scholarly journals Footprinting New Zealand urban forms and lifestyles

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ella Susanne Lawton
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Ecological Footprint ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Household Energy ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Lifestyle Choices ◽  
Diverse Groups

<p>More than 90% of New Zealand’s ecological footprint results from the lifestyle choices of individuals, although the size and impact of their lifestyle footprint depends on the type of urban form in which they live.  The aim of this research is to highlight the degree to which New Zealanders are living beyond their fair earth share and how this appears through lifestyles. As the population continues to increase and resources become scarce, it is vital that both governments and communities have effective resource accounting tools to inform further urban development, given its influence on resource use. The thesis highlights how urban form could reduce barriers to people’s future wellbeing and it identifies the types of lifestyles that support a shift towards lower footprint living.  To understand how the ecological footprint of New Zealand’s communities is generated by a combination of the community members’ lifestyle choices and interaction with their urban form, the research comprised five steps.  1. Designing a footprint method and calculating local footprint yields for the New Zealand context.  2. Calculating the New Zealand footprint in nine categories: food and beverages, travel, consumer goods, holidays, household energy, housing, infrastructure, government and services.  3. Creating a calculator and survey, and collecting household footprint data from five New Zealand communities.  4. Processing data and analysing community results highlighting differences and similarities between them.  5. Using the community output creating fair earth share scenarios which highlight those footprint categories within each urban form that provide the best opportunity for reducing a community’s footprint.  Throughout this project the ecological footprint has been an effective indicator which has provided the means to communicate complex environmental data in a simplified form to diverse groups. The project used the ecological footprint to measure and communicate the trends that are putting pressure on the planet’s finite availability of land; a growing demand and the decreasing supply. It was found to be an effective communication tool for both communities and local government organisations that formed a way of discussing how to reduce their footprint in the future.  Although many New Zealand lifestyles exist in a variety of types of urban form, some lifestyle types are more typical in certain urban forms. Food was found to be the predominant driver of a household’s footprint. Use of commercial land for growing, on-farm inputs and food processing made up the largest portion of the food footprint. Holidays and pets were also large contributors to an individual’s footprint. Due to the high amount of renewable energy that goes into producing New Zealand’s electricity, household energy was proportionally much less than found in similar international footprint case studies.  The final scenarios show that fair earth share living in New Zealand is possible; some individuals are already doing it. However bringing about large-scale change will require collective community strategic planning, planning tools to develop resource efficient urban design, and immediate action.</p>

scholarly journals Footprinting New Zealand urban forms and lifestyles

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ella Susanne Lawton
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Ecological Footprint ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Household Energy ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Lifestyle Choices ◽  
Diverse Groups

<p>More than 90% of New Zealand’s ecological footprint results from the lifestyle choices of individuals, although the size and impact of their lifestyle footprint depends on the type of urban form in which they live.  The aim of this research is to highlight the degree to which New Zealanders are living beyond their fair earth share and how this appears through lifestyles. As the population continues to increase and resources become scarce, it is vital that both governments and communities have effective resource accounting tools to inform further urban development, given its influence on resource use. The thesis highlights how urban form could reduce barriers to people’s future wellbeing and it identifies the types of lifestyles that support a shift towards lower footprint living.  To understand how the ecological footprint of New Zealand’s communities is generated by a combination of the community members’ lifestyle choices and interaction with their urban form, the research comprised five steps.  1. Designing a footprint method and calculating local footprint yields for the New Zealand context.  2. Calculating the New Zealand footprint in nine categories: food and beverages, travel, consumer goods, holidays, household energy, housing, infrastructure, government and services.  3. Creating a calculator and survey, and collecting household footprint data from five New Zealand communities.  4. Processing data and analysing community results highlighting differences and similarities between them.  5. Using the community output creating fair earth share scenarios which highlight those footprint categories within each urban form that provide the best opportunity for reducing a community’s footprint.  Throughout this project the ecological footprint has been an effective indicator which has provided the means to communicate complex environmental data in a simplified form to diverse groups. The project used the ecological footprint to measure and communicate the trends that are putting pressure on the planet’s finite availability of land; a growing demand and the decreasing supply. It was found to be an effective communication tool for both communities and local government organisations that formed a way of discussing how to reduce their footprint in the future.  Although many New Zealand lifestyles exist in a variety of types of urban form, some lifestyle types are more typical in certain urban forms. Food was found to be the predominant driver of a household’s footprint. Use of commercial land for growing, on-farm inputs and food processing made up the largest portion of the food footprint. Holidays and pets were also large contributors to an individual’s footprint. Due to the high amount of renewable energy that goes into producing New Zealand’s electricity, household energy was proportionally much less than found in similar international footprint case studies.  The final scenarios show that fair earth share living in New Zealand is possible; some individuals are already doing it. However bringing about large-scale change will require collective community strategic planning, planning tools to develop resource efficient urban design, and immediate action.</p>

