Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Sustainability research'

In light of the increasingly complex sustainability problems facing local and global communities, and the need to improve the scientific basis for decision making, sustainability science elevates the role of research collaborations and communication among scientists and stakeholders in developing solutions. Although many universities are heeding the calls for collaborative research and are making progress on bringing diverse groups together to address sustainability issues, disconnections between the production of knowledge and its actual use in society persist. These persistent divisions indicate that we still have a great deal to learn about how to develop university-stakeholder partnerships that facilitate collaboration between the various actors in society.

Building successful, enduring research partnerships is essential for improving links between knowledge and action. The overarching question addressed in this dissertation is: "In the quest to develop sustainable solutions, what factors may strengthen or hinder the development of robust stakeholder-university research partnerships?" In answering this question, I interrogate the role of communication in partnership development, the influence of communication practices on stakeholder and researcher interactions, and ways that we can use interdisciplinary forms of and approaches to research to improve communication with partners. The goal of this research is to improve university and community capacity for collaborative, problem-focused research to address pressing societal problems.

Using quantitative and qualitative survey data from the Maine Municipal Official Survey and the Collaboration and Stakeholder Engagement Survey, each chapter addresses the overarching research question in different ways. In the first and second chapters, I develop theoretically and empirically supported statistical models to identify a set of factors influencing officials' reported interest in developing a community-university research partnership and factors influencing officials' participation preferences in community-university research partnerships, respectively. The models strengthen the capacity for co-learning by providing data on interest and preference alignment between potential project partners, and they provide data on stakeholder preferences and experiences that may improve communication between partners and inform partnership interactions. The third chapter bridges interdisciplinary theories from social psychology and communication to deepen the conversation about justice in community-university research partnerships. The dissertation concludes with lessons learned about developing community-university research partnerships.

This study examines reasons for participation and barriers or obstacles to participation in sustainability-based organizations at a mid-size publicly-funded state university in the Mid-West. Based on participant observations and qualitative interviews with students, faculty, staff, and administration, this project examines the intra- and interpersonal factors associated with identity formation related to participation: alternative forms of educational pedagogy in relation to sustainability or environmental curriculum: collective action and resource mobilization as a means of increasing student awareness and participation in sustainability-based initiatives and activities on campus and among the greater community surrounding the campus: and finally, the specific dialogue in which sustainability is discussed and the ways in which this impacts the overall perception of sustainability as a concept and a movement. Due to the lack of participation among students in sustainability-based organizations and initiatives, this study explores barriers to participation and possible alternatives for increased engagement within diverse areas of the students experience to enhance this area of personal and educational development.

QC 20101216

At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.

Contact information: David Nelson: nelso213 (at) umn.edu, Renée Lazarowich: renee_lazarowich (at) yahoo.com

A robust body of research suggests that inclusive and collaborative approaches to ecological restoration, specifically watershed management, are not only successful but also optimal for long-term sustainability. This research is embedded within the context of the EPA regulated Chesapeake Watershed restoration, which spans six states and requires multiple levels of collaboration and engagement. The research used ethnographic methods to explore what motivated community leaders to engage in water resource conservation and restoration initiatives in Havre de Grace, Maryland, a city on the shores of the Upper Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Watershed is a pivotal example of both global and United States trends in degraded water resources. The research questions for the study were: How do community leaders express their understanding of water-related issues through a sense of place, nature connection, and local knowledge? How can community leaders catalyze community engagement in support of water-related environmental restoration, education, and conservation? What are the common points of concern, optimism, and motivation articulated by community leaders to conserve the freshwater and estuarine water resources? Data was collected through in-depth interviews and analyzed using a qualitative coding method. The research contributes to an understanding of how best practices in community leadership and community engagement can be mobilized to conserve and restore critical ecosystems within the context of a broader watershed management initiative. The research results are useful for community organizers and stakeholder institutions with an interest in protecting and restoring degraded natural environments through locally relevant initiatives.

Environmental sustainability is an extension of the concept of sustainability that focuses on the importance of understanding the interconnectivity between natural and socio-economic systems without compromising resource capacity. In this study, it is incorporated into a framework that applies to the sustainable development of small counties in the South Texas region of the Eagle Ford Shale.

The research involved a qualitative approach through the distribution of a questionnaire to a surveyed sample of Texas residents from Gonzales and Karnes counties. The purpose of the questionnaire was to obtain the expressed perspectives of residents regarding the impacts of shale development on their quality of life. These locations of interest were selected because of the different levels of shale development they experienced. Aspects of quality of life were analyzed as indicators of the survey responses to open and closed-ended questions. Participants described and scaled variables regarding impacts, benefits, and notable changes they experienced from the development of shale resources in their counties. Content analysis was used to obtain results relevant to developing the conceptual model for environmental sustainability proposed in this study. Findings showed that the sample of participating residents highly identified with socio-economic interests compared to environmental interests, considering that when the study was conducted shale oil and gas production was in decline as a result of fallen global energy prices.

In this study the terms sustainability and sustainable development were used interchangeably, while development was addressed in a broad sense, referring to the overall improvement of quality of life.

This research investigated cross-sector collaboration as ideal-seeking social action within the context of a stakeholder-led initiative to foster place-based community revitalization in the City of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. It engaged organizational leaders and citizen activists to develop and refine the praxis of design conversation inspired by an appreciative awareness of values and qualities found in communities as thriving, living systems. Within a framework of community action research (CAR) methodology, the study engaged a small group of community leaders to create a learning space and relational field enabling them to acquire knowledge and understanding in the manner of an evolutionary learning community. Through facilitated design inquiry, participants sought to understand their communities as living socio-ecological systems; evolving purposefully within a context of embedded cultural and institutional influences.

