scholarly journals Resilience and green spaces: association with stress among contact centre agents in the Philippines

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celine P. Villanueva ◽  
Richard Braulio J. Labao ◽  
Katherine Regine Anne G. Tran ◽  
Nathaniel Reihann B. Gonzalez ◽  
Joseph M. Luna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Resilience Scale ◽  
Contact Centre ◽  
Study Sites

ABSTRACTThe work environment in Philippine contact centres had been shown to expose employees to factors that contribute to work-related stress; health promotion strategies that could mitigate the impacts are needed. With the framework that stress is experienced as a result of the interactions of an individual with the environment, this study examined the relationship of stress with individual resilience and the presence of urban green spaces (UGS) in the environment. The study involved employees (N = 186) from six contact centres in the capital region of the Philippines, where a large number of contact centre service providers are located. A two-stage survey was administered online using standardised instruments to measure stress (10-item Perceived Stress Scale) and resilience (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale), customised questions to gather demographic information, and open-ended questions to probe on participants’ insights. Google Earth Pro was used to conduct satellite mapping of UGS, followed by on-site ocular inspection. This study revealed that participants’ average stress level was categorised as high. The percentages of UGS in the vicinity of the study sites were categorised as low. Linear regression revealed that amongst individual and environment factors, resilience, household income, and awareness of UGS in the vicinity were significant predictors of the participants’ stress levels. Health promotion in Philippine contact centres could consider strategies that include resilience building, enhancing income security, and promoting the awareness of UGS within the workplace vicinity.

scholarly journals Analyzing the Level of Accessibility of Public Urban Green Spaces to Different Socially Vulnerable Groups of People

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3917 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Rahman ◽  
Dunfu Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Green Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
High Density ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Geographical Data ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Socially Vulnerable Groups

This study estimates the factors affecting socially vulnerable groups’ demand for and accessibility levels to green public spaces in Dhaka City, Bangladesh. Dhaka is a high-density city with one of the lowest levels of green space per capita in the world. Dhaka has just 8.5% of tree-covered lands, while an ideal city requires at least 20% of green space. Urban public green space provides a healthy environment to city dwellers as well as ecological soundness. This study aims to examine the effects of population density and size of a community area (Thana) on the social demand for and accessibility to green parks. To determine the socially vulnerable group demand index, this study used demographic data from the National Population and Housing Census 2011 conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. This study used geographical data extracted from Google Earth Pro to measure accessibility levels, and additionally analyzed geographical data with ArcGIS 10.0 and Google Earth Pro. We drew radius circles using Free Map Tools to measure time-distance weighted scores from community areas to urban green spaces. The results show that the large population size of socially vulnerable groups creates very high demand at the score of 0.61 for urban green public parks and small-sized, high-density community areas generate very good accessibility at 2.01% to green public spaces. These findings are highly useful to policymakers, urban planners, landscape engineers, and city governments to make a compact city sustainable, inclusive, and resilient. Moreover, the notion of a “smart city” might be a smart solution in order to manage Dhaka Megacity sustainably in this modern technological age.

scholarly journals Assessing Impacts of Urban Form on Landscape Structure of Urban Green Spaces in China Using Landsat Images Based on Google Earth Engine

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conghong Huang ◽  
Jun Yang ◽  
Peng Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Landscape Structure ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Road Density ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Google Earth Engine ◽  
Land Cover Maps

The structure of urban green spaces (UGS) plays an important role in determining the ecosystem services that they support. Knowledge of factors shaping landscape structure of UGS is imperative for planning and management of UGS. In this study, we assessed the influence of urban form on the structure of UGS in 262 cities in China based on remote sensing data. We produced land cover maps for 262 cities in 2015 using 6673 scenes of Landsat ETM+/OLI images based on the Google Earth Engine platform. We analyzed the impact of urban form on landscape structure of UGS in these cities using boosted regression tree analysis with the landscape and urban form metrics derived from the land cover maps as response and prediction variables, respectively. The results showed that the three urban form metrics—perimeter area ratio, road density, and compound terrain complexity index—were all significantly correlated with selected landscape metrics of UGS. Cities with high road density had less UGS area and the UGS in those cities was more fragmented. Cities with complex built-up boundaries tended to have more fragmented UGS. Cities with high terrain complexity had more UGS but the UGS were more fragmented. Our results for the first time revealed the importance of urban form on shaping landscape structure of UGS in 262 cities at a national scale.

scholarly journals Rapid Mapping and Annual Dynamic Evaluation of Quality of Urban Green Spaces on Google Earth Engine

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 670
Author(s):  
Qiang Chen ◽  
Cuiping Zhong ◽  
Changfeng Jing ◽  
Yuanyuan Li ◽  
Beilei Cao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Urban Area ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Dynamic Evaluation ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Rapid Mapping ◽  
Google Earth Engine

