The South Florida Everglades is a unique ecosystem. Intensive water management in the system has facilitated agricultural, urban, and economic development. The Everglades offers a variety of ecosystem services (ES) to the people living in this region. Nevertheless, the ecosystem is under imminent threat of climate change, which would alter the way water is managed today and ultimately affect the ES offered by the system. On the other hand, substantial restoration is underway that aims to restore the Everglades closer to its historic condition. This research tried to map the public’s preference for Everglades restoration. Using a geocoded discrete-choice survey dataset, the study showed variation in the public’s preference by changing the levels of ES. Additionally, the general public’s attitude toward climate change risk to the Everglades and preference for mitigation were also assessed using the survey data.

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Le dépistage du cancer de la prostate est largement controversé de par l’équilibre de la balance bénéfices-risques de cette procédure. L’enjeu de santé publique est alors d’accompagner au mieux les hommes susceptibles de se faire dépister pour qu’ils puissent être informés et participer au choix. L’objectif de ce doctorat est de contribuer à comprendre pourquoi les hommes participent au dépistage du cancer de la prostate, pour pouvoir améliorer dans un second temps leur accompagnement. Nous avons tout d’abord interrogé des hommes sur leurs connaissances, leurs sources d’informations et leur rôle dans le choix de participer au dépistage du cancer de la prostate. Ces entretiens ont abouti à la nécessité de concevoir un nouvel outil d’information pour améliorer les connaissances des hommes, en particulier sur les risques de la procédure de dépistage. Enfin, nous avons estimé comment les bénéfices et les risques étaient intégrés dans le choix des individus selon si ces derniers avaient eu accès à notre outil d’information. Les résultats de ce travail montrent que les hommes semblent moins favorables à une proposition de dépistage après avoir eu accès à notre outil d’information. Cependant, cela ne modifie pas leur appréciation des bénéfices et des risques du dépistage. Il est nécessaire de poursuivre les efforts pour permettre aux hommes de faire un choix éclairé. / Prostate cancer screening is highly controversial because of the benefit risk ratio. An issue is to support men susceptible to perform this screening towards informed choice and shared decision-making. The aim of this doctorate is to understand why men adhere to prostate cancer screening, and in a second time to improve their support. We interviewed men about their knowledge, their information seeking behaviour, and their implication in prostate cancer screening decision. This highlighted the necessity to create a new information tool to improve men’s knowledge, in particular regarding risks of the screening procedure. Finally, we investigate benefit risk trade-off with and without our information tool access. Results of this work shows that men are less favourable to a screening option after taking into account our information tool. However, benefit and risk of this screening appreciation was not changed. We need to continue efforts to allow men to make an informed choice.

The overall goal of this study was to analyse the welfare effect of improved wastewater treatment with the view of making policy recommendations for sustainable urban and peri-urban irrigation agriculture in Kenya. This goal was achieved by investigating three specific objectives. The first objective was to assess the farmers’ awareness of health risks in urban and peri-urban wastewater irrigation. Second objective was to analyse the factors that affect the choice of low-risk adaptations in reuse of untreated wastewater for irrigation. The third objective was to estimate the value that urban and peri-urban farmers who practice wastewater irrigation impute to improvements in specific characteristics of the wastewater input in agriculture. In order to achieve the first objective, an ordered probit model was used to identify the factors that influence farmers’ awareness of health risks in untreated wastewater irrigation. The model was fitted to data collected from a cross-sectional survey of 317 urban farm households in the Kibera informal settlement of Kenya. Results of this study show that gender of household head, household size, education level of household head, farm size, ownership of the farm, membership to farmers’ group, and market access for the fresh produce significantly affect awareness of farmers about health risks in wastewater irrigation. Therefore, there is need for awareness programs to promote public education through regular training and local workshops on wastewater reuse in order to improve the human capital of the urban and peri-urban farmers. To achieve the second objective, the study used a multinomial logit model to analyse the farmers’ choice of low-risk adaptations in untreated wastewater irrigation. A survey of 317 urban and peri-urban farmers was conducted and measures for risk-reduction in wastewater reuse were analysed. The urban and peri-urban farmers were found to have adopted low-risk wastewater irrigation techniques such as cessation of irrigation before harvesting, crop restriction and safer application methods. Results of the study show that adoption of risk-reduction measures is significantly influenced by the following factors: household size, age of the household head, education of household head, access to extension, access to media, access to credit, farmers’ group membership, and risk awareness. Also, marginal analysis of the coefficients confirmed the socio-economic characteristics are key determinants in adoption of low-risk measures in wastewater reuse. The study recommends that policies in support of low-risk urban and peri-urban irrigation agriculture should disaggregate farmers according to their socio-economic and institutional characteristics in order to achieve their intended objectives. To achieve the third objective, the study employed the discrete choice experiment approach to estimate the benefits farmers impute to improvements in attributes of the wastewater irrigation input, whose aim is to reduce the health risks associated with untreated wastewater irrigation. Urban and peri-urban farmers who practice wastewater irrigation drawn from Motoine-Ngong River in Nairobi were randomly selected for the study. A total of 241 farmers completed the presented choice cards for the choice model estimation. A random parameter logit model was used to estimate the individual level willingness to pay for wastewater treatment. The results show that urban and peri-urban farmers are willing to pay significant monthly municipality taxes for treatment of wastewater. Conclusion of this study was that, quality of treated wastewater, quantity of treated wastewater and the riverine ecosystem restoration are significant factors of preference over policy alternative designs in wastewater treatment and reuse. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

