Scott N. Lieske

Enhancing Comprehensive Planning with Public Engagement and Planning Support Integration

Standing at the forefront of proven methods for integrating planning support with land planning processes is a set of techniques for developing comprehensive plans with consistently high levels of community support. This public engagement based planning process has been used successfully for developing several comprehensive plans in the Rocky Mountain Region of the western United States. In this process, planning support instruments (PSI) are used to collect information and a planning support system (PSS) is used to integrate public values in the development of a concept plan which becomes the basis of the comprehensive plan.

Determining the Relationship between Urban Form and the Costs of Public Services

Dispersed development is often associated with negative externalities and ensuing external costs. As a consequence, there is a global need for informed decision making on issues of land-use change and conversion that includes the influences of differing urban forms on the costs of public services. In this paper we quantify a relationship between cost of services and urban form through the development of an econometric model for the provision of public safety for a county in the Mountain West of the USA. The research extends previous modeling of public services to include a spatial index representing urban form, the pattern of the built environment disaggregated by land use, as an explanatory variable for input cost. The use of an index allows quantifying and tracking changes in urban form over time. The index is based on the Morans I measure of spatial autocorrelation. It is calculated using the dollar values of buildings aggregated spatially within grid cells. By leveraging Morans I, the index captures local and global statistics representing the intensity of the built environment by land-use category. Local Morans I statistics quantify the contribution of individual cells to overall clustering. Global Morans I statistics are suitable for inclusion as a spatial index in time series regression analysis. Results suggest residential development is a statistically significant driver of local government expenditures on inputs to policing services. This paper contributes to the literature on fiscal impact analysis by incorporating a measure of urban form as a determinant of local government expenditures on services and, ultimately, on the level of service provision. This provides a direct link between urban form and the cost of public services.

Using participatory visual methods for information exchange about climate risk in canal estate communities

Kilometres of high-value residential real estate have been created through the development of canal estates in low-lying coastal areas of Southeast Queensland, Australia, since the 1970s. Many of these are predicted to be affected by the combined effects of climate change: sea level rise, storm surge and severe weather events. This research identifies perceptions and understanding of vulnerability to climate change of residents of one canal estate. It compares the effectiveness of four participatory visual methods for information exchange and dialogue about climate change risk: risk maps (flood hazard), participatory planning (digital mapping of vulnerable areas), Photovoice (resident-derived photos) and 3D climate change scenarios. Participants favoured the 3D visualisation for its realistic representation of flood heights in a streetview and ability to focus in on particular sites. This interactive engagement approach will benefit State and local governments, the property market and communities in communicating about climate change in coastal areas in general and in considering responses to the long-term impacts of climate change in canal estates in particular.

Rapid regional-scale assessments of socio-economic vulnerability to climate change

Assessing socio-economic vulnerability to climate change impacts to support regional decision-making is conceptually and practically challenging. We report on research that tested a rapid assessment approach of socio-economic vulnerability in Australias natural resource management regions. The approach focuses on regionally important economic sectors, identified using existing datasets, which are likely to be sensitive to climate change impacts. Disaggregated spatial representations of factors known to be associated with vulnerability function as multiple lines of evidence for highlighting intra-regional hotspots of high potential vulnerability. Our results show that a small number of factors based upon contextually relevant empirical evidence offers a low-cost, rapid assessment process, which is readily transferable across regions and provides end-users with guidance for interpreting the results within the context of regional conditions.

Indigenous Land Management in Peri-Urban Landscapes: An Australian Example

ABSTRACT This article examines roles, opportunities, and challenges for Indigenous land management in rapidly developing landscapes through a case study of Bunya Bunya Country Aboriginal Corporation, a not-for-profit organization on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. An analysis of data collected through semistructured interviews, participant observation, and analysis of secondary sources reveals that Aboriginal land managers work in a variety of roles to manage issues affecting the local environment and cultural heritage sites. These efforts are challenged by the absence of Native Title and colonial land management policies, which restrict Aboriginal involvement in land management. We conclude that there is a need for alternative pathways to engage with Aboriginal land managers who cannot, or choose not to, proceed with Native Title. Decolonized decision-making tools and sustainable enterprises are viable opportunities that partially address these challenges and could deliver tangible socio-economic and cultural benefits to local Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

