far the rural periphery has been able to provide it; driving a new food economy that has economic implications throughout the region. As this regional food economy emerges much attention has been focused on harnessing its power for economic development perpetuated by the belief that there exists an opportunity to foster a cluster of economic activity pertaining to the production, processing, distribution and sale of regional foods that might generate economic opportunities throughout the value chain. The research presented here constitutes an attempt to characterize the local and regional food system that currently exists in the Portland Metro Region and to bring to light the opportunities present at the regional scale that link the agricultural periphery to the urban core. I present two different definitions of local and regional food systems and show how these different conceptions have very different implications for economic development. Once defined, I test for differences between local and regional food systems and the export-oriented, agro-food sector by analyzing aspects of geographic space and processes of knowledge accumulation and innovation in the context of aspects of regional economic development such as agglomeration economies, knowledge spillovers, business life cycle and industrial location. My analysis showed that there are significant differences between local and regional food systems and the export-oriented agro-food industry specific to supply chains, actors and products of the different systems. Furthermore, through spatial analysis, I found that there are differences in terms of the spatial structure and distribution between producers who participate in the different systems. Local and regional producers tend to cluster closer together at smaller scales, are smaller in size and are found to be closer to the urban core. Through a qualitative inquiry I found that this clustering facilitates forces of agglomeration economies specific to food producers who participate in local and regional supply chains, particularly non-pecuniary effects of knowledge accumulation. This underlying structure has significant effects on economic outcomes and as such has implications in terms of regional economic development when local and regional food systems are considered in terms of the city-region.

Supply chain disruptions are detrimental to the performance of companies due to the associated loss of profitability and reduced sustainability. In 2016, organizations lost at least $1.2 million in a single supply chain disruption. Guided by the contingency theory of fit, the purpose of this exploratory multiple case study was to explore the strategies agribusiness managers use to prevent and mitigate the effects of disruptions in the agro-food supply chains. A total of 5 purposefully-selected agribusiness managers from Harare, Zimbabwe participated in semistructured interviews. Participants were senior agribusiness managers who implemented successful strategies for preventing and mitigating the effects of disruptions in agro-food supply chains. Three themes emerged from the thematic analysis of interview data and review of organizational documents: collaboration among supply chain partners, business continuity management, and the use of a multiple supplier base. Agribusiness managers must first understand the sources of disruption risk, assess the impact of the risk, and then select an appropriate strategy based on the level of uncertainty and risk. By managing the risks effectively, managers can improve the performance and competitiveness of their businesses. The implications for positive social change may include a reduction in supply chain costs, provision of better services and products to consumers, and lower prices of agro-food products to consumers which could lead to an improvement in the lives of consumers.

As an alternative renewable source for bioenergy, forest biomass has recently drawn more attention from the U.S. government and the general public. Woody biomass policies have been adopted to encourage the new bioenergy industry. A variety of state policy incentives attempt to create a desirable legal climate and lure new firms, imposing two important questions regarding state government policies and the sustainable use of forest resources. This dissertation sheds some light on these questions. The first paper constructs a woody biomass policy index through scoring each statute and weighting different categories of policies from the vantage point of renewable energy investment. It analyzes the disparity in the strength of state government incentives in the woody biomass utilization. The second paper employs a conditional logit model (CLM) to explore the effects of woody biomass policies on the siting decisions of new bioenergy projects. In addition, significant state attributes influencing the births of new bioenergy firms are identified such as resource availability, business tax climate, delivered pulpwood price, and the average wage rate. The third paper uses the Sub-Regional Timber Supply (SRTS) model to examine the regional aggregate forest biomass feedstock potential in Tennessee and to predict the impacts of additional pulpwood demand on the regional roundwood market through 2030. The fourth paper includes the benefits of thinning and logging residues in a dynamic optimization model to analyze how bioenergy policies will impact forest stock, harvest levels, optimal rotation, and silvicultural effort. The results may have substantial implications regarding woody biomass policies, the creation of a new bioenergy industry, and sustainable forest resource management. A lucrative state woody biomass policy support and tax climate can attract new bioenergy businesses. States endowed with abundant forest resources may choose to provide strong tax incentives to spur the birth of new plants. However, overuse of forest biomass can impact roundwood markets and traditional wood processing industries. How government incentives will affect the sustainability of natural resources can be diverse. These findings offer constructive insights in the enactment and implementation of new woody biomass legislation.

This thesis uses cross-country panel regressions to identify the effects of fossil-fuel subsidies for both oil importers and oil exporters on GDP growth, industry growth, crowding out of government expenditures in education, health, and infrastructure, government debt, carbon dioxide emissions, inequality and poverty. Fossil-fuel subsidies are found to be associated with lower levels of growth and industry growth, less government expenditure on health and education, poorer infrastructure quality, more government debt, and higher rates of carbon dioxide emissions. No relationship is found between fossil fuel subsidies and poverty and inequality. These results confirm the arguments of those that argue that fossil-fuel subsidies should be rationalized. However, removing subsidies is politically challenging. In order to identify strategies for fossil fuel reform, the successful reform efforts of Indonesia and Turkey are examined. These cases are then used to draw lessons for governments undertaking subsidy reform. The key strategies used were to exempt some regions, groups, or fuels from reform, use funds from subsidy removal for social safety nets and other poverty alleviation programs, time the reforms strategically, and communicate clearly to the public the reason for reform and how the funds will be used. These lessons are applied to countries in the developing Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco.

California has one highly-coveted possession: the Bay-Delta, which is the second largest estuary in the United States. Today, tensions are higher than ever as Southern California continues to grow and demand water from the Delta, agriculture suffers from drought and less-than-promised water allocations, and aquatic life diminishes due to environmentally damaging processes like pumping and exporting of water elsewhere. This paper will examine the historic policies that have shaped how the Delta has been managed, their successes and failures, and current plans in discussion for continuing improvement of the Delta. The Bay-Delta Conservation Plan and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act (HR 1837) are the specific current plans presented and analyzed for potential effectiveness. Despite some of the promising suggestions in HR 1837 and the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, the Delta will remain a problem in the 21st century until stakeholders from all perspectives compromise enough to enact a single, clear-cut solution.

The issue of sediment removal from the San Gabriel Mountains has been a complex issue that has created problems with beach replenishment, habitat destruction and the need to spend millions of dollars at regular intervals to avoid safety hazards. Most recently 11 acres of riparian habitat, including 179 oaks and 70 sycamores, were removed for sediment placement. Other sites including Hahamongna Watershed Park and La Tuna Canyon also face a similar fate. This thesis questions: How did we get to this point of destroying habitat to dump sediment which is viewed as waste product? What are the barriers for creating long term solutions and progressive change? What are some other options? And how should we move forward? The issues with sediment management have stemmed from regulatory compliance issues, adversarial relationships within agencies and among NGO's and the public, and the lack of a comprehensive long-term plan to prevent further habitat loss and other sediment removal issues. A recommendation includes looking at a community forestry model to include a wide cross-section of the community, NGO's and government agencies to come up with a long term comprehensive and progressive solution.