Residential Encroachment Research Articles

Further Evidence that Development and Buffer Zones Do Little To Reduce Mosquito Nuisance from Neighboring Habitat.

Little is known regarding the comparative source-sink relationships between primary mosquito breeding sites (source) and neighboring (sink) environments in heterogeneous landscapes. An exploration of those relationships may provide unique insights into the utility of open-space buffer zone mitigation strategies currently being considered by urban planners to reduce contact between mosquitoes and humans. We investigated the source-sink relationships between a highly productive mosquito habitat and adjacent residential (developed) and rural (undeveloped) coastal environments. Our results suggest that source-sink relationships are unaffected by environment. This conclusion is supported by the high level of synchronicity in daily saltmarsh mosquito abundance observed among all surveyed environments (β = 0.67-0.79, P < 0.001). This synchronicity occurred despite the uniqueness of each surveyed environment and the considerable distances of open water and land (2.2-2.6 km) between them. Trap catches, which we interpret as expected mosquito biting nuisance, were high in both residential and rural coastal landscapes (309.4 ± 52.84 and 405.3 ± 62.41 mosquitoes/day, respectively). These observations suggest that existing and planned open-space buffer zones will do little to reduce the biting burden caused by highly vagile saltmarsh mosquitoes. This strengthens the need for empirically informed planning guidelines that alert urban planners to the real risks of human residential encroachment on land that is close to highly vagile mosquito habitat.

Study of the Random Growth Areas of Some Residential Areas in Kut City Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

With the advent of the housing problem in Kut city, many residents have resorted to set up informal housing scheme to achieve the need for housing. This has a significant urban, environmental and social impact on those residents. This research focuses on the impact of unplanned growth of urban areas on the environmental behavior. The phenomenon of random or informal housing is one of the most negative urban phenomena facing larger cities because of the burden on the processes of economic and social development. In Kut city, there are a lot of scattered areas such as Al-Hakim1, Al-Hakim2, Al-Jawadeen neighborhood, etc. Most of these areas were agricultural, areas for military use and vacant lands then they were encroached upon by the indiscriminate residential encroachment which has a negative impact on them. GIS is used to study the temporal and spatial changes of this phenomenon from 2005 to 2017 and to estimate the percentage of change of each period and the disparity in the areas of random overtaking between other areas.

Effects of water shortage in Kabul River network on the plain areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Kabul River is a shared resource of Pakistan and Afghanistan and is a major source of economy for both countries. It is used for irrigation, power generation, fishery, hunting, and recreation. This study explored human-induced impact on Kabul River and its associated wetlands. For an in-depth study, the area situated between the two tributaries of Kabul River, i.e., Shalam and Naguman Rivers, was selected. The focus of the study was to find out reduction in the wetland areas, its causes, and associated impacts. For this purpose, a survey was conducted in 10 villages selected randomly in 10 union councils. The study revealed that anthropogenic activities, such as wetland farming, grazing residential encroachment, and industrial development, have caused severe alteration in the wetland of the study areas. The results revealed that before the 1990s, 33.55% area of the study area was wetland. Due to regular decrease in the flow of the Kabul River System and human encroachment, it has engulfed 68.40% of the total wetland leaving behind only 10.60% wetland. This can be termed as a big ecological disturbance. In the long run, this will have negative effects on both the countries. It is therefore recommended to give proper attention to this important wetland, positioning between Shalam and Naguman Rivers and to conserve it. One of the solutions is to regulate the natural flow of Kabul River.