<div>Technology is rapidly transforming both vehicles and transportation systems. The nature of this transformation will depend on how fast the technology resulting from three related revolutions, those in automated, electric, and shared vehicles, will diffuse. At the same time, the ‘sharing’ economy is growing and affecting mobility in urban areas that includes additional travel alternatives, such as car-sharing services, ride-hailing services, bike-sharing services, and other micro-transit services. It is evident that to prepare for these large-scale operations involving autonomous vehicles (AVs), researchers and transportation professionals need the useful insights on people’s attitudes toward and on acceptance of AVs that can be gained through behavioral experiments. In addition to this, it is also important to understand how the deployment of AVs will impact vehicle ownership and mode choice decisions.</div><div><br></div><div>The goal of this dissertation is to assess the public acceptance of AVs and shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) via a behavioral experiment (stated preference survey) and offer insights on the potential implications of AVs and SAVs on mode choices. The following four overarching research objectives were formulated: (a) identifying the factors influencing the behavioral intention to ride in AVs; (b) identifying the characteristics of the AV market segments; (c) evaluating the attributes impacting personal vehicle ownership decisions (i.e., decisions to postpone the purchase of a non-AV due to the emergence of AVs); and (d) assessing the factors affecting mode choice decisions after the emergence of autonomous ride-sharing services operated through AVs, and evaluating the corresponding value of travel time savings. The results of each part of the research framework are integrated in the last chapter of the dissertation in order to provide the final conclusions and recommendations of the study.</div><div><br></div><div>To achieve these research objectives, a survey of the general population was distributed online in a major urban area with an advanced multimodal transportation system and captive users of ride-sharing users (Chicago, Illinois) and in an urban area with a more automobile-oriented culture (Indianapolis, Indiana). The survey sample included 400 responses of adults, representative of age and gender on each area. </div><div><br></div><div>One of the contributions of this dissertation is a theoretical model to assess the behavioral intention to ride in AVs that includes components of the theory of Planned Behavior, the theory of Diffusion of Innovation and additional factors derived from the literature while evaluating possible interrelationships between these components. A more holistic approach along these lines can help explain whether the emerging AV technology can diffuse by identifying the factors and key determinants that influence the behavioral intention to ride in AVs. The market segmentation analysis can further provide knowledge of the socio-demographic characteristics of potential AV users and an accurate classification of these groups of potential users in terms of their willingness to ride in AVs. The findings can provide insights into perceptions of and attitudes toward AVs that can help transportation and urban planners, as well as original equipment manufacturers, to prepare for the deployment of AVs by designing marketing strategies to improve people’s perceptions of AVs and increase market penetration.</div><div><br></div><div>Moreover, this dissertation provides a well-documented and easy-to-use framework that can support both planning and policy decisions in urban areas in an era of emergent automated transportation technologies. In urban areas with advanced multimodal transportation networks, the framework can be applied to identify the impact attributes affecting shared mobility in urban settings. In urban areas with a more car-oriented culture, the framework can be applied to explore the potential impacts of the emergence of AVs on personal vehicle ownership patterns. Finally, the survey that was designed to fulfill the goal of this dissertation can be replicated and distributed in metropolitan areas outside the US with more advanced multimodal transportation systems or areas within the US with traditionally higher rates of affinity to innovativeness and areas where AVs have been pilot-tested in real-world road conditions.</div><div><br></div>

