Planning In Rural Areas Research Articles

Community Engagement in Development Planning in Jabon District

Background: Community participation is essential for effective development planning in rural areas. Specific Background: This study examines participation in development planning within a particular village. Knowledge Gap: Although existing literature recognizes community involvement, disparities in participation among different societal groups remain underexplored. Aims: The research aims to analyze community participation levels and highlight engagement differences. Results: Findings reveal uneven participation in oversight processes, with certain groups more engaged, potentially sidelining the interests of less active segments. Novelty: This study emphasizes the need for inclusive strategies to ensure diverse community voices are heard. Implications: Results call for initiatives that promote broader engagement in oversight activities, facilitating equitable representation and effective development planning that addresses the challenges of marginalized groups. Highlights : Engagement Disparities: Participation levels vary significantly among community groups. Inclusive Strategies: Effective planning requires ensuring all voices are heard. Representation Challenges: Underrepresented segments may have their interests overlooked. Keywords: community participation, development planning, oversight processes, engagement disparities, inclusive strategies

Rural Journey: A Rural Tourism Planning Platform

The report from the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China highlighted the comprehensive advancement of rural revitalization by maintaining the priority of agricultural and rural development, consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation, accelerating the construction of a strong agricultural country, and solidly promoting the revitalization of rural industries, talent, culture, ecology, and organizations. Rural Journey is a rural tourism planning platform designed specifically for rural traveling that aims to better integrate the three main groups of travel planners, customers, and villagers. It provides a platform for those aspiring to become travel planners and allows local villagers to join in serving travelers, adding distinctiveness to their services. Vigorously developing rural revitalization through this platform can expand income sources for residents and contribute to local poverty alleviation and income creation. The platform emphasizes manual services to address the inaccessibility of the elderly and youth in using online software by offering more detailed, one-on-one services to better meet the diverse requirements and preferences of travelers. The platform can create personalized travel plans tailored to different requirements by understanding the users better. Travel planners conduct comprehensive planning to develop optimal solutions, reducing financial expenditure and innovating a model for travel planning in rural areas.

“Thin markets”: Recruitment and retention of disability staff to support effective post‐parental care planning in rural Australia

AbstractThe life expectancy of persons with intellectual disability is increasing, and this is often occurring concurrently with the aging of their long‐term parental carers. Research in both Australia and around the world indicates that proactive post‐parental care planning is not widely implemented, and transitions primarily happen suddenly following a personal crisis for the primary caregiver. Little focus in Australia has been placed on identifying the barriers that inhibit post‐parental care planning in rural areas, specifically in the context of the newly implemented National Disability Insurance Scheme. This paper examines the factors that limit disability services and their staff in supporting successful post‐parental care planning for individuals with intellectual disability and their aging carers in rural South Australia. Small focus groups were conducted with three groups of rural disability support workers using online technologies to assist with the participants' geographic disparity. A semi‐structured interview guide was developed prior to commencement and was used to initiate discussions on key points. A thematic analysis methodological approach was used for data analysis. There were three themes identified through the analysis; Recruitment; Provision of Care; and Retention. The key findings relating to these themes are presented and supported with exemplar quotes. This research proposes three recommendations for policy or practice change: developing a national advertising campaign for new disability staff that positively emphasizes the high‐level skillset need for proactive planning; supporting rural disability providers to collaborate to establish shared teams of staff with expertise in post‐parental care planning; and, using incentive payments to retain staff with these invaluable skillsets in the disability sector.

Stakeholder Communication and Its Impact on Participatory Development Planning in Rural Areas

Stakeholder Communication and Its Impact on Participatory Development Planning in Rural Areas

“Imagine the landscape”: Challenges of online teaching and learning about landscape during the COVID-19 pandemic – Lessons for the post-pandemic period

This paper considers how we can teach and learn about landscape in a virtual world in the post-COVID-19 period. The starting point for this research was the difficulties of teaching and learning about landscape during the pandemic, as at that time it was necessary to conduct education remotely. Online classes forced a reorientation of the hitherto widely used educational strategies and learning methods. This paper analyses students’ perceptions of remote education and reflects on the extent to which online learning can replace the real landscape. It involved bachelor’s and master’s students of Environmental Management at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. These students participated in three landscape-oriented courses: ‘Development and Planning of Rural Areas’, ‘Cross-border Environmental Management’ and ‘Landscape Ecology’. Raw data was gathered using post-course surveys and both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used to analyse the data. The values that students gained from online learning of landscape were assessed, and concepts and teaching methods that might be useful in blended teaching and learning about landscape in the post-pandemic period were proposed.