When Social Infrastructure Deficits Create Displacement Pressures: Inner City Schools and the Suburbanization of Families in Melbourne

AbstractUnder advanced capitalism, gentrification converges with the post‐Keynesian ‘unhinging' of the state from the project of social reproduction, including its responsibilities for collective consumption (e.g. housing, schools). Gentrification research scrutinizes this convergence through the ongoing assault on social/affordable housing, and yet anaemic housing welfare is not its endpoint. The social contract is further fractured through the ongoing discreditation and dismantling of the full gamut of legacies of the publicly regulated Keynesian inner city, including essential social infrastructure. Focusing on public schools, as an essential site for social reproduction, this article explores how the struggle for the city under neoliberal gentrification may be emerging along additional (non‐housing) vectors. Based on a qualitative study of families' experiences of poor public education provision in central Melbourne (Australia), this article argues that the exclusionary effects of gentrification likely exceed residential encroachment as state subsidization of residents continues to yield to the subsidization of capital. In particular, this article identifies life‐stage specific, infrastructure‐related displacement pressures wrought by a state failure to provide adequate public primary schools in the ‘regeneration' of central Melbourne, and it illustrates how these pressures prompt housing strategies that unevenly divest families of the locational advantages secured in the inner city. Highlighting the role of public school deficits in the reluctant suburbanization of lesser‐resourced families assists in foregrounding state complicity in displacement dynamics and the potential for these to magnify socio‐economic, gendered and socio‐spatial inequalities across the city.

Development Around Freight Rail Corridors: Noise Assessment and Mitigation

As residential encroachment increases along freight rail corridors or near freight hubs, poor acoustic design of residential developments can lead to increased complaints and community resistance to projects aimed at expanding the freight network and delivering economic growth. Developers and consent authorities, including local councils, must follow planning controls to address noise impact in the assessment and design of sensitive development near rail corridors, The Department of Planning and Environment published the Development Near Rail Corridors and Busy Roads—Interim Guideline (2008) to provide guidance to those assessing noise and designing sensitive developments (such as residences) to avoid and mitigate noise impacts. Extensive noise monitoring recently conducted has provided data to improve the quality of assessments and design for areas near curved or steep gradient track and near freight rail hubs. This paper references a comprehensive noise data set as an evidence base to provide guidance on the identification of affectation zones around freight rail corridors and freight rail hubs where risk of land use conflict is high. The paper also presents three case studies giving examples of how residential developments can be designed to address noise from freight operations.

Evaluation of planning policy for protecting green infrastructure from loss and degradation due to residential encroachment

Studies indicate substantial degradation and loss of urban green infrastructure area following adjacent residential development. A content analysis of Ontario’s most authoritative policy documents was performed to determine whether they had policy goals, objectives and tools for protecting designated green infrastructure from the negative impacts of residential encroachment. Results indicate few policy goals, or measurable objectives. Furthermore, few policy tools sought to limit residential encroachment within green infrastructure following point of development. Existing local government policy tools were narrowly focused on establishing boundary structures and education programs among adjacent residents, without specifying impacts of concern. Policies requiring the monitoring of impacts and tools for their mitigation were missing. Long-term protection policy goals, measurable policy objectives, and effective policy tools are required to limit the anticipated negative impacts associated with residential encroachment following development. Where impacts are uncertain, monitoring policies are required to test and improve policy effectiveness. Furthermore, adaptive management policies are required to protect essential ecosystem services from unanticipated long term impacts, such as those arriving with climate change.

Barriers to the effective planning and management of residential encroachment within urban forest edges: A Southern Ontario, Canada case study

Studies document degradation and loss of publicly owned urban woodland area following adjacent residential development due to residential encroachment. Residential encroachment is the negative impacts of housing land uses within both rural and urban green infrastructure networks. Prevailing planning, design and management approaches in Southern Ontario municipalities in Canada indicate planning and management tools have been developed to remove and impede encroachment impacts; however, many are infrequently implemented. This lack of implementation contributes to a high prevalence and spatial area of encroachment within Southern Ontario municipal woodland edges with adjacent housing. Long interviews were conducted with the planners, landscape architects, woodland managers and bylaw enforcement staff of six Southern Ontario municipalities to determine the barriers to implementation of municipal encroachment tools. Results indicate key barriers to policy implementation that reflect a lack of awareness of, and priority placed on addressing, residential encroachment impacts, and impacts following the point of development in general. Barriers include: (1) insufficient community and municipal access to information regarding residential encroachment and their significance relative to other development impacts; (2) lack of clarity of goals by municipalities and between departments; (3) insufficient municipal leadership and commitment to limiting encroachment; (4) lack of sufficient means within municipal departments to prevent and address encroachment; and (5) ineffectual dynamics of enforcement. Recommendations for overcoming barriers to the development and implementation of effective approaches for addressing encroachment are provided.

