Department of Environmental Management

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https://hdl.handle.net/10182/46

The Department of Environmental Management promotes the advancement of knowledge, through teaching and research, that will allow the sustainable use of environmental and natural resources.

Staff publications and research activities reflect the well established interdisciplinary nature of the Department; research interests include environmental policy, planning and politics, natural resources and environmental economics, ecological economics, transport studies, biodiversity and biodiversity policy, ecological evaluation, environmental ethics, environmental education, women and the environment, the Treaty of Waitangi, Māori approaches to environmental management, indigenous peoples and sustainability and socio-cultural and political perspectives of the environment.

Now showing 1 - 5 of 1215

A guide to Oaro
(Lincoln College Field Station, 1979) Jowett, Warren Clapham
The Oaro Field Station is owned by Lincoln College and administered by the Lincoln College Field Station Club. The buildings were shifted to their present site in 1961. Before then they were part of the Army establishment at Godley Heads, Lyttleton Harbour. Since that time many groups of students and school pupils have used the Field Station as their base for field studies. The Field Station is situated on the Kaikoura Coast at Oaro, some 20 km south of Kaikoura. This location makes it an ideal place for carrying out investigations in a wide range of environments. In close proximity to the Field Station there are: 1. A large scenic reserve of native bush. 2. A coast line which offers a wide variety of shoreline habitats .. 3. Diverse geological formations. 4. Active geomorphic processes on both hills and coastline. 5. An historically important area with a long period of Maori occupation. 6. A river, streams and a waterfall. It is hoped that this booklet will assist and stimulate students to understand something of the inter-relationships and features of the physical, biological and cultural environments of this coastal area. The intention of the author is not that the book will replace the role of the teacher but rather that both student and teacher will use is to familiarise themselves with aspects of the environment in which they are studying.
Panic activism or crisis solidarity? Reworking crisis narratives in climate activism through the COVID-19 pandemic
(John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers)., 2024-03-09) Nissen, Sylvia; Cretney, Raven
Crisis narratives have long been a prominent feature of the climate movement to spur system change. The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore the complexities of navigating climate action through the overlapping crises of the Anthropocene. While crisis is seen to offer possibilities for transformational change, it also threatens to prioritise urgency over justice. It is therefore important to understand how climate activists, in practice, are mobilising different narratives of crisis. To this end, we empirically examine climate activists' reflections on crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand through their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic. We identify a narrative of ‘panic-activism’ that uses crisis to demonstrate the severity of the climate threat to enable drastic action. Such narratives are often underpinned by a ‘hierarchy of crisis’ that positions climate change as the most imminent existential crisis. We caution that this crisis narrative is troubling for climate justice, particularly as it positions one crisis as more urgent than others. However, in contrast to panic-activism, our study suggests climate activists in Aotearoa tended to approach crisis cautiously and with reluctant necessity, rather than as something to be actively catalysed or capitalised on. Instead, activists cultivated a narrative of ‘crisis solidarity’ that highlights the networks of reciprocity and vulnerability across and within communities for more intersectional social movement organising.
Peri-urban land use: A paper prepared for the New Zealand Land Use Advisory Council
(Joint Centre for Environmental Sciences, University of Canterbury and Lincoln College, 1979) Barker, W. H.; Brown, H. J.
This paper presents an overview of the issues and problems of regulating and guiding land use in the peri-urban area. The various land uses are considered, as are traditional views of the problems, and the statutory means of control. The principal findings are that the issues are both deeper and more complex than traditionally thought, and that existing land use control procedures are generally not reflecting this complexity. It is observed that the peri-urban area is very important to the well-being of both the urban area and the rural area, and that continuation of simplistic approaches to control will damage social and economic systems, and increase the chances of irreversible undesirable changes in land use, particularly on high quality soils.
Reshaping Christchurch’s public transport system: The potential of transit orientated development and rail : A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Planning at Lincoln University
(Lincoln University, 2023) Chrystal, Aidan
Christchurch, New Zealand, is a city with a seemingly forgotten rail history. The city once had an intricate tram system that served much of the city which was removed and sealed over in the 1950s, and a heavy rail system that serviced much of the surrounding Canterbury townships and the South Island which has served only tourists since 1970. This abandoning of the rail network that once shaped the region was due to the rapid uptake of private vehicle usage which was more convenient and cheaper than rail. In recent years studies into the feasibility of reinstating public rail transport have received significant interest from local government and public due to growing concerns about climate change and the city’s urban sprawl. This research will investigate the potential of a public rail network in the Greater Christchurch region of New Zealand and will provide further analysis Rapid Mass Transit options in the region. Literature was reviewed on the current and previous rail proposals for the Greater Christchurch region as well as reviewing successful rail projects internationally. Key informant semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of the Christchurch City Council/Greater Christchurch Partnership, Environment Canterbury and The Ministry of Transport to ascertain the key barriers and enablers of implementing a rail system in Christchurch. A quantitative analysis calculated the possible ridership numbers of an comprehensive Greater Christchurch region was also conducted using ArcGis, Census Commuter Data with Excel-based equations. This helped create a key research finding of an upper limit of 376,063 daily trips or 137,262,995 yearly trips that could be moved by rail between the catchments as defined within ArcGis. Other key findings highlight the importance of transit orientated development (TOD) in the success of rail whilst highlighting the success of new rail is at the expense of other transportation modes such as private vehicles. This suggests restricting cars in densified zones such as the central city being key to influencing a mode shift. Additionally, a change in mindset is also needed from the public to adopt public transport and from planners to find better ways of examining the potential success of rail through Cost-benefit analysis.
Assessing the likely impacts of removing minimum parking requirements in New Zealand : A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Planning at Lincoln University
(Lincoln University, 2023) Ashcroft, Devon
Minimum Parking Requirements (MPRs) determine the minimum number of car parks developers must provide based on the development, land use or activity occurring. Initially developed to manage car ownership growth and prevent the overspill of private vehicles onto surrounding streets, it has become increasingly evident that these requirements are unnecessary, and in fact, have resulted in more negative consequences than benefits. Planners and developers believe MPRs are overly restrictive, lack flexibility, and contribute to inefficient use of valuable land by providing excessive car parking rather than allocating this for housing or commercial development. Therefore, there has been a global shift toward gradually removing MPRs, with this change incorporated by New Zealand through the National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 (NPS-UD). Under the NPS-UD, MPRs are no longer allowed within district plans of tier 1, 2 and 3 territorial authorities, with all MPRs required to be removed by February 2022. Given the recent adoption of this change, a substantial knowledge gap exists in the research regarding implications in the New Zealand context. This research examines the potential positive and negative impacts of this policy change and how it will affect communities differently throughout New Zealand, with a specific focus on Christchurch, Auckland and Whangarei. Additionally, the research provides recommendations for complementary policies to accompany the removal of MPRs. The primary research method used was semi-structured interviews, analysed through in-depth thematic analysis. Interviewees included planners and developers from Auckland, Whangarei, and Christchurch. The findings from these interviews were compared and contrasted to existing literature and categorised into three overarching research questions. To ensure that communities gain maximum benefit from the policy change, four key recommendations are proposed to implement alongside the removal of MPRs. These recommendations include adopting a flexible and targeted approach, increasing alternative transport modes, strengthening on-street parking management and enforcement, and suggesting additional design criteria to be implemented with the removal of MPRs.

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