Although not often discussed in planning curriculum across the United States, airports are a very significant part of the country’s transportation infrastructure. With so much emphasis placed on ground transportation modes such as light rail, bus, and bike, the impact of aviation on the transportation world gets lost in translation. This study seeks to bring airport planning back into the conversation by analyzing population projections, income, and industry and their affect on airport preparedness to meet increasing population demands. By using population projections through 2035 for the State of Texas, gross population and population growth rates were used to select counties within Texas that may be most in need of airport planning considerations. Counties along the Texas-Mexico border were analyzed in further detail for planning considerations and preparedness based on their population growth rates. Hidalgo County’s McAllen-Miller International Airport (MFE) was found to be proactively seeking changes to their airfield that matched recommendations based on their population increase. However, the level of coordination with city or county level authorities is lacking. / text

Economic, environmental, and social components form the structure of sustainable development and characterize the positive or negative trends in sustainability, which are a unique sustainable index. The Kuwait water system is considered a case study in this research to develop a methodology for identifying sustainable water systems, especially in terms of the high water demand per capita and high supply of desalinated water. This research provides certain answers to the following issues: 1) the sustainable water system path for Kuwait is unknown; 2) the low price of water for consumers is a reason for the wastefulness in water consumption in Kuwait; 3) there is no sustainable model for the water infrastructure in Kuwait to control and maintain its system; and 4) building a new desalination plant will put pressure on reducing the oil products' revenues that are export to global market. Sustainable water supply systems must be designed and operated so as to accomplish the following: minimize energy use, maximize efficient use of water as a resource, and limit (or even decrease) the associated environmental impacts of water usage. Increasing the production of water and the associated infrastructure are not necessarily sustainable solutions to the challenges of population growth. Consequently, this research provides the following solutions to work together in parallel: 1) Model Urban City (MUC); 2) Sustainable Water System and Infrastructure of Kuwait (SWSIK); 3) Sustainable Kuwait Index (SKI); and 4) reform the current water price policy in Kuwait. This research is dependent on three foundation--MUC, SWSIK, and SKI--to characterize sustainability in Kuwait and to analyze the environmental and economic impacts under three different water price scenarios during the period of 2013-2017. Numerical modeling, Infowater application, is used to connect the data with Arc GIS software to monitor the progress toward sustainability for 78 areas in the country. The Sustainable Water System and Infrastructure of Kuwait (SWSIK) tool is developed in this study and provides a comprehensive tool that analyzes water consumption due to water price policies to determine the energy needed from fossil fuels, the energy costs, and the environmental impacts. The Sustainable Kuwait Index (SKI) is a unique numeric value of 16 indicators. The sustainability indicators for the Kuwait water system are classified into two main categories: environmental and socio-economic, in which the resources, infrastructure, and capacity are components in the environmental category. SKI is determined for urban areas in Kuwait between 2008 and 2012, characterizing the state of sustainability. Population growth and new urban development push decision makers to find alternative solutions--such as reforming water price policies--to reduce wasteful water consumption in both normal and critical times. Two water price policy scenarios were proposed to be implemented, instead of the current water price policy (0.624 per m³). The first scenario involves a constant price charged for water consumption at $1 per m³. The second scenario involves a different structure to schedule water price: free allowance (150 L/C/day) followed by a constant price charged for water consumption over 150 L at $1.6 per m³. The time frame to test both proposal scenarios is between 2013 and 2017. In order to get water for free, the second proposal scenario encourages consumers to consume water wisely. This proposal scenario is acceptable for both consumers and policymakers, and it provides economic and environment benefits for both sides. The second scenario will postpone the need for new desalination plants until 2023. SKI scores are determined for the three water price scenarios during the proposal time (2013-2017) for 78 urban areas in Kuwait. By applying the first scenario ($1.0 per m³), the Kuwait government will save almost 5 million barrels per year from oil products (crude oil, gas oil, and HFO) and reduce natural gas usage by 31% per year. On the other hand, the second scenario can reduce the usage of oil products and natural gas in desalination plants by 26% per year. CO2, SO2, and NO2 emissions under the first and second scenarios were reduced in the range between 26% and 33% per year. Overall, a shortage will occur in 2014 if the Kuwait government does not change the water price structure. The current water price ($0.624 per m³) gives zero economic value to consumers. As a consequence, water bills were not collected effectively due to the low cost. The first scenario, which charges $1 per m³, might be unacceptable for consumers due to the stigma associated with increasing prices. The second scenario, however, satisfies the sustainability conditions, which are: 1) to save the environment; 2) to reduce costs; 3) to be acceptable to society; and 4) to achieve policymakers' goals. The results obtained in this research are intended to promote water system management and provide sustainable indicators to evaluate the development of a sustainable of water infrastructure in Kuwait. / text

