From sense of place to visualization of the coast: Examining people’s relationships with coastal places to better understand how to develop geovisualizations for collaborative management and planning
Presentation Abstract
Effective coastal management and governance is integrative and incorporates the wide variety of user needs, values and interests associated with the coast. This requires inclusive approaches to management that are cognizant of how different people understand coastal environments and relate to them as ‘places’, imbued with values and meanings, rather than simply just ‘spaces’. Advancements in GIS and media technologies have created opportunities for developing tools that allow for place-based approaches to coastal management. In particular, ‘geovisualizations’ now can be constructed with degrees of realism and accuracy that allow people to recognize and relate to them as ‘real places’, thus allowing them to act as ‘place-based’ tools. However, despite the connection between geovisualization and sense of place, research in these two areas is very rarely explicitly linked and explored the same studies, leading to lost opportunities in the advancement of knowledge and practices around collaborative management. This presentation addresses this disconnect and illustrates the benefits of integrating the two areas of research by sharing early findings on study that examines how understanding local sense of place can inform the build of a coastal geovisualization for collaborative management. Conducted in the Capital Regional District (CRD) of BC, the study draws from the disciplines of environmental psychology and human geography to examine linkages between how people relate to coastal places and how they conceptualize/perceive said places. Methods involve administering a survey to a random sample of CRD residents (n=277) to obtain psychometric data on how people relate to place and text-based data on how people conceptualize/perceive place. Psychometric data was dimenionalized through factor analysis and text-based data was coded; then, correlations between place relationships and place conceptualizations were elucidated. Findings from the study provide insight on important elements and features for developing a CRD-based coastal geovisualization for collaborative management and planning.
Session Title
Integrating Social Science into Ecosystem-Based Management
Conference Track
People
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2016 : Vancouver, B.C.)
Document Type
Event
Start Date
2016 12:00 AM
End Date
2016 12:00 AM
Location
2016SSEC
Type of Presentation
Oral
Genre/Form
conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)
Contributing Repository
Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Coastal zone management; Shore protection; Restoration ecology; Geographic information systems; Remote sensing
Geographic Coverage
Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)
Rights
This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
From sense of place to visualization of the coast: Examining people’s relationships with coastal places to better understand how to develop geovisualizations for collaborative management and planning
2016SSEC
Effective coastal management and governance is integrative and incorporates the wide variety of user needs, values and interests associated with the coast. This requires inclusive approaches to management that are cognizant of how different people understand coastal environments and relate to them as ‘places’, imbued with values and meanings, rather than simply just ‘spaces’. Advancements in GIS and media technologies have created opportunities for developing tools that allow for place-based approaches to coastal management. In particular, ‘geovisualizations’ now can be constructed with degrees of realism and accuracy that allow people to recognize and relate to them as ‘real places’, thus allowing them to act as ‘place-based’ tools. However, despite the connection between geovisualization and sense of place, research in these two areas is very rarely explicitly linked and explored the same studies, leading to lost opportunities in the advancement of knowledge and practices around collaborative management. This presentation addresses this disconnect and illustrates the benefits of integrating the two areas of research by sharing early findings on study that examines how understanding local sense of place can inform the build of a coastal geovisualization for collaborative management. Conducted in the Capital Regional District (CRD) of BC, the study draws from the disciplines of environmental psychology and human geography to examine linkages between how people relate to coastal places and how they conceptualize/perceive said places. Methods involve administering a survey to a random sample of CRD residents (n=277) to obtain psychometric data on how people relate to place and text-based data on how people conceptualize/perceive place. Psychometric data was dimenionalized through factor analysis and text-based data was coded; then, correlations between place relationships and place conceptualizations were elucidated. Findings from the study provide insight on important elements and features for developing a CRD-based coastal geovisualization for collaborative management and planning.
Comments
Robert Newell will be presenting this work.