In order to achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to green spaces, monitoring dynamic urban green spaces (UGSs) in cities around the world is crucial. Continuous dynamic UGS mapping is challenged by large computation, time consumption, and energy consumption requirements. Therefore, a fast and automated workflow is needed to produce a high-precision UGS map. In this study, we proposed an automatic workflow to produce up-to-date UGS maps using Otsu’s algorithm, a Random Forest (RF) classifier, and the migrating training samples method in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. We took the central urban area of Beijing, China, as the study area to validate this method, and we rapidly obtained an annual UGS map of the central urban area of Beijing from 2016 to 2020. The accuracy assessment results showed that the average overall accuracy (OA) and kappa coefficient (KC) were 96.47% and 94.25%, respectively. Additionally, we used six indicators to measure quality and temporal changes in the UGS spatial distribution between 2016 and 2020. In particular, we evaluated the quality of UGS using the urban greenness index (UGI) and Shannon’s diversity index (SHDI) at the pixel level. The experimental results indicate the following: (1) The UGSs in the center of Beijing increased by 48.62 km2 from 2016 to 2020, and the increase was mainly focused in Chaoyang, Fengtai, and Shijingshan Districts. (2) The average proportion of relatively high and above levels (UGI > 0.5) in six districts increased by 2.71% in the study area from 2016 to 2020, and this proportion peaked at 36.04% in 2018. However, our result revealed that the increase was non-linear during this assessment period. (3) Although there was no significant increase or decrease in SHDI values in the study area, the distribution of the SHDI displayed a noticeable fluctuation in the northwest, southwest, and northeast regions of the study area between 2016 and 2020. Furthermore, we discussed and analyzed the influence of population on the spatial distribution of UGSs. We found that three of the five cold spots were located in the east and southeast of Haidian District. Therefore, the proposed workflow could provide rapid mapping and dynamic evaluation of the quality of UGS.

scholarly journals Tweeting the High Line Life: A Social Media Lens on Urban Green Spaces

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8895
Author(s):  
Jisoo Sim ◽  
Patrick Miller ◽  
Samarth Swarup
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Housing Prices ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Social Media Analytics ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
High Line ◽  
Study Sites ◽  
Media Data

The objective of this study is to investigate elevated parks as urban green spaces using social media data analytics. Two popular elevated parks, the High Line Park in New York and the 606 in Chicago, were selected as the study sites. Tweets mentioning the two parks were collected from 2015 to 2019. By using text mining, social media users’ sentiments and conveyed perceptions about the elevated parks were studied. In addition, users’ activities and their satisfaction were analyzed. For the 606, users mainly enjoyed the free events at the park and worried about possible increases in housing prices and taxes because of the 606. They tended to participate in physical activities such as biking and walking. Although the 606 provides scenic observation points, users did not seem to enjoy these. Regarding the High Line, users frequently mentioned New York City, which is an important aspect of the identity of the park. The High Line users also frequently mentioned arts and relaxation. Overall, this study supports the idea that social media analytics can be used to gain an understanding of the public’s use of urban green spaces and their attitudes and concerns.

scholarly journals Local Community Perceptions of the Ecological and Socio-Economic Benefits of Spiders in Small-Scale Urban Green Spaces for Conservation Reinforcement

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-123
Author(s):  
Brian Tampos Sabanal ◽  
◽  
Marion John Michael Macapil Achondo ◽  
Lief Erikson Diocampo Gamalo ◽  
Pedro Alviola IV ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Ecological Roles ◽  
Survey Questionnaires

Spiders are among the most ubiquitous arthropods that can dwell on diverse habitats, which include small-scale urban green spaces (UGS). To promote urban diversity, we assessed the awareness of a local community situated within UGS in Davao, Philippines about the ecological roles of spiders. Data were obtained by administering survey questionnaires to 80 households using convenience sampling. The survey revealed that the local community is knowledgeable on the occurrence of spiders in their area (97.5%), in which they are mostly acquainted with spiders of Pisauridae (25%) and Araneidae (20.3%). Also, the community has recognized the important ecological roles of spiders, in which they mostly acknowledged the role of spiders as a significant source of food for other organisms (71.62%). However, a high proportion of respondents also recognized the socio-economic benefits of spiders through spider wrestling (60.81%). Henceforth, the ecological roles of spiders could be subjugated as spider wrestling is practiced in the local community, which could be a possible threat to the spider population. Thus, we highly suggest to involve concerned local communities in urban biodiversity management for the conservation of spiders in the Philippines, which is highly at risk due to its perceived socio-economic benefits.

scholarly journals Challenges to the Multi-Functional Uses and Multifarious Benefits of Urban Green Spaces: Basis of Urban Biodiversity Planning and Management in the City of Manila, Philippines

