Climate change is projected to increase the intensity and frequency of storm events that would increase flooding hazards. Urbanization associated with land use and land cover change has altered hydrological cycles by increasing stormwater runoff, reducing baseflow and increasing flooding hazards. Combined urbanization and climate change impacts on long-term riparian flooding during future growth are likely to affect more socially vulnerable populations. Growth strategies and green infrastructure are critical planning interventions for minimizing urbanization impacts and mitigating flooding hazards. Within the social-ecological systems planning framework, this empirical research evaluated the effects of planning interventions (infill development and stormwater detention) through a risk assessment in three studies. First, a climate sensitivity study using SWAT modeling was conducted for building a long-term flooding hazard index (HI) and determining climate change impact scenarios. A Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) was constructed using socio-economic variables and statistical methods. Subsequently, the long-term climate change-induced flooding risk index (RI) was formulated by multiplying HI and SoVI. Second, growth strategies in four future growth scenarios developed through the BMA ULTRA-ex project were evaluated through land use change input in SWAT modeling and under climate change impact scenarios for the effects on the risk indices. Third, detention under climate sensitivity study using SWAT modeling was investigated in relation to long-term flooding hazard indices. The results illustrated that increasing temperature decreases HI while increasing precipitation change and land use change would increase HI. In addition, there is a relationship between climate change and growth scenarios which illustrates a potential threshold when the impacts from land use and land cover change diminished under the High impact climate change scenario. Moreover, spatial analysis revealed no correlation between HI and SoVI in their current conditions. Nevertheless, the Current Trends scenario has planned to allocate more people living in the long-term climate change-induced flooding risk hotspots. Finally, the results of using 3% of the watershed area currently available for detention in the model revealed that a projected range of 0 to 8% watershed area would be required to mitigate climate change-induced flooding hazards to the current climate conditions. This research has demonstrated the value of using empirical study on a local scale in order to understand the place-based and watershed-specific flooding risks under linked social-ecological dynamics. The outcomes of evaluating planning interventions are critical to inform policy-makers and practitioners for setting climate change parameters in seeking innovations in planning policy and practices through a transdisciplinary participatory planning process. Subsequently, communities are able to set priorities for allocating resources in order to enhance people's livelihoods and invest in green infrastructure for building communities toward resilience and sustainability.

From 2007 to 2011, select Virginia localities were legislatively mandated to update their respective comprehensive plans to include Urban Development Areas. The completion of the Urban Development Area comprehensive plan requirement was complicated by uneven application and codification of the legislative mandate. In 2012, the Urban Development Area legislation had been reduced from a legislative mandate to a state enabled optional comprehensive plan element. This research examines the practice of comprehensive planning in the Commonwealth of Virginia during the Urban Development Area comprehensive plan update requirement to determine legislation outcomes and the effects of citizen participation in the comprehensive planning process in relation to organizational and planning practitioner outcomes. Select local jurisdictional planning organizations were studied using the organizational learning theories of Argyris and Schön in a mixed method research setting. Conclusions find the presence of limited learning systems (single loop planning) and limited modal learning occurring within the Commonwealth of Virginia\'s local jurisdictions, directly affecting completion of legislative mandates. Recommendations suggest modification of existing communal planning procedures at a local and state level to encourage citizen involvement and investment in comprehensive planning and future economic development. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

Urban containment programs may be evaluated in terms of a theory unifying contributions from the economic, geographic and political science disciplines. The unified theory shows that successful programs will segment the urban-rural land market, remove speculative use value of rural land, and result in the urban land market valuing greenbelt proximity as an amenity. A general model to test urban containment programs against the unified theory is developed and then modified for application to Salem, Oregon. Results are fourfold. First, a gap in the locus of urban and rural land values at the UGB indicates that segmentation of the urban-rural land market is associated with urban containment policies. Second, the simultaneous effect of imposing a UGB proximate to urban development and subjecting rural land to conservancy zoning is to remove the speculative value component of rural land and reveal Sinclair's (1967) underlying convex quadratic agricultural use land value gradient. This finding is important in two respects: (a) it confirms the possibility of Sinclair's gradient, which has not been supported empirically hitherto, and (b) it suggests that a program's success in preserving greenbelt land solely for agricultural uses can be evidenced if Sinclair's gradient is revealed. Third, the conditions under which a program may fail to preserve rural land from speculative behavior will be evidenced by the traditional negatively sloping land value gradient. Fourth, where urban development is proximate to a UGB delineating greenbelts, the urban land market will value its proximity as an amenity. This finding is important in two respects: (a) it suggests that proximity to privately owned greenbelts may be valued as an amenity in the urban land market, a finding which has not been reported empirically hitherto, and (b) if an urban land market has confidence in the ability of an urban containment program to prevent sprawl into greenbelts, then it will treat greenbelt proximity as an amenity. The unified theory and methodology developed by this dissertation are generalizable to the evaluation of other urban containment programs.

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A land use planning model was developed for long term planning of renewable natural resources development in the Hills of Nepal. Considerable emphasis was placed upon identifying land use planning problems for the prevalent limited market economy and subsistence farming system. A multiobjective programming model was chosen for modeling the land use planning problem. The model accommodated five objectives: namely, increasing food, fodder, and fuelwood production and decreasing soil loss and cost. A weighting technique within the multiobjective framework was developed to facilitate land use planning as a socio-political decision making process. The application of the model was demonstrated with data from Phewatal watershed. The model generated technically efficient alternative land use plans. It also generated information on time flow of achievement levels of the objectives and their trade-offs in each alternative plan. Very few alternative plans were generated when the periodic growth rates on achievement levels of the objectives were tightly constrained. The model also provided information on periodic deficit and surplus achievements of the objectives. This information provided the guidelines for evaluating the plans. The model provided a useful mathematical structure for analyzing land use planning as an integrated planning process coordinating multi-sectoral objectives in time and space. A foundation has been laid for constructing comprehensive land use planning models in subsistence farming economy in developing nations. The model was run on a commercially available software package and a portable personal computer. Therefore, the model can be applied in the field situation in many developing countries. / Ph. D. / incomplete_metadata

A Land Evaluation and Site Assessment system for Recreation (LESAR) was developed to provide those who wish to preserve lands suitable for recreational use with a quantifiable tool by which to do so. The framework of this system is patterned after the Soil Conservation Service's Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) system developed to evaluate land being considered for conversion of farmland to other uses. The new LESAR system utilizes a weighted factors approach and both resource based and non-resource based criteria by which to evaluate specific tracts of land for predetermined recreational uses. / M.L. Arch.