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The aim of this study is to examine the public preferences for urban riparian corridors in arid ‎regions, by testing to what extent people are willing to trade-off unmaintained ecological ‎landscape for aesthetics offered by specific micro and ‎macro environmental factors. Landscape ‎design reflects ecological and aesthetic values, and trade-offs are often made ‎between the two in ‎‎practice. In arid regions, water scarcity means riparian corridors are the ‎richest landscape ‎typology and the only ‎blue-green links for hundreds of miles. Pressure from ‎urbanization and ‎lack of eco-literacy contribute to negative ‎feedback loops which present dire ‎challenges for ‎migrating avifauna and regional wildlife. Regarding natural ‎resources and ‎biodiversity, where ‎multiple deliverable ‎ecosystem services rely on the quality and health of that ‎‎ecosystem, riparian ‎systems with high biomass are more desirable. Although this can be ‎achieved with low or no ‎‎maintenance riparian buffers, these unmaintained ecological landscapes ‎play an intrinsic role in ‎sustaining the ‎global ecosystem services and are important for the survival of the inhabitants ‎‎(avifauna). Ecological ‎landscapes are often subjected to trade-offs with aesthetic ‎landscapes that ‎include micro and ‎macro environmental factors such as manicured landscapes. It is accepted that ‎‎there is a ‎preference for aesthetics in landscape design; however, it is unclear how laypeople ‎prioritize ‎aesthetics ‎over different ecological factors in landscape scenes. This study uses a ‎Discrete Choice ‎Experiment (DCE) to elicit the ‎preferences of current or pretendant residents of ‎Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia for multiple landscape scenes. The method ‎combines ecological ‎landscape characteristics adopted from ‎the QBR index that are found in the study area in Jeddah ‎and aesthetic ‎characteristics, such as micro and macro environmental factors that are commonly ‎suggested in landscape design projects adapted from relevant visual preference studies (Alsaiari, ‎‎2018; Kenwick et al., 2009; Kuper‎ ‎,‎2017; Zhao et al., 2017). ‎DCE is a widely used method to ‎reveal preferences by analyzing the trade-offs people make ‎between ‎alternatives. Participants in ‎this study were exposed to a set of designs, which included ‎various configurations of ‎aesthetic ‎and ecological elements. Participants' choices revealed the influence of their ecological and ‎‎aesthetic values. Results show that minimal design interventions would prevent trading off the ‎ecological unmaintained landscape and that there are four subgroups with distinct homogeneous ‎preferences for the attributes affecting the appeal for the urban riparian corridor in Jeddah City. ‎Finally, results show that even though there are significant differences between subgroups based ‎on preferences, the demographic information is proportionally distributed in a way the means ‎differences diminish between the subgroups. ‎Findings in this study will equip ‎decision-makers ‎with operational definitions relating to riparian ‎landscape design and a method ‎that they can use ‎to minimize losses in ecological value over aesthetic value. This study will help‎ ‎researchers and ‎landscape architects advance visual preference research further into the domain ‎of empirical ‎‎studies.‎ ‎ / Doctor of Philosophy / Landscape architecture is a profession that entails planning and design outdoor spaces, ‎‎landmarks, and ‎structures to improve the built environment and increasing the quality of ‎‎people's lives by achieving ‎environmental, social, economic, and aesthetic outcomes‎. The ‎profession often reflects ecological and ‎aesthetic values, and trade-offs are often made ‎between ‎the two in ‎practice. These ecological values ‎represent environmental characteristics that are ‎important for the survival of wildlife (protected path ‎and safe habitat) and the overall ecosystem ‎‎(every being has a role that sustain the health of the ‎environment). Culturally, human is ‎accustomed to a slick-and-clean (tamped) looking plant within urban ‎developments (i.e., ‎neighborhoods). An example of the trade-off that often happen in practice between ‎the ‎ecological and aesthetic values is replacing an ecologically unmaintained plants that play ‎important ‎ecological role (i.e., wildlife habitat) with clean tamped plants to increase the value of ‎a real estate. Due ‎to the uncertainty surrounding people's acceptance of the features of these ‎ecological unmaintained ‎plants, especially when it entails introducing ecological riparian ‎landscape attributes within ‎neighborhoods for the first time, this dissertation focuses on both ‎assessing ecological elements ‎preferences within an urban arid region in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ‎and assessing the extent to which ‎advanced analytical methods are capable of providing a better ‎understanding of ecological riparian ‎landscape attributes preference differences among a ‎seemingly homogenous sample of participants. ‎The increasing usage of manipulated images in ‎choice tasks inspired this dissertation. The results of the ‎study demonstrate that among the ‎relatively homogenous sample of participants that was recruited, ‎four significant preference ‎patterns have emerged, which could be used to describe and predict ‎preference for ecological ‎riparian landscape attributes and choice with great accuracy. The dissertation ‎also investigates ‎policy implications that might be beneficial in creating a ‎physical environment that ‎match public ‎preferences. ‎It also offers research implications and recommendations for landscape ‎architects ‎and urban designers on how to employ visual choice experiments, which have been well-‎‎developed in other research field

