intervention associated with littering behaviour in Abbotsford’s … · 2019-05-16 · Addressing...
Transcript of intervention associated with littering behaviour in Abbotsford’s … · 2019-05-16 · Addressing...
Addressing the socio-environmental factors and communication
intervention associated with littering behaviour in Abbotsford’s Parks
Introduction
Christina Owen1, Darien Francis1, Mariano Mapili1, Gloria Borrows2 & Michelle Riedlinger2
Departments of 1Geography and the Environment & 2Communications, University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada
Study Area
Our community service research examined local
environmental, socio-demographic and
criminological data to identify factors that can
explain and can be used in designing anti-littering
strategies in selected parks in the City of
Abbotsford, in the Province of British Columbia,
Canada (Figure 1).
Eventually, we created an interactive GIS that
contain photos of litter and their locations in the
park to communicate what we learned to students
at the University of the Fraser Valley, the City of
Abbotsford Parks and Recreation Staff, and to the
residents of the City of Abbotsford.
Figure 1. Study sites: five park-neighbourhoods identified
by the City of Abbotsford to have littering issues
Materials and Methods
Results
Using ArcGIS 10.4.1 for spatial analysis and IBM-
SPSS 24 for statistical analysis, we used
environmental data from the City of Abbotsford’s
WebMap, the 2016 Canada Census and the 2016-
2017 crime data from the City’s Crime Map, and
we carried out litter audits (Figure 2) in the parks
and surveyed park users and residents who live
close to the parks. See Figure 3 for a summary of
our methods.
Figure 7. Parks with streams have significantly higher
reported crime rate.
Litter Audit
Environmental Features
Socio-Demographic Surveys
Criminality
We would like to thank the CityStudio student
researchers for their work on the research project
and for the City of Abbotsford for the GIS files and
the logistical support during the five litter audits
and for inviting the students to demonstrate their
interactive GIS to City staff and officials.
ANOVA test on our litter audit reveals that the amount
of common types of litter in Ravine and Goldfinch Parks
are significantly higher (P<0.01) as compared to those in three other parks without streams (Figure 7).
Acknowledgement
Communication Intervention
We also found the level of education, transience,
and journey methods as well as population density
as the socio-demographic factors (Figure 6) are
significantly (p<0.05) different in study sites and
non-study sites.
Our spatial and statistical analyses revealed several
environmental features that were significantly different
in littered versus non-littered parks.
• Large litter are common in and close to streams that
run through two problem parks. (Figure 4)
• The same two problem parks with streams have
higher crime rates.
• See Figure 5 for other significant environmental features.
Figure 2. Litter audit in a problem park where a
streams run through
Figure 4. Litter in the stream that runs through a
problem park
Figure 3. Summary of methods used in the
community service research
Figure 5. Significant Environmental Features
Figure 6. Significant socio-demographics
Figure 8. Students presenting their Interactive GIS of
their litter audit at TedX Abbotsford.