Mark Groulx

Effective Environmental Visualization for Urban Planning and Design: Interdisciplinary Reflections on a Rapidly Evolving Technology

Visioning exercises using computer-based environmental visualization hold significant promise for communicating information and engaging communities in the development and review of planning proposals. The field of visualization research and practice has achieved significant advances in computer technology to the point where it is now possible to represent alternative planning and engineering scenarios with a high degree of photographic realism, data-driven accuracy, and spatial and temporal interactivity. However, the gap in our understanding of what static, video, and agent-based visualization technologies can do and how they should be applied to facilitate rather than frustrate participatory planning has expanded considerably. In the following discussion, the authors discuss the meaning and significance of effective visualization use for urban planning and design. Drawing on developments and principles from related disciplines where visualization tools are developed and applied (e.g., architecture, landscape architecture, resource management, transportation engineering) we present a case for minimum standards in visualization preparation and presentation, the use of “null alternative” scenarios for plan development and review, research to address the “perceptual effectiveness” of video-based formats, and collaborative technology development.

A Role for Nature-Based Citizen Science in Promoting Individual and Collective Climate Change Action? A Systematic Review of Learning Outcomes:

As a model of communication and engagement, citizen science has the potential to promote individual and collective climate change action. This article systematically reviewed literature that jointly addressed climate change and nature-based citizen science and identified 23 reported learning outcomes. Overall, evidence related to learning outcomes was limited across reviewed studies, but documentation of outcomes that are directly relevant to collective climate action was particularly scarce. Findings suggest more research examining citizen science from a collective climate action perspective is needed. To support future research efforts, results link the 23 revealed learning outcomes to two potential evaluation frameworks.

Understanding consumer behaviour and adaptation planning responses to climate-driven environmental change in Canada's parks and protected areas: a climate futurescapes approach

Parks and protected areas are a global ecological, social and health resource visited by over 8 billion people annually. Their use can yield substantial benefits, but only if a balance between ecological integrity and sustainable visitation is struck. This research explores the potential influence of climate-driven environmental change on visitation to North Americas most popular glacier, the Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Canada. Photorealistic environmental visualizations were used to gauge visitors’ perceptions of environmental change and potential impacts on consumer behaviour. Results suggest that impacts could substantially diminish the sites pull as a tourism destination. Rather than improving visitation prospects, expert-proposed adaptations underestimated the importance of perceived naturalness and contributed to further potential decline. Findings are relevant to protected areas planning and management. They suggest that a natural path to climate change adaptation is the best way to support both ecological integrity and the long-term tourism pull of protected areas.

Policy and management recommendations informed by the health benefits of visitor experiences in Alberta's protected areas.

Executive Summary: Leisure in parks and other forms of protected areas are connected to an individual’s health and well-being. In this paper, we report on the results of a multi-year study that surveyed 1,515 visitors to three Provincial Parks and three Kananaskis Country Provincial Recreation Areas in Alberta, Canada. Results revealed several important findings with significant policy and planning implications for Alberta Parks, as well as the international parks and protected area community more broadly. Findings show that anticipated human health and well-being benefits were a major factor motivating individuals’ decision to visit a park or protected area. Perceived psychological/emotional benefits (89.1% of visitors), social benefits (88.3%), physical benefits (80.3%) and environmental well-being benefits (79.4%) were deemed the most important motivations. However, there was a negative correlation between age and each of these perceived benefits, indicating that older visitors were less motivated to visit protected areas for these reasons. Perceived benefits (outcomes) followed a similar pattern to motivations. The most improved factors were psychological/emotional (90.5%), social (85%), and physical well-being (77.6%). A demographic analysis revealed that females rated financial, social, psychological/emotional and spiritual well-being motivations higher than males. Income and education were also positively related to individuals’ ratings of physical, psychological and environmental well-being. Interestingly, health motivations and benefits (or outcomes) were correlated highly with nature relatedness, meaning the more connected one is to nature, the greater the motivation to visit parks and the greater the health and well-being benefits received from park experiences. Overall, this study represents the largest examination of the human health and well-being benefits associated with visitor experiences in a Canadian protected areas context. The results substantiate the need for park organizations to better understand the “service provider” – “client” relationship from a human health and well-being perspective so that integrated policies and visitor experience programs can be developed or enhanced where appropriate. The Alberta Parks Division, and the international protected areas community more broadly, should actively develop the social science foundation internally, and externally (through partnerships with the social science research community), to ensure that decisions are science-based, society-oriented, and effective at meeting both conservation and visitor experience objectives. Finally, our research indicates the need for a better empirical understanding of the human health and well-being motivations and benefits of visitors representing different social and population subgroups (e.g., youth, elderly, couples, family units, new immigrants) and of the role of distinct natural environments in health promotion.

“The End of the Ice Age?”: Disappearing World Heritage and the Climate Change Communication Imperative

ABSTRACT Rapid environmental change in vulnerable destinations has stimulated a new form of travel termed “last chance tourism” (LCT). Studies have examined the risks of LCT, while leaving potential opportunities within this new tourism market largely underexplored. Results of survey (n = 399) research in Jasper National Park, Canada reveal that a LCT motivation influences decisions to visit this iconic Canadian destination, and suggest that this motivation is linked to a desire to learn about the impacts of climate change on the Athabasca Glacier. Findings suggest there may be short to medium term opportunities associated with LCT, including promoting climate change ambassadorship through management interventions. This paper discusses a range of possible education, interpretive, and outreach activities that might be employed at LCT destinations. It outlines the relative merits (or what we refer to as “uneasy benefits”) of promoting the glacier and other LCT destinations within a protected areas management and climate change adaptation context.

“Other people’s initiatives”: exploring mediation and appropriation of place as barriers to community-based climate change adaptation

ABSTRACT Adaptation planning at the community level takes on various forms. It generally involves a process of defining climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and actions that can build community resilience. Typically, these processes rely on climate experts and policy-makers to define what is at risk, and therefore what is worthy of investment and protection. Emerging approaches to community-based adaptation-planning advocate for stronger community control over these processes. Drawing on a place-based approach to adaptation, this paper examines place meaning as a co-constructed process. It explores how this process shapes opportunities for community-based climate action in Churchill, Canada. Results indicate that community members acknowledge many competing threats to their sense of place, and suggest that this competition may reduce the perceived need to prioritise climate action to protect connections to place. Results also reveal a concern among community members that local place identity has been appropriated for economic gain, which may further reduce the drive to act in protection of an already exploited sense of place. Overall, findings support calls to adopt place-based perspectives to enhance the capacity of adaptation planning to understand local needs, values, and levers for action.

Merely “Design Marketing”?: Professional Perspectives on the Use and Misuse of Environmental Visualizations in Community Engagement

Environmental visualizations can improve the publics’ understanding of spatial information and enhance dialogue during community engagement. By interviewing and surveying planning and design professionals, this study examines motivations for using environmental visualizations in community engagement. Professionals recognize the communicative benefits of environmental visualizations, but also acknowledge that they are sometimes used to constrain public debate by enhancing project imagibility. This article contributes to a critical assessment of the ethical use of environmental visualization by exploring techniques and practices that can create misinformation within community engagement. Overall findings contribute to a clearer understanding of environmental visualizations as a form of design marketing.