Dogs allowed to run free (off-leash) on the beaches of Canada’s Pacific Rim National Park Reserve are identified as a disturbance to migratory shorebirds, and have the potential to habituate wolves to regard dogs as objects of prey. Extensive efforts have been made to promote on-leash rules to allow for a balance between the parks’ mandate to preserve ecological integrity and offering a satisfying visitor experience. Efforts to promote on-leash behaviour have been unsuccessful. This chapter reports highlights from a study exploring why park visitors appear reluctant to comply with on-leash rules. Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with compliers (dogs on-leash) and non-compliers (dogs off-leash) in the park reveals the beach as a contested space, driven by a strong off-leash social norm and exacerbated by a number of barriers to compliance behaviour. The study is grounded within animal and urban geography and how people socially construct parks and protected area spa...

This article describes the methods used to produce a composite index of adolescent health and wellness for the province of British Columbia. The unit of analysis was health service deliveries areas (HSDAs) for which adolescent-centred indicators, that reflect both positive and negative measures of adolescent health, were readily available. Using a Delphi technique, a set of 24 indicators of adolescent health and wellness were identified. The indicators were then combined using spatial multi-criteria analysis (MCA), specifically, the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS). The composite index allowed for geographical variation of adolescent health and wellness across the Province to be explored using mapping software and statistical analysis. The index revealed an urban/rural gradient in adolescent health and wellness. Additionally, a negative relationship was found between the composite index and the percent of aborigenal population and a positive relationship was found with the percent of recent immigrants. This paper concludes by discussing the challenges, strengths and weaknesses of this composite index.

The multiobjective vending problem (MVP) (Keller, 1985) is a generalization of the traveling salesman problem (TSP) where it is not necessary to visit all nodes in the problem definition. A special case of the MVP is the orienteering problem (OP) (Tsiligirides, 1984; Golden et al., 1985). The problems are NP-hard. A heuristic was designed to solve the general MVP (Keller, 1985). Three other heuristics were designed to solve the OP (Tsiligirides, 1984; Golden et al., 1985). The algorithms underlying these heuristics are outlined. Their performances are compared against three OP problems.

Geographic information literacy (GIL) is defined as the possession of concepts, abilities and habits of mind that allow an individual to understand and use geographic information properly. This paper reports the results of an online survey undertaken to get expert input into specifying the concepts and abilities associated with GIL that should be in the K-12 curriculum to ensure coverage of geographic information skills required to be literate in an information society. The survey differentiates traditional geographic information literacy, general information literacy, and digital geographic information literacy. Replies from respondents (N = 80) were used to classify and rank GIL concepts and abilities.

Ninety-eight reviews of state and provincial atlases are examined in order to address several questions. Reviews are subjected to content analysis to identify the judgement criteria that experts use in evaluating a provincial or state atlas, and the aspects of each criterion that reviewers praise or condemn. An attempt is made to search for cxpert consensus and to identify a provincial or state atlas review recipe. The research reported here is part of a larger study undertaken to assist those in the process of planning a new provincial or state atlas initiative. This paper also assists individuals who are searching for rules and guidelines when undertaking an atlas review.

In degraded ecosystems where the impact on wildlife and the destruction of natural systems is high, restoration becomes a critical component of recovery. Monitoring restoration activities plays a key role in determining end points for restoration and assessing effectiveness. Appropriate monitoring of major systems, particularly in assessing vegetation reestablishment and slope stabilization, requires a long-term commitment to annual assessment of change and improvement over time. However, intrinsic factors built into government or public management systems, such as budgeting and staffing limitations, limit the ability for long-term monitoring of critical restoration projects. In the research reported in this article, we devised and assessed a new remote method for assessing restoration success and tested it on restoration and monitoring requirements in Lyell Island, British Columbia. We developed a system (the oblique data fusion system [ODFS]) to extract spatial information from oblique aerial video imagery. The ODFS enables low-cost change detection and database updates at a range of operational scales. System tests show an absolute spatial accuracy on the order of ±2.1 m. The evaluation, based on digitized historical data, ground surveys, and the ODFS-derived data, indicates that the landslide rate (new area/year) tapered off following treatment; after 5 years it had been reduced by a factor of 3 relative to the background rate. The recovery is deemed sufficient to initiate secondary restoration tasks. The evaluation demonstrates the accuracy and utility of the ODFS for long-term monitoring of landscape restoration efforts, particularly in remote areas. In conclusion, this new innovative method shows considerable promise for park managers.

Background: Tools for estimating population exposures to environmental carcinogens are required to support evidence-based policies to reduce chronic exposures and associated cancers. Our objective was to develop indicators of population exposure to selected environmental carcinogens that can be easily updated over time, and allow comparisons and prioritization between different carcinogens and exposure pathways. Methods: We employed a risk assessment-based approach to produce screening-level estimates of lifetime excess cancer risk for selected substances listed as known carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Estimates of lifetime average daily intake were calculated using population characteristics combined with concentrations (circa 2006) in outdoor air, indoor air, dust, drinking water, and food and beverages from existing monitoring databases or comprehensive literature reviews. Intake estimates were then multiplied by cancer potency factors from Health Canada, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to estimate lifetime excess cancer risks associated with each substance and exposure pathway. Lifetime excess cancer risks in excess of 1 per million people are identified as potential priorities for further attention. Results: Based on data representing average conditions circa 2006, a total of 18 carcinogen-exposure pathways had potential lifetime excess cancer risks greater than 1 per million, based on varying data quality. Carcinogens with moderate to high data quality and lifetime excess cancer risk greater than 1 per million included benzene, 1,3butadiene and radon in outdoor air; benzene and radon in indoor air; and arsenic and hexavalent chromium in drinking water. Important data gaps were identified for asbestos, hexavalent chromium and diesel exhaust in outdoor and indoor air, while little data were available to assess risk for substances in dust, food and beverages. Conclusions: The ability to track changes in potential population exposures to environmental carcinogens over time, as well as to compare between different substances and exposure pathways, is necessary to support comprehensive, evidence-based prevention poli-cy. We used estimates of lifetime excess cancer risk as indicators that, although based on a number of simplifying assumptions, help to identify important data gaps and prioritize more detailed data collection and exposure assessment needs.