Effectiveness of Boundary Structures in Limiting Residential Encroachment into Urban Forests

Urban forests provide essential functions in support of human communities; however, studies indicate adjacent residential land uses degrade urban forests following development. The resulting impacts are known as encroachment. Local Ontario governments rely primarily on passive management, such as boundary structures (e.g. fences) to limit this degradation but do not know whether they are effective for limiting the area of the forest floor covered by these impacts. Transect and quadrat sampling of 40 forest edges adjacent to 186 residential properties were sampled in six Southern Ontario municipalities to determine impact frequency and area cover of encroachment. The results indicated some structures are effective in reducing the frequency and area cover of some encroachment behaviours. Other behaviours were not significantly reduced by any structural treatment. Furthermore, some behaviours were increased by structures. Substantial areas of encroachment continued to occur under even the most effective boundary treatments. The treatment most successful in reducing frequency and area was ungated fencing in combination with a mown grass strip. It was found to reduce the incidence of yard extensions and concentrate encroachments closest to forest edges.

Evaluation of planning and management approaches for limiting residential encroachment impacts within forest edges: A Southern Ontario case study

Studies increasingly document degradation and loss of publicly owned urban forest area following adjacent development due to residential encroachment. Little is known about prevailing approaches for limiting these impacts. Taking Southern Ontario as a case study, long interviews were conducted among Ontario planners, landscape architects, forest managers and bylaw officials within six Ontario municipalities to determine prevailing goals, tools, and strategies for addressing residential encroachment. Few municipalities had explicit goals, and none had objectives for addressing encroachment. Bylaws were the primary tools for addressing existing encroachments, but field studies indicated infrequent enforcement. Boundary-focused structures, such as fences, were the primary means of preventing encroachment; however, they were applied to a minority of forests with adjacent housing. None of the municipalities had a strategy for implementing their tools to protect targeted ecological, social or economic services provided by urban forests. Recommendations for improved approaches for managing residential encroachment impacts within forest edges are provided.

Rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) den site selection: preference for artificial sites

Context Objective assessments of habitat requirements for endangered species are often lacking when planning management strategies, and inappropriate landscape manipulation can sometimes turn an endangered species into a pest. Recent expansive population growth of the rock hyrax Procavia capensis in northern Israel has been attributed largely to the proliferation of man-made boulder piles on the fringes of new residential developments. Aims The hyrax is a protected species, but when in proximity to residential areas it can be a garden pest and is medically important as a reservoir of cutaneous leishmaniasis. Management should thus consider preservation of hyrax populations in combination with minimising pest potential. We examined the hypothesis that hyraxes prefer artificial boulder piles to natural outcrop crevices as den sites. Methods We surveyed all 57 potential den sites in a 1 × 1 km area around a village in northern Israel, and conducted logistic regression to examine the correlation of hyrax presence with site type (pile or crevice), size, distance from the village, distance from other den sites and network centrality within the den site network. We used the Aikaike information criterion (AIC) to compare logistic models. Key results Occupancy was well predicted by site type, site size, and distance from other sites, explaining 59% of the variation in the logistic regression. These three predictors were selected both by considering the combination of predictors that gave the lowest AIC value, and also by the stepwise logistic algorithm. Conclusions and implications Hyrax den site preference, and in particular preference for boulder piles over natural crevices, should be integrated into managing this species simultaneously for conservation and pest control in the face of continuing residential encroachment on natural areas.

