17 research outputs found
Three essays on the relationship between land conservation and economic development
No full textLand degradation is a significant cause of biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and persistent poverty. In this dissertation, I explore how land conservation and conversion policies affect economic development and human welfare. I use current and historical contexts and compile primary data sources to answer this question. I use case studies from both developing and developed countries, and from both land conversion and working land conservation policies.
In the first chapter, I study the effects of forest protected areas (PAs) on surrounding households in a developing country. I use Nepal’s recently established PAs as a case study to see the effects on the households who depend on the forest. I find that PAs reduce household wood collection, but there is no evidence that other household consumption is significantly reduced by the strain of reduced access to forest resources nor that PAs rapidly attracted tourism that increased household welfare in these rural villages.
This analysis of the immediate effects of land conservation policies in Nepal cannot shed light on all the effects of conservation policies, as land and soil quality change takes time. Historical events provide a more complete picture. Thus, my second two chapters study historical land conservation policies in the United States (US).
In my second chapter, I explore the persistent impacts on the environment of the earliest farmland conservation policies in the Great Plains. The 1930s Dust Bowl compelled the federal government to undertake large soil conservation policies; I evaluate the effects of those policies over fifty years. Results show that the Voluntary Acreage Reduction program had beneficial long-term effects, increasing areas planted in grassland and decreasing soil erosion in areas that were previously heavily planted in corn and wheat.
Land conservation policies also include creating and nurturing local institutions for management. In my third chapter, I study what factors affected the speed with which local environmental institutions – the Soil Conservation Districts (SCDs) – were created to improve farmland resource management. I use historical documents to create a dataset on exactly when SCDs were established during the period of 1936-1956. A duration analysis of those data finds that SCDs did rise up more rapidly in places hit hardest by crop failure, but institutional change was slower in areas dominated by farms managed by tenants who did not have legal authority to help create SCDs to help preserve their farms.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2021-08-01The student, Aparna Howlader, accepted the attached license on 2019-07-01 at 13:43.The student, Aparna Howlader, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2019-07-01 at 14:26.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2019-07-03 at 16:59.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #14122 on 2019-11-26 at 13:04:13Made available in DSpace on 2019-11-26T20:49:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Three essays on the relationship between land conservation and economic development
No full textLand degradation is a significant cause of biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and persistent poverty. In this dissertation, I explore how land conservation and conversion policies affect economic development and human welfare. I use current and historical contexts and compile primary data sources to answer this question. I use case studies from both developing and developed countries, and from both land conversion and working land conservation policies.
In the first chapter, I study the effects of forest protected areas (PAs) on surrounding households in a developing country. I use Nepal’s recently established PAs as a case study to see the effects on the households who depend on the forest. I find that PAs reduce household wood collection, but there is no evidence that other household consumption is significantly reduced by the strain of reduced access to forest resources nor that PAs rapidly attracted tourism that increased household welfare in these rural villages.
This analysis of the immediate effects of land conservation policies in Nepal cannot shed light on all the effects of conservation policies, as land and soil quality change takes time. Historical events provide a more complete picture. Thus, my second two chapters study historical land conservation policies in the United States (US).
In my second chapter, I explore the persistent impacts on the environment of the earliest farmland conservation policies in the Great Plains. The 1930s Dust Bowl compelled the federal government to undertake large soil conservation policies; I evaluate the effects of those policies over fifty years. Results show that the Voluntary Acreage Reduction program had beneficial long-term effects, increasing areas planted in grassland and decreasing soil erosion in areas that were previously heavily planted in corn and wheat.
Land conservation policies also include creating and nurturing local institutions for management. In my third chapter, I study what factors affected the speed with which local environmental institutions – the Soil Conservation Districts (SCDs) – were created to improve farmland resource management. I use historical documents to create a dataset on exactly when SCDs were established during the period of 1936-1956. A duration analysis of those data finds that SCDs did rise up more rapidly in places hit hardest by crop failure, but institutional change was slower in areas dominated by farms managed by tenants who did not have legal authority to help create SCDs to help preserve their farms.U of I OnlyAuthor requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD syste
Diversifying to Reduce Conservation Outcome Uncertainty in Multiple Environmental Objectives
No full textIn this paper we develop tools and intuition for portfolio optimization for multiple conservation objectives. We show it is more efficient to optimize a conservation portfolio for multiple goods jointly, allowing planners to exploit information about multiple dimensions of correlations between goods. We identified a new type of correlation that is important for optimal conservation planning of multiple objectives under uncertainty: scenario correlation between objectives in a given part of the landscape. The conservation planner faces a different kind of problem if the objectives at hand respond similarly rather than differently to climate shocks in subregions of the planning area.</jats:p
Consequences of Protected Areas for Forest Extraction and Human Well-being: Evidence from Nepal
No full textForest protected areas are mostly located in developing countries, where forests are a main source of the traditional rural livelihood. This creates potential for conflict between local communities and biodiversity conservation. To explore this issue, we examine the case of forest protected areas (PAs) in Nepal. In the period of 1995-2003, the Nepalese government established several new protected areas (PAs) throughout the country. Using Nepal Living Standard Survey collected in 1995/1996 and 2003/2004, we evaluate the effects of these new PAs on household consumption and wood-collection effort by combining differences across regions with differences across time. The estimates suggest that the PA establishment has reduced average forest-good consumption by almost 30% to 70% compared to the pre-establishment period and this decrease has not translated into a larger market participation in fuel purchase. However, as described in previous literature, the estimates on welfare variable (in terms of per-capita consumption expenditure) does not suggest spillover impacts on the households from PA-based ecotourism industry in the study period. The paper also explores whether protected areas could be affecting households in other ways, such as by migration or inducing changes in labor supply