The Results of Making a City More Compact: Neighbours' Interpretation of Urban Infill

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 715-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Vallance ◽  
Harvey C Perkins ◽  
Kevin Moore
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Growth Management ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Contentious Issue ◽  
Local Residents

The quest for more sustainable urban forms has added renewed vigour to urban planning, with various types of urban infill and intensification becoming increasingly popular with local authorities. These approaches seek to achieve environmental and social objectives but, despite the supposed advantages of a more consolidated urban form, infill housing as a strategy for growth management is not always well received by local residents and it remains a contentious issue. In this paper the authors report on an enquiry into neighbours' interpretations of, and responses to, infill housing in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Partnerships Generate Co-Benefits in Agricultural Stream Restoration (Canterbury, New Zealand)

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine M. Febria ◽  
Maggie Bayfield ◽  
Kathryn E. Collins ◽  
Hayley S. Devlin ◽  
Brandon C. Goeller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystem ◽  
Reduced Pressure ◽  
Ecosystem Integrity ◽  
Riparian Management ◽  
Scale Change ◽  
Large Scale Change

In Aotearoa New Zealand, agricultural land-use intensification and decline in freshwater ecosystem integrity pose complex challenges for science and society. Despite riparian management programmes across the country, there is frustration over a lack in widespread uptake, upfront financial costs, possible loss in income, obstructive legislation and delays in ecological recovery. Thus, social, economic and institutional barriers exist when implementing and assessing agricultural freshwater restoration. Partnerships are essential to overcome such barriers by identifying and promoting co-benefits that result in amplifying individual efforts among stakeholder groups into coordinated, large-scale change. Here, we describe how initial progress by a sole farming family at the Silverstream in the Canterbury region, South Island, New Zealand, was used as a catalyst for change by the Canterbury Waterway Rehabilitation Experiment, a university-led restoration research project. Partners included farmers, researchers, government, industry, treaty partners (Indigenous rights-holders) and practitioners. Local capacity and capability was strengthened with practitioner groups, schools and the wider community. With partnerships in place, co-benefits included lowered costs involved with large-scale actions (e.g., earth moving), reduced pressure on individual farmers to undertake large-scale change (e.g., increased participation and engagement), while also legitimising the social contracts for farmers, scientists, government and industry to engage in farming and freshwater management. We describe contributions and benefits generated from the project and describe iterative actions that together built trust, leveraged and aligned opportunities. These actions were scaled from a single farm to multiple catchments nationally.

scholarly journals Effects of Urban Forms on Separate Drainage Systems: A Virtual City Perspective

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia ◽  
Sitzenfrei ◽  
Rauch ◽  
Liang ◽  
Liu
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Domestic Wastewater ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Drainage Systems ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Storm Water Management Model ◽  
Wastewater Systems ◽  
Performance Dimensions

The development of urban drainage systems is challenged by rapid urbanization; however, little attention is paid to the urban form and its effects on these systems. This study develops an integrated city-drainage model that configures typical urban forms and their associated drainage infrastructures, specifically domestic wastewater and rainwater systems, to analyze the relationship between them. Three typical types of urban forms were investigated: the square, the star, and the strip. Virtual cities were designed first, with the corresponding drainage systems generated automatically and then linked to a model herein called the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). Evaluation was based on 200 random configurations of wastewater/rainwater systems with different structures or attributes. The results show that urban forms play more important roles on three dimensions of performance, namely economic efficiency, effectiveness, and adaptability, of the rainwater systems than of the wastewater systems. Cost is positively correlated to the effectiveness of rainwater systems among the different urban forms, while adaptability is negatively correlated to the other two performance dimensions. Regardless of the form, it is difficult for a city to make its drainage systems simultaneously cost-effective, efficient, and adaptable based on the virtual cities we investigated. This study could inspire the urban planning of both built-up and to-be-built areas to become more sustainable with their drainage infrastructure by recognizing the pros and cons of different macroscale urban forms.