The Principles of Tri Hita Karana in Harmonizing Rural Spatial Planning Local Wisdom Based (Study in Bugbug Traditional Village, Karangasem)

In principle, rural spatial planning local wisdom based on a sustainable spatial planning system is an embodiment of immaterial and material harmonization or balance of life between humans and God, between humans and humans and humans and the environment. Local wisdom on spatial planning in rural areas is interpreted as a system of values, culture, politics, law, economics and religiosity which functions to guide patterns of behaviour in understanding space as a place to live. This study aims to examine legal culture as a value system in the formation of the legal system elements and the principle of Tri Hita Karana as a harmonization of spatial planning in Bugbug traditional village. This study used an exploratory method and this type of research is a qualitative descriptive study of law. The results of this study showed that spatial planning of rural areas local wisdom based is very important as a recognition of the rights of rural communities. In fact, spatial planning arrangements for rural areas with local wisdom aim to protect and manage the environment in a sustainable manner for the benefit of every generation and become the basis for planning, utilizing and controlling sustainable spatial planning. The concept of regulating rural spatial planning local wisdom based in managing rural spatial planning local wisdom based through customary village autonomy in the Bugbug Traditional Village is to create spatial planning in favour of village communities through a rural spatial planning model based on traditional villages through implementing the Tri Hita Karana principle in the spiritual environment, social environment, and natural environment.

Sustainable Planning Strategies for Rural Land Use Using a Hybridized Technique and GIS: Application to An Nijād Village in Ibb City, Yemen

Sustainable rural planning is a continuous, multiparticipatory, large-scale process. Most rural areas in developing countries have sustainable characteristics. However, rural areas have been neglected due to the excessive focus on urban areas, resulting in an urban–rural gap that is difficult to overcome. Village planning is an important public policy instrument that is used to direct land-use planning and management. Therefore, it is an important tool for realizing sustainable development in rural areas. Based on the problems experienced by these villages and the goal of sustainable rural development, the study took An Nijād village, Yemen, as a case study. The study used a hybrid design approach, including qualitative and quantitative methods, such as questionnaire analysis along with GIS methods, and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). The research cycle was implemented in various phases, including data collection, coding, and analysis. The results of the change matrix (2010–2020) have indicated that land use/land covers (LULC) classified were arable land (47.9%), Built-up area (11.5%), barren/bare land (8.3%), water body (0.3%), slop land (6.4%), mountains (22.1%), and roads (3.5%). This paper will create a comprehensive framework for the implementation and planning of rural areas at the regional level, considering the constraints of each region in terms of its ability to achieve realistic results on the planning and development of sustainable rural development strategies.

Role of community engagement in soundscape design of rural areas

This paper presents results of questionnaires adapted from ISO 12913-2 distributed among the residents of a rural area, following numerous complaints of noise and other pollution from a recently build waste transfer station in the UK. Based on acoustic measurements, specific sound levels from the industrial site were predicted at each of the respondents' assessment location. Participants included those who lived as close to the site as 200m where the sound from the site was +15dB above background sound level (BGL), and as far as 800m with the sound from site -10dB above BGL. Surprisingly, all the respondents indicated that they could hear sounds from the industrial site to a higher or lower extent, they were all extremely stressed and annoyed by it and they all desired it to be supressed. The outcomes of the study demonstrate that (1) soundscape is a multidisciplinary approach, (2) soundscape assessment in rural areas may vary from those designed for urban areas, and (3) early engagement with local residents when introducing a new industrial sound to the soundscape in a rural area may result in a better chance of approval, particularly for a site with potential economic benefits for the community. This paper also discusses how the soundscape approach, alongside tackling conventional noise problems, may contribute to environmental management and local planning in rural areas, particularly focusing on introducing and managing sounds from industrial sites.

