Gardening in the Desert

This presentation was created for Research Methods, Spring 2018. It is a review of the methods used in the cited research article.

Transcript

1. Gardening in the Desert Branson Fox
3. Summary • Across the globe, people are urbanizing. • Increased urbanization leads to two problems: ◦ Vacant Land ◦ Limited Access to Food (Food Deserts) • One possible solution is to build gardens in urban areas. This research used spatial optimization techniques to locate gardens on vacant land in Phoenix, Arizona, with a maximization on coverage of food deserts.
4. Model of Research This research builds on a wealth of prior research that studied the location of food deserts and the benefits of urban gardens. However, It is one of the first to link these two areas of research together.
5. Research Question Can building urban gardens improve both the issues of increased vacant land and decreased food accessibility?
6. Study Hypotheses Statistical analysis was conducted to test the following three hypotheses: H1 Households in tracts with a garden, or nearby a garden, will have higher socioeconomic status than households in tracts without gardens. H2 Tracts with gardens, or nearby a garden, will have different land uses than tracts without a garden. H3 Tracts without gardens will have poor access to other types of food sources than tracts with gardens, or nearby a garden.
7. Variables Independent Location of Gardens (Existing or Vacant Land) Dependent Coverage of Food Deserts Using spatial optimization models, the fewest number of gardens able to cover the most amount of existing food deserts is solved.
8. Research Population This study did not use research participants, but rather used geospatial data. This means that there are few to no associated ethical concerns. Data • Location of Existing Urban Gardens (University of Arizona) • Location of Vacant Lots (Maricopa Association of Governments) • Location of Food Deserts (USDA) • Demographic and Socio-Economic Data (American Community Survey)
10. Research Design Strengths Reproducible • Open Data • Clear Methods and Process Defines all Variables, including “Food Desert” Support from Literature Weaknesses Entirely Theoretical • One-shot case study Spatial optimization and statistics were conducted. Pre-experimental, Exploratory
11. Conclusion This case study provides evidence for the use of spatial optimization methods in determining the location of gardens to cover food deserts. Using only vacant land in Maricopa County, the authors were able to cover 96.4% of food deserts. Cities do not necessarily have the resources to build that many gardens, so the research also supports the level of coverage based on the number of gardens that may be budgeted for. Currently, urban gardens exist most often in areas that are not prone to lack food coverage. These same areas tend to be of higher socioeconomic status.
14. Personal Evaluation • Very modern research; First of its kind • Methods are easily reproducible • Clear definitions of all terms • Interesting, universal topic • Future application • I study urban sociology and geographical information science (GIS). ◦ My undergraduate capstone is to replicate this research for the city of Saint Louis.
15. Questions?
16. Citation Mack, E. A., Tong, D., & Credit, K. (2017). Gardening in the desert: a spatial optimization approach to locating gardens in rapidly expanding urban environments. International Journal of Health Geographics, 16, 1–16. Retrieved from http://10.0.4.162/s12942-017-0110-z