scholarly journals The Geographical Distribution and Correlates of Pro-Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors in an Urban Region

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Áróra Árnadóttir ◽  
Michał Czepkiewicz ◽  
Jukka Heinonen
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
International Travel ◽  
Urban Region ◽  
Environmental Attitude ◽  
Environmental Behaviors ◽  
Household Energy ◽  
Carbon Footprints ◽  
Current Perspective

A lot of emphasis has been put on the densification of urban form to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. However, many recent studies have found that central urban dwellers, even though their carbon footprints of daily transportation may be lower, might be responsible for higher total emissions than those that reside in suburban areas. Similarly, as with the urban form, higher environmental concern is often considered as an indicator of lower emissions, but several studies have found that pro-environmental attitude (PEA) does not always correlate with less energy intensive behavior. This study analyzes how urban zones, PEA, and several sociodemographic variables are associated with annual travel emissions and pro-environmental behaviors (PEB), using a dataset collected with a map-based online survey (softGIS) survey, contributed by 841 participants from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (HMA), Finland. Although PEA can affect PEBs related to household energy consumption (β = 0.282, p < 0.001), clothing (β = 0.447, p < 0.001) and produce purchases (β = 0.449, p < 0.0001), their relationship with emissions from local (β = −0.067), national (β = −0.019) and international (β = −0.016) travel was not significant. Clusters of low emissions from local travel and high international travel emissions were found in pedestrian-oriented urban zones and residents of car-oriented zones were more likely to conserve household energy (β = 0.102, p < 0.05). These results might help broaden the current perspective of city planners, as well as identify opportunities for more effective mitigation policies.

Harvest rate of sooty shearwaters (Puffinus griseus) by Rakiura Māori: a potential tool to monitor population trends?

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Catherine Kitson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Population Change ◽  
Population Trends ◽  
Harvest Rate ◽  
General Index ◽  
Careful Screening ◽  
Potential Tool

Sooty shearwaters (tītī, muttonbird, Puffinus griseus) are highly abundant migratory seabirds, which return to breeding colonies in New Zealand. The Rakiura Māori annual chick harvest on islands adjacent to Rakiura (Stewart Island), is one of the last large-scale customary uses of native wildlife in New Zealand. This study aimed to establish whether the rate at which muttonbirders can extract chicks from their breeding burrows indicates population trends of sooty shearwaters. Harvest rates increased slightly with increasing chick densities on Putauhinu Island. Birders' harvest rates vary in their sensitivities to changing chick density. Therefore a monitoring panel requires careful screening to ensure that harvest rates of the birders selected are sensitive to chick density, and represents a cross-section of different islands. Though harvest rates can provide only a general index of population change, it can provide an inexpensive and feasible way to measure population trends. Detecting trends is the first step to assessing the long-term sustainability of the harvest.

scholarly journals Indigenous ethnic identity, in-group warmth, and psychological wellbeing: A longitudinal study of Māori

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Houkamau ◽  
Petar Milojev ◽  
Lara Greaves ◽  
Kiri Dell ◽  
Chris G Sibley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Identity Centrality

AbstractLongitudinal studies into the relationship between affect (positive or negative feelings) towards one’s own ethnic group and wellbeing are rare, particularly for Indigenous peoples. In this paper, we test the longitudinal effects of in-group warmth (a measure of ethnic identity affect) and ethnic identity centrality on three wellbeing measures for New Zealand Māori: life satisfaction (LS), self-esteem (SE), and personal wellbeing (PW). Longitudinal panel data collected from Māori (N = 3803) aged 18 or over throughout seven annual assessments (2009–2015) in the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study were analyzed using latent trajectory models with structured residuals to examine cross-lagged within-person effects. Higher in-group warmth towards Māori predicted increases in all three wellbeing measures, even more strongly than ethnic identity centrality. Bi-directionally, PW and SE predicted increased in-group warmth, and SE predicted ethnic identification. Further, in sample-level (between-person) trends, LS and PW rose, but ethnic identity centrality interestingly declined over time. This is the first large-scale longitudinal study showing a strong relationship between positive affect towards one’s Indigenous ethnic group and wellbeing. Efforts at cultural recovery and restoration have been a deliberate protective response to colonization, but among Māori, enculturation and access to traditional cultural knowledge varies widely. The data reported here underline the role of ethnic identity affect as an important dimension of wellbeing and call for continued research into the role of this dimension of ethnic identity for Indigenous peoples.

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