Jointly Creating Sustainable Rural Communities through Participatory Planning: A Case Study of Fengqing County, China

Rural communities have long been overlooked since globalization and urbanization struck traditional rural values. Building a sustainable rural community has become a contested issue in academia, especially after implementing the Rural Revival Strategy. This research attempted to establish a participatory planning approach, which considers rural planners as the external impetus and local villagers as an internal driving force, to promote the sustainability of rural communities. Carrying on the theoretical framework of public participation, the researchers carried out a pilot practice in Hongtang Village, Yunan Province, China, where planners tried to reestablish the social relationship in a village by designing and building a rural yard. We do not solely finish the design, but also advocate, communicate, and work with villagers to activate the vitality of the village. The research argues that the focus of rural planning and construction in China is to develop a participatory planning approach, which is human-oriented and place-based. Planners, acting as an external impetus, advocate public participation in the whole planning process, including mapping, designing, constructing, and managing. We try to empower villagers themselves rather than impose. During this participatory planning process, villagers improve the quality of their settlements through continuous dialogue and cooperation, and the social relationships among them become enhanced. Thus, rural communities are restructuring in both environmental and social dimensions to promote rural sustainability. Additionally, participatory planning in rural areas is constantly correcting itself to be more local, scientific, and rational and become a more powerful protector and promoter of public interests in this process.

Factors Associated with Housing Damage Caused by an EF4 Tornado in Rural Areas of Funing, China.

Rural areas are vulnerable to natural disasters and tend to suffer severe losses. An EF4 tornado occurred in Funing on 23 June 2016, killing 99 people, injuring at least 846 people, and destroying more than 2000 houses. Using a multinomial logistic regression model, this study explored the influencing factors between housing damage and variables of building conditions, tornado intensity, and village environmental factors. The results show that 2-story houses and masonry houses were more likely to be slightly damaged or be in a dangerous state. Furthermore, the building area was positively related to houses in two categories: slight damage (SD) and dangerous and requiring immediate repair (DR), indicating that the larger or taller the house, the more severe the damage. In terms of tornado intensity, houses classified as SD were more likely to be hit by EF4 tornados than by EF3 tornados, and houses were damaged more by EF1 or EF2 tornados. This finding demonstrates that the level of housing damage was not strongly correlated with the tornado intensity. Slightly damaged houses exhibited the highest correlation with environmental factors. The proportion of slightly damaged houses was positively correlated with the water area in the village, unlike the proportion of houses in the DR and unable to be repaired (UR) categories. Moreover, the larger the water area of a village, the less housing damage it suffered. These findings provide new insights into minimizing housing damage in wind disasters to improve disaster prevention planning in rural areas.

Practical Exploring of Rural Community Governance in Guangxi — An Case Study of Village L

With the development of China’s modernization and the acceleration of the process of urban-rural integration, rural problems are increasingly aggravated. In order to solve the difficult problems of rural community governance in China, village L is used as the research object to explore the path of rural community governance in China. Through fieldwork, it was found that the supply of public services in rural communities was insufficient, rural construction planning is confusing, and rural community workers are not competent enough in community governance in village L; countermeasures such as improving the supervision and management mechanism of village committees, expanding rural economic income channels, strengthening scientific planning in rural areas and encouraging professionals to participate in community governance are proposed to provide reference suggestions for improving community governance in village L.

Women’s socio-demographic and cultural factors influencing unmet need for family planning in rural areas of The Gambia: Evidence from a population-based analytical cross-sectional study

Background: Reproductive health is a critical component of overall health and development. Unmet contraceptive needs are one of the regularly cited measures of the efficacy of family planning (FP) initiatives. This study set out to determine the magnitude and associated factors of unmet need for FP among women of reproductive-aged (15-49 years) in the provincial areas of The Gambia. Methods: The study used a community-based cross-sectional analytical design. A multistage sampling strategy, comprising simple random and cluster sampling, was utilized to obtain a sample of 643 childbearing women (15-49 years) from rural Gambia's sampled clusters. Data collection was conducted using pre-tested structured interview questionnaires. The association was examined using chi-square/fisher's exact test with a significance level of p<0.05. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the effect of sociodemographic and cultural determinants on unmet FP need, with corresponding computed adjusted odds ratios (aOR). IBM SPSS version 24 was used for data entry and analysis. Results: The unmet need for FP among the study participants was 25.2%; unmet need for spacing and unmet need for limiting was 17.4% and 7.8%, respectively. The total demand for FP was 59.4%, while the satisfaction of demand for FP was 57.6%. The significant predictors of unmet need for FP were woman’s age at first pregnancy (aOR=0.899, p=0.033), LGA of origin (aOR=0.240, p=0.001) and frequency of using contraceptives (aOR=1.587, p=0.032). Conclusion: The present study demonstrated a high unmet need for FP among rural women in The Gambia, with the most often cited reason for non-use being fear of side effects. Hence, it is necessary to concentrate FP services for rural populations, stressing education regarding contraceptive side effects, service quality, and gender equality. Additionally, the study suggests that male participation and religious leaders' involvement in FP programs be strengthened and mainstreamed, as well as the establishment of a communication program that specifically promotes inter-spousal communication.