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Leonora Gonzales ◽  
Dina Magnaye
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Urban Biodiversity ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Planning And Management ◽  
Biodiversity Planning

Urbanization is a global phenomenon which is projected by the United Nations to grow annually at 65 million between 2000 and 2030 in developing countries. As an archipelagic nation, the Philippines is considered as a highly urbanized nation where over three-fourths of its population is estimated to reside in urban areas, posting a proportion of one person residing in rural area for every three in urban area. The National Capital Region (NCR), the core region of the counry, registers a 100% urbanization level and where the most densely populated areas converged. It generally exhibits an urban population growth rate that exceeds the national growth rate. Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, is the second largest and the world’s most densely populated city given its small land area and huge human population. The concentration of people in this city and the urbanization processes are foreseen to create environmental stress leading to potential biodiversity losses coupled with other urban environmental occurrences such as flooding, air pollution, sea level rise, earthquake, subsidence, traffic congestion, water pollution, among others. These natural and man-made hazards pose challenge to the multi-functional uses and various benefits of urban green spaces (UGS). UGS play a significant role in enhancing the quality and resiliency of the environment as well as in improving the health and general well being of city dwellers. It is in this context that the challenges and opportunities of UGS are examined. The paper attempts to identify and determine the factors that influence UGS as basis for urban biodiversity planning and management.

A Preliminary Assessment on the Herpetofaunal Diversity of the Taal Volcano Protected Landscape (TVPL), Batangas Philippines

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Endemic Species ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Ecological Community ◽  
Preliminary Assessment ◽  
Taal Volcano ◽  
Reptile Species ◽  
Frog Species ◽  
Increasing Trend ◽  
Baseline Information ◽  
Study Sites

The Taal Volcano Protected Landscape (TVPL) encompasses a prehistoric volcano caldera that caters to many documented endemic species. Although regarded as a unique area with the potential to house a diverse ecological community, biodiversity research in TVPL is still found wanting. The present paper aims to provide baseline information and increase research interests on the herpetofaunal diversity of TVPL, in light of its many undocumented terrestrial faunal species. Twelve study sites within the municipalities of Tanauan, Mataasnakahoy, and Balete were visited during survey trips from May to November 2015. A combination of transect and opportunistic sampling techniques were utilized, with morphometric data and sexual maturity recorded for each specimen collected. This preliminary survey provided 24 newly documented species of amphibians and reptiles occurring within TVPL. A total 10 frog species (from families Bufonidae, Ceratobatrachidae, Microhylidae, Dicroglossidae, Ranidae, and Rhacophoridae) and 14 reptile species (from families Agamidae, Gekkonidae, Scincidae, Varanidae, Acrochordidae, Colubridae, Elapidae, and Tryonychidae) were documented. Of the reptiles recorded, 3 are endemic species and widespread throughout the Philippines: Gekko mindorensis, Hydrosaurus pustulatus, and Draco spilopterus. Also recorded were the Philippine endemic frogs Kaloula picta and Limnonectes woodworthi along with the Luzon endemics Platymantis mimulus and Varanus marmoratus. The species-effort curve of amphibians showed a distinct plateau whereas the species-effort curve of reptiles has shown an increasing trend suggesting that additional sampling efforts should be done in the area to further increase knowledge of the TVPL herpetofaunal diversity.

Engagement, Innovation, and Impact in a Dietitian Contact Centre: The EatRight Ontario Experience

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 106-111
Author(s):  
Cameron D. Norman ◽  
Helen Haresign ◽  
Barry Forer ◽  
Christine Mehling ◽  
Judith Krajnak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Professional Support ◽  
Service Access ◽  
Nutritional Knowledge ◽  
Dietary Changes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contact Centre ◽  
The Impact

Purpose: EatRight Ontario (ERO), a multi-modal dietitian service (phone, email, web), provided the public and health intermediaries with healthy eating advice, professional support, and health promotion tools from 2007 to 2018. An evaluation of ERO was conducted to assess the impact of the model on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour for consumers, utilization, and support levels and satisfaction provided to health intermediaries. Methods: Consumer clients were sent a survey 1–4 weeks after using the ERO service to capture self-reported dietary changes, intentions, nutritional knowledge, and satisfaction. Health intermediaries were recruited through an electronic ERO newsletter and asked about how ERO supported their practice. Results: Of the 867 consumer respondents, 92% had either made a change or indicated that information from ERO confirmed their present behaviour, and 96% indicated they would recommend the services to others. Of the 337 health intermediaries who responded 71% indicated that ERO provided services they could not deliver. Conclusions: ERO’s multi-modal dietitian contact centre provides a model for implementing successful remote service access for consumers and professionals to support healthy eating across diverse demographics and geographies, including those in geographically underserved areas.

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