The group discourse combined generative and strategic dialogue with other co-creative inquiry practices to embody dynamic and purposeful characteristics of an evolutionary guidance system. Through design conversation in both small group and community practice settings, participants worked to transform habitual patterns of thinking and shift awareness towards appreciative qualities of communities as purposeful social systems; thereby building collective evolutionary competencies that enable self-organization and unfolding of human evolutionary potentials at the levels of self, organization, community, and society.

The study results were summarized from participant journaling and transcribed conversations, and interpreted through critical hermeneutic analysis and systemic modelling. The results demonstrate, at least tentatively, how designing conversation as a strategic approach to community revitalization praxis enabled participants to coalesce as a dynamic learning community, expressing evolutionary consciousness and competency and developing a more integral, shared understanding of Cleveland’s communities as continuously evolving and appreciatively self-guided, living systems. These results show how strategically facilitated conversation within a framework of evolutionary systems design enabled community stakeholders in Cleveland to utilize conversation as purposeful social action to build appreciative awareness of their differences and understanding of their collective human potentials as the conscious embodiment of values and qualities found in healthy, resilient communities.

Since 2005, Senegal has scaled up malaria control interventions nationwide, mainly by an approach that allowed reaching people of highest needs. Activities have included vector control interventions such as Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN) and Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS), prevention of malaria in pregnant women, and diagnosis and treatment with an effective anti-malarial.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of malaria interventions on all cause mortality among children under five years following the approach of targeting people of highest needs while scaling up of malaria control in Senegal. A “pre/post” study design following the recommendations of the RBM Monitoring and Evaluation Reference Group (MERG) was used. This assessment of the impact of the scaling-up of malaria control interventions is based on a plausibility argument. Given that it is difficult to measure mortality resulting from malaria, the objective of the plausibility argument is to demonstrate the association between the scaling-up of malaria interventions and the reduction of all-cause mortality in children under 5 years of age in Senegal.

Efforts in vector control led to an increase in the availability of resources, and substantial improvement in intervention coverage. Use of ITN by children under 5 increased from 7 per cent to 35 percent (p<0.001). The greatest increases were observed among populations most at risk of malaria, namely the poorest two quintiles, southern and central regions. Parasite prevalence decreased significantly from 6 per cent in 2008 to 3 per cent in 2010 (p< 0.001). The greatest reductions in anemia and parasitaemia were observed in populations from rural areas, the poorest populations, and populations from the central and southern epidemiological zones, who also displayed the highest increase in ownership and use of ITNs. All-cause under 5 mortality decreased by 40 per cent. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed better child survival over the period 2005–2010 compared to 2000–2005. Except for the region of Dakar, child survival estimates were higher in areas with the lowest prevalence of malaria. In addition, All-cause mortality in children under 5 years was significantly lower during the period after the scaling-up of malaria control interventions (OR: 0 63; 95% CI: 0.46–0.86).

Other factors that might affect malaria transmission and child mortality were controlled for in the analysis. Despite increased rainfall malaria morbidity decreased, most strikingly among populations in which access to and use of ITNs increased most. While mortality declined in general during the study period, the greatest decreases in both parasitemia and child mortality were observed among the same populations that had the greatest increase in coverage of malaria control interventions. Similarly, the biggest declines in mortality occurred among the age group most likely to die of malaria, suggesting that malaria control interventions contributed substantially to the decrease in malaria morbidity, and consequently, to all-cause under 5 mortality. Based on the LiST model, the scaling-up of ITNs and IPTp from 2004–2010 averted 5,774 deaths in children under 5. The advent of home-based management to deliver malaria care at home, even in difficult to access rural areas, where the largest number of deaths usually occurs, has greatly contributed to expanding malaria case management across Senegal.

All-cause mortality in children under 5 was significantly lower in the period after the scale up of malaria control interventions by targeting people of highest needs. The declines in mortality were greater in the populations and regions where coverage of malaria interventions was highest. The associations held even after taking into account other contextual factors. We drawn the conclusion that malaria control activities reduced malaria related morbidity and mortality, thus contributing to significant declines in all-cause child mortality between 2005-2010 in Senegal.

The research presented in this thesis investigates the concept of sustainability in relation to mobile learning initiatives. Sustainability is seen as a key concept for mobile learning to gain acceptance. In linking sustainability to scalability, a term used to describe how well something can grow to suit an increasing complexity, a representation of this process is provided. In this thesis, this process is called ``the quest for equilibrium.''

A study was conducted of an actual mobile learning initiative that involved introducing podcasts as a supplement to traditional lectures in higher education. In following this initiative, thorough data gathering was conducted, utilizing the process of iterative cycles that characterizes the action research approach. In accordance, a literature survey was conducted, whereby leading publications in mobile learning were classified and analyzed according to the following criteria: Reflections, Frameworks, Scalability, and Sustainability.

As the mobile learning system evolved from idea to an actual empirical study, trying to understand this process became important. The insights gained during this research were used to develop a conceptual model that is based on the notion that the two concepts of Scalability and Sustainability can be linked to each other.

This conceptual model is presented describing how a mobile learning system evolves, from Idea, to Experiment, to Project, to Release. Further, each of the stages in this evolution is described by using four areas of concern: Technology, Learning, Social, and Organization.

Using the experience from a specific mobile learning initiative to define a conceptual model that then is used to describe the same initiative, was a way to bring together practice, theory, and research, thus provide reliable evidence for the model itself.

The conceptual model can serve as a thinking tool for mobile learning practitioners, to help address the complexity involved when undertaking new efforts and initiatives in this field.