Browsing by Author "Chen, J."

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    ArticlePublicationOpen Access
    Does plant knowledge within urban forests and parks directly influence visitor pro-environmental behaviors
    (MDPI, 2018-03-28) Güngör, Beyza Şat; Chen, J.; Wu, S. R.; Zhou, P.; Shirkey, G.; Interior Architecture and Environmental Design; ŞAT, Beyza
    Urban parks and forests provide many services to society and are becoming essential components within urban landscapes worldwide. While substantial research and actions have been taken to understand various ecosystem services of urban forests and parks, significantly less effort has been made on people's perceptions toward the effectiveness of these services. In addressing the above research needs, we conducted a field survey and hypothesized that an individual's knowledge will lead to different pro-environmental behaviors in urban forests and parks. Using the Toledo, Ohio, USA as our study site, we collected 267 interviews from five of the area's most frequented urban parks. A three-way ANOVA and two Partial Least Square Structural Equation Models quantified the causal relationship among demography, plant knowledge, environmental knowledge, and pro-environmental behaviors. We found that: (1) different levels of plant knowledge will have different influences on environmental behaviors; (2) pro-environmental behavioral models can be based on planned behaviors or habitual behaviors; and that (3) gender may not be an influential factor in determining pro-environmental behaviors. Environmental knowledge, especially plant knowledge, plays a key role in fostering pro-environmental behaviors. Therefore, we reason that disseminating plant knowledge education materials will profoundly raise visitors' pro-environmental behaviors.
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    ReviewPublicationOpen Access
    Sustainability challenges for the social-environmental systems across the Asian Drylands Belt
    (IOP Publishing, 2022-02) Chen, J.; John, R.; Yuan, J.; Mack, E. A.; Groisman, P.; Allington, G.; Wu, J.; Fan, P.; De Beurs, K. M.; Karnieli, A.; Gutman, G.; Kappas, M.; Dong, G.; Zhao, F.; Ouyang, Z.; Pearson, A. L.; Güngör, Beyza Şat; Graham, N. A.; Shao, C.; Graham, A. K.; Henebry, G. M.; Xue, Z.; Amartuvshin, A.; Qu, L.; Park, H.; Xin, X.; Chen, J.; Tian, L.; Knight, C.; Kussainova, M.; Li, F.; Fürst, C.; Qi, J.; Interior Architecture and Environmental Design; ŞAT, Beyza
    This paper synthesizes the contemporary challenges for the sustainability of the social-environmental system (SES) across a geographically, environmentally, and geopolitically diverse region - the Asian Drylands Belt (ADB). This region includes 18 political entities, covering 10.3% of global land area and 30% of total global drylands. At the present time, the ADB is confronted with a unique set of environmental and socioeconomic changes including water shortage-related environmental challenges and dramatic institutional changes since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The SES of the ADB is assessed using a conceptual framework rooted in the three pillars of sustainability science: social, economic, and ecological systems. The complex dynamics are explored with biophysical, socioeconomic, institutional, and local context-dependent mechanisms with a focus on institutions and land use and land cover change (LULCC) as important drivers of SES dynamics. This paper also discusses the following five pressing, practical challenges for the sustainability of the ADB SES: (a) reduced water quantity and quality under warming, drying, and escalating extreme events, (b) continued, if not intensifying, geopolitical conflicts, (c) volatile, uncertain, and shifting socioeconomic structures, (d) globalization and cross-country influences, and (e) intensification and shifts in LULCC. To meet the varied challenges across the region, place-based, context-dependent transdisciplinary approaches are needed to focus on the human-environment interactions within and between regional landscapes with explicit consideration of specific forcings and regulatory mechanisms. Future work focused on this region should also assess the role of the following mechanisms that may moderate SES dynamics: socioeconomic regulating mechanisms, biophysical regulating mechanisms, regional and national institutional regulating mechanisms, and localized institutional regulating mechanisms.