Urban and Regional Planning and Design Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/26355
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Item The Impact of Conservation Easements on Habitat Loss in Agricultural Regions(2012) Braza, Mark Anthony; Chen, Alexander; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Natural lands provide irreplaceable ecosystem services, such as wildlife habitat, water filtration and carbon sequestration, but in many regions, they are rapidly being converted to agricultural or urban uses. To counteract this trend, numerous land conservation programs purchase natural land but the impact of these programs is almost entirely unknown. This dissertation develops a framework for evaluating the impact of land conservation programs that incorporates theory from land economics and conservation planning. It posits that private land that enrolls in these programs will have lower economic value and higher ecological value than unenrolled lands. To test the framework, a Propensity Score Analysis is conducted for a federal conservation easement program in the northern plains of the United States. Measures of key economic characteristics (such as a tract's soil productivity, slope and distance to grain markets) and key ecological characteristics (such as a tract's accessibility to nesting pairs of migratory birds and the extent of grassland coverage surrounding a tract) are computed in a Geographic Information System. These measures are used to estimate a logistic regression model that predicts the probability that a tract of land enrolled in the program between 1990 and 2001. Consistent with expectations, tracts with lower economic value and with higher ecological value were more likely to enroll in the program. Using the predicted values from this model, enrolled tracts were matched with control tracts using four specifications of nearest neighbor matching with calipers. Under each of these specifications, the rate of grassland conversion between 2001 and 2006 on enrolled tracts was significantly lower (p<.0001) than the rate of conversion on control tracts by between 0.32 percent (for the specification with the lowest estimate) and 0.42 percent (for the specification with the highest estimate). These results indicate that the program did have a statistically significant impact on the rate of grassland conversion during this time period, although the impact was substantively slight.Item Evaluating the Impacts of Top-down Protected Area Governance on Local Livelihoods - The Case of the Turkish Village of Kapikiri(2012) Yilmaz, Aysegul; Howland, Marie; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study evaluates the positive and negative impacts of strict protected area designation on the livelihoods and socioeconomic wellbeing of a resident community living within the boundaries of a protected area, and explores how these impacts are distributed across different community groups. The study also examines whether strict protected area designation compensates for a decrease in traditional income by increased tourism. A case study analysis was conducted in the Turkish village of Kapikiri, where two centuries ago, modern settlement began among the ruins of an ancient Greek city. The area's rich cultural and natural heritage resources and biodiversity prompted the Turkish government to designate it with strict culture-protected area status in 1989, and with nature-protected area status in 1994. The study involved conducting a household survey with a representative sample of households, interviews with different community groups, and interviews with officials at various levels of protected area governance. The study reveals that the Turkish government did not balance strict culture-protected area status with residents' socioeconomic development needs. An inflexible, to changing circumstances non-adaptive legal framework of cultural heritage conservation did not accommodate residents' development needs, prohibiting them any change on their built structures. Conversely, the broader nature-protected area status, intended to conserve the area's natural heritage resources and biodiversity, provided for the continuation of a traditional cultural landscape and encouraged tourism, creating a demand for tourism services and establishments. Increased demand in tourism combined with fines not high enough to deter illegal construction, however, did not discourage particularly business owners from building illegally. While business owners expanded their business capacity and increased their income, being able to absorb the costs of illegal activity, most farmers vulnerable to regional economic and agricultural influences, lacked finances to build or renovate illegally and provide new housing for subsequent generations. The case of Kapikiri points to a pressing need for long-term conservation and development strategies that address the unique and changing dynamics of local socioeconomic contexts. Protected area governance in Turkey needs to adopt a conservation policy that is pluralistic and responsive to changing local socioeconomic needs and environmental conditions; one that meets the needs of local communities while preserving heritage resources for generations to come.