When portfolio theory can help environmental investment planning to reduce climate risk to future environmental outcomes—and when it cannot
No full textThe Rail-bridge Interaction – Recent Advances with ERS Fastening System for Steel Bridges
No full textAbstractThe requirements on the existing rail infrastructure, including bridges, need for higher speed as well as to accommodate the extremely growing traffic demand has brought major changes in different solution to railway track systems in last few decades. Since the beginning of the direct fastening system for railway bridges, probably Embedded Rail System (ERS) is one of the most interesting one. Especially, the low maintenance requirements together with the capability to refurbishment of existing bridges and low noise emission has given new possibilities to this system, contributing towards environmental and economic sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe the response of ERS system under different vertical and horizontal load, based on a small scale laboratory test. Second part of the paper describes the numerical analysis of the application of the ERS system on the Starý most in Bratislava, where the test results were used
Iterative decoding convergence and termination of serially concatenated codes
No full textIn this paper we demonstrate that previously proposed serially concatenated codes only facilitate iterative decoding convergence towards points that are near but not at the top-right hand corner of the EXIT chart, which typically results in an error floor. Furthermore, we propose a novel method for approaching the (1,1) point of the EXIT chart, where the Maximum Likelihood (ML) Bit Error Ratio (BER) performance is attained. Our method employs specifically designed termination sequences having a free distance of at least two to terminate an inner recursive code. Additionally, we provide optimal termination sequences for a range of inner code designs. Finally, we demonstrate that our novel approach facilitates useful BER reductions in the challenging application scenario when employing short frame lengths of the order of 100 bits, which are typical in wireless sensor networks, for example
Factors influencing place of delivery : evidence from three south-Asian countries
No full textBackground High maternal mortality is still a significant public health challenge in many countries of the South-Asian region. The majority of maternal deaths occur due to pregnancy and deliveryrelated complications, which can mostly be prevented by safe facility delivery. Due to the paucity of existing evidence, our study aimed to examine the factors associated with place of delivery, including women's preferences for such in three selected South-Asian countries. Methods We extracted data from the most recent demographic and health surveys (DHS) conducted in Bangladesh (2014), Nepal (2016), and Pakistan (2017-18) and analyzed to identify the association between the outcome variable and socio-demographic characteristics. A total of 16,429 women from Bangladesh (4278; mean age 24.57 years), Nepal (3962; mean age 26.35 years), and Pakistan (8189; mean age 29.57 years) were included in this study. Following descriptive analyses, bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were conducted. Results Overall, the prevalence of facility-based delivery was 40%, 62%, and 69% in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan, respectively. Inequity in utilizing facility-based delivery was observed for women in the highest wealth quintile. Participants from Urban areas, educated, middle and upper household economic status, and with high antenatal care (ANC) visits were significantly associated with facility-based delivery in all three countries. Interestingly, watching TV was also found as a strong determinant for facility-based delivery in Bangladesh (aOR = 1.31, 95% CI:1.09-1.56, P = 0.003), Nepal (aOR = 1.42, 95% CI:1.20-1.67, P<0.001) and Pakistan (aOR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.03-1.32, P = 0.013). Higher education of husband was a significant predictor for facility delivery in Bangladesh (aOR = 1.73, 95% CI:1.27-2.35, P = 0.001) and Pakistan (aOR = 1.19, 95% CI: 0.99-1.43, P = 0.065); husband's occupation was also a significant factor in Bangladesh (aOR = 1.30, 95% CI:1.04-1.61, P = 0.020) and Nepal (aOR = 1.26, 95% CI:1.01-1.58, P = 0.041). Conclusion Our findings suggest that the educational status of both women and their husbands, household economic situation, and the number of ANC visits influenced the place of delivery. There is an urgent need to promote facility delivery by building more birthing facilities, training and deployment of skilled birth attendants in rural and hard-to-reach areas, ensuring compulsory female education for all women, encouraging more ANC visits, and providing financial incentives for facility deliveries. There is a need to promote facility delivery by encouraging health facility visits through utilizing social networks and continuing mass media campaigns. Ensuring adequate Government funding for free maternal and newborn health care and local community involvement is crucial for reducing maternal and neonatal mortality and achieving sustainable development goals in this region. © 2021 Rahman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. *Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Muhammad Rahman” is provided in this record*
Physiological monitoring for occupational heat stress management: recent advancements and remaining challenges
No full textOccupational heat stress poses a major threat to worker health and safety that is projected to worsen with global climate warming. To manage these adverse effects, most industries rely on administrative controls (stay times and work-to-rest allocations) that are designed to limit the rise in body core temperature in the ‘average’ individual. However, due to the extensive inter- and intra-individual variation in thermoregulatory function, these administrative controls will result in some individuals having their work rate and productivity unnecessarily restricted (false positives), while others may be subject to rises in heat strain that compromise health (false negatives). Physiological monitoring has long been touted as a more effective approach for individualized protection from excessive heat stress. This has led to extensive interest in the use of wearable technology for heat stress management from both the scientific community and manufacturers of wearable devices, which has accelerated in the past decade. In this review, we evaluate the merits of the recent and emerging approaches to manage occupational heat strain with wearable physiological monitors. Against this background, we then describe the issues that we perceive to be unresolved regarding the use of wearable heat strain monitors and the research efforts needed to address those issues. Particular emphasis is directed to the efficacy of existing physiological indicators of heat strain, how to define upper limits for those indicators and the efforts required to rigorously validate emerging wearable heat strain monitoring devices.The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the pdf file of the accepted manuscript may differ slightly from what is displayed on the item page. The information in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript reflects the original submission by the author