In this thesis, an infrastructure informed index is developed for pedestrians and bicyclists to relate the natural and built environment with its impact on perceived travel distance and time. The objective is to develop an easy to use metric for use at all levels, allowing transportation planners to make better informed decisions when planning or redeveloping a city or area. Building off of similar research efforts, attributes are determined and weighted to capture the characteristics of a link, then summed to create the infrastructure informed index for pedestrians and bicyclists, respectively. These indices are then visualized using ArcGIS mapping tools, creating a service area around specific origin or destination points to see the effective area a pedestrian or bicyclist can travel taking into account the effects of the infrastructure along the route. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Computer Science and Information Systems / Master / Master of Philosophy

Inefficient industrial policies in the 1970’s led to the growth of privatization since the late 1970’s. Apart from the general trend of privatization worldwide, budgetary distress (1999-2003) after the Asian Financial Crisis (1997-8) obliged the Hong Kong government to adopt extensive privatization of public assets and services to increase income and reduce expenditure, including privatizing the construction, ownership and management of infrastructure projects. However, obstacles to efficient privatization abound, and it is suggested that incentive conflicts in privatizations may result in poorly performing or even failed transactions. Following a literature review, it is suggested that inefficient privatization seem to be present in complex and highly asset specific projects. The review suggests that asset specificity could also be an obstacle to efficient transactions. In project finance, however, it has been shown that asset specificity could be used strategically to manage agency incentive conflicts. It is thus argued that highly specific fixed assets privatization transactions may be incentive inefficient if incentive conflicts are unchecked. Since asset specificity has been used particularly in the project finance field to manage agency incentive conflicts, this study investigates the effect of high asset specificity in facilitating incentive efficient privatization of highly specific fixed infrastructure assets. The proposition that high asset specificity contributes significantly to incentive efficient privatization of fixed infrastructure assets is examined using the case study methodology. Incentive efficiency is taken to mean clear identification of incentive conflicts, clear measures taken to manage the conflicts, and clear measures taken to “minimize” costs incurred in managing such conflicts. A fourth concept, a transaction's "internal coherence" is a subjective consideration of the mutually reinforcing functioning of these measures whilst drawing on asset specificity for additional effectiveness. An exploratory case study, the Western Harbour Crossing (WHC) Build Operate Transfer privatization, a highly specific cross harbour tunnel in Hong Kong, was analyzed. Evidence was sought through desk research of published secondary case material, aimed at confirming or otherwise the proposition. Three major sources of information, namely the concession agreement and allocation of property rights, corporate structure and financing and operational matters, were considered, following a structured transaction analysis framework. Incentive conflicts and corresponding management mechanisms are pointed out, and it is discovered that asset specificity has salient effects on the management of incentive conflicts in WHC. Since asset specificity was used strategically in the design of transaction governance mechanisms, asset specificity contributed substantially to enforce property rights and monitor incentive conflicts. Furthermore, the three concepts of incentive efficiency seem well coordinated. Thus it was argued that transaction governance in WHC was internally coherent. The presence of the four concepts of incentive efficiency was considered convincing evidence to conclude that high asset specificity contributes significantly to incentive efficient privatization of fixed infrastructure assets. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Philosophy

