Resources

2017. Author: Nah Shin. Since the mid-1990s, thirty to forty-year-old nuclear power plants have been reaching their designed lifetimes. Many operating licenses, however, are being extended after regulators review safety considerations and environmental impacts associated with each extension. These regulatory reviews have become quite controversial, not just in the United States. I analyze a number of these in the United States and South Korea countries that are quite different in terms of their...

2008. Author: Marisa Arpels. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, advocates for forest conservation thought that climate change could provide a lever to motivate developing countries to reduce deforestation. Fifteen years after the first climate change convention, however, global emissions from deforestation have increased. This thesis uses Costa Rica as a case study to examine how international climate policies and carbon markets have addressed greenhouse gas emissions from tropical deforestation...

In many public policy situations, formal negotiations and collective problem solving are inhibited by a lack of good ideas that can get the buy-in and support of all involved stakeholders. We suggest that devising seminars provide a promising approach for helping to overcome this barrier. A devising seminar is an off-the-record, facilitated workshop that brings together representatives of core stakeholding interest groups to brainstorm mutually advantageous approaches to address collective...

2010. Author: Kim Foltz. Transportation systems pose some of the most intractable challenges to sustainable, climate-friendly cities. As the fastest growing source of greenhouse-gas emissions, transportation is critical to sustainability. Yet transportation planning is complex, involving dynamic, multi-modal systems, and requiring the collaboration of multiple jurisdictions. Efforts to implement a more sustainable transportation system, therefore typically confront multiple barriers. This thesis...

2021. Authors: A. Duprey, Rizvi, H., Trivedi, D., and Lema, E. The Muddy Pond conservation area is approximately 32 acres in south Kingston, MA. The Muddy Pond restoration site is in the process of transitioning to the ownership of the Native Land Conservancy (NLC). The site borders Route 80 and is surrounded by 322 acres managed by the Northeast Wilderness Trust (NEWT). In the process of this project, much of the information about Muddy Pond has been shared through conversations, stories, and...

2020. Journal of Planning Education and Research. Authors: M. Swain, McKinney, E., and Susskind, L. We highlight a worrisome situation in American cities—rising water bills that growing numbers of residents cannot afford to pay, leading to water shutoffs. A study of each state’s two largest water utilities suggested fifteen million Americans experienced water shutoffs in 2016. We describe how utility responses to financial challenges facing older cities have caused shutoffs that...

Authors: Evan Thomas Paul and Jessica Agatstein under the direction of Professor Lawrence Susskind. River and stream levels have been remarkably volatile in the region around Evantown for the past decade, reaching record highs and lows. The major source of water both for the city and for area businesses and industry is the Foltz river, which experienced notably high water levels three years ago but has fallen to record lows for the past two years. A drought in 2008 brought the issue to a head as...

by Bruno Verdini Trejo Strategies for transboundary natural resource management; winner of Harvard Law School's Raiffa Award for best research of the year in negotiation and conflict resolution.

2021. Author: S. Clark. This book focuses on Yellowstone: the park, the larger ecosystem, and even more so, the “idea” of Yellowstone. In presenting a case for a new conservation paradigm for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), including Yellowstone National Park, the book, at its heart, is about people and nature relationships. This new paradigm will be truly committed to a healthy, sustainable environment, rich in other life forms, and one that affords dignity for all: humans and...

2015. Author: Danya Rumore. This dissertation tests the effectiveness of tailored, science-based role-play simulations as a tool for transformative civic education and engagement around science-intensive environmental issues. I do so by studying the results of the New England Climate Adaptation Project (NECAP). NECAP was a two-year participatory action research project aimed at building the capacity of coastal New England communities to adapt to climate change while also testing the...

2015. Author: Todd Schenk. Climate change poses a range of threats to our infrastructure systems. Efforts to respond are complicated by the uncertainty and complexity involved. The uncertainties are pervasive, going beyond scientific and technical issues to include significant governance challenges. This dissertation examines how stakeholders are likely to make project-level decisions in practice, and how we can support better processes. It considers the implications of using multiple scenarios...