Luis E. Santiago

Socioeconomic drivers of yard sustainable practices in a tropical city

A growing body of work has emphasized the importance of residential areas to the overall green infrastructure of cities and recognizes that outcomes related to these areas are best studied using a social-ecological approach. We conducted vegetation surveys to evaluate yard practices that relate to the state of the yard vegetation, including species diversity and abundance, vegetation structure, and the percent of green area of yards versus paved areas, at the Rio Piedras watershed within the San Juan metropolitan area. We used concomitant social household surveys to evaluate the association of social-economic and demographic factors at the household scale with these vegetation characteristics, as well as with landscape-level characteristics related to urban morphology and elevation. Our results for this tropical site were consistent with studies elsewhere in that a greater number of social factors at the household scale were more important in explaining the traits related to how green the yards were. On the other hand, we failed to detect the so-called luxury effect on urban vegetation encountered at many sites. Instead, we found consistent vegetation associations with the age of the residents, housing ownership, and, most importantly, with yard size. We have discussed the potential reasons for these discrepancies and the potential consequences of the human–natural links at the household scale to the future dynamics of this portion of the green infrastructure within this urban watershed.

Food Sources and Accessibility and Waste Disposal Patterns across an Urban Tropical Watershed: Implications for the Flow of Materials and Energy

Appraising the social-ecological processes influencing the inflow, transformation, and storage of materials and energy in urban ecosystems requires scientific attention. This appraisal can provide an important tool for assessing the sustainability of cities. Socioeconomic activities are mostly responsible for these fluxes, which are well manifested in the household unit. Human behavior associated with cultural traditions, belief systems, knowledge, and lifestyles are important drivers controlling the transfer of materials throughout the urban environment. Within this context, we explored three aspects of household consumption and waste disposal activities along the Rio Piedras Watershed in the San Juan metropolitan area of Puerto Rico. These included: the source of food consumed by residents, recycling activities, and trends in connection to the municipality’s sewerage system. We randomly interviewed 440 households at 6 sites along the watershed. We also conducted analysis to estimate accessibility to commercial food services for residents in the study areas. Our surveys revealed that nearly all interviewed households (~97%) consumed products from supermarkets. In neighborhoods of the upper portion of the watershed, where residential density is low with large areas of vegetative cover, more than 60% of residents consumed food items cultivated in their yards. Less than 36% of residents in the in densely urbanized parts of the lower portion of the watershed consumed items from their yards. Accessibility to commercial stores for food consumption contrasted among study sites. Recycling activities were mostly carried out by residents in the lower portion of the watershed, with better access to recycling programs provided by the municipality. The surveys also revealed that only 4 to 17% of residences in the upper watershed are connected to the sewerage system whereas the large majority uses septic tanks for septic water disposal. For these residents wastewater from house maintenance is disposed of directly into the environment. In the lower portion of the watershed all residents were connected to the sewerage system. Our study suggests there is a need to understand human behavioral attitudes in the acquirement and processing of resources, as a tool to generate informed-based strategies promoting sustainable consumption and disposal patterns.

Recreation benefits of natural area characteristics at the El Yunque National Forest

The paper applies the Contingent Valuation Method using a visitor survey to determine trip values to three rivers in northeastern Puerto Rico. Sample data were obtained from 984 interviews conducted in 13 sites during the summer months. The trip value is statistically decomposed into components representing natural features and recreation activities. The median net economic value of a river visit without waterfalls or foot trails is

The Impact of Industrial Relocation on Displaced Workers: A Case Study of Cortland, New York

96. Recreation at rivers with both waterfalls and foot trails has a median value of

Testing differences in estimation of river recreation benefits for international and domestic tourists as a function of single- versus multiple-destination day trips.

138 per trip. The presence of waterfalls accounts for

Intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of yard vegetation in urban residential areas: implications for conservation planning

23 and foot trails

Uneven Access and Underuse of Ecological Amenities in Urban Parks of the Río Piedras Watershed

19 per trip. This information can be pertinent for managers in selecting recreation site locations and protecting them from competing uses.

Effects of construction and operation phases on residential property prices of the Caribbean's first modern rail transit system

The increasing globalization of production and its intensification through trade liberalization schemes create challenges for local economic development. On July 21, 1992, the Smith-Corona Corporation announced its decision to transfer its manufacturing operations from Cortland, New York, to Tijuana, Mexico. The resulting worker dislocation led to a more flexible labor market, but at the expense of workers’ (particularly women’s) security. In addition, dislocated workers experienced significant income losses and increasing wage inequality, even after receiving additional training. Finally, programs functioning at the state level were useful for workers, but the article shows that a greater awareness of the gender dimensions of training is necessary.

Valuing Urban Tropical River Recreation Attributes Using Choice Experiments

Past comparisons of willingness-to-pay (WTP) tended to focus on differences between international tourists and domestic tourists. However, this simple distinction does not account for whether visitors from each of the two groups are on multiple-destination trips or not. Our study of visitors to Puerto Ricos rainforest found that whether tourists were on multiple-destination trips or not was an equally important determinant of WTP. Specifically, while WTP of international tourists on multiple-destination trips was the highest at nearly

Is the Bias - Efficiency Estimation Tradeoffs in Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice CVM Less Pronounced Using Visitor Survey Data?

200 per trip, the second highest was domestic tourists on multiple-destination trips at