Barriers to Water and Sanitation Safety Plans in Rural Areas of South Africa—A Case Study in the Vhembe District, Limpopo Province

The implementation of water and sanitation safety plans (WSSP) has the potential of greatly improving the challenge of resource-limited drinking-water supplies. However, the most effective tool to make WSSP successful is understanding of the factors that contribute to hindering the implementation of these plans, specifically in rural communities. This study therefore aimed at assessing the status of basic services and determining the factors that contribute to hampering the process of WSSP in rural communities. A survey was conducted between March 2020 and March 2021 in rural communities of the Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. The overall results indicate that poverty, unemployment, lack of access to purified water, and inadequate sanitation facilities have resulted in waterborne diseases reported within the communities and have a major impact in hindering WSSP. Other barriers observed are inequality regarding financial power, absent and degrading water and sanitation infrastructures, and lack of protection and maintenance of natural water sources. Therefore, there is a need for community members to be educated on proper behavior and perceptions towards sanitation, including working hand-in-hand with different stakeholders, men and women from communities, and different cultures and religions to overcome these barriers, so that human disease associated with water supply, wastewater reuse, and sanitation in rural communities can be alleviated.

Building a spatial decision support system for tourism and infrastructure planning: technical solution and data integration challenges

Mobility planning in rural areas with a high number of tourists is important for creating sustainable destinations. By identifying mobility gaps in the transportation system, measures to improve the situation can be implemented. In order to identify such mobility gaps, decision-makers need a spatial decision support system (SDSS). The aim of this paper is to identify vital aspects of creating such an SDSS and to build a prototype. Two important aspects were identified, data and system design. The result of the analysis of available data shows a lack of data portals with disaggregated socio-economic and intra-destination travel data. Further, it shows that data on points of interest (POI) and public transit data are primarily found in company databases. The system design analysis showed that most SDSS today are relying on public data and are not designed to integrate disparate data sources. They are primarily developed to be used by experts. Based on these findings an SDSS that automatically integrates both public and private data was developed. It comprises of a self-hosted web mapping system and several geospatial tools. Our main conclusion is that both data and system design are important aspects to consider when building an SDSS for mobility planning. By using the architecture proposed in this article, new data can easily be incorporated in an SDSS. Furthermore, the system design also facilitates the involvement of stakeholders in the planning process.

Can Mini Grant Programs Address Community Health Improvement Plans in Rural Areas? A Local Evaluation

Can Mini Grant Programs Address Community Health Improvement Plans in Rural Areas? A Local Evaluation

The Clustered Dial-a-Ride Problem

We study a variant of the classical dial-a-ride problem, with an application to public transport planning in rural areas. In the classical dial-a-ride problem, n users each specify a pickup and a delivery location, and the aim is to plan the least cost route to cater all requests. This can be modeled as a traveling salesmen problem in a complete graph with precedence constraints (pick-ups need to happen before deliveries). In this paper, we consider the clustered dial-a-ride problem, where we do not operate on a complete graph but on a graph composed of serially numbered cliques where each clique is connected to the next one via a single edge. This setting is inspired by door-to-door transportation for people from remote villages who want to get to another village or the next city by a bus which operates on demand. We argue that in case the optimal route exhibits certain structural properties, it can be computed significantly faster. To make use of this observation, we devise a classification algorithm which can decide whether the optimal route exhibits these structural properties before computing it. Extensive experiments on artificial and real-world instances reveal that the majority of optimal routes indeed have the desired properties and that our classifier is an efficient tool to recognize the respective instances.

Differential impact of altitude and a plantain cultivation system on soil macroinvertebrates in the Colombian Coffee Region

Macrofaunal composition in four plantain cropping systems in the municipalities of Armenia, Calarcá, and Circasia in Colombia was evaluated by measuring species richness, abundance, biomass, and variation in these parameters in relation to altitude and cropping system at 33 farms. The DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) model was used to evaluate the impacts of management practices on crops and their repercussions for edaphic fauna. Fourteen orders, three classes, and eight families of macrofauna were identified. The results indicate that type of cropping system influences the composition of edaphic communities, mainly through the altitudinal gradient. Fifteen species of earthworms were found, seven exotic and eight native. The greatest number of species (12) was found in systems consisting of plantains associated with coffee (AC), followed by the traditional system (TA) with 10, plantain trees (AA) with nine, and monoculture (MONO) with eight species, of which the most abundant was Pontoscolex corethrurus. In our findings, it was possible to differentiate plantain cultivation systems according to the type of management practice and the intensity and frequency of application of agrochemicals by farmers on farms. The DPSIR framework permitted differentiation among cropping systems, visualizing agroecosystems that tolerate the presence of accompanying vegetation. Variables that exert pressure and provide options for differentiating the systems were also identified. DPSIR facilitates the understanding of cropping systems and has great potential for use in agroecosystem planning in rural areas.