<p dir="ltr">As nations strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the transformation of energy-intensive industries will significantly impact job quality and worker well-being. This thesis investigates the critical intersection of employment opportunities and just energy transitions in the context of industrial decarbonization, focusing on the U.S. steel sector. We address the challenge of balancing economic, environmental, and social considerations in the shift towards low-carbon manufacturing processes. Semi-structured interviews inform the development of a choice-based conjoint survey of Indiana steelworkers, which helps quantify worker preferences for various job attributes such as shift patterns, overtime hours, and wages. The analysis employs willingness-to-pay models to elucidate the complex relationships between compensation and working conditions in the context of potential changes brought about by renewable energy integration and electrification of steel production. Key findings reveal significant disutility associated with increased overtime hours and an unexpected preference for night shifts over day shifts among respondents. The research also highlights the importance of sociotechnical solutions that account for worker needs in designing decarbonized manufacturing processes. While acknowledging limitations such as potential sample bias, this thesis contributes to the development of integrated modeling approaches that combine worker preferences with operational constraints and energy costs. The results inform strategies for achieving a just energy transition in the steel industry, emphasizing the need for policies that prioritize worker well-being alongside decarbonization goals.</p>

This thesis uses the case study of the Fallas festival in the city of Valencia (Spain), to assess the value of intangible cultural heritage. Within this framework the thesis explores a number of different issues: for example how social agents frame different qualities and benefits of cultural heritage in order to describe the value and claims for funding the arts. It finds that value assessment for claiming funds presents many challenges such as: identifying the values of the heritage in question; describing them; and ranking them according to their contribution to the public welfare. It examines the methodological techniques for assessing heritage values and goes on to discuss a number of tools that are, or could be, used for assessment. The thesis also explores how public bodies legitimise cultural funding. It examines the role of non-government arts organisations in supporting the arts. It proposes the analysis of donor decisions through a multi-attribute technique where donors state their importance to donor situations under specific conditions or attributes. Finally, it describes how the stakeholder approach can be applied for searching new ways of funding festivals. It also considers how intangible cultural heritage goods can be assessed within the process of cost-benefit evaluation. It also analyses how public bodies, as the principal supporters of culture, deal with the problem of valuing intangibles on social investments. The study uses the Fallas festival to test the research hypothesis. It uses a number of economic and statistical techniques to evaluate the Fallas Festival, these include Contingent Valuation, Choice Experiment and Descriptive and Multiatribute Statistics. The statistical techniques reveal that historical benefits are intrinsically valuable in the Fallas festival. The historical value that the members of the neighbourhood associations place on the Fallas festival justify that local social agents should support this festival. / Sánchez Royo, B. (2011). AN APPROACH TOWARDS HOLISTIC ASSESSMENT OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACTS [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/12269

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