Resources

2014. Author: Sara Hess. My thesis seeks to explore the challenge of value capture from natural resources using the case of the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia and Pennsylvania as an exemplar. I examine the mechanisms in place to capture the economic benefits of shale gas extraction in these two states, performing a rough cost benefit analysis that attempts to quantify the economic impact of a single natural gas well drilled in each state. The thesis has two objectives: first, to determine...

2009. Author: Todd Schenk. Climate change induced resettlement (CCIR) is emerging as an issue that planners will need to address. It is expected that how planners in different political and economic contexts around the world respond will be shaped in large part by how they have traditionally planned. If so, it is important to consider the strengths and weaknesses of these different planning frameworks when applied to CCIR. This is a particularly important question in this context because of the...

Authors: Danya Rumore, Anjali Lohani, and Mubarik Imam. Concerned about continued drought and the mismanagement of water resources in the Finn River Basin, the Ministerial Council of the Alba national government has convened a meeting of key stakeholders to advise on improved water-management strategies for the Basin. A representative from the Ministerial Council, who has received specific instructions from the national government, will facilitate the meeting. The other stakeholder participants...

2017. Author: Anna Doty. In California, up to 40 percent of the state's firefighters are incarcerated people working in a prison labor program called the Conservation Camp Program at small, rural prisons known as "fire camps." There are 43 fire camps throughout the state that house up to 4,500 incarcerated people and are largely co-managed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire). Each year...

2019. Socio-Ecological Practice Research, vol. 1, no. 2. Author: J. Forester. The author reviews five generations of views of theory–practice tensions, and explores their implications to socio-ecological practice research. Concerns with wicked problems led to considerations of argumentative planning; questions of resolving conflicting arguments led to process designs of mediated-negotiations. On-going concerns with deliberation reveal the dangers of deliberative malpractices. The pragmatic...

Authors: the staff of the New England Climate Adaptation Project. Flooding and Climate Change Risks in Northam is a seven-person, multi-issue facilitated negotiation among local government, community, business, environmental, and engineering representatives trying to reach agreement on a strategy for managing climate change risks in a small coastal city. The game focuses on managing increased probability of urban flooding by modifying stormwater regulations. It is one of four exercises developed...

Authors: the staff of the New England Climate Adaptation Project. Flooding in Milton is a seven-person, multi-issue facilitated negotiation among local government, community, business, and environmental representatives trying to reach agreement on a strategy for managing climate change risks in a mid-size coastal city. The game focuses on managing increased probability of river flooding through hard and soft infrastructure solutions, as well as land use planning. It is one of four exercises...

Author: Sarah Hammitt and Jessica Artiles under the direction of Professor Lawrence Susskind. Evantown Investments is in the final stages of a multi-year planning process for Riverview, a large, riverside mixed-use development. However, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), through its Map Modernization program, recently updated Evantown's Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM), and now Riverview falls within the 100-year floodplain (defined as an area that has a 1 percent chance of...

2016. Author: Isadora Cruxen. In late 2013, a severe drought hit the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city and main economic center, and precipitated a water supply crisis. As water availability became increasingly strained during 2014, myriad collective action efforts by civil society actors sprung up in the city. My thesis explores this social mobilization around Sao Paulo's supply crisis as a window into water politics and governance when water supply problems and...

2018. Author: Ella Kim. Current urban climate adaptation planning efforts tend to focus on protecting a city's physical assets from potential climate-related disasters, with an increasing emphasis on enhancing resilience, or building places that can absorb and withstand climatic shocks. Scholars and practitioners have critiqued climate adaptation planning's current focus on protecting physical assets, pointing out that adaptation plans rarely incorporate equity or social vulnerability...

2022. Authors: S. Xiao and Russell, L. In alignment with the goals of the Waking Women's Healing Institute, we have collaborated on a connected set of media frameworks which work to uplift the stories and voices of water protectors, survivors of colonial and gender-based violence, and families of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2 Spirit people. Over the course of the MIT spring 2022 semester, our team worked to combine personal testimonies, written messages, art, images, videos...

2008. Author: Ronilda Co. The 1998 Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) grants indigenous peoples (IPs) in the Philippines the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) with regard to development projects undertaken on their ancestral lands. My thesis explores whether the current practice of generating such consent guarantees indigenous peoples the control over development, particularly in relation to mining, that such procedures were designed to ensure. Two case studies involving the...