Clustering Techniques for Secondary Substations Siting

The scientific community is active in developing new models and methods to help reach the ambitious target set by UN SDGs7: universal access to electricity by 2030. Efficient planning of distribution networks is a complex and multivariate task, which is usually split into multiple subproblems to reduce the number of variables. The present work addresses the problem of optimal secondary substation siting, by means of different clustering techniques. In contrast with the majority of approaches found in the literature, which are devoted to the planning of MV grids in already electrified urban areas, this work focuses on greenfield planning in rural areas. K-means algorithm, hierarchical agglomerative clustering, and a method based on optimal weighted tree partitioning are adapted to the problem and run on two real case studies, with different population densities. The algorithms are compared in terms of different indicators useful to assess the feasibility of the solutions found. The algorithms have proven to be effective in addressing some of the crucial aspects of substations siting and to constitute relevant improvements to the classic K-means approach found in the literature. However, it is found that it is very challenging to conjugate an acceptable geographical span of the area served by a single substation with a substation power high enough to justify the installation when the load density is very low. In other words, well known standards adopted in industrialized countries do not fit with developing countries’ requirements.

The World Is Not Mine - Barriers to Healthcare Access for Bangladeshi Rural Elderly Women.

Social determinants of health is a core cross-cutting approach of the World Health Organization to reduce health inequalities, and places an emphasis on aged care planning in rural areas of low- and lower-middle income countries including Bangladesh. The complex correlated health and social factors in Bangladesh interplay to shape the healthcare access of rural people. This impact is significant for rural elderly women in particular who have been shown to access healthcare in ways that are described as 'socially determined'. This study aimed to explore how this cohort related their healthcare access to their living circumstances and provided insight into how their healthcare access needs can be addressed. This study was a critical social theoretical exploration from conversational interviews held over three months with 25 elderly women in rural Bangladesh. Two critical social constructs, 'emancipation' of Habermas and 'recognition' of Honneth, were used in the exploration and explanation of the influence of personal circumstances, society and system on rural elderly women's healthcare access. The concept of 'social determinants of healthcare access' is defined from the physical, emotive, symbolic and imaginative experiences of these women. Interviewing the women provided information for exploration of the determinants that characterized their experiences into an overall construct of 'The World is Not Mine'. This construct represented four themes focusing on the exclusion from healthcare, oppressive socioeconomic condition, marginalization in social relationships and personal characteristics that led the women to avoid or delay access to modern healthcare. This study confirms that the rural elderly women require adequate policy responses from the government, and also need multiple support systems to secure adequate access to healthcare. As healthcare services are often a reflection of community values and human rights concerns for the elderly, there is a need of recognition and respect of their voice by the family members, society and the healthcare system in planning and implementation of a prudent aged care policy for rural elderly women in Bangladesh.

Scheduling urbanization in rural municipalities: Local practices in land-use planning on the fringes of the Paris region

In French metropolitan areas, urban sprawl is tending to increase outside of the conurbation and its close periurban ring, and to expand to peripheral rural municipalities. In the Paris region, even though the major part of land converted for urbanization is concentrated in periurban areas, this land consumption is accelerating much faster in small rural municipalities located on the fringes of the region.Our inquiry is based on a sociological approach to the planning process. Our research explores the design and implementation of local land-use plans in rural areas, with a particular focus on the scheduling of development zones. It draws on an original quantitative analysis of zoning bylaws and on qualitative field research based on a sample of interviews with mayors and local administrative staff.In this study we assume that the particular characteristics of urban planning in rural areas influence the scheduling of urbanization. Hence, local public decisions concerning future urbanization are likely to be more unstable and the strategic timetable of the projects may be more difficult to maintain in the long run. Furthermore, as national and regional guidelines are focused on the containment of urban sprawl in the periurban ring, more leeway is granted to small rural municipalities on the more remote periphery. The steering of the planning process by local public authorities in rural areas is also more open to co-design with private initiatives from small development and building companies that also have their particularities (as they are specialized in the rural land market).