Post-disaster reconstruction, critical in restoring the affected community, provides new opportunities to redevelop the disaster affected region for economic growth, future vulnerability reduction and sustainable development as well. However, previous studies reveal that these opportunities have not been fully exploited. Many reconstruction projects have performed poorly due to various political, administrational, social, and policy/regulation-related reasons. To address the spotlighted gaps in post-disaster reconstruction, Public-Private-People Partnership (4P) is proposed and developed to procure more sustainable public infrastructure and to improve the overall performance of disaster management (DM) through integrating preparedness and mitigation into reconstruction processes. Public- Private Partnerships (PPP), which have demonstrated superior performance compared to the traditional approach in many infrastructure projects, are the practical and theoretical foundation of the proposed 4P. The integrated 4th P-‘people’ refers to major stakeholders who play critical roles in reconstruction, namely Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), local communities, academia, professional groups and media. A 4P framework, comprising of a procurement framework and a partnership framework, was developed based on the consolidated findings from a literature review and empirical data. The procurement framework provides a three-stage procurement process to deliver a typical 4P project, including planning for post-disaster reconstruction procurement, establishing framework agreement and 4P delivery. Through pre-disaster arrangements formally linking potential participants in advance, it enables targeted 4Ps to mobilize faster, while being more efficient and sustainable. The partnership framework provides the corner-stone of establishing sustainable and successful relationships among multiple participants, to ensure smooth execution of 4P projects. Developed on significant findings from previous research on partnerships/relationship management in the construction industry, it describes the partnership structure, role of each major participant and institutional and relational strategies to improve the partnership/relationship. A comprehensive research design enabled collection of the data required to achieve each objective of this research project. The first-round semi-structured interviews were conducted to mainly investigate the feasibility of applying PPP in reconstruction and integrating ‘people’ into PPP, so as to narrow down the potential scope of the proposed 4P. Findings from the first-round interviews, current practice and pitfalls in the DM cycle especially in reconstruction were examined in the subsequent two parallel sets of questionnaire surveys targeting DM and PPP professionals. The results derived from 14 first-round interviews and 81 responses received in the questionnaires clearly suggest that 4P has great potential to deliver better performance in reconstruction projects of certain types. Nine second-round interviews helped to test and improve the established preliminary 4P framework. In addition, to further probe into the role of ‘people’, case studies of ‘Project Mingde’, which comprises of three construction projects including a Sichuan reconstruction project, were implemented. The proposed 4P framework, developed based on the above research, was validated through a focus group meeting. It is concluded that the 4P approach could help realize better performance and sustainable redevelopment in appropriate reconstruction scenarios, as well as contribute to improving the overall DM. The 4P framework also provides a basic methodology and conceptual foundation to procure 4P projects in industry with pointers for future development in academic research. / published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

