Publications

Assessing Multi-Stakeholder Risk-Benefit Perceptions of Alternative Interim Brownfield Uses: An Interactive Decision Framework

A Dissertation Proposal Presented to the Department of Landscape Architecture and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on January 17, 2021

Authors: Thomas Fiorelli

Abstract: While repurposing blighted and abandoned neighborhood brownfields has shown to reduce negative health impacts, improve local economies, and correct long-standing social and environmental injustices, solutions to bring this to fruition remain frustratingly elusive. Brownfields are generally defined as vacant, abandoned, or underutilized properties complicated by real or perceived contamination. They are characterized by unproductivity, weak demand that prevents redevelopment in the real estate market, and negative externalities that may impact the health of surrounding residents, the environment, and the local economy. Within the same space and time, widespread poverty, and homelessness, often resulting from economic decline, worsens in step with land underutilization, abandonment, disinvestment, and deteriorating infrastructure surrounding brownfield sites. Brownfields and homelessness both represent wicked problems—socio-cultural problems that are nearly impossible to solve due to incomplete information, contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, a large economic burden, and interconnectedness with other problems (Kolko, 2012). Brownfields are a spatial problem whose solution is dependent on time; houselessness is a temporal problem, critically situated in the here and the now, whose solution is dependent on space.

This dissertation develops a spatially supported multi-attribute and multi-stakeholder decision model. It seeks to demonstrate the validity and reliability of a risk-based visual perception tool designed to assess alternative future design outcomes. Using GIS mapping and digitally interactive AR/VR technology this research will (1) visually model trade-off decisions and (2) calculate the potential stakeholder-perceived co-benefits from choosing among the different alternative interim reuse scenarios selected for this study: emergency and transitional housing, homeless rest stops, and non-human uses.

 

Colocation for Co-benefits: the SWOC Analysis of Brightfields and Agrivoltaics

Publication: Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Cities and Landscapes (Forthcoming, Spring 2021)

Authors: Thomas Fiorelli, Yeongseo Yu, Yekang Ko, Makena Coffman, and Kirk Diamond

Abstract:  Decades of successful solar photovoltaics (PV) projects in Pacific Rim nations and around the world have proven it to be a viable renewable energy solution with numerous benefits. However, PV projects have shown various weaknesses and challenges such as inefficient land-use, land-use conflicts, physical constraints, and political and economical uncertainty. Planners today confront a green dilemma in which energy production, green spaces, farmlands, space for recreation, and urban development are often mutually exclusive land uses. This chapter offers insight into leveraging opportunities from an emerging field of research that seeks to co-locate solar with symbiotic land uses. We discuss solar colocation through a triple-bottom-line lens to highlight the economic, environmental, and social tradeoffs involved and explore how this strategy can increase land-use efficiency and produce co-benefits. This chapter focuses on two popular colocation concepts. We aim to highlight how brightfields (BF)—PV paired with brownfields—and agrivoltaics (APV)—PV paired with agriculture—can build upon the strengths and opportunities of conventional PV and overcome its weaknesses and challenges. This chapter draws on six case studies to demonstrate how tradeoff decisions related to planning and design factors can be assessed in real-world scenarios.

 

Oregon DEQ: Southern Willamette Valley Groundwater Management Area Outreach and Survey

University of Oregon Scholars Bank – MPA Capstone Project (03/2018 – 09/2018) – (Full Report)

Authors: Sam Dales, Thomas Fiorelli, and Ryan Gil

A team of UO graduate students in public administration collaborated with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to assess public health issues related to elevated groundwater nitrates in the rural Southern Willamette Valley. This Capstone research was approved under the University of Oregon’s Internal Review Board for Human Subjects Research and conducted in partnership with Lane Council of Governments (LCOG), the Metropolitan Planning Organization for Lane County. After assessing baseline perceptions of risk, two groups were asked to commit to different tasks. Participants in one group agreed to have their water tested within 30 day, while another group of participants were asked to allow a team to visit for on-site testing. Far more people in latter group followed through than in the former group. A binomial logistic regression model was used to assess changes in the probability of engaging in two behaviors pre- and post-survey: testing and filter treatment. Results suggest that time and effort, as well as financial cost, increase in a positive, linear relationship with the effectiveness of the behavior. Behavioral intent may change from positive to negative (i.e. will not follow through) when time, effort, and cost exceed some perceived threshold for the risk. Finally, the results suggest that future risk-based behavioral research interventions should be visualized to increase the validity and reliability of the probabilistic function.

 

Geospatial Mapping

Urban Agriculture In Context: Policy, Access, and Equity

A graduate research project around Contemporary Food Systems in the Department of Geography focused on an investigation of the spatial policies and economic around urban agriculture from a socioeconomic perspective. (April 2020 – June 2020)