Planning Support Systems for Fiscally Sustainable Planning

Local government’s need for accurate assessments and projections of the fiscal consequences of development is well established and persistent. This analysis demonstrates the use of a geographic information science-based planning support system to project residential growth and the fiscal consequences of development. The cornerstone of the analysis is a spatial index of urban form which captures clustering and dispersion of the built environment. A regression model indicates the spatial index to be a statistically significant determinant of expenditures on policing services in the study area. Modelled future growth was spatially and temporally disaggregated to indicate future residential growth at different planning horizons. Spatial indices were calculated for these planning horizons and incorporated into the econometric model for ceteris paribus evaluation of the effect of change in urban form on public service expenditures. Results demonstrate planning informed by PSS modelling has the potential to realize savings on public service expenditures.

The Impact of Residential Development Pattern on Wildland Fire Suppression Expenditures

Despite a growing body of literature on the economics of wildland fire suppression, the effect of development pattern in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) has received only cursory treatment. We model the relationship between fire suppression expenditures and the spatial pattern of residential development using data from 281 fires in the northern Rocky Mountains. We find that the effect of WUI development on suppression expenditures is dependent on the spatial pattern of development. Our results suggest that policies to control the spatial pattern of WUI development can be nearly as effective as policies that completely restrict WUI development. (JEL C51, Q23)

Food security, remoteness and consolidation of supermarket distribution centres: Factors contributing to food pricing inequalities across Queensland, Australia

ABSTRACT There is a clear association between food prices, affordability and issues of food security. Australian food supply chains have lengthened in recent years in response to consolidation policies of the dominant supermarkets, which have reduced the number of distribution centres in order to maximise economic efficiencies. This study presents a spatial analysis of a healthy food basket survey undertaken across Queensland, Australia in order to identify the primary determinants of food pricing. Ambiguity in the academic literature on this subject is largely due to limitations of the utilised methods. Our results indicate that food price variability is directly related to the type of store surveyed, and the distance of the surveyed store to the supermarket distribution centres in Brisbane, or urban centres on the east coast of Australia. Population size of towns and the level of social disadvantage observed in communities were indirect determinants of food prices. Therefore, in order to lessen the disadvantage already encountered by communities located in outer regional and remote areas who pay increasingly more for food than their urban counterparts, policy interventions need to move beyond subsiding food costs and consider the relationship between fuel prices and the lengthening of dominant food supply chains, in addition to the capacity of local supply chains.

Siting Carbon Conversion Energy Facilities With Spatial Multicriteria Decision Analysis

Wyoming is known for its abundance of fossil fuels, and has a significant infrastructure to support the production of these traditional energy resources. With increased demand for more diverse energy sources, a need has emerged to pursue new, innovative energy development approaches. This article describes the application of spatial multicriteria analysis to explore potential for carbon conversion energy facilities in Wyoming. Spatial multicriteria analysis is an important capability of geographic information systems, applying multiple criteria evaluation to place-based problems such as facilities siting. Two cases are presented concerning synthetic gas production—the siting of a small-scale coal gasification facility to support a public–private research partnership, and development of a statewide suitability model for commercialization of high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor technology. Results demonstrate that success and challenges with multicriteria techniques are influenced by the availability of quality geospatial data, accessibility of computational processing resources, and committed engagement and utilization of domain experts.

Visualising climate change: a guide to visual communication of climate change and developing local solutions

(marginalised ‘Old World’ peoples) and the religious/spiritual under the banner of ‘radical’ creates an uncertain marriage whose underlying tensions are glossed over by the text for now the close-knit academic radical human ecology fraternity appears to be holding it together. Nonetheless, aside from challenging one’s thinking, the book is worth dipping into by academics and practitioners alike just to get a sense of the alternatives to compartmentalising and ‘dehumanising’ the environment through conventional techno-scientific approaches to environmental problems. With Indigenous self-determination ascendant domestically since Mabo and ‘free, prior and informed consent’ internationally since the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous perspectives are no longer an anthropological curiosity but increasingly an integral part of environmental and natural resources management.