The housing-forest interface: Testing structural approaches for protecting suburban natural systems following development

Natural systems play important ecological, social and economic functions within suburban environments, such as wildlife habitat, community recreation and stormwater management. However, their integrity is at risk if there is encroachment into these systems from adjacent land uses. Local governments often consider active management of natural systems too expensive, so rely on structural approaches, such as fences, to manage the physical interface between housing land uses and natural systems. Despite a reliance on this approach, it is not known whether it is effective in protecting natural systems from these impacts. Research has identified spatial extent of disturbance as a key measure of human impact on forested natural systems, and planners want to know how far adjacent land use impacts extend into the forest edge to specify protective buffer strips between these land uses. This study measured the extent of post development impacts of over 350 residences built adjacent to suburban forests in Southern Ontario. The results indicate that boundary treatments can offer some long-term protection from residential encroachment; however, commonly implemented treatments can be greatly improved based on the results of this study. Boundaries between residences and natural systems should be carefully designed to control physical access, clearly delineate private from public land uses, and where appropriate, encourage community monitoring of the housing/forest interface. However, even under the most effective boundary treatment, encroachment activities continued at significant distances from forest borders. Forested buffers of at least 50 m wide are required to segregate encroachment impacts from sensitive forested natural systems.

Spatial and temporal activity patterns of the brood parasitic brown-headed cowbird at an urban/wildland interface

We examined the impact of the urban environment on the spatial and temporal activity of brood parasitic Brown-headed Cowbirds ( Molothrus ater) in Boulder County, CO, USA. We found that cowbirds used the urban areas for foraging and roosting and traveled into the 3240 ha wildland preserve of ponderosa pine in the mornings to parasitize songbird hosts. Cowbird abundance decreased with distance from the urban/wildland boundary, and Plumbeous Vireo ( Vireo plumbeus) nests closer to the urban/wildland boundary were more likely to be parasitized by cowbirds than those farther away. A linear regression accurately predicted the relative abundance of cowbirds based on parameters of distance from residential areas, and distance from roads and trails within the wildland preserve. For species of concern that are known cowbird hosts, creating larger preserves, reducing residential encroachment, and reducing preserve perforation by roads and trails might alleviate high frequencies of parasitism for a portion of the host population. However, even large preserves, such as found in Boulder, CO, USA cannot insulate all focal nesting species from the urban effect of increased brood parasitism. Efforts to reduce food resources and cover for cowbirds in the urban areas might prove to ameliorate host reproductive success close to the urban/wildland boundary through decreases in cowbird abundance.

Some spatial aspects of environmental impact statements in Israel

While many studies have analyzed EIS procedures, only a few have analyzed EISs as part of the development process. When viewed from this perspective, EISs are shown to have a skewing effect on territorial development; they address mainly infrastructure projects, and consequently delay them, but hardly touch any of the residential projects which the infrastructure is designed to serve. This discrepancy can have deleterious consequences due to residential encroachment on various infrastructure facilities, as well as due to the growing shortfall of transport and environmental infrastructure. When EISs are analyzed in terms of project area, areas where impacts and benefits are felt, and administrative control zones, it becomes apparent that the impacts and benefits analyzed may be affected by the spatial scope of administrative control and project areas. A case in point is the ‘Kalanit’ landfill in Israel. Here the benefit and impact areas analyzed in the EIS were affected by the jurisdiction of the committee that requested the EIS and to which it was submitted. This discrepancy between benefit, impact and administrative control areas is also at the source of the emerging interest in cross-boundary EIA.

Knowledge management: An application to wildfire prevention planning

Residential encroachment into wildland areas places an additional burden on fire management activities. Prevention programs, fuel management efforts, and suppression strategies, previously employed in wildland areas, require modification for protection of increased values at risk in this interface area. Knowledge-based computer systems are being investigated as knowledge management tools for the organization, synthesis, and application of information pertinent to fire science utilization. Many such systems contain expertise which has been captured from human experts and symbolically encoded for automatic manipulation by computer. Two systems, fire characteristics prediction and initial-attack force dispatch, have been developed elsewhere using this approach. This paper describes a third project, which is currently being developed for wildfire prevention planning. Initial efforts in elicitation of knowledge from experts have produced several benefits prior to system implementation. Results to date in fire management are encouraging, and provide support for the future potential of these methods for the management of knowledge gained from fire research.