While regional infrastructures are being actively pursued by the Hong Kong governments in recent years, the impacts brought by the cross-boundary infrastructures have not been comprehensively scrutinized. This study is aimed to fill in the research gap by examining the interrelationships between regional planning, transport planning and real estate economics. As concerns on accessibility and transport convenience are key factors determining the price of a flat, transport improvements made to the residential area should lead to an increase in residential property prices. On the other hand, as regional infrastructures are often justified with their impacts in fostering further economic development, retail rental prices in the service coverage areas should experience positive impacts. Therefore, changes in price gradient of residential properties, and that in transaction prices of commercial properties will be both taken into consideration in understanding the impacts of regional infrastructures. When examining these impacts, an additional dimension will be incorporated to investigate the impacts across the initial stage, planning stage, post-feasibility stage, construction stage as well as the post-project completion stage of the projects. Hedonic pricing models will be applied in this study for assessment. The empirical case will focus on the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western Corridor (SWC) project and the associated areas of Tin Shui Wai, Yuen Long and Tusen Wan, to obtain the relevant data to understand the interrelationships across the different stages of the SWC project. In the research finding, as far as residential property sales are concerned, it is observed that a general decrease in property prices has been experienced from the commencement of the SWC, as a result of the combination of factors such as construction pollution and catchment problems. While for the retail rental prices within the study scope, a contrasting uprising trend has been instead generally observed, attributed to the differences in the accessibility to the areas and the availability of business opportunities experienced in the focus area during the various stages of the project. The empirical results reveal that cross-boundary cooperation in coordinating time of infrastructural project completion is exceptionally crucial. If the coordination of the infrastructures bridging the two sides of the borders are not coordinated well, the problem of SWC in the early stage of commissioning will happen again, causing the unavailability for areas connected to the border to enjoy the business opportunities, economic and spatial efficiency in the area. Also, the residential property prices may even be driven down by the cross-boundary infrastructure, which is considered to be strategic in fostering economic development and enhancing transport efficiency upon regional integration of the Pearl River Delta cities. Therefore, careful planning and regional coordination are needed to enhance the efficiency of the cross-boundary infrastructure, so as to achieve its objectives to facilitate economic growth, social harmony and environmental sustainability. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

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Breakout session from the Living the Future 7 Conference, April 30-May 3, 2008, University of Arizona Libraries, Tucson, AZ. / Afghanistan workshop attendees seeing their digital access on the computer for the first time. This program will focus on the creation of an Integrated Library System using an Open Source Software for Afghanistan Academic Libraries and on the digitization of Afghanistan's unique resources. Since April 2002, the University of Arizona Libraries' staff have been involved in building capacity for libraries and librarians in Afghanistan. In this program, we will discuss our efforts in working with open source digital libraries’ platforms and customization of the integrated library system interface into both English and the native language of Afghanistan (Persian, Dari), providing and enhancing access to scholarly information resources, and digitizing unique resources, and setting up digitization infrastructure in the country to meet their teaching and research needs. The presentation specifically will reflect on digitization efforts including challenges, problems and barriers with language and lack of technological infrastructure. We will also discuss our virtual training efforts in the absence of training on the ground due to security issues in the country and collaboration efforts with other governmental and non-government entities in Afghanistan and abroad.

This thesis explores the relationship between water infrastructure, ecological change, and the politics of planning in New Orleans and the Mississippi River Delta, USA. Complex assemblages of water control infrastructure have been embedded in the delta over the last several centuries in an effort to keep its cities protected from floodwaters and maintain its waterways as standardized conduits for maritime transportation. This thesis investigates the historical development of these infrastructural interventions in the delta’s dynamics, and shows how the region’s eco-hydrology is ensnared in the politics and materiality of pipes, pumps, canals, locks, and levees. These historical entanglements complicate contemporary efforts to enact large-scale ecosystem restoration, even while the delta’s landscape is rapidly eroding into the sea. This historical approach is extended into the present through an examination of how waterway standards established at so-called chokepoints in the global maritime transportation system (the Panama Canal, for example) become embedded and contested in coastal landscapes and port cities worldwide. Turning towards urban ecology, the thesis examines socioecological responses to the flooding following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with a special focus on how infrastructure failures, flooding intensity, and land abandonment are driving changing vegetation patterns in New Orleans over the past decade. The thesis contributes new conceptual language for grappling with the systemic relations bound up in water infrastructure, and develops one of the first studies describing urban ecosystem responses to prolonged flooding and post-disaster land management. This provides insights into the impending planning challenges facing New Orleans and coastal cities globally, where rising sea levels are bringing about renewed attention to how infrastructure is implicated in patterns of ecological change, hazard exposure, resilience, and social inequality. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Accepted. Paper 5: Manuscript.</p>